Its funny how one thing leads to another. I’ve liked trains for as long as I can remember. My grandparents on my mother’s side used to take me to visit an aunt and we would go by train. My other grandfather used to take me to watch the trains on the L&N freight line in Louisville. As a young child I spent many hours playing with my Lionel trains. As I was entering junior high school at duPont Manual, Viet Nam was just starting to build up. As an elective in the eighth I took metal shop. The teacher assigned to that class was in either the National Guard or Army Reserve. He was called into active service and a substitute was assigned to the class. The substitute brought in some "Popular Electronics" magazines and one of them had an article about electronic controls for model trains. I started borrowing a magazine just about every day to take home and read at night. While reading the magazines I discovered "Ham" radio, found a neighbor about a city block away that was a ham (W4KBR). About a year later I was waiting for my first license. During the summer of 1964 I received WN4UMR.

After graduating from duPont Manual High School in 1966, I attended United Electronics Institute for two years. By this time, Viet Nam was really in full swing. I joined the U. S. Army on 28 August 68. After 9 weeks at Fort Knox I went to Fort Monmoth, NJ. I graduated from the 32D20, Fixed Station Technical Controller school as an Honor Graduate. My school was extended another eight weeks for special training to work in the AUTODIN (AUTOmatic Digital Network , or as we preferred, Automatically Unloads Tons Of Debris Into Nowhere) Technical Control Center. Between August 1969 and July 1971 I served at Fort Buckner, Okinawa. While on Okinawa I was licensed as KR6OR. During that time period, Okinawa was a United States territory, occupied by the U. S. forces since April 1945.

After leaving the Army, I started working for AT&T. For several years I worked on the 17C testboard and the 4A toll switching system. We converted the 4A to a 4ESS in 1976. About a year later I transferred to the Special Services operation. At that time, everything was analog. When AT&T was forced to break up, I transferred to BellSouth (South Central Bell at that time). After 14 years, I’m still working in the same area. The job is the same job but the work has changed quite a bit. I now spend about 98% of my time working on ISDN service.

My present interest are Amateur Radio (of course) , railroads, camping, Boy Scouts, photography, and my family. I’m a member of Highview Baptist Church. I’m trying to learn ASL (American Sign Language). I enjoy listening to Christian music.