FOUR JOBS IN TWO YEARS
It was rather hard to get settled down again. I had about 30 rolls of 36-mm slide pictures to be developed, and learned to my
dismay that they would have to be sent back to Germany, as they were Agfa. Through one of our elders, Dick Ross, who was president
of World Wide Pictures (Billy Graham Association) at the time, I was put in touch with a Hollywood character who promised to do
it for me. Six weeks later he reluctantly did the job and didn’t even mount the pictures, although he charged twice what I had
been led to believe. I quickly organized a showing for our friends at the church and elsewhere and had a houseful of interested
people, including Dick Dotts, the treasurer of Pacific Mutual. Later, John, Will, Mother and I exchanged slides we wanted, or
had duplicates made, so as to give us really good sets. I finally had to throw them away because they became too brittle to be
shown.
Business Trip to England
I don’t remember much about my work those next few months, except that I was selected in June to head a study team to answer an
invitation of an English company to market its computer in the US. Electronic and Music Industries, Ltd. (EMI) had designed a new
computer aimed at the middle-sized business or scientific user, and wanted it marketed in the US. Our Univac II was by now
outclassed by other computers in the middle-sized computer market, and our 1105 was too expensive for that market. We badly
needed a replacement for the Univac II, but the engineers in Philadelphia, under Pres Eckert’s leadership, wanted to shoot for
bigger and better machines, not smaller and less expensive ones. The team comprised both applications people from the sales
department and engineers from Philadelphia. We spent about ten days in London to make our study, finding the British very genial
hosts (I had the most tasty fish I had ever eaten in a top London restaurant I would never have attended if I had to pay the
bill). We gave a qualified recommendation for marketing EMI’s computer, but only because we had nothing better. Management
turned down our recommendation and proceeded to develop something better, the Univac III (which never materialized).
The week-end I spent in London I spent with the Emery family, taking them to Brighton (London’s Coney Island) Saturday night.
Since all hotels were full in Brighton, we went to nearby Eastbourne for the night. Sunday morning, Dorothy said that since we
had gone with them to their Church of England service in Coulsdon on our last visit, they would go with me to a Presbyterian
church. There were three such churches listed in the phone book, but only one with an address which we recognized, so we went to
that church. During the sermon, the pastor made a statement alluding to his role as moderator of the Presbyterian Church of
England that year. That sparked my memory of John Bratt’s being given the ticket to the dedication of the American Chapel of St.
Paul’s Cathedral (mentioned in the last chapter) that was turned down by the incoming moderator. John’s British friend, who was
moderator in 1958, had told John he could make one friend and 100-odd enemies if he gave that ticket to another Presbyterian
pastor, so preferred to give it to John instead. Now here I attended, by pure chance(?), the one church in all of England whose
pastor had given up his ticket. I waited until after the service to ask him why. His somewhat embarrassed answer was that he
simply could not afford to buy the clothes he would be expected to wear.
Assistant Director of Product Planning
One of the several changes in Sperry Rand that occurred that year was the formation of a product planning department in
Philadelphia to represent the sales department’s viewpoints on new and improved products to the engineering department. I was
offered the job of assistant director at $24,000, and took it more because it was something I could get my teeth into than
because I really wanted to. But that entailed moving the family back East. Somewhere I got the yen for going to seminary
part-time, and Mary Charlotte thought she would like to go full-time. So we decided to live in Princeton (NJ), where one of the
leading Presbyterian seminaries was located, half-way between Philadelphia and New York, with good train commuting both ways on
the Pennsy. Accordingly, I borrowed Dad’s car and began to house-hunt in Princeton. I found one at 329 Mount Lucas Road that had
only three bedrooms, but we thought we could manage it, as Will could use the dining room as his bedroom.
We Move to Princeton
Back in North Hollywood, we made preparations to move. Our many church friends gave us a big send-off, and we started out in our
two station wagons, one towing the other. We thought we would go via the Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon, as the kids had never seen
either. Approaching Flagstaff we encountered a heavy snowstorm which dumped up to two feet of wet snow on the highway. We managed
to crawl into North Flagstaff, and get a motel before the roads were closed for the night. The next morning, after the plows had
been busy all night, we could proceed, so we went on to Grand Canyon, having our Christmas Day dinner at the lodge there. Mrs.
