Career, Family And Living For The Lord
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A Twenty-Five Year History

When I had worked for the Government, I had enjoyed my job very much, and I had also enjoyed the people. Once I had left that job to go to SDC, though, I was glad that I had. Through the years, I have switched jobs frequently, and each time, the scenario which led to my decision was very similar. I would usually be in the midst of enjoying my work and the people with whom I was working, but then for one reason or another, I would suddenly start to think that my company was taking advantage of me. Was I correct to think that way, or was I wrong? I think that I was correct.

Allow me to explain a simple economic principle. If you go to your local department store to make a purchase, you usually try to get the most product that you can for your money. That is prudent spending, so it makes sense for us to be that way. Few of us would ever pick up an item, proclaim that it was worth twice as much as its cost, and then, fork out the extra money. We just do not do such things, and what I have learned in my twenty-five plus years of employment is that employers do not do such things, either. How wonderful it would be if our companies would always pay us what we think we are worth! Most of us would probably be at least a little happier for a little longer. However, we are rarely paid according to our worth but instead are usually compensated according to the very least that our company thinks it will take to keep us.

Once I had reached the Northern Virginia area and realized that I could easily switch jobs, I would often become disenchanted with my current employment whenever I thought that my employer had determined what it would take to keep me. Thus, when I got to SDC, I was happy enough for a while, but eventually even with them, I would soon become unhappy and start looking for another position. Switching jobs frequently, though, has not been that bad for me. Getting another job every couple of years has probably kept me from getting too stale and bored with my work, plus it has also always led to more income. Throughout all of those job hops, my future employer always gave me a better financial package than the one which I was leaving behind. So, it did not hurt me at all to be a "job hopper."

While with SDC, I enjoyed working at the Pentagon. I would usually take some time each day to walk throughout the building and view some of the various military exhibits. I was given responsibility for the development of the graphic component of the Geographic Information Processing SYstem (GIPSY), but that work was nowhere near enough to keep a hard charger like me busy! Therefore, I had to fill a lot of empty hours. I would often take two-to-three hour lunches with either John at the Navy Yard or with Robert in downtown D.C. Robert and I had been very close friends for a very long time. So, I would take the subway to his office, have lunch with him, and then take the subway back to the Pentagon. For lunch with John, I would catch a DOD bus and be to the Navy Yard in about a half-hour. If anything, all of those lunches, with so much traveling back and forth, were not quick. But that was all right because no one was monitoring my time.

To waste even more time, I would usually go to the Pentagon library once or twice a day, plus go to the Pentagon Bookstore once or twice a day. Sometimes, I would get on a DOD bus and just ride around town, such as on those occasions when I met John for lunch. A few times, I even went to the Smithsonian Museum. With SDC, I probably had much more freedom than with any other employer, and I took advantage of it! Yet, they were pleased with my work, and for a couple of years, I was also pleased with them.

In April 1982, eleven months after Pam and Ken were married and one month after I had started work at SDC, Austin was born. He was our third grandchild and second grandson. His entrance into the world, I am happy to say, occurred without any difficulty. The next fifteen months were fairly uneventful, relatively speaking.

While working at SDC, Linda and I started teaching Sunday School at Bethel. For my first Quarter as teacher, which was July through October, I taught the Books of I John, II John, III John, and the Revelation. Those initial lessons in John's Epistles were not very difficult, so I enjoyed that fairly easy material. After that, however, the class next got into the Book of Revelations, and that proved to be much more challenging. About halfway through our study, I started to encounter some biblical conflicts which I could not easily resolve. My problem was simple. It is always easier to understand prophetic passages after the events have already happened. When a person reads one of the Old Testament prophetic passages about Jesus, for example, they are usually able to understand the significance of the passage because of the fulfillment of the events. When the events being prophesied are still future, though, they are not nearly as simply to comprehend.

In our study, I was particularly troubled by the identity of a mysterious woman in Revelation, Chapter Seventeen. With her appearance, my whole analysis seemed to go up in smoke. So, I just completed the lessons and got out of it. After that one troubling chapter, however, I never felt like I had a good handle on my understanding of that Book. But our class soon started a new study in the Book of Genesis, so I was able to get on to something which was a little less rigorous. I can remember thinking that it would be interesting to study Genesis right after having looked at the Revelation because it would be like studying about the beginning after having studied about the end. And I was right!

