My Crossroads: Autobiography

Description

This is an interesting story about the life of an American boy born during the Great Depression from middleclass parents. He faced a broken family at age 10 which made him become independent and lead rather than follow or stand in the road. He was a good student graduating from college with a Bachelor in Business and minor in Accounting. His military career began in a Missouri National Guard Infantry Company before graduating from High School. After four years of college, he became the Army ROTC Cadet Colonel commander and graduated as a Regular Army Second Lieutenant with two years duty in the Artillery to be followed by eight years in the Finance Corp. After basic officer training, he was assigned to provide Fire Direction Training at Camp Chaffee, Arkansas. Later after completing basic officer's training in the Finance Corp, his first oversea assignment was in French Morocco as the Deputy in the Finance office of the Corp of Engineer Mediterranean Division. This Division contracted with Atlas, a joint U.S. venture, to construct a SAC bomber base, three TAC fighter bases and five Radar Stations in French Morocco. Also, the Division had projects in Libya and Iran. One of the sudden demands on this Lieutenant Smith was to immediately travel to Tehran, Iran and establish a Finance Office to support the development of Naval Bases, Airport runway extensions and oil pipelines for the Division's projects in that country. When he returned to the U.S.A, he attended Syracuse University getting an MBA Degree. It was here that his education opened the door to the growing opportunities of the computer field. From here he was assigned to the Army Management School at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Here he developed simulation exercises used in the training of Lieutenant Colonel's and those of higher ranks. Next he had a short assignment on the Finance Corp Board. This was followed by another immediate assignment to open The new Strike Command at MacDill AFB, Tampa, Florida. Today this command has been renamed as the Central Command. Still a Captain after 10 years, he resigned his commission while on a promotion list to Major near the end of the year. He became the Director of Management Development for a large manufacturing firm. Then he was called to be Assistant to the President of a large University. There he designed and installed a complete University Financial Accounting System using a central computer which served the academic programs as well as the administration systems. Here he was on the cutting edge of the "database" structure of records and was ready for the new concept of intelligent terminals for on line input. This was the beginning of the end to keypunch operations which no longer exist today. With a retiring President, he took another immediate job to save an on line Hospital Patient Care System which had been abandoned by its developers. This Hospital was part of a University and soon he had combined all computer services to not only serve the Hospital but the University administration systems and the academic need for students and faculty to learn to use the computer. Political changes worked against him, so he tried to operate his own business. Then took the opportunity to become the District Director for the Small Business Administration with office in South Dakota. This was a civil service job and allowed him to buy back the credit for the earlier 10 years of Military service. From his initial smaller office he was soon transferred to a medium size office in Virginia and then on to the Los Angeles District which was the largest SBA District in the nation. From here he retired and went on to volunteer in many organizations. In College, his father had required strict accounting records to reimburse all his expenses. This became a habit and then a hobby, so he kept records all his life. These records are included in the book as an appendix.