Hal's "Top 10 TRW Memories"

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:

EPDP
TQM
“Filthy Phil” Herwegh, who hired several of us here and whom Ruth at least temporarily “cured” of male chauvinism concerning a female’s ability in this workplace
SDVS, DAIS, or MX
The Grade 10 Task Force
Building “B,” my code name for the beach, to which I would sneak out at low tide in the late 70’s and 80’s where I discovered jogging as an ends, not just a means to an end – and of course also started my now--successfully-replaced left knee on the road to ruin
Any PDL -- Caine, Farber, & Gordon PDL; Jovial PDL, Concurrent PDL (sorry Dave Bixler), Ada PDL
The TRW Tennis Club ladder, & how Mike Springman destroyed me
My off-and-on TRW basketball career (also a major contributor to that destroyed knee)
Any Ron Block stories
The Hal-as-Lance-Newman story
St. Hart’s Day (because its origin pre-dates our TRW career and it’s not exclusively a TRW party, even though 2 TRW employees and 1 retiree have the only perfect attendance records through 29 St. Hart's Days so far in California…)
The tale of how we met Steve Groff 2 years before we met Steve Groff.

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”

Who remembers when we were all asked to sacrifice for the company by squeezing into less office space in the mid-1980's?
Who remembers who the Dirty Densing Czar was?
Now we know how the company found enough $$ to DAVE BARAKAT a Vice President. :-)
Seriously, I remember Dirty Densing as much a memory of Dave Barakat as for its silly sense of economy. Dave, while probably never winner of "Most Beloved Manager of the Year," represented to me one of the many fine managers I worked under at TRW: devoted to the company, a great communicator, demonstrating to us that sometimes business perspectives trumpted technical excellence, willing to teach others, ...

#11: My introduction to HABITAT FOR HUMANITY

I first got involved with Habitat when Tactical Systems had an internal drive to sign up laborers for the Wilmington 20-Houses-in-8-Days blitz in December 2000. I really hadn't been much of a volunteer for anything, and had already realized Habitat could be a great fit with my ability for doing a lot of simple home repairs. But I don't know when i would have gotten around to making contact with Habitat if Tactical hadn't dropped the opportunity in my lap.
I only worked 2 or 3 days per year as my knee worsened, and suddenly zoomed to ~20 last year (2004), the first full year after rehab from my knee replacement. I've already worked 9 days this year, hoping to break my record every year for a few years.
I've seen several of my TRW/Northrop-Grumman colleagues on the Habitat building sites regularly, especially Allison Jones and Karen Sopa. Rarely do I work Habitat without seeing someone from the company, and I'm proud to say I'm unaware of any other company that sends as many regular volunteers. Eric Shuman's mother, Toni Shuman, is my role model, telling me that first day I worked in 2000 she had spent 100 Saturdays on Habitat sites since her TRW retirement -- probably Crew Leading every time because i've observed her broad construction knowledge and teaching ability.
One reason that will keep me coming out to volunteer for Habitat as long as I'm fit enough to do so is working with the 20-something kids from AmeriCorps who are Habitat's every-day builders, visiting groups during the several annual Collegiate Challenge weeks, and young people I meet when crew leading on Saturdays. Working with these kids and hearing their stories keeps me young.
On the other hand, on my 60th birthday last month, a Thursday, I chose to work a day of Habitat -- driving ~500 nails framing -- which was a wise choice because for the first time I actually felt 60 afterwards: all achy and tired, and by only 3:30pm. :-)
Habitat is now one of my Top 3 retirement priorities, and I thank the company for providing the opportunity to get involved.