On one of my lunck excursions from the Pentagon to the Smithsonian Institute, which just happened to be while I was still teaching the Book of Genesis, I had a most unusual experience. Even though it had been a month or two since my earlier despair with the Book of Revelation, I was still thinking about that mysterious woman in Chapter Seventeen. I did not know her identity, but I continued to be drawn to the problem. I went into one of the buildings of the Institute, The Museum of Natural History, and the first thing which I saw was a big elephant-type creature in the middle of a large room. I looked at that for a few moments and then moved towards another room on the right.

In that second area, a tall exhibit had been placed which had different pictures on it. As I examined it more carefully, I realized that the display was showing the assumed-to-be-true evolutionary chain of life. At that moment, I did not think much about what I was seeing, but I did think about it enough to become a little more depressed by having to acknowledge the widely assumed truth of the unproved Theory of Evolution. I looked at the level just below the top and observed what appeared to be normal human beings. I then looked at the level above that, which was the very top level, and saw a few sets of mysterious-looking eyes. I think that what captivated my attention most was that the eyes seemed to have a unique wisdom about them. It was as though I was looking into the eyes of those beings who had finally "arrived," of those who had figured out all the difficult answers of life and so forth. They definitely had a godlike quality about them which at that time seemed very strange to me.

I continued walking through the building and soon came to the conclusion that I must be in some kind of shrine to evolution. Everything in the building seemed to have a bent towards that theory and towards trying to show the validity of the evolution of mankind. After looking at so much, I finally became discouraged and left. Like someone looking for the missing piece of a puzzle, I was completely exasperated by my inability to solve the riddle! I had already been confused by the woman in Revelation, Chapter Seventeen, and at that time, I was confused about the wide acceptance of a radical scientific theory like evolution. I felt that there must be some connection between the two, but I did not know the answer.

Then, like a shot in the dark, it hit me, and all of my years of daily Bible reading and study were about to pay off! While walking back to the subway and reflecting on all that I had seen and experienced over the past few months, I started thinking about my fascination with the end of this life as we know it, which of course was our study on the Book of Revelation. At the same time, I also started thinking about the beginning of life and Creation as the Bible teaches it, and that, of course, was our study of the Book of Genesis. I had always thought that there must be some connection between my understanding of the two, and at that moment, I finally began to see that I was right! Actually, I think that it was the Holy Spirit Who was showing me a truth or a series of truths for which I had long sought, and the key to my understanding was in those "mysterious" eyes.

I found myself thinking about Eve in the Garden of Eden and about her conversation with the devil in Genesis, Chapter Three. He told her that eating the forbidden fruit would "open her eyes" and make her to "know good and evil." Then, I thought to Isaiah, Chapter Fourteen, and Ezekiel, Chapter Twenty-Eight, and remembered that the devil had been cast from heaven because he had tried to overthrow God and rule heaven. From there, I remembered Genesis, Chapter Six with Noah and the Ark, Genesis, Chapter Eleven with the Tower of Babel, Christ at Calvary, the Tribulation, and the final battle at the end of Christ's Millennial reign. In all, I identified seven instances where I thought that God and the devil seemed to be having what I have described as head-to-head confrontations. Those confrontations have been and will be episodes in this existence where God and the devil have literally locked horns and done battle.

Following my discovery, I did some additional biblical and non-biblical research. About one month later, I concluded that study by writing a short, ten-thousand-word paper, which I entitled The End May Be Much Nearer Than We Think. I was very happy with what I had found because I felt that the Lord had shown me something which most people never even think about questioning.

Our fourth grandchild, Linda Gail was born to Debbie in September 1983. Debbie was married to George by that time, so her life was starting to show some stability. George, who was a hard-working Marine, had begun working with Debbie at the task of setting up their home. They already had two children when they were married, Michael Scott and Shannon, so with their newest addition, the count was about to move up to three. On the day that Linda Gail was born, Debbie and George went to the hospital together. Her birth was not like Shannon's where Debbie had ended up driving herself to the hospital and had basically tended to all of her pre-birthing needs. It also was not like Shannon's birth where Debbie had had an "unplanned" Caesarian Section delivery. Debbie had a Caesarian Section delivery with Linda Gail's birth, too, but on that second occasion, everyone already knew well in advance the day and the hour of the pending birth. For Linda and me as grandparents, the birth of each grandchild, including that of Linda Gail, has always been a very special blessing.

