How I got started at the big company.

Yesterday I mentioned my nearly twenty-four-year stint with the big company. I would have never dreamed that I would have moved to a large metropolitan area from the small town environment we enjoyed. The year was 1969 and I had recently achieved career status with the Federal Civil Service having already worked for the US Air Force, the Veterans Administration, and was currently employed at the US Army Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana. My wife and I, and at that time our two sons, lived some thirty-five miles from my workplace in a small rented farmhouse. We had access to a ½ acre plot where we were able to have a wonderful vegetable garden, and I did my best to compete with my Granddad who was an expert at producing bountiful harvests.

I was 23 years old and we were involved in our Church and very satisfied with our life at that time. My job at Fort Polk was to assist the Sergeant Major in the administrative matters involved in operating the public affairs office. This was during the final years of the Vietnam conflict but our office literally churned out press releases for public consumption. In addition to a staff of writers and editors who published a post newspaper, we also operated a local radio station, and provided liaison activities for the local community. It was a very interesting and rewarding experience.

In May we received word that a major in a reserve unit would be assigned to our office for special duty. He had missed his regularly assigned deployment with his unit for artillery duty earlier at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and they needed a place for him to fulfill his eight-week duty cycle. We huddled and came up with a procedures project for him to work on. He arrived and we learned he was, in civilian life, a data processing manager for a large oil company.

During his final week there he told me he would like to visit with me. In our conversation he said he had observed my work and would be interested in hiring me for a job 200 miles away in the big city. He said the job would be entry level working in the computer tape library but that he felt certain I could move up. This invitation was a huge surprise. My wife was willing to do whatever I thought was best. I had great respect for the colonel who was in charge of our office so I talked to him about it. He said all he could tell me is that everything he read said computers were the future and if he were I, he would seriously consider it.

If you read my blog yesterday you know I did take the job as a tape librarian in October of 1969. The pay was about the same but the cost of living greatly increased. In 1973 I was promoted to supervisor. In 1974 I was promoted to manager. A few years later I was promoted to senior manager and in 1987 I was promoted to Director, overseeing the computing and telecommunications organization. The fellow who hired me did not fare as well. After a few years he was moved out of management into a support role. During the late 1980’s he got caught up in the cutbacks and was more or less forced to take early retirement.

Just before leaving he called me one day. He said it was clear the company no longer wanted him there. He then said something that I appreciated more than most of the accolades I had received. He said the one thing they could never take away from him was the fact that it was he who had brought me to the company. I’m not patting myself on the back but I will tell you that to have made him proud over a span of an eighteen-year run was both humbling and rewarding. Needless to say, we believe that God brought him to Fort Polk to fetch me and to have been able to serve in a way that fulfilled his prophetic estimation of my potential is a special blessing that God allowed into my life.

Don’t get the idea it was all “happy days are here again”, but I treasure the memory of moments like that one phone call. More later………