This week marks my 35th service anniversary with IBM!

To mark the occasion, this is my first of five posts to remember my career, seven years at a time. This post covers my memories from 1986 to 1993.

My first year at IBM

In 1986, I was graduating with a Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering at the University of Arizona. I had six job offers. The one from IBM wasn't for the most money among these, but allowed me to stay in my hometown of Tucson, Arizona, where my parents and siblings live.

A friend of my father's also argued for IBM, because of their decades-old "Respect for the Individual" no-layoff policy, and because I would be writing commercial software, to be used by banks and hospitals, rather than building weapons of mass destruction for the Military Industrial Complex. I accepted the job offer in January, expecting to start June 16, giving me a few weeks after graduation for my transition.

My hiring manager was Person Jeffries, and my future coworkers were already referring to me as "Person's Pearson person" before I had even started working there. A few months later, the Human Resources department of IBM called me to tell me there was a mistake, and they were rescinding the offer. I immediately left a voice message for my future boss, and he called back telling me he took care of it, to plan to report to work, as scheduled, on June 16.

I was assigned an office, near the Tucson airport, shared with my first mentor, Greg Van Hise. I worked on software development for the Data Facility Hierarchical Storage Manager (DFHSM) 2.3.0 release. This was software that moved data from disk to tape, and since tape was developed in Tucson, in made sense to have the programmers co-located here as well.

One of my earliest memories was a coworker stopping by to ask Greg a question: "I know this is perhaps the sixth or seventh time I have asked, but can you explain to me again how an IF-THEN-ELSE works again?" Greg was gracious in explaining how it works.

Afterwards, I asked Greg how someone who had been working for IBM as a software programmer for two years would not know this, and he explained that most IBMers, at the time, did not have college degrees in computer-related training. Our team had a mix of math majors, history majors, English majors, but I was perhaps the first on the team with an actual "Computer Engineering" degree.

My boss had also hired another employee, a lovely young black woman named Teraisa Logan. Six weeks into the job, I was offered a "Financial Assistance Package", for FAP for short, to leave IBM voluntarily. It was a generous amount of money -- two years' salary, plus $25,000 US Dollars -- enough to pay off the house I was living in completely free and clear.

I asked my boss what this FAP was all about, and he told me he thought he had "taken care of it", and that I was ineligible. Apparently, he was only authorized one job opening, and it is common to extend two offers, assuming one of the two candidates accept. In his case, both Teraisa and I accepted, and that is why HR told me earlier in the year that it was a mistake for me to be offered the job. Back then, IBM had quotas to fill positions with women and/or persons of color, and thus Teraisa was considered a "two-fer", having both attributes. In contrast, I was listed as a white male, of which IBM had plenty. My manager argued that I was also a rarity: a Hispanic with an engineering degree!

(Surprisingly, IBM Tucson has very few Hispanic employees, despite over 40 percent of Tucson's general population identifying themselves as Hispanic.)

My boss told me the FAP did not apply to me, and that he would straighten things out with HR once again. I would later find out, years later, that he solved this by having HR reclassify me as a Research/Scientist working for the Almaden Research Center, but working remotely in Tucson, to then transfer officially to Tucson in January, 2017. At IBM, it is always better to ask for forgiveness than permission, and this was my boss's way of resolving the risk that he would lose me.

Part of the reason for the FAP was that IBM sold off a portion of its buildings for tape cartridge manufacturing to 3M Data Storage Products division. Roughly half of the 5,000 employees of IBM were FAP'ed. Many left IBM on a Friday, took their huge severance package, and started working for 3M the following Monday, doing the same jobs, for the same managers, alongside the same co-workers, as before.

Master's Degree

Back then, IBM managers were responsible for the career growth and development of their employees. Since my manager considered "Hispanic" employees as a minority, I took advantage of IBM's offer to pay for me to get my Master's degree in Electrical Engineering. I was allowed to work three days in the office, and attend classes twice a week. IBM reimbursed me for all my books and tuition, once I passed my classes each semester.

