Martin Schmidt:  

Life After a year an a half at MJC I still had no clue on what I wanted to do in life so I ended up following a family tradition. I joined the Navy. I went into the Aviation community and worked on Aircraft Electronic systems. I spent two years stationed on an Aircraft Carrier that was home ported in Yokosuka Japan (USS Midway CV-41.) I saw much of the far East in my two year tour there. After active duty I returned to MJC and earned an A.S. in Electronics Technology. I couldn't afford to continue on and was tired of living at home so I moved out on my own. For the next five years I lived in Livermore and worked for a small electronics firm there as an Electronics Technician. The company manufactured Residential Alarm systems and produced Safe House brand products for Radio Shack. I applied at Lockheed and was hired in 1988 as a Missile Electronic Equipment Technician. I worked in a Quality Assurance Lab performing component level troubleshooting and failure analysis on Trident I (C4) and Trident II (D5) missile systems. Seven years later I moved over to MILSTAR, a military communications satellite that is used daily by our forces overseas. I was promoted to a salaried position and became the Responsible Electrical Engineer for the satellite test systems. In 2001, I came to Florida to support the final two MILSTAR launches. In between those I did some work on the GPS satellite program as well. Orbiting the Earth right now are seven projects I've had a hand in. After my regular four year tour I continued in the Navy as an Active Reservist for another 18 years 'retiring' in 2000 with 21 years 10 months of service. This was just a year before my move to Florida. Now I'm back on the Fleet Ballistic Missile program as a Test Director for an Engineering facility here at Cape Canaveral. During the years I lived and worked in Livermore, Jay Wallace was a Bartender in Palo Alto. I used to go over there and see him on weekends. One of his room mates had broken up with this girl I had always found attractive and we eventually started dating. I say eventually because she was ten years younger than I and was only sixteen when we first met. We actually didn't start dating until the END of my five years in Livermore ...Expand for more