Page 128 - MY STORY

unidentified aircraft. I’ll never forget this event in my

career. Unfortunately, Sid died a few years after we
began our relationship with his organization.

TEACHER FOR A WEEK

Publication of the Electron Fractography Handbook was
a watershed moment for me. I was the program
manager/principal author of the written section of the

report, and was almost immediately sought after to
present at technical symposia, write a chapter for Volume
8 of the American Society of Metals Handbook on

fracture analysis, a chapter in another book dealing with
failure analysis, and finally as an invited lecturer to teach
a class in electron fractography at University of Utah – a

course in failure analysis sponsored by the USAF. They
also paid me $100, which included travel and hotel costs.
I was not too concerned about teaching the

several-hour-long class on electron fractographic analysis.
I had already presented papers and had a plethora of slides
to augment any presentation of almost any length. I

figured I could keep an audience awake for several hours
using examples and stories about actual failure
investigations using this methodology. My prime

concern was focused on the request that “I not only