Chapman went by plane, as she could not stand the long ordeal of cross-country car travel, and it is well she did, for the trip
was somewhat difficult. But we made it okay, and finally got settled in Princeton around the first of the year 1960.
Princeton was an interesting place in which to live, but rather snooty. The presence of the Ivy League university (which Dad had
attended at the turn of the century) as well as the Princeton Institute of Advanced Study (an atomic energy think-tank) made it
very much an academic town. There were three Presbyterian churches: First, Second and Witherspoon. We tried all three, but settled
on Second. First had about 10% black members, Witherspoon 90%, and Second none, but that was not our criteria. Second wanted
blacks but they did not want Second. Any black that wanted to go to a predominately white church would go to First. When Mary
Charlotte and I finally got to apply for admittance to Princeton Seminary, the President had a long talk with us, in which he
explained why he wouldn’t accept Mary Charlotte at all (most women students failed to use their training), and would accept me
only on a full-time rather than my requested part-time basis. That ended that!
Will and Mary Francis both entered public high school in Princeton, and we found the school a very definite cut above the public
schools in other places we had lived. In Mary Francis’ French class, the teacher asked if any of the children had ever been to
Paris. Mary Francis was the only one who had, and even the teacher said she had longed to go there.
Eastern Systems Sales Manager for Honeywell
In early January, Andy Fischer (my boss and director of product planning) was appointed branch manager of the Philadelphia sales
office, the job he really wanted, leaving me reporting to a vacant chair. He was an adroit politician, and well able to hold his
own in the politics between the sales and engineering departments. I did not have that qualification, and found politics decidedly
distasteful. Hence when February brought no new head for the department, I was ripe for another job. The opportunity came almost
immediately. I received a phone call from an engineer that I had known at Harvard, asking me to have dinner with him, saying that
he had something he thought I might be interested in. I have made it a point all my life to investigate all job offers, which this
invite smelled like, so agreed to go. He turned out to be the chief engineer at Honeywell, and principal developer of their
current computer, the Honeywell-800, which was about the hottest thing on the market at the time. The newly appointed sales
manager for the computer division, Tom Armstrong, was also there, and after questioning me about my computer
sales philosophy, offered me the job of Systems Sales Manager for the Eastern US, with an office in New York City, at the same
salary I was then making ($24,000). I didn’t hesitate to accept, and terminated my more than ten years with Univac early in March.
One perk that I bargained for was six weeks leave with pay to take my family to the Orient within three years, in exchange for
giving up a stock option not available to me until October. Over the next few months I spent much time at the division
headquarters in Wellesley Hills (MA), learning about the computer and the products of the division. Meanwhile, we decided to
buy a home in a new subdivision not far from Princeton, where we could have a new house with our own personal options, and made
our down payments for the place.
Western Regional Sales Manager for Honeywell
Then Mr. Armstrong (the sales manager) asked me if I could recommend someone for a corresponding position to mine on the West
Coast. I immediately answered, “Yes, me!” Much to my delight, he concurred, particularly when I filled him in on my experience
there in a similar capacity for Univac. Then I suggested that it made sense to take my six-weeks trip before getting started, so
as not to interrupt the continuity by taking it later. He agreed to this also, and I immediately began planning such a trip and
making preparations to move back to the Los Angeles area. Honeywell footed the bill to get me out of my obligations to the
builder as well as move all our possessions to California, where we bought a house with a swimming pool at 6640 Gentry Avenue,
back again in North Hollywood.
The next few weeks in September and early October were spent in getting prepared for our second global trip, again with John Bratt
and Mother and Dad. The Lord gave his blessing once more in many ways: (1) Providing the money through my Sperry Rand retirement;
(2) releasing John (see left) from his pastoral responsibilities, again through Bob Bunn (see right) (who had not
yet gotten a church job); and (3) guiding me in planning for airplane schedules, visa requirements, and hotel advance reservations.
We enrolled Will and Mary Francis in the North Hollywood High School in early September and then asked to have them released in
early October for the trip. The assistant principal told me, “I can’t stop you from taking them out of school, but you must know
they will certainly fail their courses.” His prediction turned out to be completely false, as the kids once again took along
their books and assignments, and finished the school term with very good grades.
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