Getting To And Living In Iowa

I grew up in Kansas City, Missouri and mostly attended schools there. I recently had a high school classmate ask how I ended up in Iowa and what did I do for a living.  So I answered:

After high school I had plans to go to MSM Rolla and even had a small scholarship.  I planned to become a mechanical engineer because dad was a auto mechanic.  Little did I know there was not much commonality there!

 

Dad went bankrupt and lost the garage the spring of 1954 so I ended up going to KCJC and taking pre-engineering.  Because I thought I wanted to be a mechanical engineer, my curriculum was loaded with drafting and materials courses.  BORING!  After a couple of years, Diane Price whom I had been going steady with for five years dumped me for a friend I had made at KCJC, a Navy vet.  Unhappy with school, no money to continue college and dumped by my presumed "fiancé", I became depressed and lost a bunch of weight.  A doctor suggested that I "Get out of town" and change my environment.  I joined the Navy because my grand father on mom's side was a sailor in Teddy's "Great White Fleet" - plus he had a "hissy fit" when I came home from Swope Park all enthused over a Marine exercise I had attended there and was talking about joining the Marines.

 

So, short story long, I enlisted in the US Navy which, upon hearing that I had some college, ran me through several tests which I sorta aced.  I remember sitting through the audio tests and not hearing diddily squat from my ear phones!  They quickly decided I had no business in communications.  But since that was the beginning of the missile race and I had some college training, plus I did well on their entrance testing, they immediately scheduled me for Electronics Technician training and later, for Guided Missile training.

 

In the US Navy I went through boot camp at Great Lakes, then I was sent to Dam Neck, Va. for Electronic's training and later, Guided Missile training.  I was enamored with submarine service so I made a bid, but since I wore glasses, I was turned down.  After graduation, I was sent to White Sands, New Mexico to work at the missile "pre-fleet" testing facility.  There, I was so supremely qualified that they opted to recognize that I was a certified "Water Safety Instructor" (the only one on base, believe it or not) and only a WSI could manage the swimming pools so they transferred me (TAD) or (TDY) depending on your service association, to the Army to run the swimming pools each summer.  I did get to do my "real job" each winter.

  

Pre-fleet testing of the Talos missile was winding down so they sent my unit to Seal Beach, Ca. to set up the supply depot at the Marine/Naval facility there.  The ship I was slated to go to was delayed another year, so I continued to be a land locked sailor.  I lost my interest in being a serviceman during that last year at Seal Beach.  Toward the end of my enlistment, I developed a little ditty "Six more weeks and I'll be free.  Then you'll see no more of me.  So tip your hat and let me be.... 'Cause six more weeks and I'll be free!".  Or whatever the remaining time would be.  Well, the Commander heard me singing it so I was given my separation in May instead of June.  At least it was a honorable discharge and no Captain's Mast associated with it.

 

When I was discharged, I applied to several local colleges to pursue an Electrical Engineering degree.  Missouri State Mining College - a reputable engineering college, then and now, told me that as a veteran, I was allowed at least one semester because I had served my country.  KU turned their nose up at the GPA I had at KCJC - for good reason!  But I did focus on Electronic Engineering because of all my Navy training and experience.

 

So I went down to Rolla.  Mom and dad said if I would sell my car and apply my earnings, if any, to my college expense, they would support me.  That I now know was a big deal!  I really was "in love" with the 1954 Olds 88 that I was driving at the time and almost made a dumb decision.  I was working at the shop dad was running - gratis - and was almost beheaded when dad accidentally dropped a pressure plate on me when we were changing a clutch.  I decided then and there that I wasn't going to be an auto mechanic!

 

I aced out the next three semesters because I was scared.  I did raise my GPA to over a 3 point from the 1.89 that I had at KCJC.

 

Okay, you are wanting to know how I ended up in Iowa!

