[Rhodes22-list] Interesting Week

[Mary Lou Troy]

Roger,

I hope this turns out to be the job you want it to be. If not, maybe they 
should hire you as a consultant for a while and you  can keep your options 
open. Sounds like you've already got a good line on their technology.

Best wishes and good luck. And happy holidays in any event.

Mary Lou

1991 R22   Fretless
Ft. Washington, PA / Swan Creek, MD



At 02:50 AM 12/22/2004 -0500, you wrote:
>Michael,
>
>Well, the Missouri River runs right thru Kansas City, MO & there are several
>pretty big manmade lakes like Lake Of The Ozarks, Harry Truman Reservoir,
>and Stockton Lake within a few hundred miles in western Missouri.
>Smithville Reservoir is a small manmade lake about 10 miles north of Kansas
>City, MO.  Kansas City, MO is right on the Missouri/Kansas border.  There
>are actually more small inland lakes when you head west into Kansas like
>Perry Lake, Melvern Lake, Clinton Lake, Hillsdale Lake, Pomona Lake, & La
>Cygne Lake.  Other than Lake Of The Ozarks, I have no idea if any of these
>bodies of water are any good for sailing.  The Missouri River is open to
>commercial traffic, so it may be possible to sail on the "The Big Muddy".
>Lake Of The Ozarks is a really cool place to sail, on the map, it's shaped
>like a Chinese dragon.
>
>Owning a place right on the water doesn't look very likely.  Certainly, none
>of these western lakes & rivers can hold a candle to the Great Lakes.  I'm
>glad I got to spend so many years sailing these enormous fresh water seas.
>I'll miss living near the Great Lakes a lot.
>
>Hey, right now, I need a job.  You do what you need to do, right?
>
>Roger Pihlaja
>S/V Dynamic Equilibrium
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Michael Meltzer" <mjm at michaelmeltzer.com>
>To: "The Rhodes 22 mail list" <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
>Sent: Wednesday, December 22, 2004 12:46 AM
>Subject: Re: [Rhodes22-list] Interesting Week
>
>
> > good  for you, you are due for some good luck and but the sound of it
> > you are making your own luck, But you may have a dilemma, is their any
> > sailing in
> >
> > Kansas???? -mjm
> >
> >
> > Roger Pihlaja wrote:
> >
> > >Hi Everybody,
> > >
> > >Well, I've had an interesting week.  I've been interviewing via the
>telephone & a-mail for a Group Leader position at Midwest Research Institute
>(MRI) in Kansas City, MO.  MRI is an independent, not-for-profit
>organization that performs contract research for business, industry, and
>government.  MRI was founded in 1944 and had facilities in Kansas City, MO;
>Cary, NC; Palm Bay, FL, and Washington D.C.  MRI also operates the National
>Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO under contract for the United
>States Dept. of Energy.  The MRI facility in Kansas City, MO employs about
>350 people.
> > >
> > >The position I'm interviewing for would be a Group Leader of a small
>multi-disciplinary group of about 10 scientists and engineers doing research
>into sampling and measurement of aerosols; in the environment, on the
>battlefield, and in industrial settings.  I will need to get my security
>classification reinstated for this position.  This research is mostly
>concentrating on the development of small, fast, reliable means to sample,
>detect, and measure for the presence of toxic biological and chemical
>agents.  The US Postal Service and US Army are major clients of this group.
> > >
> > >I'm flying out to Kansas City, MO on Wednesday evening, interviewing
>during the day on Thursday, and flying home Thursday night.  Right now, it's
>not clear whether they would offer the position as a 6 month renewable
>contract or as a permanent hire.
> > >
> > >The way I got this interview trip is kind of interesting.  Last week
>Friday, I learned thru a headhunter that his client was MRI & they were
>interested in interviewing me on Monday via the telephone.  He e-mailed me a
>job description of the position.  Over the weekend, I researched MRI and
>specifically what they might be doing in the area of aerosol research.  I
>was able to figure out that MRI had recently spun off up a small
>entrepreneurial start-up company called Sceptor Industries, Inc. (Also
>headquartered in Kansas City, MO)  Sceptor Industries markets a
>concentrating air sampler under the tradename of SpinCon.  SpinCon air
>samplers are being installed on every mail sorting machine in the US Postal
>Service to sample and detect pathogens, like anthrax, being sent thru the
>mail.  The US Army uses SpinCon air samplers on the battlefield to detect
>chemical and biological threats.  Naturally, the publicly available
>information on the SpinCon air sampler doesn't reveal very much about how it
>works.  But, I took the marketing claims and reverse engineered my own
>design for an air sampler that could do the same job.  During my telephone
>interview on Monday, when asked about my expertise in air sampling, I first
>inquired about whether the group I would be heading up had anything to do
>with SpinCon and Sceptor Industries.  At first, there were several seconds
>of stunned silence on the other end of the line & then the interviewer said,
>"Yes, this group had done the proof-of-concept, scale-up, and manufacturing
>engineering to set Sceptor Industries up to produce SpinCon air samplers."
>I told them that all I knew about the SpinCon air sampler was what I'd read
>on the web site.  I then described how I would go about developing an air
>sampler to do the same job.  I went on for about 10 minutes & when I
>finished I asked, "Well how close was that to the real device?"  Again there
>was stunned silence for several seconds.  Finally, they told me that not
>only had I described the basic working principles of the present device,
>detailed several of the major problems they'd encountered during development
>& suggested reasonable solutions.  I had also touched on a couple of areas
>for improvement that the group was working on right now!  I just shrugged
>and said, "Well, sometimes you get lucky."  I thought the interview went
>pretty well.  This morning, I talked to the headhunter & he told me I'd made
>deep impression on the folks interviewing me.  Actually, the way he phrased
>it was, "You knew so much about a classified system that the guy was freaked
>out & they are going to be taking a much closer look at how the system is
>marketed in the future!"  Anyway, the next thing I knew, I was booked on a
>plane for Kansas City, MO!
> > >
> > >Hey, I don't know if I'll actually get a job out of this &/or whether
>it'll be a 6 month contract or a permanent hire.  At the very least, it's
>encouraging to have someone interested in me.
> > >
> > >Wish me luck!
> > >
> > >Roger Pihlaja
> > >S/V Dynamic Equilibrium
> > >
> > >
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> > >
> > >
> >
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