After I returned from Saudi Arabia I was offered a position using my Aerospace Engineering degree working with the Aerojet Liquid Company for NASA as the test engineer.   

I conducted live rocket engine firings to complete the qualification test program required for the orbital maneuvering engines to be certified for 'manned flight' on the space shuttle.  I then processed engines 103 and 104 through acceptance testing and they were shipped to the Kennedy Space Center to be installed on the space shuttle Challenger.

After the Navy I worked as an engineer from 1974-77 as the project engineer where we built two phases of electrical power generation plants of 10MW each,  in modules in California.  We loaded the modules on barges for transport to Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, where they were installed and commissioned to be the pumping station power for the pipeline.   As the Heavy Lift engineer, I spent 12 months on contract in Saudi Arabia where I used my expertise with loading and unloading heavy modules onto ships.  

I was the operations manager of a local security company and I managed installation, service, central station monitoring, and accounting.  

My computer skills helped me manage the mini computer technology, programming and installing a fully featured accounting system for all the administrative functions, automating the business office.  

In 1987, I transitioned from the service side to the manufacturing side of the security industry and accepted a new position of reliability engineer and compliance officer for the equipment manufacturer we were using.  At this point I became a part of my second M&A action when the company was acquired by a UK holding company.  I was promoted to the business manager of the automation division because of my engineering skills and my central station experience.

This period included experience in the unique characteristics of entrepreneurial business, family owned and single owner companies; and how to effectively find the root causes in systems analysis, business analysis and project management.

In 2008 I began to focus on helping the small business segment through a massive shock as I ended up helping six of my clients downsize, shutdown, or radically redefine themselves.  This added significant depth to my crisis management experience as I worked through it with multiple client companies.   

My focus shifted to mentoring and training companies in product development, process and systems improvement, using a relationship-based approach to marketing and sales.  

I accepted a position with Arrowhead in marketing as the 'private label markets manager' two weeks before their acquisition to Scantronic. 

Scantronic, a public UK manufacturing company's acquisition was the third M&A action of my career.  I built a new international distribution network into 34 countries and was promoted to vice president of marketing worldwide, generating personal sales in excess of $50M in revenue.  During this time, I proposed a reorganization of the company’s global marketing operations to the board of directors.  They approved it and we then deployed this new marketing structure throughout our international business.  This consolidation repaired the branding in the distribution network.  During the eight years that I worked with this team, we experienced three additional acquisitions.  

I was solicited to manage the acquisition of a business unit, for a board of directors in the role of CEO in a technology turnaround.  We then completed the development and launched the product into the international market as a hardware and software product.  

I was offered an adjunct professor position and started teaching undergraduates in the business school at a campus in upstate New York. 

That opportunity provided face to face contact and hands on experience in teaching the existing text book business strategies.  My academic experience included experience of the rigors of teaching in academia, on-line teaching, open-source cloud-based student management software, and working in funded systems as opposed to profit-based systems.  I was able to make a presentation at an academic and state development annual summit that year.

The next pivot point came when I relocated to New York.  My work in new business models connected me with the state business development programs, and State University of NY. These contacts put me in a position where I was working with the best opportunity in the State, to research further into the mechanisms of motivation, what makes teams synergize, online training, funding of business growth, and my personal focus on how mindset and business results are related.