Engineering Manager
Marketing Manager, Engineering Manager or Emergency Preparedness Manager
I was included in the group of salesmen that were to attend a semiconductor (Principal line) product line presentation. I sat at the back of the room as it was more for the sales force that a design engineer. The director of marketing introduced himself and apologized that the factory engineer had missed the plane and the seminar must be rescheduled. He invited us to enjoy the food and pick up any literature we wanted. I told him that I could conduct the seminar for him. He asked to speak to me privately. He inquired how I could possibly know his material as my company had many principals. I explained that I had a very thorough knowledge of his product line and was a good speaker, challenging him to allow me to continue his seminar. After I conducted the seminar he contacted my upper management and began negotiating with them for my release and offered me the position of Applications Engineering Manager. After being moved by the company to the Bay area of California from Southern California, I defined, installed, maintained and managed the entire Field Applications Engineering team for this major international semiconductor company, new to the USA. I screened, interviewed and hired their engineers. I provided major training seminars for these engineers based on my background as well as outside specialists including chip designers from the factory. I was manager of this group for years until my move into marketing.
My greatest engineering moment: I was flying into Ft. Lauderdale to stand in for my regional engineer that was off that week (Vacation, sick or something). I had the company's product line thoroughly memorized so there was no need to prepare in advance and there were no major presentations scheduled, just the normal customer visits, etc. The rep met my plane without the usual cheerful take off your tie, you are in Florida that was customary for him. He was upset (Big commission in the hang) and informed me that a very large number of single chip microcomputers that had been delivered to a major customer were failing incoming inspection and they had an engineering team waiting for me. I spent the ride to the customer explaining to the rep that there was nothing I could do but take notes and report to the factory. The chips were sealed in plastic... I entered a theater room where they were all set up on stage with large flip over tables and white boards covered in schematics. I was seated in the 'audience' ( a major physiological disadvantage) alone with the rep with only a tablet and pen in my lap. After introductions and an extensive briefing on why my parts were bad I asked some questions about processor initialization. I was told the software had been done in Schaumburg Illinois but they could get them on speaker phone for me. They know I had nothing with me, not even a coding card for the processor in question. When I asked them to read me the code they openly laughed at me as though I was some wise guy that knew the code. Then they proceeded. I interrupted and told them I was more familiar with Hexadecimal coding than the assembly language they were using and requested they read in Hex. Again they openly laughed at me as though someone could know the hundreds of hex codes for that specific processor. Then they proceeded, in hex. After a few lines, I asked them to repeat a couple lines of code and told them there was as error in HEX. Again the openly laughed. Shortly there was loud talking on the speaker phone as they considered my correction and then the manager on stage cut the speaker and spoke for a few minutes, deaf to my ears. Then he conferred with his local engineers and stood up. He apologized for the conduct of the two teams, explaining that they had never imagined someone showing up totally unprepared could debug their code, on the fly and in hex. He acknowledged my correction, accepted full responsibility for the 'bad' parts and stated that a new purchase order would be released next week after a thorough code review had been conducted. The rep had been concerned about the loss of commission on the bad parts but now had the new commission doubling this bit of income.
I held a teaching credential and installed a number of electronics courses in the High Schools and Jr. College programs as well as taught classes in electronics theory and applications.
My career began when I entered the US Air Force in electronics. After basic training, I challenged the electronics program, testing through the program in 3 days and was made a teacher of electronics until the time of my original class graduation. I was assigned to Nellis Air Force Base Tactical Air Command where I was assigned flight-line electronics maintaince of the F105 fighter bomber. After a short time I tested into the Catt 2 test equipment calibration labs, where I remained until my honorable discharge. I enter aerospace electronics at Aerojet General in Azusa working on Spy satellites and advanced infared imaging and tested into Research and Development in their Cryogenics testing labs.
I held positions in HF Communications where I was the liaison tester between my company and Federal acceptance testers and worked in this company's Radio Frequency interference labs. I also did airborne calibration of instrumentation for Air Force products.
Email Jim netshasta@earthlink.net
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