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TI: So what did you do? So now you talked about how you returned for your father's funeral, and then you were discharged.

MF: Well, I wasn't discharged right away, because they didn't have my paperwork. So they told me I was on leave, and then after I became, when my leave was up, I'd gone out to, I think it was Mitchell Air Force Base, I forget which base was the active one at the time, and told them what I, says, what to do, and they said, "Well, go home, and when we get your paperwork..." because I want to get discharged. So they said, "Well, when we get your paperwork, we'll go ahead and call you and then discharge you. So I came home then, of course, I have to get a job. So I'd gone to work for a while for a company called...

TI: Lockheed, wasn't it?

MF: Well, before that I worked for a small radio station for a while, WHLI, and working the board and stuff like that. But then I went to work for Lockheed because it paid a lot better. And they were doing actually these radar ships, you know, they had super connies with the radars and stuff on (them), they were doing that type of work. And I was there one week, and they went on strike. And here I am, they went on strike for about two months or something like that, I think I got one paycheck from them before. But in the meantime, I had saw an ad from the FAA in Alaska looking for electronic technicians, and I applied for it and they accepted me. They offered me a GS-7 to go a place called Iliamna.

TI: And this required you to get training down in Oklahoma City?

MF: They sent me to Oklahoma City for training and they sent me to communications school, communications engineering. It was twelve weeks, if I remember, and then also there was what they called multi-channel recorders, which they record everything that was being said on the air and stuff like that. And so that was two weeks, and then teletype school to learn how to repair teletypes, so that was four weeks. So we spent the time down here. Well, because I was really interested in electronics, I was making really good grades. So they told me, they asked me, to take the radar screening exam.

TI: Now in your memoir, you talked about how you were doing well, but here was kind of the influence of Tsuchino, she pushed you to even study harder.

MF: Yeah, she kind of... she just basically expected me to be number one, no excuses. And it wasn't... how do you say it? It wasn't a think saying, "You do this," it was just, she kind of gave you a look that she wasn't too happy. You know how a wife is, very subtle...

TI: And is that because you were kind of like relaxing, or what were you doing when she gave you that look?

MF: Well, I get it all the time. I get it nowadays. I was relaxed, I enjoyed the communication, I enjoyed electronic school, and I was making good grades on it. And because it was something I was really interested in, stuff like that, and when I took the radar screening exam, they told me I made a good grade on that, so they offered me radar school. Of course, I had a background in radar, and so that was another eight weeks at Oklahoma. And then we studied specific radar, ASR-4, which is surveillance radar, and so that's another four weeks, so we were down there almost a year going to school. Which was not bad. Of course, as a GS-7, when I got out of the Air Force, I was making a hundred and forty dollars a month, so I was making, with her allowance, maybe two thousand dollars a year on the thing. And the GS-7 at the time was five-three-five-five a year, so I was doing pretty good.

TI: Although the cost of living was much higher, probably.

MF: Up there, but I was in Oklahoma City. [Laughs]

TI: So from there you start this, in some ways, when I read your memoir, it was a pretty amazing career with the FAA.

MF: Yeah, I was pretty fortunate and stuff.

TI: Because you rose to a GS-15.

MF: GS-15, which was pretty much the top of the scale.

TI: Right. And they sent you to school, you got your...

MF: Sent me to Columbia and then Berkeley.

TI: So you got your electrical engineering...

MF: From Columbia, yeah.

TI: And did you get a master's, too, or just a...

MF: I got a master's in transportation engineering at Cal Berkeley.

TI: That's right, you did an accelerated year. And when I went through the memoir, it was amazing how you did this sort of as a team. I mean, you traveled a lot...

MF: Oh, yeah, we were always together.

TI: And she would always sort of encourage you to do well in your studies and take these steps.

MF: In fact, I figured out that if I didn't want to do some work around the house, I'd just tell her I have to study and she'd let me go. [Laughs]

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2016 Densho. All Rights Reserved.