#10: CRAD, AdaPAKSS, ASE, STARS

Barry Boehm taught us in the early 1980's that Contract R&D (CRAD) should be the goal of every IRAD PI -- getting the Government to pay us contract money to do what we would otherwise have to invest company money in.
In many ways, the middle third of my career (from 1983 to about 1993 when the company decided to de-emphasize CRAD acquistion as opportunities got tighter) when I won and managed 3 multi-million-dollar CRAD projects was the most rewarding part of my career -- teaching me about hiring, pricing, business, scheduling, customer relations, higher-management reporting, etc. I was good at this job, more often than not writing my own SOWs and even once (on the ACE project) helping my COTR secure new money (Nuun Amendment, for NATO technologies) to overflow our contract funding ceiling.
I remember Bob Africano, when he was my Business Area manager in the early 90's in Space Park, once saying he liked me as a CRAD PM because I always solved all the contract problems without bring them to him. This was one of the greatest compliments i received in my career.
I had the pleasure on my last CRAD project (STARS) to have a superstart, then and now, working for me: Aaron Goldstein.
But the best part of my CRAD management career was that I had a great mentor: Barry Boehm...

#9: BOONDOGGLES

I counted and figure I was sent (or sent myself) to about 200 technical conferences, workshops, standards meetings, Governement working group meetings, and Government advisory board meetings in my career. Contrast that to a total of maybe 10 trips to project milestone review meetings, and even fewer marking trips...
I made a presentation of some sort at approx. 100 of those 200 events; honed my "preformance" skills...
Early in my career some manager decided I was a good representative of the company at these external events, and it is true that we largely won my 3 CRAD projects and I might have helped on others because I was adept at being in the right place at the right time, i.e., meeting and apparently impressing certain technology customers. So for over 25 years I was provided little pots of money to continue to walk around in public. I never told them that I probably loved the travel and the friendships I made outside the company even more than whatever benefits brought to the company.
By the middle of my career I was often involved in "organizing" roles at most of the events I attended, sometimes earning travel subsidies and comp fees from the external sponsoring organizations.
I am indebted to ( in addition to Barry) Eldred Nelson, Chuck Hamilton, Barry DeRoze, Bob Africano, Neil Siegel, BK Richard, and George Petteys for always being sure I had the resources I needed as I saw fit to stay involved and visible in these technical communities.
I have never fully understood why the great trust was put in me with all these resources, but deeply appreciate it. This much fun, almost continously at the 10-20% level even during the almost 90% of my career when I was on contract projects of varying sizes, always kept my job most enjoyable.

#8: The PURDUE CONNECTION

Sam Conte left TRW/Aerospace Corporation in 1961, recruited to Purdue to form the first Department of Computer Sciences where he served as Department Chairman for decades.
The pipeline of job opportunities for Purdue CS graduate and undergraduate students in the late 1960's and early 70's was enhanced not only by only Sam's connections but also because CDC mainframe computers, moderately rare in both academia and industry but used at Purdue and TRW.
I was the 4th of 5 Purdue CS PhD drop-outs to come to TRW in a 3-4 year period: Dick Schmidt, Mike McClimens (who left our Dayton field office for Mitre after a few years), Bill Allendoerfer, and my great friend Frank Belz being the others. Good friend Dave Capka, whom we knew at Purdue in our final 2 years there, finally broke that string of futility several years later by returning to Purdue for a PhD after a 4-year ROTC obligation.

Dave may remember that I was the only righty in a regular golfing foursome with him at Purdue in the early 1970's. Quick, Dave, who were the other 2 lefties besides yourself? (Mike McCllmens and Stu Sweben, long-time Chairman of the Ohio State CS Department and President of the ACM when I was SIGAda Chair in the mid-90's).

Besides Frank (now Tactical Systems Chief Engineer) and Dave (a Technical Fellow), we have counted as good friends we met at Purdue both Bill & Beth Allendoerfer, Kathy Mapes, Jackie Garnett (now Smith), Mike Bergan, Anna Q, Lisa Vescovi (now Kohl) and others.
Not to mention that Bobs Harter/Burnett, TRW execs when we joined the company, + many others in Space Technologies, who came from other Purdue departments.
And we are pleased to see the company more recently gear back up Purdue recruiting, now counting friends like Allen Adams, Joe Kraus, Ed Divish, and several young AEHF folks as part of the Purdue connection.

