By the time I was twelve, my mom had already decided that I would become a secretary – since girls didn’t go to college. After all, they just get married and quit anyway. Why bother? But don’t misunderstand; my mom was looking out for me. She had to drop out of school in ninth grade to help support herself and she wanted a better life for me. But I destroyed her dreams when I quit the secretary job to go to college and become a full-time musician. Since I had no college prep in high school, I had to pick up one English course to be accepted at Cleveland State University (CSU). Without any musical training except piano lessons, I struggled at first. But within 6 months I was up with the rest of the class. I was incredibly fortunate to have the best teacher in the world, Dr. Andreus Kuprevicus, concert pianist from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Music is not a well-paid profession, and I found myself giving piano lessons, working in a bakery, and playing in a band. After graduation, music became my full-time life. I played five, six, and sometimes seven nights a week. I met people from all over the world and saw the good, bad, and the ugly side of humanity. But by the time I was 28, it was becoming more and more difficult to keep the jobs coming. Slowly, gigs were being cut back and I went from working 6 nights a week to 2. What now? One night while working a math puzzle, it suddenly dawned on me what I should do. I decided I could turn my love of math into an electrical engineering degree. I went to CSU to talk to a counselor. But with no college prep and a degree in Piano Performance, the Engineering Department wouldn’t see me. The secretary handed me a hefty list of classes and said, “you take all these, and we’ll let you see a counselor.” Physics? Calculus? Chemistry? What’s that? The last real math class I had was 10th grade geometry, and the last science class was earth science in 8th grade. Undaunted, I went to register for calculus. That’s when I learned about prerequisites. Seeing as I had none, I was assigned math 071. No, I need math 121, calculus. It seems the only way I could get into calculus was to pass a placement test – which included trigonometry. I knew less about trig than calculus. This was happening over the Thanksgiving holiday. The last day to register for class was just after Christmas. So I went to the library and got out a book on trigonometry. For the next 3 weeks I studied and went back the day after Christmas to take the placement test. The test had 25 questions and I needed 15 to pass. I got 16. I’m in. From that moment on, I studied, played in the band all I could, tutored, gave piano lessons, and did the co-op program. On breaks with the band, I’d study at the club. After one physics, two chemistry, and three calculus classes, I received a letter from CSU. “Welcome to the College of Engineering.” Five years later, I graduated cum laude and I never did talk to a counselor.
We had opportunities to apply for jobs at school. I jumped at the chance of working at NASA. In 1969, I was 12 years old. I remember vividly watching the sketchy black & white images coming from the moon. I walked outside of our little bungalow, looked up and thought, there are people up there. Now I could be part of that team. I don’t know how or why they picked me. But I’ll be forever grateful they did. As an engineer I’ve been privileged to be involved with some amazing projects. I worked in the Rocket Lab, where our job was to test next generation rocket engine designs. The Rocket Lab is a series of block houses consisting of
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