Chapter 13: A Light On My Path

Page 32

I was also seriously rebellious and left home at age 15. I wandered

from one friend’s home to another and at times I went back home for a brief time. Life became very tough and unstable after my mother remarried and the family moved out to the suburbs. I had been attending Vocational High School in downtown Minneapolis where I studied Radio-TV electronics for

three hours a day. I owned my own car and had jobs to support it, so for a while I traveled long distance to the school, which was over 12 miles from my house. After the school found out my family moved to the suburbs, I was disqualified from continuing on in the inner city trade school.

The net result of all of this was that I quit school in the middle of the eleventh grade and joined the Navy. Grades weren’t an issue for me and I was always a B average student; I loved the educational experience and learning new things. However, continued schooling as it was then presented

to me was no longer an option in my mind. At the time, young men were obligated to six years of service to the country either on active or inactive service. Since the Vietnam War was underway, I opted for the U.S. Navy. It was a good choice for continuing my education, but I did not realize it.

I took the GED High-School equivalency immediately and passed. I then spent over 2 1/2 years in advanced electronics courses during my 7 1/2 year Naval career. In total, I have accrued over 5,000 hours of class training

in electronic engineering. You can compare that to a college BSEE degree in which about 1300 hours of class training would be encountered. I have a non-traditional education today that well exceeds a BSEE, MBA and Ph D. I am well educated albeit non-degreed. I am satisfied with the results of my

education and I usually put in 400 hours annually in continuing education. I have for the last 30 years. So, while some might want to view me as a high school dropout that would not be accurate. After I got out of the Navy, it took 15 years before consumer electronic equipment reached the level of my

engineering and technical expertise. I also took equivalency tests while in the Navy for the first two general years of college and passed them. Before leaving the Navy I completed all of the regular high school courses as if I would have attended North High in Minneapolis and not a trade school; I

studied consumer electronics; and, I studied for my FCC First Class Radio Telephone exam. I obtained the license with the ship radar endorsement.