After I graduated from high school and before I entered college at Georgia Tech, like most kids my age, I worked a minimum-wage job for the summer to keep out of trouble and make a little money. Unlike most summer jobs however, I really liked my job. I worked on a sign engraver for the Georgia Building Authority, making signs and then installing them in various government buildings around downtown Atlanta. I got to play with an expensive sign engraver and when I needed to get out of the office and get some fresh air, I’d grab whole bunch of signs and a drill set and install them in their designed locations on the walls of different buildings. This afforded me opportunity to wander around downtown, but still have an office to occasionally catch my breath while engraving the next sign.

One of the managers that I worked with was a friend of my father’s named Scott Oliver. Scott had glasses and a mustache and was never far from his next cigarette. When I started working at the Building Authority, Scott was trying to quit smoking and my father carved him some wooden cigars which he could place in his mouth when he got the craving for a cigarette. My father told me this past weekend that Scott had passed away. I was sad to hear that, because he was a good man. I really enjoyed working with Scott along with everyone I met at the Building Authority before starting school and I gained some valuable work experience that carried on to my first job at IBM. I’ll always remember that hot, carefree summer and Scott with a wooden cigar sticking out of his smiling face.