Job History 3

 There were only two major jobs: SAE and Setpoint/Aspentech and I stayed 12 years on each one. I was offered a job at SAE the reason we moved to Texas. SAE deals with custom made software for companies in the area of Data Acquisition and Reporting. I was assigned to Shell Oil Company  in downtown Houston. Shell moved to Houston and they have two large buildings in downtown. SAE has a contract to provided several computer programmers to Shell in their CAO (Computed Aided Operations) department. I was a bit disappointed in this assignment as I thought they were doing process control via computer which is I want to get into. I was assigned writing computer programs in various areas of Shell Operation in the oil drilling and production areas. One of my last assignment was to developed a computer system which they load into a van. The van is driven into an oil pumping beam in the field. Attaching sensors and sending data into the computer, the software detects pump-off condition which is when the oil level down in the ground has gotten so low that the pump needs to be turn off and then turn back on after a predetermine time. They drive this van from pumping beam to pumping beam. It was so successful that Shell duplicated and created several vans in Europe doing the same thing. 

I can learned a new computer language in about a week or so. It comes easy to me. I learned Cobol in about a week, the easiest language there is. And so is Basic, Pascal, even Java. I learned assembly language for different machines. I've been programming in Fortran for years. My favorite computer language is C. I don't care for object oriented language like C++ although I can program it. And then there are operating systems you have to learn to be a proficient programmer. There is RTE from HP, DOS and Windows from IBM, Unix, and my favorite VMS from VAX. And then there are data bases of all kinds of flavor. I was doing a Radiochemistry application for Shell and recommended a new data base system called relational database from Oracle. Shell bought it. This is 1983 where Oracle was unheard of but Shell bought it. 

I should have bought stocks of Oracle huh? That goes with Amazon. At the advent of the internet Amazon was selling books online. The stock offering initially was something like $6 a share. Who would have guess it is in the thousand of dollars a share today. And that goes with Microsoft, Google, Apple. All the MAGA stocks. 

My term at SAE is coming to an end. I should have left several years ago, a big mistake. I've been at SAE for 12 years. I got a job offer and accepted a job at Setpoint Inc. Setpoint do advanced process control using several computer programs in the oil refining business. I was assigned to a computer programing group writing programs for various applications. I can go into two areas: either computer programming or engineering. I selected to stay in programming because programming is my first love. But I am an engineer with a master degree in chemical engineering. Should abandon the profession I went to school for and pursue my love for programming? I am in a dilemma. One foot is in programming and the other foot is tugging me to engineering. I stayed in programming. In retrospect I did the right thing because I love computer work a lot. Engineering was just a degree to me. The way projects goes is like this: The client's system is stage in Houston. Setpoint's software and tailed and loaded into the computer. The database is created and also loaded. The staged system is brought to the field. We go in and install all of the requirement software which consists of Setpoint's proprietary apps and some custom made apps. Here is here the control engineers come in. They tune the system for the advanced process control part of it. This consists of gathering a bunch of data, introducing pre-selected disturbances and collect more data. Once tuned the control is activated. Project done. The software is controlling the operation of most the crude distilling column and some smaller distilling units in the plant. 

Setpoint has many clients in the USA and also abroad. People are always travelling to places you normally vacation to. I was sent to Japan eight times on eight different projects. I learned first hand how Japanese people live, their houses, restaurants, what they eat and drink. The Japanese are remarkable people. Nobody wants to stand out. And they obey the laws to the letter. I was walking one night in a town called Kashima. It was slightly drizzling. Three women looking like elderly housewives were waiting to cross the street. There was nobody around, no cars and drizzling and yet they waited until the traffic light turn green before crossing the street. One night I was dining in a restaurant near my hotel. A young Japanese guy was making a ruckus and people were looking at him. Finally he left. I finished my dinner and was walking outside when two guys ran up to me. I stopped. They were apologizing for the disturbance created by the young man earlier. I wen to a McDonald fast food place near the train station. I got in line to order. When my turn came up, a young guy came up to the server and spoke in Japanese. He might be asking for ketchup or salt or something. The server berated him right there and there. I think she told him to go in line like everybody else but the poor guy must have fallen in line before. I rode the bullet train from Osaka to somewhere southwest. I sat on the wrong seat. The conductor don't know what to do. Several guys came in. One guy punch a new ticket, gave it to and me and ask me to pay for it. For that mistake I have to pay twice. 

