A big thanks to Harry Buck for taking the time to scan all of these photos and turning them into digitals!
I wish I had been able to get my photo pass before 1984, could have gotten a
lot more pictures of people we all knew and loved!
Not shown:
Gene Beechy
Jay Harmerling
Lynn O'donnell
Bob Seabron
Danny Smith
Phil Steil
Nancy Steil
Al Tilmes
Chuck Waters
Some of the supervisors and job assignments I remember having, kinda in order:
Ted Collins, and then Al Trimper as head of the I&M group
Bill Phillips was over the two of them... there are many stories associated with this here fellow :-)
Paul Dols (while doing wiring at B/A)
Charlie Tulock* 77-78 (while assigned to the AWACS TIS group at BWI writing T-Specs)
- Charlie WAS former FE&S
Bill Rachuba* and Bill Elswick* while working in B21 Factory Test in Hunt Valley (HV)
Will Cook* and Mike Rodeheaver* while assigned to the NICS (Nuclear) B24 contracts section, also in HV
Sam Mansfield* while working in the B21 Calibration Lab, again, a HV assignment
"Red" Stevens* took over in the Cal Lab for a while until he got arrested for stealing equipment & selling it back to the HP
sales guy :-)
Tom* and Howard Rosenburg* (RIP) while assigned to the B75 Physical Resources group, working on the HV communications systems
Also worked in the Cal Lab at Oceanic in 79, and did some security system stuff while down there, but don't remember no names :-)
Check Leidy (RIP) 1980-84 while at Benson Ave working on security system shit
Chuck Waters for a few months when they took away the above said group from Chuck as part of a witch hunt
Gene Ennitt* (RIP), EE, while on assignment in Huntsville AL for TCOM 1984-85, making 3 systems for the Israeli's
Ted Herilla (RIP) in 1985-87 while playing EE at Benson Ave
Gene Ennitt* again while in Elizabeth City NC & Huntsville for another tour with TCOM in 1987, this time for the DEA
Ted Herilla and Al Tilmes for a while back at Benson Ave in 1988
Also in 88, December, I made a one week trip to Venezuela, but again, don't remember who was da boss fer that assignment.....
Lloyd Giegley for a while in 1989 when we were first at Parkway 12
Rock Howland at Parkway 12 from 1989 till my death in 1992
Terry Anderson* back at the Benson Ave TAL lab while "over there" 1989-92
How many of these people do you remember?
Those with an asterick are not FE&S'rs....
Anyone else with something else cool to post, email me at
toddgp30@yahoo.com
The "Middle Years"
I'm going to throw in a couple of good stories about the Westinghouse days
in here, just to show you how management can be assholes when they want to be....
One of the few design projects I got to work on was a redesign of a programmer
for the Harpoon Missile. The original design was done before a lot of high
speed TTL chips were around. I redesigned it using the higher speed
products. When they built the digital logic board, they followed typical
Westinghouse guidelines making the board look "pretty". We went to test
the console, and it would not work. For two weeks, they threw the best
engineers they could find at the test set to see it they could get it to work,
Gene Beechy was one of them - none of their attempts succeeded. I kept
telling them the wires had to go on a diagonal, and they kept telling that they
couldn't do it that way because it did not follow the Westinghouse good wiring
practices. I tried telling them that the laws of electricity didn't care
about your wiring practices. So they finally had Craig Wood (I think) come
in over the weekend and take the main board apart, and re-wire it. I also
told them that any wires going to or from an octal latch all had to be the same
length. Come Monday, we fired the test set up, and guess what? One
for Todd, f--k all the others, the dam thing worked!!!
