Richard Bitting's Autobiography
au·to·bi·og·ra·phy
[àwtō bī óggrəfee] (plural au·to·bi·og·ra·phies) nounlife story written by self:
an account of somebody’s life written by that person|
Younger Years - 1954 to 1973 |
|
I was born in a small town in Tennessee,
called Johnson City on the
26th day of February, 1954. I lived there until about 1968, when we
moved down to St. Petersburg, Florida. I attended
St. Petersburg High
School and graduated in 1972. On October 31, 1973 (Halloween), I joined
the U.S. Army. |
|
Military Service - 1973 to 1977 |
|
At first I wanted to become a helicopter pilot in the U.S.
Army. I took the aptitude test and missed getting in by about 30 points
out of 300. I then joined the U.S. Army in Jacksonville, Florida for a 4
year tour in the unit known as the
Army
Security Agency.  After boot camp in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, I went to school at Ft. Devens,Mass. for over one year. First basic electroncs theory, then training to become "MOS" 33C20, an intercept demultiplex systems repairman. Leaving there in spring of 1975, I then went down to Vint Hill Farms, in Warrenton, Virginia. Then in early 1976 I volunteered for an assignment in South Korea at Pyong' Taek. After I got there, I was sent down to Taegu Air Base and stayed there until October 1977, when I returned to Oakland, California and left the U.S. Army. |
|
College Days - 1978 to 1981 |
|
After leaving the U.S. Army, I attended
St.
Petersburg Junior College in Florida majoring in a 2 year Associate in
Arts degree in pre-engineering. After graduating with high honors (3.81 / 4.00), I transferred to the University of South Florida in Tampa.  I graduated in December 1981 with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering (B.S.E.E.) with a GPA of 3.01. |
|
First Job - 1982 to 1985 |
|
I began my engineering career with
Honeywell in Tampa, Florida.  I started developing Test Program Sets (TPS's) for a test system for the NSA.  After a while, I went over to Sperry in Clearwater, Florida for about 6 months, then was recruited back to complete the programs on site at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. I finished this assignment in December, 1985. |
|
Current Career - 1986 to who knows? |
|
After the program was over in Ft. Bragg,
Honeywell wanted me to continue in the field at Kansas City. Instead I
decided to join General Electric in
Huntsville, Alabama in January of 1986. I started developing TPS's for the Patriot Missile System. Then they began developing the Consolidated Automated Support System (CASS).  I worked on this system doing both testing and also some design validation. Then I went to Japan in 1989 for 9 months to support the GETS-1000 system there. After returning I had to choose between the Patriot Test group in Huntsville or move to Daytona with the CASS group. So I went down to Daytona Beach, Florida in 1991. After about a year there, I took an offer to head up the Navy's Test Integration Facility (TIF) up in Chesapeake, Virginia (close to Norfolk and Virginia Beach). The Aerospace division of G.E. was sold to Martin-Marietta which later merged with Lockheed to become Lockheed-Martin.  I stayed there until February of 1996, when I returned to Huntsville. I went over to Japan again for 4 months. Then when I got back, I agreed to a 2 year assignment in the Netherlands. I arrived there at beginning of September 1997 and was extended again and again. I completed 15 years of service with Lockheed-Martin on January the 6th, 2001. On December 15th, 2001, I finally returned back home to Huntsville, Alabama. Next adventure was about 3 months in Taiwan at the end of May 2002. I finally made it back from Taiwan at the end of August 2002 (and had a nice weekend jaunt over to Hong Kong). No sooner had I unpacked my bags, I was off to Israel for 2 weeks in October of 2002 (against my better judgment). It was fun. I went to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Ashdod, the Dead Sea and Masada. I rode a camel in Jerusalem.
On January 6th, 2006, I
completed 20 years with Lockheed-Martin!
|
|
