Raymond Ellis:
CLASS OF 1968
Franklin High SchoolClass of 1968
Franklin, MA
Franklin Junior High SchoolClass of 1964
Franklin, MA
Theron Metcalf Junior High SchoolClass of 1962
Franklin, MA
Parmenter Elementary SchoolClass of 1959
Franklin, MA
Raymond's Story
I was born and raised in Franklin, most of my family lives around the local area and has for the most part.
I really didn't graduate with the class of 1970, I dropped out of high school in 1965 and worked for 4 years at a few different jobs in the Franklin area (mainly Nu-Style Co on Grove Street, Clark Cuttler McDermott on Rte 140, and the Tulsa gas station across the street from Ficco's Bowling Alley) before I enlisted in the Air Force in the summer of 1969. I got my GED through the Air Force in 1970, that's where the graduation date comes from. I did my basic training in the summer of 1969 at Lackland AFB, TX, My first assignment was a DDA (Direct Duty Assignment, which meant I didn't have to go to a Technical School like almost everyone else did.) to Travis AFB CA. I was in Motor Pool Maintenance Heavy Equipment (463L, rough terrain loaders, forklifts, aircraft tugs, etc.) I was there for about 3 years, when I was chosen to be retrained into a SEA (South East ASIA) weapons mechanic. So I was sent to a 2 week school at Lowry AFB, Colorado and learned how to load B-52 bombers with all it's weaponry. After the school I was sent to Anderson AFB, Guam, as part of Operation Arc-Light, where I was given a team of men who also didn't want to be loading bombs, and we loaded bombs for 12 hours a day, six days a week, until I left in 1973, I was forced to take a humanitarian discharge from the service in the spring of 1973 when my mom was dying of cancer. After my mom passed away that year, I applied for re-enlistment and was accepted back into the Air Force in the spring of 1975. I had to go back to school at Keesler AFB, MS. for training as a computer programmer (quite a feat for a high school drop-out.) My first duty assignment as a programmer was at HQ Offutt AFB NE. I spent 2 years at that Location before being sent to HQ USAF Europe at Ramstien AB, Germany, where I spent 3 years as a programming specialist. in the summer of 1980 I returned to the states for an assignment at the Air Force Data Systems Design Center, Gunter AFS, Alabama where my career ...Expand for more
as a programmer came to an end, as I was needed to head up a new avenue for the Air Force, I had a hand in writing some of the very first contracts for the government to purchase PC's from Zenith corporation (no hard drives, dual 5 1/4 floppy's), also restructuring the Honeywell H6000 Command & Control computer hardware for the entire Air Force. That's how I spent the next 6 years. This work did not go unnoticed as it brought my next assignment from the Air Force into being. In the spring of 1986, I was re-assigned to HQ 21st Air Foce, McGuire AFB, NJ. I tried to get out of this assignment, but because of my previous expertise in the area of Honeywell equipment, I was tasked with reconfiguring all of the Honeywell DPS-6 computer systems that ran the Passenger and Cargo manifesting for all of the Air Force Bases East of the Mississippi River all the way to Incirlik AB, Turkey. So for the next 5 years I was on the road, visiting every site with a team I was able to hand-pick from all the PACS computer people in the Air Force. I would spend a month or 2 getting everything ready (diagrams of existing systems, new configurations, ordering equipment for specific dates at specific locations, and requesting personnel to complete the tasks) and then another month or more at each location doing the actual reconfigurations. In 1991, after the first Gulf War, I said "That is enough", I put in my retirement papers and got out of the service as a Master Sergeant.
At this point I worked around my home in NJ for about 3 months, then In the fall of 1991 I got a job at Deborah Heart and Lung Center in NJ, where I went to work doing programming and data entry for a prominent heart surgeon, this got my name published in several medical journals for my work in data analysis and chartwork. After about 4 years I started work in the Computer room and worked nights and weekends for the next 14 years. I retired from that job in summer of 2009 to move back to Massachusetts and be with my wife of 40 plus years. we now reside on Cape Cod and hope to be here for a very long time.
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