On another occasion, Tony Haines was working on an RF amplifier. He came
to me because he thought there was a problem with the schematic he was wiring
from. I said yes, there should be at least an RF choke in the base lead of
that amplifier transistor because it was operating class C (Tony was trying to
learn electronics, and always came to me for help). So then he took it to
Ray Washington and asked him what to do. Ray told him to wire it the way
the schematic told him to, and when it gets to Hunt Valley for test, and fails,
they will send it back down for rework (instead of calling the engineer for
directions now). Ray then came over to me and asked him why people were
coming to me for advice instead of him, and I said "Well, Ray, I guess if you
knew what you were talking about, they would come to you!" I immediately
thought that was the wrong thing to say, and I could get fired for that, but
didn't. For several days after that, people came up to me and
congratulated me for having the nerve to stand up against stupid bosses :-) :-)
A short story from the Hunt Valley Test Group. I got this one prototype
board to check, and it did not do what the engineer wanted it to do. On
the card (can't remember what the name of it was, but it was the card that
followed the production thru all of it's steps), I noted about 12 items that did
not follow good TTL wiring practices. The engineer nixed most of them,
like bypassing all of the TTL chips with with a 0.1uf cap, and I never got the
board to work. They finally gave the board to another ET, and I never
heard as to whether or not they got the board to work..... and so it goes.
This is what happens when you get an ET who breathes and lives and BUILDS this
shit for a hobby, and knows more than most of the engineers know.... That's why
H. B. Smith made the best head of the Baltimore Division (IMHO).
In 1992 and 1993, Westinghouse had four layoffs, reducing their numbers from roughly 18,000 employees to around 8,000. They spread it out so they wouldn't flood
the job market... toooo much.
I was lucky to go in the very first layoff, which was announced on February 1st, 1992, but did not take effect until February the 28th. There was an interesting
thing they did tho, that they did not repeat in subsequent layoffs: You had the option to either work that month, OR NOT. I was in the middle of writing a final
report for TAL, a reverse engineering lab, and decided to NOT do the extra time, because I figured if I wasn't that important for them to keep me around, then I must
also not be that important that someone else couldn't finish it in my absence. Bye Bye MoFo's.
Another interesting thing about getting laid off at this time, is that you could apply to the state for unemployment, AND get severance pay from Westinghouse. So,
for 8-1/2 months, I was getting more for staying home than I was while I was working... not a bad deal I guess, huh? Maryland at some point fixed this loophole,
so you could only get one or the other, the bastards.
One last item about getting laid off... I have to thank Westinghouse for my Private Pilots license. This is because a friend of mine, while I was working at the
Applied Physics Lab, around 11 months after getting laid off, asked me if I got money for retraining and/or re-education - in another month, I would have lost that
benefit!!! I said yes, it was up to $5K. He suggested looking into becoming a flight instructor. If you don't know, getting your private pilots license
is the first step towards achieving that goal. So I called up HR, got approval, and started taking those lessons before that benefit expired. Thank you
Westinghouse for my license. I am forever in Rock Howland's and your debt! :-) :-)
My first job away from Westinghouse was working at the Applied Physics Lab in Columbia, at a facility they called the PRL, or Propulsion Research Lab, where they had 4 or
5 high speed wind tunnels that could get ya up to about Mach 7 or 8. I helped with the instrumentation in the cells, building specialized test fixtures and wiring
things up. We did this for 4 years. Also got to go to Wake Island twice as part of the Star Wars program for a rocket launch, which went awry, and they
cancelled the contact with the rocket company.
Next up was a 4 year hitch with the Baltimore light rail system, fixing the LRV's (Light Rail Vehicles) at the North Avenue shops. Pretty cool, got to drive the things,
even once out on the main line where the ET's weren't suppose to. Cool job, if you like the the union.
After four years of being on midnight shift because I was the lowest seniority ET out of 250 maintenance workers, I quit and went to work for a company out of Beaverton OR
called IMS, Integrated Measurement Systems. They made these high-tech testing machines for the semiconductor industry, and had customers such as AMD, Intel,
National Semiconductor, and just about every other semiconductor manufacturer. We had customers all over the world, and a service organization to support those
customers. I myself got to go to Costa Rica and France because of this. The company got bought out by a competitor, and found myself unemployed for another 9
months until I ran across John Fiackos at an auction. Two weeks later I was back in almost the very same place I left 12 years earlier, altho it wasn't called
the I&M group anymore. WHAT ARE THE CHANCES OF THAT?!
