Careers and a Hobby

 

My interest in boats, shared with my brother, started when our uncle gave us a decrepit plywood pram.  It was poorly cared for and leaked.  We sealed the seams with roofing tar and painted it with house paint.  Then we named it “Tar Baby” in honor of the tarred seams.  Later, our family bought a boat for waterskiing, a sport we learned to love.  Next, my brother and I each joined the US Navy Reserves when we reached 17 y. o. and while still in high school.

My Navy service included crossing the Pacific Ocean twice (LST hull, then destroyer), spending most of a year in the Mekong Delta, next providing coastal fire support, and finally cruising north from Vietnam to Japan for ship maintenance.  My nautical education began with navigation school in San Diego and subsequently continued with real life experience and onboard texts as my guide.

One early morning, while on a training exercise off the coast of Mexico, I witnessed a rare event of the sun’s rays being bent, diffracted, by the earth’s atmosphere just before sunrise so that, for a few moments, I was able to see islands that were far beyond the visible horizon, more than a hundred miles away.  While crossing the Pacific, we went through the edges of a typhoon, experiencing huge waves crashing over the bow, waves sweeping across the deck, and the entire ship shuttering as the plunging hull intermittently exposed the propulsion screws from the seas.  From instances like this, I developed respect for the unflagging nature of the ocean’s power and its vastness.

After my release from the Navy, I went back to my mechanical engineering studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  The Pacific Ocean forms one boundary of the campus.  The school has a crew club (rowing), surfing team, and a fleet of sailboats at Santa Barbara harbor.  Taking a sailing class out of Santa Barbara, I was intrigued by the forces in play determining sailboat performance.  At the same time, I needed a senior research paper topic for my engineering studies.  Thus, I chose sailing hull design as the topic of my research paper.

I was able to design a system for testing scaled hull models in a calm swimming pool with valid and consistent results.  The drawback was that I needed to construct a series of hulls with varying parameters to test the influence of design changes and be able to describe them mathematically.  Simple photos would not suffice.  Researching previous hull design information, sparse in the published literature, I was able to customize mathematical equations and methods of projection to describe a limited range of hull forms.

My research paper was successful.  But my search for fulfilling employment as an engineer was not so successful.  Much of my duties consisted of reviewing architectural plans and financial data, looking for mistakes and ways to increase efficiency.  Our engineering department was blamed for project cost overruns; in response, I did a comprehensive review of the past ten-years construction bids (for projects to be built several years later) showing that, in fact, it was the marketing department failing to allow for inflation that resulted in the cost over-runs.  The big boss was a marketing guy and did not want to accept my facts.  I was disgusted and started looking for alternatives to these petty office politics. 

I considered a degree in naval architecture, but, at a visit to UC Berkeley, was told that ship design had no future in the US.  Designing ventilation, plumbing, and electrical systems for ships would be a better pursuit.  I considered sailing around the world (even to the extent of buying an ocean-going sailboat), but after reflection, realized that was just escapism, avoiding difficult career choices.  My degree would be obsolete by the time I returned from such a voyage.

I considered medical school, but a suggestion from my wife, Dawn, changed my career path to dentistry, a whole new environment.  My focus became people: biology, chemistry, physiology, and psychology.  In our classes, little was said about the molecular structure of the materials we used, that was for engineers to know.  Our dental text included a chapter with sections written by one of my UCSB engineering professors, but it was given little attention.

Was my engineering background to be forgotten?

I really enjoyed my career in military dentistry, not completely retiring until age 75.  There were many patients I could list where I was able to not just ensure healthy teeth but improve their lives.  That was always my goal.  Let me give one example: a woman (wife of a soldier) came to our office in the Netherlands in pain with her face swollen due to a tooth which had rotted off into her jawbone (no visible tooth).  It was a surgical extraction with ample drainage of pus, but I was able to treat her comfortably with adequate anesthesia.  After she departed, I told the receptionist, “I want to see the mouth that kisses her mouth.” (her husband).

Because her husband was a member of the US military, I was able to order him to come in for an examination.  Sure enough, he had significant dental problems also.  Neglecting your dental health can be grounds for separation from the military.  We treated both parents empathetically, comfortably, and were able to bring them into healthy, confident smiles.  Not just treatment, but education and motivation.  Then, they voluntarily brought their children in, and we were able to correct all developing problems.  We replaced fear, ignorance, neglect and shame with dental health and a confident future.  What better professional reward could I have?  This sequence was repeated with many other patients.  Being in the military, cost (other than not wasting taxpayer money) was not a factor.

Can I tell one more story concerning the base commander’s wife in Germany who was a dental phobic?  I diagnosed a dental problem of hers before even seeing or talking to her (but I had treated her husband who brought her previous radiographs to me).  His wife was talking to my wife by telephone when she mentioned that she had a minor toothache.  My wife whispered her comment to me.  I told my wife to ask her if the discomfort was on the lower right toward the back of her mouth.  She replied to my wife, "How can he know that!"  I had carefully reviewed all her previous radiographs before filing them and had noted a developing defect in that lower right area.  After her toothache was comfortably treated, she came in for a series of cosmetic dentistry appointments, completely overcoming her phobia.  How about another…. enough said.  I could go on and on.  Dentists tend to get little respect, but on multiple occasions I have witnessed the dramatic improvement in a person's entire outlook from a healthy, pleasing smile.  That is all the satisfaction I need.  

Was my engineering background to be forgotten?  No.  I went back to my senior engineering research on hull design using mathematical concepts.  Over the years, I have built 13 boats using my mathematical design approach and expanding on it.  While in dental school in Omaha, I built a canoe for the small nearby lakes and rivers.  While in Panama, I built a cartoppable sailboat for the beaches, and shallow reefs there.  While in Alabama, I built a twenty-foot, two-masted sharpie sailboat for the large reservoirs there.  During a ten-year period (residency, Board exams, clinic management) I was too busy for such projects.  Part-time work and then retirement have given me more time and a better workshop for my design ideas including two outboard runabouts.

I have enjoyed all of it: studying navigation, engineering, dentistry, woodworking.  My father taught me by example that being a professional does not require a college degree; it is your attitude toward the task at hand that will make you a professional.

Life is a process of learning and becoming; dreams evolve to plans, then to realization, while facing the challenges of new situations along the way.  We learn, grow, and find meaning as we explore the world around us.