People
People
We see as far as we do because we are standing upon the shoulders of those who came before us.
I list the shoulders I stand on here that I might acknowledge them for their contributions. Many have now died but their families might know that these people made me able to become who I am.
We meet people along the path of our life. Each person has their own path. Some paths cross. Some paths cross many times. Some paths run together for a while. Some paths run parallel for a while. When they run together, there are experiences that are shared. When paths run parallel, we share each other's experiences through them. When our paths cross, we have a common memory. I am astounded at how many experiences and how much knowledge that any collection of us, small or large, can share when we get together.
This entire area is convoluted and confused. When one writes a history and then extracts people rather than events and periods, the storied become fragmented. In time I should have this area completed. In the meantime, please bear with me through the broken joints.
I have friends, like Gary, Tom, MaryAnne, Janne, et al. They are not mentioned here as they can already understand how much they mean to me.
I have broken my people down into several areas:
A woman companion would be nice
I could give lots of stories of teachers, friends, and relatives. We can all do this. A kid with no self esteem and even afraid to walk down the street, these people here took into their hearts and let me know I counted. Nobody rises by their own bootstraps. Some need more help than others. Some give more help than others. These people did and I am who I am because they were there.
A great attorney in Milwaukee (Wauwatosa). Deceased. He was one of my paper route customers. When the neighbors across the street moved, he bought their bicycle for me. I only had to mow his yard for 10 times to get the bike. The last time his mower did not work -- I used ours. My dad made me pay him for the use of his mower. John also defended me in a car accident situation. He is the first person I remember who tried to cover for the abuse at my home. I did not know I was abused. I did not know I needed the help. Years later when he found that my father had charged me for the mower, he tried to pay me again.
When I had a car accident and the other people, drunk at the time, tried to blame it on me, John coincidentally met us in the hall and took over.
When I was refused Security Clearance, he represented me for free in Federal Court in Chicago. I got the Clearance.
A hulk of a man, he was Paul Bunyan to me. He may not as physically large as I remember him. Maybe he was just big in spirit.
Director of Physical Plant, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. To this man and his family I owe more than can ever be told. It started when he helped me find a home in 1963. This man had faith in me.
At the end of the semester of my sophomore year and for the following two years this man looked after me like I was his own son.
George introduced me to his family: wife June, daughter Karen, and his son whose name I do not remember. To this man I owe all that I became as he treated me as an equal human being. He understood better than anyone that he could make a real person out of me. When I talked to him many years later, I found out he knew what I did when he was not looking -- and was glad I did it. Several of my friends in trouble for whatever reason, came to me for help. I mean help from failing out of school to whatever. Because I knew everyone from the Registrar to the President, I could get things done that make good stories all by themselves. I did them because Mr. Berry gave me the opportunity. God bless George Berry and family wherever they are.
His daughter, Janice, was my first girl friend in Wauwatosa. She was the only kid in the neighborhood who could run faster than myself. I could run like the wind (my bike was the fastest by far). And Janice was faster. John and his wife both worked -- and they let me in their house when they were not home. I was friends with both their son, Scott, and their daughter, Janice. My friends were not allowed in my house when my parents were not home. Kids are kids. Mr. Towle had reasons to not trust me and he did anyway. That is the definition of faith.
As a senior in high school, he taught me a love of true literature. I have always read a lot. I enjoy reading. He taught me why I should want to read and the true genius of those who have left us a literary legacy. He did have a few things wrong and since I am sure he will never read this, I can tell you about them. He said we should never read two books by the same author. I have found that reading a second book by the same author gives you an insight to the author that one book cannot. Maybe it is just me. On the first book, I am more interested in the story than the author's uniqueness. John later told me that he had said this not for me but for the class. Since I was in the low-track class, he just wanted the students to maximize their experience. The other thing is that I was marked wrong when I specified the greatest English playwright as George Bernard Shaw rather than Shakespeare. I have since read reviews agreeing with me. I have also grown a greater respect for Shakespeare. But then Shaw was really Irish so I could have been wrong in either case.
John had faith in me when I was in grade school through college -- when I really needed it. Before I knew I needed it. He also marked me off for not knowing that the definition of Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring equinox. I did not think that this should count since it was not of literary significance and not in our reading.
When I got to the University in Madison, John's track records were still painted on the gym wall. It is no wonder that his daughter could run faster than me: it is in the genes.
Mr. Towle was a teacher on the east side of Milwaukee before he started at Wauwatosa. The rumor was that he broke up a gang fight leaving several of the gang members injured. This got him some bad press and he was exiled to our school. Whether true or not, it gave him a level of respect that few other teachers earned. He was a strict disciplinarian but looked at the world with a skew that was somewhat humorous.
