James Poppinga:
CLASS OF 1968
Melcher-Dallas High SchoolClass of 1968
Melcher, IA
Indian Hills Community CollegeClass of 1971
Centerville, IA
Iowa State UniversityClass of 1970
Ames, IA
James's Story
I attended Iowa State for 2 years after high school and had a dismal grade record, passing C. I had great grades in high school but wasn't prepared for Iowa State. Didn't really know how to study. The Vietnam War was going all out and my draft number was a whopping 80. So I decided to go to Indian Hills, where I learned to buckle down and study and made the deanâÂÂs list for the semester I was there. Then the selection board said no more school and sent me a draft notice for the army. Not wanting to go to Vietnam as a grunt and at this time they were taking every 10th person for the marines, so next day went to Des Moines and took entrance test in the air force, got a 100% and signed up. I think when we were roofing I was still in the air force as staff sergeant. I had a great time in the air force as I was in Air Force Security Service, a euphemism for intelligence. It's now called Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency. I was an intelligence analyst and was stationed at the National Security Agency (NSA) at Ft. Meade, Maryland for 6 years with one year in Thailand after year 3. I stayed in the air force for 7 years, which is the total number of year...Expand for more
s youâÂÂre on the hook for military service once you join. Most people do 3 to 4 years active service and are in the reserves for the remainder of the time. I really enjoyed NSA. Lots of work but really interesting, as we were still in Vietnam I was an analyst working on the North Vietnamese civil and military air force.
When I decided to leave the air force I tried to get in NSA but they were only hiring linguists, so had to look to the private section. I had made friends here in Maryland and enjoyed the area and life. Finally in 1983 was hired at the Maryland Aviation Administration at Baltimore/Washington International (BWI) Airport. I started as a contract manager enforcing the custodial contract for BWI. And as I learned the Maryland procurement laws, etc. I steadily got promoted as people above me moved to other jobs. I went from contract manager to contract writer to assistant chief of Contract Support to finally Manager, Division of Contract Support. As manager I supervised other 3-5 contract managers, had around 45 contracts to help run BWI and an annual budget of $35 million. My hand was on the purse strings on all maintenance contracts so was well known at BWI.
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