During my time with SDC, I had the occasion to be in the middle of a serious controversy at the Pentagon between our office and our customer. Our office had been servicing two separate tasks for the same department within the Department of Defense. First, we were developing a new graphics package, which was called GIPSY, and of course, I had been given responsibility for the development of the Graphic Component of that package. Second, we were also supporting the ongoing Pentagon Production Group, and that meant working with our customer on a daily basis to help them get their job done. I did not have any direct involvement with our company's second task, however I was soon to become involved.

For the entire time that I had worked for SDC, up until December 1983, they had advertised that GIPSY would take about twenty to twenty-five people and about five to six years to complete. My opinion was that that estimate was absurd, and in my own way, I proved its absurdity by taking two-to-three hour lunches and also by going to the Pentagon Library and Book Store twice a day. I was not aware of everything that GIPSY was supposed to be doing, but my belief was that most of what the Pentagon had actually wanted could be done in probably a year or less by no more than five or ten qualified, hard working analysts.

In the early part of December, I learned that the part of our office which supported the Production Group needed to have an almost immediate geographic, computer graphics capability. As has always been my custom, I told the Project Manager for that part of our office that I could provide a fairly good graphics capability in just a few months. I made my pitch to the Pentagon, and they told me to do it. By the end of January, I had successfully installed, and modified as necessary, the work which I had done for PAG at the Navy Yard. I gave my first presentation at the beginning of February, in 1984, and it went very, very well. The Production Group at the Pentagon was very pleased, so the part of our office which supported that shop was also very pleased. In Appendix H, I have included a copy of a letter which was presented to me, thanking me for my work.

In February, however, I discovered that I had gotten myself into the middle of a Contractor - Government despute. Suddenly, people at the Pentagon and even our office were wanting to know why I had been able to do so much, by myself, in only two months, yet SDC was telling the Government that a similar capability would take much longer and many more people. I soon found myself in a private, closed-door meeting with the President of SDC, the Vice Presidents of both of the Departments which I had supported, and the Project Manager whom I had originally approached in December. The conclusion of that meeting was that they "would not fire me" but that they would have to do some damage control to try to repair the damage which they thought I had done. I left that meeting about to reach the same conclusion which I had reached on several other occasions. It was time to leave!!!

I was very upset with how my company had chosen to treat my hard work and ingenuity, so I decided that I would try to do something which most people in my profession never attempt. I decided that I would try to become a Consultant. I did not know anything about that kind of work, plus I did not even know how to go about becoming one. But I did know that if it only required being a skilled technician, then I could easily do that.

Within a week of my "big" meeting at SDC, I had sent my resume to Planning Research Corporation. I had left the Navy Yard two years earlier, and I knew that they still had not found anyone to replace me. By the end of the next week, I was on my way to the Navy Yard for an interview. They were very anxious to get me back, and I knew how to play the "being coy" game. My interview turned out to be like "old home week" because I knew everyone there. When the time came to discuss the details of my return, I sprang on them my idea of consulting. I told them that I wanted to work Monday through Thursday and then work out of my home on Friday. I explained that the work at home was so that I could satisfy an IRS Home Office requirement, and they accepted my terms. I asked for $37.50 per hour. They countered with thirty-five, and I accepted. It gave me great joy to announce to SDC that I was leaving, and once again, I, the prima dona, had gotten my way!

On April 2, 1984, I started consulting to the Navy Yard, but ironically, I was not working on PAG. The development work which I had done a few years earlier on that system was still running well, so they did not need any special support for that. Instead, they wanted me to pick up where I had left off with the same Over-The-Horizon project for which I had been earlier selected. I did not know it when I returned, but PRC was hoping to use me along with my background and reputation to take the OTH maintenance contract away from Lockheed. Their ploy worked, and in early 1985, they became the prime Contractor. For the next six years, I would remain in my capacity as Consultant, basically overseeing all aspects of the work and even being involved in PRC's hiring and firing decisions. In August 1984, PRC was told that they would be taking a large financial cut, but the Government told them right up front that they could let anyone go except me. It was gratifying to finally feel appreciated, but in many ways, I felt that I had already earned that distinction.

In February, Linda and I were blessed with the birth of our fifth grandchild, Joey. From the start of his life, he was always special because the Lord had chosen to afflict him with a serious type of liver ailment. All during his early years, he was on special liver medication, but despite that medicine, we all knew that he would eventually require a transplant. By 1993, his condition had deteriorated to the point that he did need the transplant, and he was moved to the top of the recipient list.

