My first and last formal academic achievement was receiving a high school and regent's diploma. Following high school I attended the Shenandoah Conservatory of Music in Winchester, VA. I majored in trumpet with intention to teach music. I dropped out and returned and dropped out realizing that I should not pursue music education as a career.
I returned to L.I. and found work with NBC-NY (1964) in their Radio Recording department where I remained until signing up with the USN-R. After A-School I returned to NAS-NY Floyd Bennet Field where I flew air crew on patrol planes. NBC offered me my old job which I turned down and went to work for Western Electric, the installation arm of the telephone company. I left Western when an opportunity came up to rejoin NBC as a vacation relief engineer, with an end date. As the end date came due I was hired into the Electronic Maintenance Department (1965). The rest is history.
I met my wife on a blind date (1970) we were married in 1971; my mind set was not to marry until I was settled in a job. There have been several notable work highlights over the years... I lived in Moscow, then USSR for seven months while supervising construction for an NBC Broadcast Center for the (aborted) 1980 Olympics. We had one ten minute call home per week and I knew I was gone too long when son Scott (age 3) got on the phone and said "dobray ootra daddy", good morning daddy. Following the Olympics I supervised construction at NBC-NY with the Engineering Department. I left the NABET union to manage electronic journalism maintenance and left that job to manage a project called Burbank Modernization as Director of Special Projects which was late and over budget and never recovered although it was completed without me. I developed pulmonary embolisms and returned to manage electronic journalism maintenance. When GE acquired RCA and NBC I got a letter that said I was a highly compensated GE employee, interpreted as hand writing on the wall. I left NBC in May of '90 and went to work for an engineering firm in Northvale, NJ where I commuted from Smithtown, NY for three and half years. I joined Telex Communications as regional manager for seven and a half years where I was able to take part in remote keypanel and remote Matrix development. These operating methods are used by all major broadcasters. I left Telex joining their arch rival ClearCom Communications for about a year. I then stopped without ceremony.
We have three kids who I must credit my wife for raising with extraordinary care and values. Our daughter Beth has an MBA, is married with two great kids Shawn (7), Julie (4). On May 10, 2007 I was in Chicago to see son Scott get his PhD from University of Illinois in Chicago where he worked under a NASA grant on muscle regeneration. Scott is married lives in Chicago with two great kids Jack (2) and Ella (9 mos). Terri was in California on May 10, 2007 to see son Tom get his PhD from the University of Southern California. Tom is married and is an Assistant Professor in Public Administration at the University of Central Florida.
I am now retired and enjoy operating my own radio station W2SCB and playing trumpet since 2000 with the Huntington Arts Council Summer Band. Carved above the entrance to 30 Rockefeller Plaza are the words, "Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy time".
