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TI: Well, so the last question I have is, I was trying to... when I think about your life and the life of Tsuchino, what can people learn? If you had a group of students, and they just hear your life story with Tsuchino? What would be the learning, what would be something that a young person, or someone just starting off with maybe their marriage, what advice would you give based on what you've learned with your life?

MF: Oh, wow. One of the things... well, let me back up, because it's going to take a while so you get the whole story. Is when we were in Alaska, one of the things I wanted to do was go to college, and so basically I did. And there was a friend also going with me to college, Silas Shannon and stuff, we used to fly to college at night from Fire Island to Anchorage and stuff.

TI: I think I saw a newspaper article of the two of you.

MF: And that was that thing, that picture there and stuff. And at the time, at the site, there was a bunch of families living at the radar site we were on, on Fire Island. And Silas and I went to college at night. Couple of the other guys went hunting, okay? Later on, when opportunities for promotion and stuff came in, we got selected, the guys who went hunting didn't. I remember one saying, "How come you guys are always getting the good deals?" And at that time, I realized the reason we got the good deals was because we were prepared. We went ahead and we developed the skills and stuff like that, so the opportunities come. Now, the opportunities may not have come, but when they came, we were the best qualified. And looking through my life and stuff like that, it's always been that opportunities come up.

Like the FAA sent me to Columbia. Now I had been working towards a Bachelor of Science degree in physics, I had three years towards a science degree, Bachelor of Science degree, going to school at night. And the FAA had a need for engineers. And so a consultant group told them, "Take your technicians, train 'em to be engineers, you've got people who were experienced, and they got the degrees and the knowledge." So there was a national program, and they advertised, I put in for it. I had three years, I got selected. They sent me to Columbia, full pay allowance on their time for two years, okay? And they basically, almost like somebody coming up and handing you a bunch of money and saying, "Go to school." And the reason I got selected, because I was prepared, I had the requirements, I met the requirements. Now, I didn't know this would occur, but I knew that getting the education and working towards this degree would basically turn out all right, it was going to do good.

And so that occurred, and so I graduated with a degree in, double-E and computer science and stuff like that. Of course, the FAA, being a government agency, there was two openings. There was one in computers and one in radar. Of course, I had a degree in computer science, so they put me in radar, okay? But I went ahead and took over a program to install radars in airports. Now, I didn't know it at the time, but the FAA headquarters was under a lot of Congressional pressure because the program was way behind schedule. Well, hell, I basically, I liked working on radar. So I had a crew, I was in the headquarters, but I'd go out and spend time with them, we'd install these radars. We installed I think about six radars during one year plus that I was there, got the thing back on schedule. They were happy enough with that, that they went ahead and they put me into this air transportation specialists (program), which was another national competition. And ended up getting selected, and they sent me to Berkeley for a year, full time, for a degree in (...) transportation, civil engineering degree kind of thing. Well, one the reasons I got... not only did I get a good recommendation from doing the radar program, that actually got me nominated. But I had a degree that was kind of from a good school because I got in because I was prepared. So having a degree from Columbia was a lot more, carried a lot more weight than having the thing from King's College in such and such. So I got selected. It was just basically doing the best you were capable of, not because of the fact that... just doing it because of the intrinsic value of having this, and once you do this a lot of times, unexpected things happen, good things. And I've been lucky on this thing.

TI: Yeah, no, I've heard a lot of people, that you make your own luck.

MF: You do.

TI: Which kind of reminds me of your software background. I mean, you started at a time when personal computers were just, just starting, this is in the '70s?

MF: Yeah. I still have an IMSAI 8080 at home, and it still works. [Laughs]

TI: So in the same way, I learned on the old IBM punchcards, Fortran.

MF: Yeah, did a lot of that, Fortran.

TI: And then later on. And so you, on those very early personal computers, had the foresight to develop what I call sort of more... what's the term? A vertical market application.

MF: But you know, that was another thing of just being prepared for the opportunity. I wasn't studying for doing this, I wasn't preparing to do this, but basically the personal computers came out on the thing, and I was interested in them, and I basically got to know 'em, okay? And because of that, my neighbor across the street, who was a dentist, had an associate who wanted to automate his computer, you know, computerize his dental practice, and he knew I was in engineering (and) computers. So he said, "Can you do this?" I said sure I can do it. So I went into his office and learned how a dental office works, went in and wrote a program, and then it turned out that not only did he need this, doctor needed it, these people needed it and stuff like this. So we kept developing the program, making it better and stuff like that, until finally Blue Cross Blue Shield of Greater New York had heard about it, and they wanted to buy it from me. And they also wanted me to sign on as a consultant. So it was just basically developing the skills and then something happened. Now, maybe something else would have happened, but I was prepared when it came along. And I think that's the main thing that young people should really realize. If you do the best and be prepared, opportunities come along. You can take advantage of it. If you're not, they go right by you.

TI: The amazing thing is -- this is a great place to end, but how far you've come since being this kid from Queens.

MF: Yeah. And basically, not only a kid from Queens, a poor kid from Queens. Yeah, I can remember going to bed hungry.

TI: Yeah, which is a totally different life.

MF: And I owe a lot of it to her. [Laughs]

TI: So I'm done with my questions. Anything else that you wanted to say?

MF: I don't know. I most likely talked too much. [Laughs]

TI: No, this was really interesting, this was really fun. So thank you, Mike.

MF: Thank you.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2016 Densho. All Rights Reserved.