#7: That Old GEORGE PETTEYS Section

Many of you remember that back in the olden days of the matrix, the lowest-level unit of company organization was the "section." My most collegial times with a tight-knit group of TRW colleagues, at and outside work, were in the late 1970's when I made the only voluntary transfer of my career into Pete Beer's section which was taken over by George Petteys the week I transferred in May of 1977.
My good friends from those few years include Jackie Thompson, Bob Machado, Ken Hupf, Don Kuroyama, Dave Bixler (promoted out of the section just as I arrived but still co-located), and of course George who got re-org'd a different direction than me in the early 80's and came back as both a friend and then leader the last decade of my career, as did Dave.
And who can forget our secretary Sunny Assar, who kept us all in line?
And Building B for volleyball noontimes on Fridays?
The commaraderie of this group typified for me a company culture, not surprisingly resulting in almost all of us still being here almost 30 years later. Am I first of the old George Petteys section to retire?

#6: WOMEN I HAVE KNOWN

Interestingly, I have never had a female as a direct supervisor/boss in my career. So, on to #5.

(Pause for laughter, or groans)

Interestingly, I had female customers for the 3 CRAD projects I managed and 2 Government Environment/Interface standards working groups I was on in the middle of my career: Teri Payton of Unisys, and several times Tricia Oberndorf of first the Navy (NOSC and NAVWAR) and now a program director at the SEI.
But, I worked with so many outstanding femailes (besides Ruth) in my TRW career who demonstrated clearly their equality if not superiority to most men: Jackie Thompson, Jackie Smith, Christine Shu, Judy Kerner, Carol King, Jeannie Hilger, Vancessa Chin, Joan Bebb, Isabell Muennichow, Karen Chorney, "Chart" (Hortensia Silva), Diane Mizukami, Georgette Rowe, and Denise Huntington.
Talk about the cure for male chauvenism -- work here for awhile.
Last but certainly Most: Lolo Penedo, now Tactical Systems Science Board chair, with whom I have shared passions and opportunities for technology and tech coordination as a good friend and colleague for over 2 decades. Among Lolo's many assets, I thank her for co-founding the Tactical Systems TechnoNet lunchtime colloquia with me almost 10 years ago and for recruiting Allen Adams to take over its organization for me; because of Lolo I am confident TechnoNet will have a long, bright future, and for this I feel good.

#5: The TRW GOLF CLUB

You wouldn't think that a game often more frustrating and more stressful than our jobs could be therapeutic, but those of us who play find that golf gets the mind off everyting else, and this is good for recharging batteries for work. Also, Golf is the 3rd of my top retirement priorities (besides Habitat & travel with Ruth) ... to finally get my game in the shape I've always known it should be.
Having played since age 10, imagine how pleased I was to be recruited into the TRW Golf Club by office mate Walt Maki right after we were transferred to California in 1976 after our 2 years in the Dayton field group. The TRW Golf Club has been a constant source of relaxation (no, call it a different kind of "stress" that takes the mind off work) -- with a small 18-year gap from 1984 to 2002 to allow me to spend Saturdays with my kids.
Steve Groff and Walt Maki were golfing friends both before and after my 18-year layoff. George Petteys too. And more recently I have enjoyed my time on the links with Tosh Nakano, Phil Diaz, Craig Chessmore, Dave Brice, and others. Verne Nagayama too.
The Meeting-Steve-Groff-2-Years-Before-Meeting-Him story: this is the chance to mention lost friend and 2nd Dayton boss, Mike Hollowich (Steve's roommate pre-1994) with whom we had many good times in our earliest years.
Walt tells golf stories all the time, for example his oft-told story of the 4-Putt-Bogey (an extreme rarity and example of excellence turned to ineptness, for those of you who don't play golf) ... but that should be my story, not his, because I shot the 4-putt bogey!

