It took me 40 years to find something that I do well….

By Peter E. Demarest ‘52G

But I had a lot of fun learning what I should not do.

After Culver I went on to Princeton where I majored in Aeronautical Engineering. While there I set a new standard for “average”. We graduated just when the space program was beginning and money was being poured into high speed aerodynamic research. My engineering classmates and I all received job offers wherever we applied. I chose to go to the Research Laboratories at United Aircraft.

The UACRL at that time was undergoing a major growth. It was increasing its employment level by 40 to 50% each year….all with newly graduated engineers, math majors, and scientists both male and female. Everyone’s hormones were pumping. The parties were spectacular and the work was interesting too. During the ten years I was there I got to work on the inlet design for the SR-71 that was being developed by the “skunk works” at Lockheed. I also became an internationally recognized expert on a microcosm of technology; Thrust Vectoring by Secondary Gaseous Injection. I even gave papers at international conferences. During this time I got a M.S. in math. Overnight I became obsolete when NASA pulled the funding and chose to gimbal rockets in order to steer them. I learned that I didn’t want to start over with another technological microcosm so I left the research labs to work for a small manufacturing company that designed and manufactured test equipment that the airlines used when overhauling jet engine accessories.

Our growth at Bauer Aerospace paralleled the growth of the airlines and military jet engines. It was rapid. We outstripped our capitalization and sold the company to Anderson Power Products. Within a year Anderson was sold to High Voltage Engineering who didn’t want Bauer so we bought it back, 35 cents on the dollar. Capitalization was still a problem so we sold the company again after a couple of years. With these new owners I learned another one of life’s lessons……….don’t tell your new boss’ boss and the owner of the new company that he had made a stupid decision regarding a financing package. I was right but I was fired. I believe there may be a lesson there about diplomacy.

The next few years were spent doing a variety of consulting projects, becoming certified in inventory management and becoming a Certified Financial Planner. Then I was asked to become the General Manager in the State of CT for the Amtote Systems Division of General Instrument Corporation. In this position I was responsible for the data processing systems for the CT Lottery, Off Track Betting, and all the OTB facilities and lottery machines. I was also responsible for completing and opening a 1500 seat theater, restaurant and betting facility where live horse racing was shown twice a day 365 days a year. It was a blast. Each day brought wonderful new “people stories”. After three years the business leveled out and I became bored being on call 24/7. I accepted a consulting contract that paid me in six months what I was earning in a year.

That contract led to others and eventually I found myself running a company that made wooden cased clocks. We had the company growing nicely but I had two silent partners who felt they could do the job better. They made an offer I couldn’t refuse which I accepted. The company lasted about two more years.

More consulting work and then I accepted one final consulting/management position for another severely under capitalized company that made “big round things”. It was a large fabrication and machine shop that could cold roll a 6 inch square steel bar into a circle 19 feet in diameter, heat treat it, and then machine the circle to a tolerance of +/- 0.001”. After ten years I was last employee out the door.

For forty years when I’d get home with a load of problems I’d tell Linda I was heading for my shop and that I’d be back “sometime”. My “sanctum sanctorum” was a place where I learned to become a published ship historian and a builder of high quality ship models. A few hours concentrating there put many of my work problems in perspective. It took forty years to realize that this is what I should have been doing all along.

Now I have models in museums, articles that have been published, lower blood pressure, enjoying each day, and a backlog of work that I’m looking forward to doing.