I started with Victor Mfg. & Gasket Co., "World's Largest Maker of Gaskets", on Nov. 22, 1963. My Dad urged me to respond to their ad for a Development Technician. I had graduated from DeVry Tech. Institute 4 months earlier, had worked at a Motorola plant setting color TV picture tubes for 3 days, and he was not happy. So, I went over to Victor's Plant, (I had been using their products by then for maybe 6 years, working on cars). The question asked of me was, did I feel I could successfully wire strain gages, which they showed me in the lab. Today, I would have said "piece of cake" (it was, for me). My interviewer, Dan Czernik, was the Chief Development Engineer, Gaskets. I said, "Sure". Turned out, they had all tried their hand at the challenge, and failed. To me, it looked like a dream come true: wire tiny electrical connections to achieve their objectives, while they themselves could not accomplish this task. He hired me! $115 per week, I was in heaven! It was Sep. 1963, my first REAL job, at 21! As things progressed, Dan, not wanting to lose his only "tight" link, had me taken "off the clock", after about a month. That made me a "Management Employee"! I felt on top of the world. For several years, after establishing myself among the various service departments which supported the Lab, I realized I had been pigeon-holed, in a way, though I had been attending classes at the Junior College, aiming at an Engineering Degree, someday. Then, came my real "break". The Oil Seal Division, fierce competitor of funding with the Gasket Division, called upon me to accept a position with them: they were about to embark upon an unheard-of venture into making oil seals by a new and never before attempted way: I was to be a part of it! I took the offer. Ultimately, that career move cost me my first wife, opened the door to a second marriage, (38 years now), and became a most revered time during my life. This all happened between 1970 and 1982, that year denoting my lay-off from Penn Athletic Products, in Phoenix, AZ. We were suddenly faced with unemployment, the Reagan Recession, no job prospects for either of us, and possible loss of everything I (we) had ever worked for. It was then that we holed-up in the woods of Northern Arizona, in a cabin I had built on property we were buying as a summer getaway. No water, no electricity, no telephone. My wife's folks were horrified. Her Mom: "Someone could "get you". I never understood that one. Someone could get us, while I had a gun ready to prevent it?? We had a goat for milk, plenty of firewood for our stoves, several chickens for eggs, and lived relatively comfortably for a year up there at 6700 feet altitude. Then, I got a certified letter, offering my job back. Down in Phoenix. I took it. Big mistake, again. Frank