Page 45 - MY STORY

teeth with the embedded black cigar, was: “Whiteson –

you did the best you could! Is there anything else?” I
skulked out of his office, and I found only later -- that
response was Leo’s form of high praise.

I never again looked for praise after completing an
assignment. I did not realize it at the time but writing

technical jargon as a story, instead of “as a report” served
me well as a format for writing successful proposals. It
did not result in changing my writing style for technical

reports; my immediate management wouldn’t let that
happen.

EARLY LAB ASSIGNMENT GONE WRONG

I was asked to supervise a test series in our labs as the
principal engineer, Stu, was going on vacation. The
purpose of the test was to determine the strength of

high-temperature metals that were exposed to very high
rates of heating (100 degrees F per second) and quickly
applied stresses. The application of this data was aimed

the Nike-Zeus, a high speed ballistic exo-atmospheric
missile interceptor Douglas was responsible for
developing for the U.S. Army. This lab environment is

hard to picture, so stay with me on this.