Doug Kerr
Well-known member
The day before yesterday, 2012.05.08, was my 76th birthday, and in recognition of that I will tell a personal anecdote.
My late first wife was afflicted with degenerative arthritis of her right hip, and had the hip rebuilt and later replaced (eventually several times). She was in persistent serious discomfort.
In 1968, she expressed a strong interest in our relocating to the US Southwest, where she felt that the "dry" climate would ease her discomfort. (It turns out that the beneficial property is not the low humidity but rather the low short-term variation in barometric pressure.)
I was at the time working at Bell Telephone Laboratories, in Holmdel, New Jersey. Originally, my going there was the fulfillment of a lifetime dream - the telephone business had been my hobby, as well as my profession, and I had been summoned to the presence of the gods.
But I had a love-hate relationship with the Bell Telephone System. As an aficionado, I greatly admired and enjoyed its high degree of organization and the thoroughness and precision with which it did everything (and I emulated that in my personal technical life). But as an employee, I chafed under that same regimentation, and by 1968 I had gotten myself seriously "crosswise" with the Bell Laboratories management on several fronts.
So the prospect of perhaps changing employers in the wake of relocation loomed as reasonable.
A respected friend and colleague at Bell Laboratories had been stationed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, when in the US Navy (he was a nuclear weapons handler). When I mentioned our interest in relocation to the Southwest, he spoke highly of his experience in Albuquerque, and that directed our attention to that location.
On a trip to Manhattan for a standards meeting, I stopped into a newsstand that specialized in out-of-town papers, and bought an Albuquerque paper. In the classified ads, I saw a small ad that said "inventor wanted". Intrigued, I contacted the company. It was a start-up research and development firm formed by a brilliant and respected engineer, Don Wilkes, from Sandia Laboratories, to commercially exploit a novel electromechanical component - the Rolamite - he had devised. It was thought that this component would do the same thing for mechanism design that the transistor did for electronic circuit design. (It actually didn't, but that is not to demean Wilkes' brilliance in the basic invention and his extraordinary work in visualizing and describing literally hundreds of ingenious applications.)
In late 1968, I arranged to visit with Wilkes in Albuquerque for an interview. I was very excited about what they were up to, and really liked what I saw of the town.
As I was leaving town, at the airport I called Wilkes to tell him that I had enjoyed the interview and was quite interested in joining the new firm. He said that yes, he had enjoyed the interview as well, and was very impressed by my knowledge and insight, but he had one concern. I was at the time (as today) not exactly physically fit. I was overweight and got little exercise. (I was 32 at the time.)
Wilkes said that they of course foresaw this firm having a very long period of existence and importance, and he (quite a fitness exponent himself, and was 37 at the time) was reticent about inviting in as a key player in this immortal enterprise someone whose lack of fitness might lead to a modest life expectancy.
I thanked him for his candor and went back home. About a week later, Wilkes called me and said, well, how would I like to join their firm. He had apparently decided that the actuarial risk was not a deal breaker.
I did join the firm (by then called Rolamite, Inc.), and the family moved to Albuquerque early in 1969. The environment there, in many respects, was so different from that I had previously experienced in the Midwest and the East Coast, but I loved it. I was very happy there. It was where I developed the love for New Mexico that eventually, over 40 years later, helped propel us to Alamogordo.
Don Wilkes was a fine fellow, and I enjoyed working with him and with my other colleagues there. He was a scientist, engineer, inventor, and skilled craftsman.
Sadly, after two years of operation, the firm had not become a financial success, and went out of operation. My best opportunity for continued employment was with an industrial controls firm in New Jersey (actually a client of Rolamite), and so we moved back to the East Coast, about which I was very bitter for many years.
So much for Rolamite, Inc.'s immortality.
Don Wilkes died in 1996 at the age of 65.
Best regards,
Doug
My late first wife was afflicted with degenerative arthritis of her right hip, and had the hip rebuilt and later replaced (eventually several times). She was in persistent serious discomfort.
In 1968, she expressed a strong interest in our relocating to the US Southwest, where she felt that the "dry" climate would ease her discomfort. (It turns out that the beneficial property is not the low humidity but rather the low short-term variation in barometric pressure.)
I was at the time working at Bell Telephone Laboratories, in Holmdel, New Jersey. Originally, my going there was the fulfillment of a lifetime dream - the telephone business had been my hobby, as well as my profession, and I had been summoned to the presence of the gods.
But I had a love-hate relationship with the Bell Telephone System. As an aficionado, I greatly admired and enjoyed its high degree of organization and the thoroughness and precision with which it did everything (and I emulated that in my personal technical life). But as an employee, I chafed under that same regimentation, and by 1968 I had gotten myself seriously "crosswise" with the Bell Laboratories management on several fronts.
So the prospect of perhaps changing employers in the wake of relocation loomed as reasonable.
A respected friend and colleague at Bell Laboratories had been stationed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, when in the US Navy (he was a nuclear weapons handler). When I mentioned our interest in relocation to the Southwest, he spoke highly of his experience in Albuquerque, and that directed our attention to that location.
On a trip to Manhattan for a standards meeting, I stopped into a newsstand that specialized in out-of-town papers, and bought an Albuquerque paper. In the classified ads, I saw a small ad that said "inventor wanted". Intrigued, I contacted the company. It was a start-up research and development firm formed by a brilliant and respected engineer, Don Wilkes, from Sandia Laboratories, to commercially exploit a novel electromechanical component - the Rolamite - he had devised. It was thought that this component would do the same thing for mechanism design that the transistor did for electronic circuit design. (It actually didn't, but that is not to demean Wilkes' brilliance in the basic invention and his extraordinary work in visualizing and describing literally hundreds of ingenious applications.)
In late 1968, I arranged to visit with Wilkes in Albuquerque for an interview. I was very excited about what they were up to, and really liked what I saw of the town.
As I was leaving town, at the airport I called Wilkes to tell him that I had enjoyed the interview and was quite interested in joining the new firm. He said that yes, he had enjoyed the interview as well, and was very impressed by my knowledge and insight, but he had one concern. I was at the time (as today) not exactly physically fit. I was overweight and got little exercise. (I was 32 at the time.)
Wilkes said that they of course foresaw this firm having a very long period of existence and importance, and he (quite a fitness exponent himself, and was 37 at the time) was reticent about inviting in as a key player in this immortal enterprise someone whose lack of fitness might lead to a modest life expectancy.
I thanked him for his candor and went back home. About a week later, Wilkes called me and said, well, how would I like to join their firm. He had apparently decided that the actuarial risk was not a deal breaker.
I did join the firm (by then called Rolamite, Inc.), and the family moved to Albuquerque early in 1969. The environment there, in many respects, was so different from that I had previously experienced in the Midwest and the East Coast, but I loved it. I was very happy there. It was where I developed the love for New Mexico that eventually, over 40 years later, helped propel us to Alamogordo.
Don Wilkes was a fine fellow, and I enjoyed working with him and with my other colleagues there. He was a scientist, engineer, inventor, and skilled craftsman.
Sadly, after two years of operation, the firm had not become a financial success, and went out of operation. My best opportunity for continued employment was with an industrial controls firm in New Jersey (actually a client of Rolamite), and so we moved back to the East Coast, about which I was very bitter for many years.
So much for Rolamite, Inc.'s immortality.
Don Wilkes died in 1996 at the age of 65.
Best regards,
Doug