 

So, when I was ready to graduate and was starting to interview for jobs, I was oriented towards field enginnering kinds of job like I had seen at White Sands.  I interviewed at McDonald Douglas, Bendix, etc.  Naval Ordinance Labs at China Lakes, Ca. gave me an offer that I really liked.  Collins Radio Company also gave me an offer that was competitive.  Then mom voted!  She said "I don't care where you take a job but it must be where you can come home on week ends!"  Okay, scratch China Lakes, California!

 

The Collins Radio offer was at $650 a month, at least $75 higher than any other offer I had, plus I did listen to mom's ultimatum, after all, she and dad had paid for more than half of my college!  So, up to Cedar Rapids, Iowa I went!

 

Now, I graduated in January, so I drove up to my new world to find a place to live on January 13, 1963.  I had a "service jacket" on, a cotton rendition of an "Ike jacket" that many service station and mechanics wore about then.  But when I drove up 3rd Ave SE of Cedar Rapids that day, I saw on the Gazette marquee that it was 10 degrees below zero.  Plus the street I was driving up had been plowed of snow but they piled it in the center lane and the snow pile was higher than my car top!

 

I do remember thinking "My God, Bruns, what have you done!"

  

There were at least a dozen Rolla grads that had been hired then.  There were also several Rolla grads in the company and there was an effort to make new hires feel welcome.  St. Pats was a big deal at any engineering campus and there was an effort to set up a St. Pats party that March (1963).  Most of my fellow classmates were married so I declined to participate the company sponsored gathering.  The designated liaison told me that he would set me up with a secretary in the department he was in so I wouldn't be solo.  I said okay.

 

Well, that said secretary had plans to go to her brother's house for dinner that night and wasn't interested in blind dates.

 

I ended up going solo but was curious about this gal who "stiffed" me.  So I went over to the Apollo area and scoped her out.  I was showed a beautiful statuesque brunette gal who really caught my eye.  For several weeks (I've been reminded), I would take a path through the Apollo area on my way to the cafeteria to get a cup of coffee, ogling a certain brunette.

 

We did start to date, but I was a Protestant and she a good Catholic, so to make a long story longer, after a year or so of dating, I broke it off over the fact I wouldn't convert nor would she.  While we were "estranged" often I would be returning on a Sunday morning after a weekend on the river and spot her walking home from church.  So, I would pull over and invite her to coffee and breakfast - she in heels and nice dress, me in river dirty garb, but she would say yes and we would go to a nice place for breakfast.

 

About that time, President Kennedy had started the Peace Corps.  I have always been a conservative but I also have also been a "volunteer", either singing in the church choir or volunteering for other kinds of things like working with handicap, being a Boy Scout Master, 20 years on the City Council, etc.  I was seriously thinking of leaving Collins and joining the Peace Corps.  But there was this major impediment, named Audrey.

 

In 1966 I capitulated to the inevitable "I can't get her out of my mind" and asked Audrey to marry me.  She said yes and we have been a team since Sept 5, 1966.  We had three boys, two of whom live in Cedar Rapids, married with children (two each, one boy, three girls) so there is no question of our becoming snow birds or relocating for the weather.  We have our local family here for every holiday and get to play "taxi driver" for the youngest of our grandchildren.  Brian, our youngest son - world traveler and bon vivant - and his wife come visit annually.  Life doesn't get better than this, for us anyhow. 

 

Professionally, there were some ups and downs.  In 1982 I was RIFed (Reduction in Force) from Rockwell Collins due to Pittsburg abandoning the digital switch business area which I was running.  For two years I applied locally and nationally but no one was hiring engineering managers.  I finally got on at NORAND, a local start up that established the route accounting market (hand held computers for route delivery trucks) as a Quality Manager.  I worked my way back into engineering and was Director of Customer Support when they "streamlined the management" in order to sell the company.  The VP I reported to, me and my direct reports were all RIFed in 1996.  I immediately got a temp position at MCI (who got established using the digital switches my shop designed and built in the late seventies) as a program manager.  That led to a permanent job from which I retired in 2002.

 

So there's my Iowa biography, warts and all.  I hope I didn't bore you such that you didn't get this far. 

 

I do like Iowa, but I could do with less snow and ice though, that I will admit.