April California Trip – John’s retirement

As I may have mentioned, John is retiring after 29 years with his company, and then starting a new job in Tucson. His retirement party was in Livermore, California rather than Albuquerque because that’s where his team is based.

On Sunday afternoon, the first week of April, John arrived in California, picked me up from Laura’s house, and we went to Livermore. We got a hotel in a convenient location, near a walking trail and an outdoor mall and plenty of restaurants. John went into work on Monday and Tuesday, and I used the time to catch up with my life coaching client sessions.

On Wednesday at lunchtime I got to go to John’s retirement party. It wasn’t a fancy party, just some pizza in a conference room and a slide show of a few of his many accomplishments and some funny times he and his coworkers had together. It was great to hear what his coworkers were saying. Unfortunately, I couldn’t take pictures of his coworkers, the party banners, or the slide show, due to security restraints. I was lucky to be able to go at all – they had to get me a special badge and I had to be escorted wherever I went. But I’m glad I was able to go, because it is a very big deal.

John was there for 29 years and did all kinds of very interesting science. He is both a materials scientist and an engineer. Early in his career he had a lab where he did materials experiments at the micro and nano scales. For example, for awhile he was looking into why over time batteries slowly lose their ability to charge back up. He used some amazingly powerful microscopes to take movies of exactly what the crystals were doing in there.

Later in his career he was designing and testing electronics. In particular, they were looking at how well the electronics did in extreme environments (such as during an explosion or impact). First the theoretical scientists would model how they thought the electronics would do. Then John’s team would design a physical test – such as actually shooting them out cannons or other fun stuff – and interpret the resulting data stream, and compare it to the models. That way they could learn how to make their electronics tougher.

John’s coworkers had many funny stories, but I think the biggest sentiment was, “Oh shit, what are we going to do without him?!?!” John is really very respected there.

Happy Retirement John, and congratulations!

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Kristina’s Website: Life Coaching for Adults with Autism