My Story
Background
I am a native of Dearborn, Michigan, the heart of Ford Motor country. For example, I attended Fordson High School, Henry Ford Community College and the Fairlane campus of University of Michigan. I was a co-op student at Ford Motor for two years where I found my career path in computer systems.
My wanderings began in 1969 when I was drafted into the US Army and spent time in Hampton, Virginia and Vietnam as a computer programmer. I married in 1971 and took my bride to live in Virginia Beach while I worked at Newport News Shipbuilding (now Northrop Gruman Newport News). We raised two daughters there and left in 1995 when I accepted a job with Tenneco Automotive in Germany. Accompanied by my wife and youngest daughter, we lived two years in a small town along the Rhine valley and then five years in Waterloo, Belgium. I finished my time at Tenneco Automotive with four years in Lincolnshire, Illinois. Upon accepting an early retirement, my wife and I moved to Oro Valley, Arizona in 2006.
As I approached retirement age, I discovered that I wasn't ready, nor interested retiring. Working in the business environment has always been interesting, and remains so today, especially if I can utilize the business experience I gained to help others.
Education
- Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from the University of Michigan
- MBA from the College of William and Mary
- Plus an extensive amount of business training during 35+ years working at large manufacturing companies
Job History
- Ford Motor Company - 3 years
- I learned to be a programmer in Basic, Fortran and COBOL primarily focused on engineering applications
- Early computer graphics in Ford's engineering center
- Large flat-bed plotting applications
- Newport News Shipbuilding - 24 years
- As a member of the systems support team, I was instrumental in the introduction of 3rd generation computers and timesharing.
- As a programmer I supported a large software system that defined a ship's steel structure which generated numerical controlled tapes used to cut the steel for submarines, aircraft carriers and commercial ships.
- I led efforts for the company's embarkment into the use of computer graphics for designing and visualizing ship structure.
- Promoted to supervisor and later manager of application systems, I eventually managed organizations of 300+ people.
- Responsible for material management systems of the company (largest application area). This led to implementation of the first true MRP (Material Requirements Planning) system at the company.
- Project manager for major computing migration from Honeywell to IBM.
- Tenneco Automotive - 11 years
- As director of Information Technology for a European-wide IT, I pulled disparate plant-based IT groups into a European-wide IT organization for the first time.
- Led the implementation of SAP at several of the European exhaust plants - the first in the whole company.
- Was named CIO for all European IT when exhaust and ride control divisions were merged and headquartered in Brussels.
- I was responsible for merging the two organizations into one, while supporting a broader number of plants across Europe.
- Upon returning to the USA, I was Vice President of IT infrastructure, responsible for North American computer centers, help desks and local area networks.
- Free Lance Consultant - since January 2005
- Deloitte and Touche - 18 months
- Advised and carried out assignments as the assistant of the director responsible for the development of a new auditing software system to be used globally by Deloitte.
- Since the director was often not present in Princeton, NJ, where the project was based, I assumed his leadership role among several senior directors and staff.
- Utilized project management and presentation skills extensively during this engagement.
- Deloitte and Touche - 18 months
