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Airway Pioneer Member |
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My federal civil service career started at age 17 in 1943, when I was a U. S. Army Signal Corps Inspector at a Massachusetts factory. From there into the U. S. Navy, serving in the Pacific on the U. S. S. Celeno, AK-76, as an electronics technician. While attending Stanford in the late 1940's, I got acquainted through ham radio with Gene Mathews, W7QL, who was a supervisor at the CAA San Francisco OFACS station, (KSF). He offered me a job in 1947, and I later accepted a promotion and transfer to Salt Lake City. In Utah, I was a radar unit chief, MTIC at Hanksville, and on an extended detail to the LAX ASR/PAR unit. New District Offices were established in 1954, and I set up the one at Great Falls, Montana. Bill Flener was ARTCC Chief at Great Falls. Warren Sharp was one of the other district supervisors at Denver. Both went on to become Service Directors. In 1960, it was off to Brazil for four years, ending up as CAAG Chief. Then back to Seattle. The job stayed about the same but the titles changed from District Supervisor to Area Branch Chief to Acting AF Division Chief. In 1970, I returned to the LAX region as Sector Manager at Sacramento and later at Phoenix, with a two-year hitch as CAAG Chief in Caracas Venezuela. After returning to the LAX Region, I retired in 1980. My wife, Dolores, worked in Seattle in the AFS District and Area Branch Offices, then in the Area Personnel Office, and later for the DOT Representative, Governor Erbe. She retired in 1985 from the Dept. of Interior in Washington, D. C. The guy who originally got me very interested in the CAA was Al Young, who ran the FBO at the Somerset, Pennsylvania Airport. He was a good friend of my older brother, who kept his plane there. Al went into Flight Standards in Alaska in the late 1930's, and later retired from OKC Flight Standards. He and Gene Matthews were two of the finest folks I ever met. | |
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