Technology Incorporated - Cardiovascular Lab at NASA

After the kerfuffle at Houston Speech and Hearing Center, where my pride was stepped on, I landed an awesome job with Technology Incorporated. TI — we called it “the little TI” in contrast to Texas Instruments — had a NASA contract to operate the Cardiovascular Laboratory at the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) in Clear Lake.

Referring to the photo above, here are some things to notice: My Rice diploma behind my head with an electtomagnetic spectrum chart next to it, necktie, electronics design manuals on the not too messy desk. I still recall my phone number 483 5554 - no area codes back then.

In a related memory — LBNP — I discuss our work. Here I want to describe some people and the work environment.

I worked for Dr. Roger Wolthuis, PhD. I mention the titles because he was a stickler for his. “Roger” in casual situations, but “Dr. Wolthuis” in high-toned business ones. He was a great guy — I liked and respected him, and he took me under his wing.

He was a professor’s kid: very bright, did well in high school, went off to college, exploded, and flunked out his first semester. He joined the Air Force and, for once, the USAF did a good thing. They recognized his intelligence and sent him to the Aerospace Medical Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio.

Three things happened there: he excelled, he learned the difference between Indians and chiefs, and he decided to be a chief.

After his enlistment he returned to college — undergraduate degree in three years, Master’s in one, and a PhD in Physiology from Michigan State University in two more. He had only been at the TI job for a year or so when I met him.

We worked well together. He encouraged me to write and publish, and he was an unmerciful critic of my writing — with tremendous results.

We socialized with him and his wife Donna, a lovely person. We visited them when Brittany was about eighteen months old; Donna was great with child at the time. Their house was not childproofed, and Brittany proved it thoroughly — we had to watch her like a hawk. Roger boldly asserted that their imminent daughter would need no childproofing; they would simply teach her what she could touch and what not. Two years later, we were over for dinner in a childproofed house.

Roger stayed on a bit longer than I did but eventually left to do research and development of medical instruments. He built a Van’s homebuilt airplane. We have lost touch, but I believe he still lives in the Seattle area.

The lab manager under Roger was Joe Baker, who had run the dog lab at MSU. Roger hired him away. He was a fun, matter-of-fact guy who did a great job and was a good friend. A group of us went out to celebrate his wife’s thirtieth birthday. She ended up in tears — she was officially old.

I brought Don Mauldin, my former colleague from Rice, into the company, and we worked in parallel for the rest of my time there. Don served the Exercise Physiology Lab, where the bicycle ergometer was developed for Skylab along with a gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer. The lab acquired a PDP-8 that Don used to serve NASA while growing his expertise. We still exchange the occasional email. He and his second wife Bunny live in Southern California.

I hired John Groves to join my group as a programmer. He was a bright, hardworking guy and a good friend — more on him in other stories.

Another programmer I hired was Tom Beale. We not only worked together, we golfed occasionally.