It was an interesting time, and many people jokingly said that I had a MID CAREER VACATION. In some ways that was true, but it also exposed me to experiences that I
would otherwise NOT have had the opportunity to do. This included going to places I would never had gone to if I had stayed at Westinghouse, and there are certainly a host of
people that I would have never met - people who have made a substantial difference in my life. The worst part about getting laid off is the poor pension you get,
as I'm guessing those who retired with 35-40 years are probably getting $3500+ a month, where with my 12 years in at NGC, I get a whopping 600 bucks a month, but I
guess it's still better than nothing :-)
In my absence, Westinghouse had closed the entire Hunt Valley complex, about 12 buildings, and Parkway's 12 and 105, and moved all those people (not all that many now
that they got rid of 60% of the workforce, to BWI and Sykesville. The layoff and consolidation was probably in preparation for the Northrop Grumman takeover in
1995, to make and things more attractive to them. Caleb Williams was a
manager at Hunt Valley, and was a Ted Collins type, in charge of all of FE&S.
Vince Oakley was the FE&S manager after Caleb, but was replaced by John Jackson
when everything was moved down to Troy Hill. Vince replaced Napoleon, a
program manager on the SOuth and Central American radar systems, but he doesn't
speak any Spanish, so that was a BIG mistake. We lost the El Salvador
system (probably) because of that (and Tad too).
I came back to Westinghouse, er, Northrop Grumman at the end of 2003. John was in charge of what they called the CRC (Commercial Repair Center), as opposed to the
ERC, the Electronic Repair Center. What's the difference you ask? The CRC handled non U.S. military stuff, while the ERC did. The ERC, which had previously
been in building 23 in Hunt Valley, was now relocated to the east building at BWI. They all had to become union people, which I'm sure some f**king hated.
And I guess the union really hated it just as much, because they had to grant them length of service from when they started at Westinghouse, not when they became part of the union.
That meant that Marvin Mervin, an ET from building 21 in Hunt Valley, now was numero uno in terms of seniority! Take that BWI!!! That's what you get for making
them join the union.... f**kwads.....
Where Did They Go?
When I "came back" in 2003, folks who were still hangin around from
the ole Benson Avenue group are (altho not all of them were at Sykesville):
Steve Webb, Harry Buck, Mike Crabbs, Harry VanVliet, Danny Smith, John Howard,
Mike Reynolds, Rick Listman, Ted Herilla, Jack Anderson, Mike Freeburger,
Ed Martinez, Al Trimper, John Fiackos, Jim Michaels, George Suter, Sonny Epps,
Mark Rauser, Donny Harris, Dennis Sandlin, Mike Felts, David Gladney,
Charles Dudley, Lynn Odonell, George Maize, Dennis Brown (most people didn't know
him because he was always in the field on a job assignment), Greg & Debbie Hoke,
Joe Frazier, Bob Seabron (altho he was not technically part of FE&S), Bill Kilby,
Howard Allen, Reggie Diggs, Jim Walsh, Bob Maitland, Butch Rupert, Phil Wright, and Fran
Cook (yes, she married Will Cook, but it didn't last too long, as she was an attack
dog for Bill Phillips), and a few others, I'm sure.....
So here is a small list of the people (that I know of) that used to work for the Benson
Ave I&M Group back in the early 80's, and where they went:
Ted Collins was the first to go/retire, I believe it was around 1978 or 1979.
That was too bad, cause I understand that he was "the man" and everyone loved
working for him! Al Trimper took his place.
Chris Kincer had already retired by the time I was rehired in 2003.
Lloyd Giegley retired (I think) in 2004, soon after I got my job "back".
Al Tilmes, another one of them bosses listed above.... I ran into him while I was
working at the Light Rail Shops on North Avenue - he had apparently gotten hit in
one of the later layoffs and had to go find another job. He was working for
one of the subcontractors installing GPS units into the LRV's.
At least from my point of view from having him as a boss, he was a schnook, and
glad they laid him off too. Karma at work, for once :-).
Chuck Leidy retired in 1989, and eventually met this woman from Kansas after his
wife died, and moved out there.
Below: Chuck and myself in Oct 2010 at his home in Eldersburg (technically, it
is his daughter's house now that he moved away).
