When it was time for me to choose a college, I chose the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR). I chose UALR because I had been awarded a chemistry department scholarship there. Since I was paying for college by myself that seemed like the sensible choice.
My first year chemistry professor, Dr. Watson, just happened to be the chemistry department chairman. He was a great man. He and his wife often invited students to their house for a competitive game of Trivial Pursuit. One of the senior chemistry students really stunk at Trivia Pursuit and always accused Dr. Watson of insisting on having us play the game at parties just to embarrass him. Frankly, I don't remember being that great at Trivial Pursuit either but I still had a great time at the Watson's parties. This is a crazy detail to remember about their home but they had this guest bathroom with black and white tile on the floor and this giant black and white, framed photograph of Mikhail Baryshnikov over the toilet. At the time I was a huge Baryshnikov fan. So I guess this is why this detail sticks with me after all these years. If you're reading this and wondering who Baryshnikov is then it's time to Google.
As a freshmen chemistry major, I had planned on being a pharmacist. But Dr. Watson and I talked often and he liked to ask if I really wanted to count pills for the rest of my life. I would always laugh but eventually when I took technical writing classes I really started to wonder if I was being led down a different path. I had just finished up Organic Chemistry class for the semester when I went to Dr. Watson and asked him what he thought about me being a technical writer instead of going to pharmacy school. He loved that idea. He especially liked the idea of me writing laboratory research. So we talked for about an hour and during that conversation I became convinced that was my new path and so it was.
Fast forward to the end of my junior year, I received a call from Dr. Watson. Alcoa had called him and asked him to recommend a student to work for them for the summer. They wanted a chemistry student who could do some technical writing for their laboratories and their engineers. Dr. Watson recommended me. So that next week I interviewed with one of their plant supervisors and shortly after that interview I started working at Alcoa.
That summer I learned so much about working for a large cooperation. Most of the employees there at the time were my parents age. So at times I was getting fatherly and motherly advice from every direction. When the summer was over, Alcoa offered me a permanent job. I wasn't really expecting that but since it worked out well with my class schedule I accepted. I stayed at Alcoa for 2 years before the company had a major layoff. The layoff took almost 1000 jobs and mine was one of them since seniority mattered in layoffs at Alcoa. I was fortunate that my manager at the time arranged for me to work 2 more months then get a severance package. So I interviewed quickly at Systematics Information Services in Little Rock, Arkansas. I was hired and started at Systematics 1 week after I left Alcoa. Systematics had an entire technical writing department. Forty plus writers all in one department documenting all the different banking software that they sold at the time. I started working there at their corporate office in June of 1990. Coincidently, Rick started working for Systematics in June of 1990 also but he was placed at one of their data centers in a different state. Several years later he was transferred to Little Rock where he met me.
I've heard it said that it's sometimes easier to see God in our rear view mirror than the windshield. I can testify to how true that is when I look back over all of the moments and all of the people God wove into my life to set me on the path HE wanted.
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