At least my travel only last a week, two, seldom three. If you are not done you come back. Except when I was assigned to Shell Oil, Philippines. I stayed in the country for three months. It was fun as this is where I was born. Shell is in Tanaun, Batangas. They gave me a car to drive but no driver. I stayed in a nice hotel called Alpha and then in a Days Inn hotel. Days Inn is a 2 or 3 star hotel in the USA but this one can qualify as 4 stars. Nice room with a jacussi, nice restaurant and the service is superb. I enjoyed my time there. I drive to Manila on the weekend and stayed at Nicki's parents house in Lico and then returned on a Sunday. All expenses paid for by the company and eventually by the client. 

One afternoon while we were having a meeting, news got around that Setpoint has been bought by a company called Aspentech. This new company is based in Boston and acquired Setpoint for a miserable $25 million. Pittance. The owners of Setpoint saw the money, got dazzled by it and sold out. They did not know that Aspentech will gut Setpoint and most of their managers will be laid off or will leave. Oh Aspen gave all assurance that all will be well. They started this drive to create a Supply Chain software. They got into partnership with Accenture a big accounting company to do that. The problem is they do not have the expertise to go into that area. Setpoint's main expertise is Advanced Process Control. And so did a company named DMC which Aspentech bought too. DMC is the main competitor of Setpoint. So only one company emerge, Aspentech of Boston. All the senior managers of the former Setpoint were terminated or left. The bean counters took over the company. This acquisition happened in 1996. I stayed for another 7 years and then was laid off. Most if not all original Setpoint employees were gone by then. Later Aspentech was bought by Emerson Electric. The big fish being eaten by another big fish. 

There is a company in Houston called ABB. ABB is a huge company selling electrical systems all over the world. I heard they have this big project for NYISO which stands for the New York Independent System Operator. They are responsible for operating and maintaining the electrical grid of New York City. They also award the bids for the supply of electricity on a daily basis. The old system was antiquated and was blame for the blackouts that NY experience lately. They want to overhaul the system. The development is being done by ABB in Houston with cooperation of ABB San Jose, Ca. The executive vice-president and in charge of operation is Buddy Grierson my former boss at SAE. So I approach him. It turns out he need somebody to assist the ABB people from San Jose. I know ABB's system that used to be Ferranti Controls. So he hired me as a consultant. It was slow going at the start. The computer system is Hewett-Packard, operating system is Unix and programming language is C. The data base is a ABB developed data base called Ranger. The ABB SJ engineers started coming in. Mostly engineers with master and doctorate engineering degree, I am suppose to "babysit" these guys. The system is composed of two main parts: the Daily Bid and the Real-Time system. ABB has somewhat a software performing this but has to be tailored for the NYISO system. I know this system, Ranger database, C, Unix, even the display application using relational dabase algorithms. It was fun job. I was paid handsomely and was making $12,000 a month plus overtime. 

Work was proceeding very well. I developed a camaraderie with the ABB SJ engineers. I developed the man-machine interface and these were display on the HP monitors among other things. The system is coming together and the last tests were being made. However there is a problem. There is a five-minute program that is suppose to run every five minutes. This program does not finish in time. This is not acceptable. The program manager of ABB Houston talk to me to do something. I examine the code and found out that it is recording intermediate results into a file in case they have to diagnose the apps. Of course this is slowing down execution. I commented out this debugging writes and the program now can finish in less than five minutes. Some of the ABB SJ we up in arms by modifying their programs but there is nothing they can do. By the why those who were complaining are not the engineers but some higher ups that probably do not know computers. No clue. Finally the system were packed and shipped to Albany, New York. I took several trips to Albany. I was then offered to stay with the system in Albany for at least 3 years helping in its integration into the real world. Nicki and I decided to take it. After three years with the money I am earning I can retired after this jaunt. Nicki and I went to Albany to look at houses. I drafted my contract with ABB where they take care of a gardener in my house, allowance, plane tickets, etc. And then disaster. The president of ABB Houston was fired. He was involved in a bribe for a contract job in some place in South America. In America this is a criminal offense. And when the president left, my friend Grierson also went. No contract, no moving. So I work as an independent contractor for another couple of years. Then I got a job at Fluor Daniels in Houston as a Senior Principal Engineer earning a lot of money. The oil business is booming at that time. But this is an engineering job and I have not done engineering in years. I do mostly engineering computer programming not engineering design work. But somehow I fake it. Ha! There is a big project of a revamp of an oil refinery to process heavy crude oil from oil shale recover petroleum near Edmonton, Canada. Big project, lots of engineers they hired. I was assigned in telecommunication designing fiber optic installation. I learned a lot and being paid a lot for it. Then another disaster. The price of oil plummeted causing most of this projects to be cancelled. And the Edmonton project was one of them. Massive layoff ensued. I was laid off after working at Fluor for two years. Oh well. I am 65 years old and its time to retire. And so I did. At least I collected unemployment pay for six months or so.