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1980-1984 S&S Machinery Company
Here I worked as a machine tool technician. My job was to install new electrical control systems on lathes, milling machines, gear hobbers, grinding machines, and other types, that were purchased from Asia and Eastern Europe without electric controls. I would design and build new control systems and install them on to the machines. I even made some of them into CNC machines using GE 1050 series CNC controls. (These machines were gigantic in size and weighed as much as 180 tons fully assembled). A 6-axis vertical lathe project I did was the biggest machine on exhibit at the 1982 Machine Tool show in Chicago. (See above) The 1982 recession hammered the machine tool business. I thought I might get laid off, so on a lark I took some civil service tests because I heard the jobs were secure. The tests were very hard and I did not think I passed any of them. The Postal Service called me in for an interview and told me my test score was one of the highest they had ever seen. I was hired to work there in maintenance in early 1984.