Back in 1997 Joe Johnson hired me at Integrated Composites (later Fort Ord Works) after my first company, Flightline Composites Structure, failed in Florida. I lost everything and had to lay-off all of my employees.
I arrived in Marina in a U-Haul Truck and lived in a cheap motel on Reservation Road for weeks. I was task to scale up the PPG helicopter strap program on a fairly aggressive schedule. It required that I come in at around midnight to reload the autoclave, so we could get in two runs a day.
As I lost my car, I would petal in on my bike, reload the autoclave and sleep for a few hours my office on the 2nd floor. There was a rusty old shower in the shop, and I’d be up at 6 a.m. without anyone having a clue that I was sleeping there.
I immediately fell in love with the Monterey Bay area, but Boeing lured me away with a contract, and I spent about a decade with them all over the world. Anyway, it is good to see this building has a new state-of-the-art life, and many of the FOW team now works for Joby.
