Page 198 - MY STORY

technical approach, including a definition of high-risk

areas along with potential solutions. It had to be in the
mail by Monday. One key member had to cancel a
vacation to the west coast with his family, which did not

make him a happy camper. To this day he reminds me of
my ability to make him miserable over this event. We
won.

YANKED OUT OF MY JOB
This went on about a year when I was suddenly called

into the Vice President of Engineering office. Harold M
asked me what I know about “stealth.” We had done

some classified work on infra-red reflective coatings, but
not much else – so my answer was “nothing.” He told
me that our company had developed a classified “stealth”
material suite that was well beyond state of the art, and it

was to be applied to a new highly classified weapon
system we were in the middle of bidding.

The problem seemed to be that we could not make the
material with consistent electromagnetic properties on
any given day, and he would like me to “look into” the

problem. I gathered up one good chemist with a bent
toward process control and statistics, got us briefed into
the classified area, and found that the process was pretty

complex chemically with a great number of process