Ross Dillon:
CLASS OF 1962
Barstow High SchoolClass of 1962
Barstow, CA
Ross's Story
Four years in the Air Farce as an Encrypted Digital Communications Systems Technician. Then an Associate in Industrial Electronics from Barstow College.
Worked as a computer tech for National Cash Register - Electronic Computer Division, Varian Data Machines, Burroughs Corporation, Data Automation, Sperry Univac (which sent me from California to DC, to Panama, to Costa Rica, then to lovely Guantanamo bay, and finally back to DC.) BTW, while I was down there I picked up a license to navigate the Panama Canal, which is needed to operate a small boat inside the canal itself. Then back to California, where I started to work for Computer Consoles Incorporated. Never heard of CCI? They had 90% of the world's installed emergency telephone systems at that time. They also developed interactive voice systems and other cutting edge stuff. For any of you nerds out there, they owned a class A Internet license. 45.x.x.x if memory serves. There were only 124 IPv4 class A addresses available for the entire world. Then we were bought out by Standard Telephone and Cable, a Limey company. So I got shipped from California to the Rochester New York division. After a while, STC got bought o...Expand for more
ut by a Canadian company, Northern Telecom. Being in Rochester NY was convenient because Nortel's headquarters were just on the other side of that big lake to the north. Nortel put me to work on their Advanced Intelligent Network while I continued to support the legacy CCI products. I never knew what I was going to be working on from day to day. It was the most fun I've ever had in a work environment.
Unfortunately, my mother developed Alzheimer's, so I moved back to California. After she died, I found out real quick that no company was going to hire a computer tech in his 60's. Too bad. I really loved the job. The last of the computer companies I worked for disappeared from the face of the earth nye unto 16 years ago. It was a rough industry.
After moving to New Mexico, I tutored math at the local college until they ambushed me with the nighttime computer lab supervisor position. I didn't even ask for the job. But I could hardly say no. So that gig lasted until I could no longer drive at night. At that point, I departed the wonderful world of gainful employment and was soon just another retired old fart. Which is essentially being a bum, but with an AARP membership.
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