I wonder how he got all his shit, including a mill, out to Kansas, and now that
poor woman has to dispose of it! :-) :-)
He passed away in 2016.
Jay Harmerling "quit" one day (before I was rehired in 2003),
after getting into who knows how many tiffs with Fiackos. I guess
as soon as John had him walked to the front door, he thought better,
but it was too late. It's a shame, because he was a top-notch
ET (electronics technician), and knew his stuff better than anyone
else I knew, including me, and most engineers.
Paul Williams retired at some point, he made it to Jim Michael's retirement
party - and if you had run into him, you would not recognize him no way, no how.....
Dennis Sandlin was a supervisor in 2004 down at Troy Hill for the postal programs.
Dunno what happened to him after the postal program moved out of the building
after Sykesville took it over....
Jack Anderson and Mike Freebuger were still doing the drawing thing at BWI when I came back in 2004....
Phil Wright had been promoted a couple of times, and last known
whereabouts was as a physical resources group manager at BWI.
George Suter retired in Feb of 2007! Pics of the retirement party
are here
Joe Frazier retired around 2008 or so. In an interesting side note,
he was the guy that eventually took my place at the TAL reverse engineering lab!
Mike Felts got "released" around 2008 for getting in someone's shit
in the hallway one day, illustrating the company's new zero tolerance policy.
Al Trimper retired maybe around 2008 or so.... and he passed away in early 2018.
Rick Nelson got walked out one day maybe around 2009 for "attacking" the Leopold
kid, not that the little shit didn't deserve it, unfortunate, Rick was a good guy.
Bill Todd left work on a medical, and passed away around 2010.
Jim Michaels retired in 2010, and is living in West Virginia and IT IS
heaven compared to the environment at NGC nowadays,
Steve Webb retired in 2021, and is living up Westminster way..... Pictures
are here
Jim Michaels and Steve Webb
John Fiackos retired in 2011, and remains in the Ellicott City area, and is still an...... nice guy :-)
Has lunch with the guys on occasion. Pictures are
here
Howard Allen was released sometime around 2011 or so, not exactly sure why, but
it was rumored to had something to do with poor job performance.
Dennis Brown retired a month before the voluntary RIF was announced, and
I betcha he was PO'd, he stayed in Atlanta to be near his daughter.
Most of ya'll don't know Dennis, because as long as I've known him (since
1980), he has always been away from Baltimore on permanent field assignments.
Bill Kilby, Bob Seabron, and Reggie Diggs retired as part of a huge voluntary RIF
in April of 2011:
Harry buck retired in 2012, and lives in the BWI area.... he still has lunch with the guys on occasion.
Pictures are here
Ted Herrilla retired around 2012 and passed away soon after.
I retired in the wee hours of 2016 (like, January 4th), and still live in
Towson so I can be a pain in the ass to the rest of ya'll :-)
I made a $100 bet with Tan Nguyen that I didn't have to retire on
the last day of the year-Dec 31st, cause he said I HAD to,
but he never paid up... most others retiring at that time went out on
December 31st - but why not, and get paid for that extra holiday!!!?
Easy money as John Howard says! :-) :-)
Mike Crabbs retired in 2017 and also remains in the area up Westminister way, close to Steve Webb!
Mark Angelino retired in 2018, and can now spend all of his time at his home in southern
Alabama with his family.
Retirement pictures are here
Mike Reynolds retired in January 2020.
Ed Martinez, altho not part of the I&M Group, retired in 2020. Pics
here
And then I just learned that John Jackson, manager of the Troy Hill operations
(not an I&M dude) retired in August of 2018. I heard the woman that took
his place knows even less about the I&M group and Voiceswitch, so how can
NGC effectively manage things when subordinates have no-one they can go to for
help???? And this management style is running rampant not only at
Northrop, but almost every big company out there, I don't get it?
Danny Smith retired in August of 2023, pictures here
NEW AUG31/2010, NOV14/2013, SEP05/2018, SEP14/2020, AUG21/23/24/2023, APR13/2024
Last Modified
13-Apr-2024
Jim Michaels and Steve Webb