With my Master's Degree in hand, I expected a raise. Instead, my boss was delighted to announce that I had switched from being "non-exempt" to "exempt", a rite of passage at IBM. When I first started at IBM, I got paid time-and-a-half extra for overtime hours worked, and we worked a lot of overtime. Now, as exempt, I get to still work those extra hours, just not get paid for them. For many who make this transition, it is a painful pay cut.

Later, in 1991, I was working in a department of software architects. My then manager, Sharon Johnson, put up a chart on the overhead projector, showing the amount of overtime each employee in our department worked. Myself and my coworker Greg Tevis were the bottom two, having worked the least amount of overtime hours. She asked why we were so "un-dedicated" to the company. In my case, I had just gotten married, and for Greg, his wife had just given birth to twins. The rest of my team looked at us with disdain, as if they were saying "Shame on you for having a life outside of work!"

Personal Computers

In college, I put myself through school as the database administrator for a local McDonald's restaurant franchise, and running my own freelance software development business with a friend, Franz Kurath, called "Pearson Kurath Systems". My first personal computer, an IBM PC that I purchased for our software business, cost over $5,000 US dollars. Wit this computer, my business was able to get qualified as an IBM Business Partner.

Now that I was an IBM employee, HR insisted that I no longer work also as an IBM Business Partner. Franz and I wound down our freelance business, and the franchise owner at McDonald's transferred my database administration duties to his son, Ric Garrett.

A few years later, IBM announced it would dole out 120 personal computers to the 120 people in my area. Given my expertise in personal computers, I was assigned the task to switch people from their bulky 3270 terminals to the new modern technology. However, I had a lot of resistance. "Why should I use a personal computer, just to emulate a 3270 terminal screen, when I can have the real thing?" they would ask. Eventually, features like cut-and-paste, and taking screenshots, would win them over.

Public Speaking

My manager had asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I admired most our two "Software Architects", John Young and Jerry Pence. They got to travel the world, speak at conferences, and help customers. IBM administered a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assessment, and determined that this would be a good career path for me to pursue, based on my "ENFP" result.

To my surprise, they were both happy to let me do the travel for them, as this was something they least enjoyed about being an architect. To help me become a public speaker, my boss had suggested that I get familiar with being in front of audiences by participating in poetry readings, singing karaoke, and open mic night at the comedy club. My Master's degree qualified me to take part in IBM's "Faculty Loan Program", teaching Economics at Sahuaro High School, Math at Tucson High School, and Computer Science at Pima Community College.

My first conference was SHARE User Group in Anaheim, California in the summer of 1990. I was only supposed to be shadowing my mentor, Eric Stouffer. Eric and I were supposed to take turns presenting different topics. He would watch me, and give me feedback on my performance, and then I would watch him to see how it was done. However, after my first talk, he decided I was good enough, and I ended up doing all the presentations for both us.

My first patent

In 1993, I had presented an idea to Jerry Pence, Lyn Ashton, and others to improve our tape RECYCLE function. This copied valid data from old tapes onto fewer new tapes. The next week, I went to Seattle to visit family, but took my laptop with me to keep up with email.

While in Seattle, I received an email from a friend on the IBM Patent Review board. He was reviewing a patent submitted by my co-worker Jerry Pence, and wanted me to explain some concepts and terminology. When I got it, I realized Jerry had submitted my idea as his own! I forwarded this to my co-worker, Lyn Ashton, asking her if this was fair. She was furious, stormed into Jerry's office, and demanded that my name, as well as her name, be added to this patent. It was filed as patent 5623693 in the United States, and later as patent 3053538 in Japan.

Where are they now?

My first manager, Person Jeffries, retired from IBM to teach math at the University of Arizona, and has since passed away. Greg Van Hise continues to work in IBM Tucson for Spectrum Protect family of data protection software, and I interact with him regularly. Ric Garrett left his father's business, and now works for IBM Global planning and operations. Franz Kurath now works for Comcast in Philadelphia, with a beautiful wife and daughter. Eric Stouffer, Jerry Pence, and Lyn Ashton retired from IBM. John Young left IBM to work for a competitor. Teraisa Logan transferred to IBM's federal division, which was then sold to Loral in 1993.

This week, I am celebrating by taking the week off for much needed vacation. If you enter comments below, I may not get to them until I return.