YESTERDAY AND TODAY ~ What a difference a day makes!
Chatting with Friends on the "US Air Force Squadrons BMTS Lackland AFB TX 1960's" Facebook group page today, I was reminded of the difference 60 plus years makes in our lives.
Almost sixty-five years ago, in 1955, I graduated from Sheffield High School in Alabama. At that time there were no junior colleges nor any other relatively inexpensive educational choices like now. And at that time my family could not send me to an expensive college or university. So my choices were: (1) stay in my hometown, work in a local factory or other local company, and spend evenings at the pool room exchanging stories with my friends of our past high school days.
Or (2) join the military and see the world. Well you know number two was much more appealing. So at age 17, recently graduated from Sheffield High, with three friends from high school - we were off to see the world courtesy of the United States Air Force.
On that Facebook group page two friends, Howard and Tim, had similar stories. After their Air Force tour of duty, one worked for IBM and the other worked for RCA Computer Division, thanks to their Air Force training. And their posts on Facebook prompted me to join in the dialogue.
In 1955 my classmates and I joined the Air Force, 17 years old and one week out of high school. I spent my 18th birthday in the eleven weeks of Air Force Basic Training at Lackland AFB in Texas - and then I was sent to Radar/Electronics Tech School at Lowry AFB, Denver. From there I went to Osan AB, Korea, and Tainan AB, Formosa - where I was a technician on the Radar/Gunsight System of F-86 jet fighter/bomber aircraft. After that, I was stationed at Bergstrom AFB, Texas, where I switched career fields and worked as a technician on the F-100 Flight Simulator.
Got an early out in 1958 and in August 1958 (later fully discharged in 1959) I went to work for Burroughs Corporation in Sierra Madre (near Pasadena), California, working on their B-220 vacuum tube based mainframe computer systems. In late 1959, Burroughs sent me to Norfolk Naval Supply Depot as a Field Engineer, then nine months later to their Washington DC office - where I worked with government contractors and was later sent, helping Melpar Corporation, to install a large computer system at SAC Headquarters, Offutt AFB, Omaha.
In 1963 I left Burroughs and joined Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation (later TRW) in Canoga Park, California, to help set up a Test Dept for the first Mil/Spec minicomputer, the AN/UYK-1. Then I went into Ramo-Wooldridge's Field Engineering Department, also helping in the Training Department. During that time, I installed an AN/UYK-1 onboard the USNS Kingsport ship which was to control the Syncom Satellite. The USNS Kingsport and the Syncom satellite provided the space telecommunications base through which President Kennedy made the first intercontinental satellite telephone call, to a Prime Minister in Nigeria.
Later I worked with Bill Gates and Paul Allen at MITS, headquartered in Albuquerque, before the two of them started Microsoft. Working with MITS, I met and was associated with Paul Terrell when he opened the first Byte Shop computer store in Mountain View, California, and later the Byte Shop computer store chain.
And I had many more equally interesting experiences during those years - but all thanks to the training a young 17 year old boy received in the United States Air Force. I retired after 50 years in the computer industry, spent working in system test, field engineering, training, sales, and marketing. And now I just use computers to do my Christian writing ministry instead of working on them and selling them.
The collage below shows many of the companies I worked with over my fifty years in the computer industry. It was an interesting and often exciting journey - and I thank God for the many blessings He gave me, even long before I became a believer.
That, in itself, should prove the omniscience of God - for during all those years when I was walking, and often running, in the secular world instead of with God - He still held my hand. For He knew that one day stubborn old Bill Gray would stop running and come home, into the Family of God.
God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,
Bill
Chatting with Friends on the "US Air Force Squadrons BMTS Lackland AFB TX 1960's" Facebook group page today, I was reminded of the difference 60 plus years makes in our lives.
Almost sixty-five years ago, in 1955, I graduated from Sheffield High School in Alabama. At that time there were no junior colleges nor any other relatively inexpensive educational choices like now. And at that time my family could not send me to an expensive college or university. So my choices were: (1) stay in my hometown, work in a local factory or other local company, and spend evenings at the pool room exchanging stories with my friends of our past high school days.
Or (2) join the military and see the world. Well you know number two was much more appealing. So at age 17, recently graduated from Sheffield High, with three friends from high school - we were off to see the world courtesy of the United States Air Force.
On that Facebook group page two friends, Howard and Tim, had similar stories. After their Air Force tour of duty, one worked for IBM and the other worked for RCA Computer Division, thanks to their Air Force training. And their posts on Facebook prompted me to join in the dialogue.
In 1955 my classmates and I joined the Air Force, 17 years old and one week out of high school. I spent my 18th birthday in the eleven weeks of Air Force Basic Training at Lackland AFB in Texas - and then I was sent to Radar/Electronics Tech School at Lowry AFB, Denver. From there I went to Osan AB, Korea, and Tainan AB, Formosa - where I was a technician on the Radar/Gunsight System of F-86 jet fighter/bomber aircraft. After that, I was stationed at Bergstrom AFB, Texas, where I switched career fields and worked as a technician on the F-100 Flight Simulator.
Got an early out in 1958 and in August 1958 (later fully discharged in 1959) I went to work for Burroughs Corporation in Sierra Madre (near Pasadena), California, working on their B-220 vacuum tube based mainframe computer systems. In late 1959, Burroughs sent me to Norfolk Naval Supply Depot as a Field Engineer, then nine months later to their Washington DC office - where I worked with government contractors and was later sent, helping Melpar Corporation, to install a large computer system at SAC Headquarters, Offutt AFB, Omaha.
In 1963 I left Burroughs and joined Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation (later TRW) in Canoga Park, California, to help set up a Test Dept for the first Mil/Spec minicomputer, the AN/UYK-1. Then I went into Ramo-Wooldridge's Field Engineering Department, also helping in the Training Department. During that time, I installed an AN/UYK-1 onboard the USNS Kingsport ship which was to control the Syncom Satellite. The USNS Kingsport and the Syncom satellite provided the space telecommunications base through which President Kennedy made the first intercontinental satellite telephone call, to a Prime Minister in Nigeria.
Later I worked with Bill Gates and Paul Allen at MITS, headquartered in Albuquerque, before the two of them started Microsoft. Working with MITS, I met and was associated with Paul Terrell when he opened the first Byte Shop computer store in Mountain View, California, and later the Byte Shop computer store chain.
And I had many more equally interesting experiences during those years - but all thanks to the training a young 17 year old boy received in the United States Air Force. I retired after 50 years in the computer industry, spent working in system test, field engineering, training, sales, and marketing. And now I just use computers to do my Christian writing ministry instead of working on them and selling them.
The collage below shows many of the companies I worked with over my fifty years in the computer industry. It was an interesting and often exciting journey - and I thank God for the many blessings He gave me, even long before I became a believer.
That, in itself, should prove the omniscience of God - for during all those years when I was walking, and often running, in the secular world instead of with God - He still held my hand. For He knew that one day stubborn old Bill Gray would stop running and come home, into the Family of God.
God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,
Bill
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