#4: “CMM / CMMI / LEVELS 4-5 / SEPG / MET / M&A / SEI / SCAMPI …” -- one more set of DoD alphabet soup

The sad thing is that I'll bet virtually everyone in the room knows what all those acronyms mean.
It was great working with some special people, who like myself transformed from "technical" folks to process people, over the last 5-10 years of my career: Lou Diamont, Pete Bogle, Chart, Bull Pulice, Jeff Facemire, Georgette Rowe, Barbara Mann, Linda Mills, Ron Ulrich, & Linda MIlls, and most impressively in my opinion, Denise Huntington and Rick Hefner. Two very different people, we're a better place because we had both Denise and Rick, Denise playing a strong ying to Rick's forceful yang.

#3: The “A” WORD (and the “J” Word & “JUG”)

I think most of you know that Ada, which I'll believe is the best production-quality programming language to the day I die, has been my foremost passion for the vast majority of my career. While the bright flames of Ada activity at TRW between 20 and 10 years ago became only faint glimmers in most of our organizations, I was already hooked.
Ada has been at the center of most of my professional society and other external activities, and the cause for more awards and rewards than I either deserve or can remember, for over a quarter of a century -- for at least that 10-20% of my time even when not on Ada projects: from the Jovial (2nd best programming language!) Users Group (JUG), renamed the Jovial-Ada Users Group, renamed the Ada-Jovial Users Group (Ada-JUG); to ACM SIGPLAN's AdaTEC, renamed SIGAda, an international professional society I helped drive from 4000 members down to half as many during my tenure as SIGAda Chair in the 1990's.
A large percentage of my Boondoggles and 3/4 of my CRAD tasking has been Ada-related.
In addition to the greatly appreciated early patronage by Barry, Barry, Eldred and others indulging my expanding entry into the Ada community from 1979 onwards, some of my greatest TRW friends are those sharing the "A" Word passion for many years with me: I will especially remember Frank Belz my co-"face" of Ada at TRW for many years, joined by Ed Colbert in the 1980's and then perhaps eclipsed by Walker Royce.
While an important memory for me, I'm not going to bore you any more talking about Ada; I've already talked about Ada enough for the past 26 years to last a lifetime. To me, to note that the "A" Word is no longer #1 on my list of top TRW memories is a sign that I'm ready to go...

#2: The GRUNION (Softball Team in TRW intramural slo-pitch softball league)