Often in class he would read some of the worst essay lines to the class and then return the paper to its author. He did this to one of the girls in the fast crowd, McDonald was her last name, and she got up and slapped him after calling him names. He slapped her right back. Bang-Bang. That fast. There were rumors of her parents getting involved. I hope our school administrators dealt with this well. He stayed.
I could have listed this under teachers but Mr. Towle was my friend as well as my teacher. His children were my best of friends.
Some years ago I went to work for a company called Inter-tel. Inter-tel made key telephone systems. We will skip the president, Steve Mihalo, and go to the Executive Vice President, Steven Sherman. He had a VP of Marketing, Kent Burgess. Kent was a serious player in support of my career. Then there were George Hayes and Becky on the financial arm.
In December of 1981, I received a Christmas bonus of $2,000. I am sure that this group had a lot to do with the amount. It was generous. It was also presented early. This was great except that I am very honest: I told my wife about it. We separated the following day and now she got half of the bonus. If I had just waited through the weekend, it would have been all mine. Yes, $2,000 made a lot of difference in our household.
Now I go into the divorce flat broke as my $1,000 went to pay current bills. Carole kept hers. After a couple of weeks, I am in a desparate situation. Carole will permit a joint custody but I have to pay the cost and there is no money. Becky gives me a hard time but she gets Steven Sherman to authorize another bonus. It was not just the money: it was the confidence in me as an individual. I needed help with confidence at this point. For the next 6 months I was not very productive as I spent most of the time crying, screaming, and otherwise feeling sorry for myself.
During this time Inter-tel had serious organizational problems. Many engineers left, new ones were hired. A woman engineer, Karen Jordan, helped me keep my job by being my protégé. Read that as ‘emotional crutch’. Inter-tel was moving to Chandler. It was hard enough to commute to West Phoenix from Paradise Valley. I could never commute to Chandler. I was in a bind: I was assigned team lead of sustaining for the current product. The new engineers got the task of designing the new system. This was a direct slap in the face. But then, I was in diminished capacity. I had good talents for sustaining: I got along with all of marketing and customer service. The quality of my changes was so high that they would release them to customers without further testing. This bothered me more than it did them.
Come July, I was in trouble. My time was short: the new engineers did not like me. The new project director had been a prof at ASU. The other engineers were his students. I would never be a part of a team of academic hotshots. I would have to leave. It was about this time that I got a call from Ed Termini. He wanted dinner at the local Italian restaurant. At dinner he told me that he was part of a new company involving Steven, Kent, Becky, Gerhardt Klaiber, and himself. The new company was in a garage in Scottsdale. It was a great opportunity for the group in a new company named Vodavi. I needed a new job. He knew it but we could not discuss it while I was employed at Inter-tel.
I quit Inter-tel across the Fourth of July holiday. They were pissed. I drove my motorcycle across town to the Vodavi garage. One of two garages. I was immediately offered a job as chief engineer: name the title. And a salary of $40,000 and a stock option and a stock gift. Wow. The company was still private but it would go public in the next month. There were a team of 4 to 6 Korean Engineers and three other American contractors. I never picked a title and soon one of the contractors became my boss. I guess I should have picked a glorious title. The other contractors came and went and soon, there was an executive office in a nicer building and then there was the new building. All of this was within a few miles of my home. And I bought a new and better home that would put my kids into a better school.
So. Where does Steven fit? He was the man who made all of this possible. He was the man who made this kind of decision. He also promised that the new company would make me a millionaire. I know Steven and Kent were in on the decision to hire me. Vodavi had a serious policy of not hiring Inter-tel employees. Even ex-employees.
I had always fought for recognition. In the current year, Steven and his team had given me more recognition than I had had in my entire career. When Megan was ill and I had to bring her to work, Steven took time to play with her while I worked. I was employee number 6 in the company – that was my number.
I left the company the same day Steven left. I asked about the $1 million. I was not ambitious enough to say ‘right now’ and he asked that. I did not know whether he would have given it to me or fired me. I begrudged the million for a long time.
The new management did not like me. Ed was gone and some new troublemakers from Siemens came on board. I was now 4 management layers from the president. They had me sitting for months with no work at all. They were determined to make me quit. I knew that bad things were passed up the management chain about me.
I quit. I had to. I saw Steven leaving too. It had been a good run. Steven was a very good corporate manager but like me, I think he might have been a bit naive in those days. He got better: I did not -- I am still too naive, He had had faith in me at a time when I needed it more than anytime in my life. Thanks, Steven.
You have to see my article on religion for this one.