Finally, on a Sunday afternoon in November 1994, the call came. So, we rushed to the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, where the all-night operation was to be performed. Linda and I got to the hospital a short while after Ken, Pam, and Joey, and we spent that very special, very memorable Sunday night together at the hospital. When Joey came out of the Operating Room early the next morning, he was cheered by the hospital staff. Because of his sedated state, he probably would not remember the joy that each of us felt. But we were all very happy to have him intact and past that ordeal.

After his operation, our whole family banned together to help out. I especially remember how Debbie left her job and family in North Carolina for a few weeks to be with Pam and to assist wherever and whenever she could. Linda and Crystal also pitched in when they were needed. Joey's operation was a family affair, and we dealt with it as a family. Today, we rejoice over the medical transplant technology, and Linda and I thank the Lord for His goodness and faithfulness to our family in this regard. The cost of that operation was about one hundred thousand dollars, and Ken's insurance company, through his job with Xerox, paid the complete bill. What a blessing! Without that and without the dedicated work of so many capable, healthcare professionals, we know that we possibly could be without Joey today. Only the Lord knows for sure, but either way, we are thankful for what we credit Him with having done.

The years since 1984 have been especially good to Linda and me. As a Consultant between April 1984 and November 1989, I made a lot of money, at one point earning as much as twenty-seven hundred dollars per week. My career has always gone very well, and by the early-to-middle eighties, even our family was doing well. Virtually all of our troubles from the seventies had passed, and I am pleased to say that we have never had to revisit any of those earlier, more difficult and more troubling times. Concerning our extended family, Linda and I would have been satisfied and felt blessed if Joey had been our last grandchild. Most people do not have even five grandchildren. Yet, in His goodness to us, the Lord has seen fit to bless us with eight more.

In August 1987, David was born to Pam and Ken. We have enjoyed watching him grow, and he is clearly the athelete of the family. When he was still very young, he could stand in a doorway, extend his arms and legs to the door frame, and push himself up by his arms and legs to the top of the frame. Today, he is still involved in athletics, as he likes to play baseball and swim competitively. In April 1989, Megan was born to Debbie and George. In a word, she is one of my personal sweethearts. Even now, she lets me hug and kiss her and squeeze her tight, so I always look forward to having her for a visit. In February 1993, Michelle was born to Mike and Mary Ann. She is also so sweet and lovable, and she, too, lets me hug, squeeze, and kiss her.

In May 1989, Matthew was born to Martin, Melody's husband. Matthew is one of those one-of-a-kind grandkids. When I am sitting at my computer desk, working on some of my assorted stuff, he often comes in and scratches my back. He always scratches real hard, just the way I like it. Matthew, in my opinion, is a very sweet-spirited young person, and I look forward to seeing how the Lord will use him in the future. Paul was born to Pam and Ken in December 1993. Linda and I affectionally call him "our little devil" because he is so mischievous. But in truth, we expect him to grow out of most of that and become a very fine young person. With Austin, Joey, and David, Pam and Ken have already demonstrated their ability to raise their boys, so we are very confident about Paul, too.

In August 1995, Mark was born to Melody and Martin. We have a very unique and somewhat funny situation in our family. David, Mark, and Duke, our dog, were all born on August Seventh - different years but the same day! Mark is a funny little fellow, walking around and getting into everything, and most people think that he looks like my dad. I am pleased by that. As a young person, I did not have a very good relationship with my father, so I look forward to having a better relationship with Mark. Marlene was born to Mike and Mary Ann in May 1996. During her first year, she was a somewhat grouchy baby, but she has now started to outgrow most of that. At just over a year of age, she smiles a lot, she is very attentive and pleasant, and she is a joy to be around. In October 1996, Mary was born to Melody and Martin. She is still young, plus she still cries a lot. But Linda and I love her, too, just like we love all the others.

Through the years, Linda and I have made and spent a lot of money. It is true to say that our blessings and fortune are not to be found in bank vaults, fine homes, or cars. It is also true to say that our greatest blessings, right after and in addition to our relationship with our Lord, is and has been our wonderful, precious family. We love and enjoy each member very much. The Lord has truly smiled on us, and we thank Him and give Him all the glory and honor for that which He has done and continues to do for us and in us.