It all started with a little Commodore C64 I bought so I could pick up shortwave radio teletype signals. That eventually lead to my building my own IBM PC compatible from parts, and teaching myself how to use and program it.

And that led me to this place you see in this image I found in today’s Facebook Memory…

…when, 26 years ago, while working an unpleasant contract for an insurance company in Reisterstown, I got a call from a recruiting agent at the agency I was contracting with, asking me if I’d be interested in a side gig at the place where the Hubble Space Telescope was operated.

Well he didn’t have to ask twice. And not just because I’d been wanting out of the contract with that insurance agency ever since I saw what I’d been brought in to work on, as opposed to what I was told I’d be working on. I’ve been a little space cadet ever since I watched the first Mercury astronauts going up on TV. I called the number he gave me and arranged an interview with the person leading development of the new Grants Management system they were about to start work on. At the time it was going to be based around Microsoft Visual Basic and Microsoft Word and my skill set by then was all about the various dialects of Microsoft Basic and how they’d evolved ever since that first Commodore with its PET Basic interpreter. So the job requirements hit the bullseye of my skill set. The interview went pretty well.

Later that insurance company project manager snuck up to the door of a conference room I’d entered to have a private conversation with my agency recruiter. He got mad when he overheard me complaining to the recruiter about being mislead and that the source code I was being asked to maintain was a crazy rats nest of GOTOs and GOSUBs and global variables and no attempt at all of scoping and he fired me on the spot. In part I think because he was actually quite fond of that programmer, who had recently converted to a very conservative Mennonite faith and had resigned to go live in one of their communes. But also he probably didn’t like his deceptiveness being called out. So I got fired. I was delighted. Now I could pursue the job at Space Telescope as a full time gig.

I was brought me on board to the GATOR project 26 years ago today. I worked it as a contractor for a bit over a year, then they brought me on board as AURA staff (after negotiating my release from the contracting agency I was working for). I’d only been expecting the contract to last a few months, as they usually did. My agency recruiter asked me if I was okay with leaving the contractor world, and I told him if it was anything else but a space project I wouldn’t bother with it. But…Space! My first day as AURA staff was January 1, 2000. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.

In February 2022 I retired, after having worked slightly more than two decades, first on Grants Management and then for James Webb, which included running tests in the Mission Operations Center. There are three posters somewhere in the STScI office spaces with my signature on them, that went into space on various Hubble servicing missions. My den wall is festooned with service awards I earned while working at STScI, including four large service awards for 5, 10, 15 and 20 years service, and a poster with two mission patches that flew, and a piece of heat shield foil from Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 after the camera was brought back to Earth. I had a lot to be proud of looking back after retirement. And it all started with that little Commodore C64. Wish I still had it, but I gave it away.

A few months ago I was asked if I was interested in coming back part time. They didn’t have to ask twice.