Opportunity Knocking

There is an old saying that hindsight is twenty twenty. You can clearly see things that you could have done after the time has passed. My old friend would call it thinking of something just after the nick of time.

When opportunity knocks it isn't always easy to recognize. It also doesn't always come without risk. Opportunity knocked twice for me; the first time I answered, and the second time I didn't.

The first one was easy to answer. It was 1971 and I was working in a factory in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. I had an interest in computers since I was in high school and I even took a little course in computer languages. I had talked to my sister-in-law's husband about my interest and that turned out to be the best thing I could have done. In October, two days after the birth of my second son, I was laid off from my factory job when production slowed down.

This was early in the history of computer programming; there were no computer science courses available at the college level. My sister-in-law's husband was able to get me an interview with his company outside of Washington, DC. It was a small company willing to take chances on things and people and they took a chance on me. I started as a computer programmer trainee and I managed to make a thirty-seven year career out of the opportunity presented to me, but I had to take the chance. I had to move my wife and two little children to a brand new area. If I didn't have the talent that I thought I did, I could have put my family in a difficult position. My sister-in-law and her husband were starting themselves and the best thing that they might have been able to do would have been to lend us money to get us back home. It was all on me then and fortunately it worked out.

The second opportunity came seven years later. I was still with the same company and I took a position working at a small research center at Moffet Field, California. The research center was run by the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA). While I was there I developed software for underwater acoustics applications. There was another group working at the center and our group shared space with them in the terminal room. They would spend time talking about packet switching and protocols. I knew they were developing software to allow programs on different machines to communicate.

I knew some of them and I could have gotten in on the conversation and maybe even changed jobs and joined their team, but this choice wasn't as clear cut as the first choice. I had a good job and my third child was on the way. I am not a free wheeling kind of guy so I didn't spend a lot of time considering the possibility. I concentrated on my work and I watched them work out their communication problems.

Some people know that DARPA turned its computer communication software over to private industry and it became the Internet. I was witnessing the birth of the Internet and I could have been part of it.

I missed a golden opportunity but I don't feel like I made the wrong decision. I was making a decision for myself and four other people; I had to keep their security in mind. If we are lucky opportunity will knock in our lifetime. We have to recognize it and make a decision to act.

It's a situation that brings to mind another old saying, you can't argue with success, but an allegory would be, you can't justify failure. A person that takes a risk and succeeds is said to be bold and one that follows his or her dreams. A person that takes a risk and fails is said to be irresponsible and blinded by his or her ambition. We can only decide for ourselves based on our own skill and confidence.