Hal's
"Top 10 TRW Memories"
(more or less as presented at his & Ruth's retirement party, April 25, 2005)

Most of my adult life (ages 29 to 60 in my case) has (like many of you) pretty much been solely defined by 2 dominating facets:  Family and Career – activities at work or with those of you I knew from work.  (Click here to jump straight to my “Top 10,” skipping a couple minutes about Family and a list of TRW memories not making the Top 10.)

Regarding my Family, most of you know I met my wife and best friend, Ruth, in grad school in Computer Sciences at Purdue and shared my entire TRW career with her.  It wouldn’t be right if the two of us weren’t jointly sharing this wonderful retirement party with so many friends and colleagues.  Our oldest daughter, Erika, age 26, is a software engineer in Providence, RI, after getting turned on to CS by the same man (Andy van Dam) who turned me on to CS exactly 30 years earlier, in 1967.   Our younger daugher, Alison, is a biology grad from Washington University in St. Louis and has decided to go to grad school in Public Policy, joining her sister in Providence; we hope this and the bio degree turn out to be a good combination leading to a good job sooner rather than later.   I treasure my memories of the early years with my daughters --  all their sports, Indian Princesses, attending all their school plays & special activities, camping…; when they became teenagers they had much less use for Dad than Mom.   The only thing I have to say to indicate the kind of family we have now is that both daughters seem to assume they will continue to come on vacations with us forever (I never went on one with my family growing up past age 16), e.g., 2 Olympics including Salt Lake City in 2002, 3 Hawaii trips, a recent New England jaunt & Alaska cruise, etc.  We’re not sure how happy we are about such family tightness, Travel being one of our retirement priorities.

But, I’m not retiring from my family.  Only from the company. So, moving on …

I can honestly say I enjoyed every day I worked at TRW and I feel like I'm going out at the top of my game  --  retiring not because I'm tired of the work or physically ready to go but only because there's so much else I want to do in my life and I can't delay forever before getting at it.   My TRW/Northrop-Grumman career has been rich with memories, some rewarding and special, some amusing, some enduring over the decades, and some moments memorable just for their singular uniqueness.  Because there's so many memories, you won’t hear about many of them on my “Top 10 TRW Memories” list.  Here’s some that didn’t make the Top 10:

It was really hard getting down to just 10 all-time  favorite TRW memories, so with no further ado, drum roll please:  (the following list contains Titles only, and is followed by the list with the detailed comments Hal added explaining each; click here to go straight to the detailed list, or click on each title directly below to jump to its explanation)

#12 (pause for moment of laughter):   “DIRTY DENSING”
#11:    My introduction to HABITAT FOR HUMANITY
#10:   CRAD, AdaPAKSS, ASE, STARS
#9:    BOONDOGGLES
#8:    The PURDUE CONNECTION
#7:    That Old GEORGE PETTEYS Section
#6:    WOMEN I HAVE KNOWN
#5:    The TRW GOLF CLUB
#4:    “CMM / CMMI / LEVELS 4-5 / SEPG / MET / M&A / SEI / SCAMPI …”  --  one more set of DoD alphabet soup
#3:    The “A” WORD  (and the “J” Word & “JUG”)
#2:    The GRUNION (Softball Team in TRW intramural slo-pitch softball league)
#1:    PARKINSON’S 2ND LAW (“Perfection is achieved only at the point of collapse,” or reworded:  “Termination occurs only at the moment of perfection”):   FBCB2



#12:    “DIRTY DENSING”

#11:     My introduction to HABITAT FOR HUMANITY

#10:    CRAD, AdaPAKSS, ASE, STARS

#9:    BOONDOGGLES

#8:    The PURDUE CONNECTION

#7:    That Old GEORGE PETTEYS Section
#6:    WOMEN I HAVE KNOWN
(Pause for laughter, or groans)
#5:    The TRW GOLF CLUB
#4:    “CMM / CMMI / LEVELS 4-5 / SEPG / MET / M&A / SEI / SCAMPI …”  --  one more set of DoD alphabet soup
#3:    The “A” WORD  (and the “J” Word & “JUG”)
#2:    The GRUNION (Softball Team in TRW intramural slo-pitch softball league)
#1:    PARKINSON’S 2ND LAW (“Perfection is achieved only at the point of collapse,” or reworded:  “Termination occurs only at the moment of perfection”):   FBCB2

I close by reading you a few lines from a song I co-authored with Paul McCartney (he wrote his part 40 years ago, I did mine yesterday), Intellectual Property infringement lawsuit pending, based on my favorite Beatles song:  “Yesterday.”  For those of you who are overly literal and symbolism challenged, like so many of us engineer types, when Paul and I wrote the word “yesterday” we meant the past 30+ years,”“she” and “love” (used as a noun) refer to our TRW career, and "tomorrow" is our retirement and everything we plan to do in retirement: 


Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play,

All my troubles seemed so far away;

Then yesterday passed so suddenlay,

Oh, I believed in yesterday.

Why she had to go, I don't know, she wouldn't say,

Did I do something wrong that caused her to go away?

But now, do I really long for yesterday?

Yesterday, my old love was so new,

Now we've found places to go and things to do.

Today I know I have no sorrow,

For, we believe in tomorrow.




In closing, Thanks to all of you for helping make the past 30 years so worthwhile and enjoyable, and for joining us here at our send-off for our next 30 years --
especially Frank Belz for MC'g, Sandi Hoyt for helping set up this party, so many of you for your "roast" and "toast" comments, and extra especially Barry Boehm who probably helped more than anyone make me what I became in my career!   We hope to keep in touch with most of you, and see many of you join us in retirement sooner rather than later.

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Last modified Jan. 2, 2006.  Comments & corrections to stats to Hal.Hart@ACM.ORG