Our paths diverged at graduation: I went off to Stanford in 1963 pursuing an MSEE, and Tom moved to the University of Chicago to chase an MBA.

The solid engineering education he had obtained at RPI served him well at U of C, where he did very well. Graduation brought him numerous offers, and he selected a sales engineering position at a growing semiconductor company called Texas Instruments.

Tom enjoyed the bachelor life in Dallas during his training, but soon he was introduced to a Latvian-born blonde mathematician, and not long after that, his bachelor days were over. During their courtship, Tom had visited me in California, scouting out his next job assignment, and it did not take much to convince him that California was in his future.

Biruta had graduated at 19 from Oklahoma State University and was working at Texas Instruments in market research. Tom recalls that, helping her pack for their trip west, he came across a mathematical statistics textbook he recognized. "This was the toughest course I ever took," he said, waving the book. Biruta smiled and told Tom to read the acknowledgments. In them, the author thanked Biruta for having solved all of the problems at the chapter ends for the professors' version!

The young couple settled on the San Francisco Peninsula, with Tom toiling for TI and Biruta moving into a marketing career. Soon, Biruta had to take time-outs for the births of Laura, then Alison, and finally Steve. Meanwhile, Tom's self-confidence, product knowledge - and that prematurely gray hair - had impressed a group at one of his customer companies, a group planning a startup in the data communications business. He was invited to join the founders as VP of Marketing and Sales. The other founders were subsequently stunned to learn that this gray-haired guy was only 26 years old.

The fledgling company, Vadic Corporation, took off, but soon bounced back to earth in the recession of 1970. Things were grim for a while, but the young entrepreneurs survived and eventually prospered. Their product line, using newfangled op-amp technology, was modems. In those days, one spent a lot of time telling people what modems were, and what they were good for! And the speeds, by today's standards, were pretty low. Vadic's first products ran to Bell standards at 300 and 1200 bps, a far cry from today's minimum expectations.

For both Tom and me, the working life had put a hold on ham radio and DXing. Apartments, work and small children are not conducive to such a hobby - a fact faced and dealt with by many of us who started as teenagers. Our equipment was gone-and so were our tickets, which had lapsed. But a request by a Vadic employee to use the company parking lot for Field Day induced Tom to come down and look around at the operation. That did it - soon there was a new TS-430S and a wire or two at the McShane home, and, eventually, another Extra class license, this time as NW6P.

Vadic was eventually sold to Racal, the British giant, and became Racal-Vadic. Tom, as a senior manager, stayed on and helped grow the company. But the time came to go on to new things, and Tom left. For a while, he enjoyed his time off, but eventually grew restless for new challenges. Biruta, meanwhile, had created and grown a marketing company, Bimark, to provide off-site meetings and associated travel for Valley corporations. Tom joined Biruta and expanded the company's services to provide IT and graphics support and advertising specialties. The combination worked, and the two have since built Bimark into a substantial company in Cupertino.

Tom's commitment to Bimark has left too little time for ham radio, but there is a tower and beams, an FT1000D with Alpha 87a at the McShane manse, and Tom has worked them all - except P5. Despite the time crunch, he has also managed to participate in a major DXpedition (YKØA), co-organizing the local PacketCluster User's Group, and by serving on the NCDXF Board of Directors. He also been touring many interesting spots in the world with son Steve.

Daughter Laura bestowed grandfather hood on my oldest friend by birthing a 10 pound boy followed by two more over the next 5 years. Perhaps his grandsons will get some use out of that great NW6P station.