Beginning A Career
I hit the jackpot with my first civilian job
 ECM Power Supply and Transmitter
I joined the Air Force in August just before my 21st birthday. After basic training I was sent to Biloxi, Mississippi for school in ECM and then on to Plattsburgh AFB, in upstate NY.
While stationed in Plattsburgh I was married and our first son was born. My wife insisted that when my enlistment was up we would return to civilian life. I mailed out resumes to electronic companies in NY and PA.
American Electronics Labs in Colmar, PA was one of the companies that answered my resume. When I interviewed with AEL, I thought I hit the jackpot for a job.
The company had a military contract to install ALT-7 ECM transmitters (like the one pictured above) in armoured personnel carriers for use in Vietnam.
The project was to install three of the "S band" jammers in each tank. My job was to test and trouble-shoot the systems after they were installed.
Meanwhile the military realized there was a greater need for ECM communications in Vietnam than there was for radar jamming.
AEL designed a compact state-of-the-art communications ECM system. The entire system of receivers, transmitters and monitors was installed in "pods" which were designed to fit on the back of an Army Jeep. A collapsable antenna that could be raised in to position in a matter of minutes mounted on the front bumber.
The entire ECM system was powered by a "jet engine" generator loaded onto a trailer and towed behind the Jeep.
My job again was to test and trouble-shoot the system and all of its components. I got a trip to Italy out of this project. There was a NATO conference being held in Anzio, Italy where countries would be showing off their latest and greatest electronic warfare.
I flew directly to Rome, Italy but the Jeep with its electronics, trailer and generator went by ship to Florence. The equipment did not arrive in Italy until two weeks after my arrival in Rome. I spent the time site-seeing and avoiding Rome's prostitutes and con men.
When the equipment arrived it was shipped directly to Anzio. For me, getting to Anzio would become an enlightening travel experience. First, I could find no trains listed among the departures that were going to "Anzio."
However, there was a train to Naples and I reasoned it might pass through Anzio. Out came my
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handy Berlitz book and I used my best Italian to ask the passengers that were leaning out of the windows on the train if this train went to Anzio.
When one passenger answered "Oh. Ahnzho, Ahnzho, Si Si" I climbed aboard. Following the first stop I wondered how I would know when I got to Anzio? Again out came the Berlitz book. In my broken Italian I asked the conductor how I would know when I got to Anzio, this time remembering to pronounce it "Ahnzho." He answered "Duo ore" which by now I knew was 2 o'clock.
I was confused by the conductor's answer so when two Italian Army officers boarded the train I asked them if they were going to Anzio. One of them spoke English and told me to get off when they did. At the Anzio train station I checked my watch. It was two o'clock, duo ore!
The conference was at the Anzio Army Base. This was a skitish time in Anzio. It had only been about 25 years since WWII when Anzio had been devistated by the war. Photography along the beaches was prohibited.
When our equipment arrived at the Base an immediate problem was discovered. Our equipment generator used "jet fuel" and the only place to get jet fuel was at the Rome airport.
We took an Army truck "cross country" to get to Rome. And cross country it was. The driver literally drove across fields and dirt roads to get to Rome, going and coming! On that trip I learned to drink Italian coffee, now commonly known as Espresso.
The American Army officer I met in Anzio had a weird sense of humor. He thought it would be funny to "roast a marshmellow" in the generator's jet blast. Italians didn't know marshmellows and describing one is impossible. The idea didn't work.
Upon my return from Italy, almost a month after I had left, a wild new project was in the works at AEL. The Army was installing ten, yes 10, of the Jeep systems in each of two airplanes.
Wiring, heat and air flow were major stumbling blocks on this project. I made many trips to Phoenix, AZ during the testing and training for this operation. The Army had hoped to send me to Vietnam for a year to continue the support and training. They offered triple my salary, tax free.
Although I would have had the civilian rank equivalent to a Colonel, Arlene warned me that if I accepted this job, she and the boys would not be there when I came home. Like any good father I chose my family and declined their offer.
