A personal story given by Roger Stern, SN to SO3(SS) on Diodon
From: Anne & Roger Stern <rsternjr@halcyon.com
To: LDR <ldremily@Jobe.net; James W Barnes <mixie@up-link.net
Cc: JIM (HOME) SANTOS
<saintjim@earthlink.net;
CLEM BOULTER <ka5iyw@iglobal.net; GLENN BOOTHE
<gpboothe@email.msn.com
Subject: RE: DIODON CREW
Date: Tuesday, June 27, 2000 12:42 PM
Hi Don and Jim Barns ... and Glenn and Clem and Jim Santos too,
It was great to find Jim Santos' web site after so many years of looking for some Diodon contacts. I have stayed in contact with Jerry Conklin over the years and recently found Ole Paugh and Jay Everette ("Sweetpea") and Tony Valente. Glenn I remember you well because we were both Sonarmen. Jim Barns, I think I remember you as an Engineman or Electrician back there where people sweated a lot ;-). I still have a great photo of you Glenn, or maybe its Barns in the background at my qualification ceremony with L.O. (Lube Oil) Smith presenting my Dolphins.
I was a married Reserve serving two years active duty and left the ship in August of 59 as SO3(SS). Being a young man in the Navy helped me focus (a lot) on what I really wanted and didn't want in life. I'm still married to the same fine partner and we've done lots of fun stuff since I saw you all last. I enrolled in College that fall, and during the next four years completed a Bachelors degree in Electrical and a Masters in Mechanical Engineering and Business Administration at the University of Washington.
The Diodon came to Seattle (my home town) a few years later (early 60's) and I went aboard for a visit one day. There was a cook with a Chief rating who was still aboard, and one of the officers (Norm?). It still smelled the same, and my bunk in the fwd room across from the sonar shack was still the same (including my MK14 bunk mate). But things like that are about the people and relationships, so it was really a completely different ship.
My first professional career was in the field of data telecommunications.
Some of the products I helped bring to life are the data modems we use in our computers today, the magnetic strip on the back of credit cards for automatic dialing and account data transfer, and a product we called "Improved Mobile Telephone Service" that later became the Cellular Telephone. During that era we raised two delightful children who are now generating grandkids, and my wife Anne finished College and became a CPA.
My second career was a startup business in the field of machinery "Predictive Maintenance". It was an Engineering Service business using a new vibration analysis technique for measuring the operating condition of large rotating machinery. One of our customers turned out to be the US Navy and we did work for them on every class of ship for about a week at a time. It was great to go to sea again ... for just a week every now and then ... particularly looking at it from the Wardroom side of things. They sent us all over the world to wherever the ships were on station. The ships today are truly marvelous, but the Navy is just the same as in our day :). The Navy liked what they saw, and for security reasons they elected to buy our business and do it themselves ... and they still do.
My next career was in the field of product development for the Aquaculture industry. That was kind of an inside deal because it was a business that Anne had developed with some fellows here on Bainbridge Island where we live. They were manufacturing large trawl fishing rigs for the Alaska fishing industry, and wanted to diversify into aquaculture. You probably won't see any of my work unless you wonder around in the ocean a lot. My product was an open ocean holding pen for fish farming.
Anne and I decided we really enjoyed working together. So when that the Business was ultimately sold to a Japanese company, we started a small investment business which we operate from our Bainbridge Island home here on the north shore of Blakely Harbor. Bainbridge Island is on Puget Sound about ten miles west of Seattle.
Don, thanks for thinking of me. It's good to hear from you and I hope Glenn and Jim Barns will drop me a line if they remember me at all. I would enjoy hearing what you guys have been doing since 59.
Roger Stern
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