Unlike golf, a Softball team is much like a TRW project: the need to work together, plan to take advantage of each member's varying skills and years of experience, competitive strategizing, the gradual turnover of personnel over time, ... . I was lucky to have one such long-running "project."
Before my first full summer here in California (1977), Walt Maki and others I worked with encouraged me to form a slow-pitch softball team in TRW's intramural league. We picked the name Grunion after a favorite bar/restaurant in Manhattan Beach we visited for lunches on Fridays if not also other times. But for some reason we made it singular, non-possessive "Grunion" unlike the actual restaurant name (Grunion's) or most sports team names.
When we beefed up and split our team into an "A" and a "B" league team in fall of 1981, we older "B" guys (gee, we were in our mid/late 30's :-) renamed outselves Grunion'77 to commemerate our founding while the young guns going to the "A" league became Grunion'82.
Grunion'82 long long ago folded and Grunion'77 is still going strong, now in our 29th season.
I ask for a show of hands from everyone present who was ever a Grunion (or spouse of a Grunion). Steve Groff's wife Julie could be both, as perhaps our only female team member. Walt, put up an extra hand for Tosh who is on travel. (Approx. 25 hands out of 100+ go up. Mike Springman leads the team chearing.)
Show of hands just if on the team in the first year, 1977. (approx. 8 hands go up.)
Show of hands for those from 1st year who still play on the team. (Just Maki, Groff, Hart, with 4th permanent team member Ben Rodilitz being on travel.)
Ruth's current boss, Ed Molioan, used to work for me -- as a Right Fielder -- in the early/mid 1980's. We never did figure out what fielding position to put John Stickman at in his years with the team.
When we formed the team in 1977, we looked so bad in the 4-game April practice season that they formed a "C" league for us and put the next 3 worst teams down there with us. We then all learned how to hit that high-arc pitching and won our first 10 regular-season games.
We are perpetually a "B" league team contending for the "B" championship. While we've won almost our share of championships (6 over 28 years), 4 were between 1977 and 1981. More recently, we've lost by one run in the Championship game 4 of the last 5 years.
The team currently has this interesting mix of approx. 50% over 45 and 50% under 32 -- Grunion, the Next Generation. Brian Pointer is the longest-tenured youngster and is taking over managership of the team from me this year. Other young regulars include now-friends Tom Gayer, Ed Divish, and Joe Kraus.
Besides Walt, Steve, and Ben being with me since 1977 (despite Ben leaving the company before the end of our first season), other team members going back more than 20 years include Bill Guernsey, Pat Walters, and Steve Hyde. Chase Dane, Stick, and Louis (even Phil Allen one season) represent oldsters who fit in for a while in recent years until they moved on.
Walt has his list of oft-repeated softball stories too: How many all-time wins do we have? His records as a pitcher -- most wins, most innings pitched, lowest average walks per inning, most strikeouts.
Steve's scary-but-turned-out-OK adventure in Left Field (always my best Left Fielder!) was a basketball stanchion and a night in the hospital, in addition to our first loss, is part of Grunion legend too.
In 1977 I could hardly envision the value to our mental health, if not actually to our job effectiveness too, it would be to have this Thursday-night anchor to look forward to 20-30 weeks per year, every year, over the decades. What a "project" The Grunion has been!
The is my opportunity to say I have treasured the constant friendship of Walt Maki and Steve Groff since coming to Space Park in 1976. Only occasionally work colleagues, every sport activity I've participated in has involved one, the other or both; plus, with Walt or Steve and their spouses Ruth and I have had most of the little social life working parents are allowed. Without Steve and Walt walking into our lives in 1976 and the doors they opened for us and people they introduced us to, I don't know if the work alone would have been enough to keep us at TRW for over 30 years. I say "Family and Career" dominated these 3 decades, but by Career I really mean the work plus all these "social" connnections emanating from the company, exemplified by such lasting friendships as Walt and Steve's.

#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

This a somewhat obscure way to decribe the project to which I've been assigned since its beginning in 1995, FBCB2, Tactical Systems' largest project most of the past decade: FBCB2 should be guaranteed to continue forever with our demanding and varying and evolving customers, with ever-increasing demands for capabilities beyond those implemented assuring perfection is always elusive.
It has been gratifying (and a surprise to many who know how reasearchy the first 20 years of my career were) to be involved in building a system that supports our troops so well, providing timely digital information updates never seen before and saving lives.
And FBCB2, for reasons never clear to me, went from flying below the CMM/ISO audit radar in its early years to being pushed as our trail-blazing project with Don Winters' heated-up emphasis on CMM/CMMI in 2000+. Again, I found myself in the right place at the right time, having worked with the SEI and others on process technologies on the STARS CRAD project in the early 1990's and applying process compliance to FBCB2 slowly and carefully in its early years. I was given lead software responsibility get us ready for CMM appraisals, and things just mushroomed from there. I look back and now think that everything I did in the first 20-25 years of my career were just preparing me for that pioneering role the last 5 years. A perfect way to conclude a career!
More importantly to me, FBCB2 was a project with management flexible and understanding enough to provide resources, leadership, and empowerment -- and personnel capable enough -- that allowed us to literally lead TRW and Mission Systems to CMMI Levels 4 & 5.

Among FBCB2 colleagues whose friendship and abilities I will greatly treasure and remember in retirement are Neil Siegel, Phil Allen, BK Richard, Joe Provenzano, Dave Bixler, Pete Bogle, Clark Lewis, Chase Dane, Ray Roux, Vanessa Chin, Peter Blankenship, and a healthly influx of new blood in the past year or two.
But, most important to me in what we've achieved in the CMMI world has been "Dr. T," Tom Carter, metrics guru and quantitative management expert par excellent. Without Tom, we could not have achieved Levels 4/5, as I now realize I could never have done what he did with so many metrics and analyses; in a sense, I planned our metrics strategy and he did it. All I can say is, you all better hope Dr. T never retires.

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