In the 1960s I was in the Navy, mostly riding around the Atlantic ocean in Nuclear Submarines in the Engineering Department as a Nuclear Electrician and Reactor Operator.
In the 1970s I worked as a Nuclear Test Engineer as one of those “fat cat” government employees doing acceptance testing of Nuclear Submarine Refueling and Overhauls in the Charleston Naval Shipyard.
Toward the end of the 70s I decided I'd had enough of that and moved to Seattle, WA where I ventured into the embroidery business. Of course, I didn't know anything about embroidery but we were the first contract embroidery company in the Northwest.
During the 10 (or so) years of doing embroidery I had to not only learn embroidery, but I had to design and develop most of the tools, jigs and accessories needed to run a productive embroidery factory because we were the pioneers.
A friend and I developed and attempted to maket the very first PC based lettering, editing and digitizing program. It was in self defense because of the difficulty in getting designs digitized and fixed. Working with our digitizer, we pioneered transmitting designs over modems to be punched to paper tape on site.
Starting in early 1990s I went to work for my mentor, Earnie Allen of C.H. Holderby Co, who was the Tajima agent for the Northwest and the guy I bought my embroidery machines from. Seems he'd gotten California as a territory and needed a salesman so I packed up and moved to Whittier, CA to sell Tajima embroidery machines at Tajima West.
During the time there I acquired the essence of embroidery and embroidery machines. To this day, I still call on my old mentor when I'm stumped, but it gets fewer and fewer times. He taught me well and I was able to be the “go to guy” when the technicians would find themselves in a hole.