Meanwhile I had spent six years studying engineering in college. But President Richard Nixon had decreed a national wage freeze and suspended all government contracts, virtually eliminating engineering positions.
AEL was not hiring engineers and the only way to get a salary increse would be changing jobs. Browsing the Want Ads, one day I stumbled upon an ad that would change my career forever.
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Engineering Fails; Management Wins
"If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door"
Milton Berle
I had spent the last seven years attending LaSalle University's Electronic Physics program two nights a week. I even spent July and August taking the four-night-per-week accelerated courses while my wife and kids vacationed with her parents in Massena, NY.
All that work and a future in electronic engineering seemed mighty dim with Nixon's wage freeze and military contract suspensions. One day browsing the Help Want Ads an unusual ad caught my attention.
I answered the ad but a month had passed with no response. Then, one Sunday afternoon, I got a call from S&s Associates. The caller asked two questions. Did I write the resume myself and could I come in today for an interview. I answered "yes" to both.
That day I interviewed with the owner of S&S Associates, an industrial electronic sales and service company with offices in King of Prussia, PA and Bethesda, MD. The man worked from his car, a big red Lincoln, often dictating while on the road. His tape recorders were not reliable and neither were the repair companies.
He decided to start his own repair business and was looking
for someone who could build a TV and stereo repair business from the one-person repair shop he had started. I got the job.
My boss had arranged to be an authorized warranty repair shop for Harmon Kardon, Sony and Layfayette Radio home electronic products. I applied myself to creating a repair ticket system and setting up a repair parts inventory.
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I began hiring TV and stereo repair technicians.
An early order of business was to apply to other manufacturers for warranty authorization. The next step was to approach independent retailers and department stores for their home electronics repair business.
Within the year I was running the largest and most sucessful service company in the entire Delaware Valley. By now I employed 16 technicians and support staff. The new company was Service In Electronics and I was CEO.
Sony Trinitron Color TV
Over the next three years, SEI provided warranty service for 40 manufacturers, foreign and domestic, Admiral to Zenith, for TVs, stereos, turntables and tape devices. Gimbles, Korvettes, Lit Brothers, Wannamakers and the like delivered repairs to us by the truck load.
RCA attempted to create a similar company called Service America. Although RCA provided in-home service and we did not, Service America did not survive.
Unfortunately, neither did we. My boss died in an accident and his partners from Maryland wanted no part of the service business. Within months of his death, SIE was closed and I was unemployed.
Worse yet, I had lost a friend and a mentor. We had had a Dagwood Bumpstead and Mr. Dithers relationship but I was like the son he never had. Rest in Peace Sy Hochman.
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Yes, Industrial Xray!
Seifert Xray sold, supplied and repaired industrial xray equipment for non-destructive testing
 Industrial Xray Tube
SEI and its parent company S&S Associates were in an industrial park with just two other businesses. One had something to do with "bar codes," whatever that was, and the other business was Seifert Xray.
Seifert sold and repaired industrial xray equipment but also provided xray testing throughout the industry. After the demise of Service In Electronics the manager of Seifert Xray offered to hire me. He couldn't match my salary but he offered to teach me the industrial xray business and I would build his service business.
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S&S had close ties to Seifert. The secretary at Seifert was a former S&S employee and she used our office machines when she needed to make copies or send a fax.
The job paid the bills but industrial xray tubes are like hugh tanks filled with dielectric oil, powered by high voltage generators and capable of xraying through 6 inches of steel. The equipment was messy, heavy and could be quite dangerous without extremely careful use.
The xray business was interesting but I was used to being the boss and wearing a suit and tie as opposed to wearing coveralls.
Within the year, though, I got a call from the JCPenney Company in response to a resume I had sent them when SEI was closed. They wanted to interview me for the position of Product Service Manager.
At the interview they were amazed by what I knew about the service business. To be honest, I was amazed at how similar their operation was to the procedures I had developed and put in place at Service In Electronics.
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