When my dad graduated from his drafting program at Oklahoma State back in the day, he wasn’t sure where he was gonna end up. He figured it would probably drawing stuff for an oil company since that was a hot regional thing.

It turns out the Space Race found him when a recruiting team from Sandia National Labs came through town. My dad did not visit with them when they came through Stillwater because he thought his grades weren’t good enough. Funny what doubt can do to us.

When a few friends, less celebrated students than himself, in his program got offers from the national lab, he had to stop and kick himself. And then he hopped in a car to chase the recruiters down at their next stop, and let them know he was a capable kid.

The recruiters agreed, and Dad ended up taking a job with a national laboratory- in a city he knew nothing about, and knew hardly where it was at.

When Dad and Mom drove through the canyon east of the city and then surmounted the last hill before dropping into the metropolis, he looked out on a large swath of brown, and in a moment of doubt, asked my Mom rhetorically, “What have I done?”

It was just gonna be a few years. He would gain some skills, and then they would find something else, something better, he told himself.

And then, once he was at work, he realized he liked it.

Dad spent over 40 years- a career- at that place. He watched the Space Race develop from his perch over the sandy soils of the New Mexican deserts. He watched satellites go from ideas to events, to essential, to everywhere. He watched the Cold War era become the Space Shuttle age. And he saw his fair share of raucous rockets and big birds as he tinkered with space toys.

My dad had a remarkable career in a fascinating arena, one with international and scientific significance- learning how to see and to communicate through tools at the edge of space.

Not too shabby for a Kansas kid not too sure about his grades coming out of college.