1996 - Apple Computer - Monica Ertel

Monica Ertel
Apple Computer
Cupertino, California

Interviewed by Doreen Cohen, February 9, 1996

This is Doreen Cohen interviewing Monica Ertel at Apple Computer in Cupertino, Friday, February 9, 1996.

Thank you very much for making the time to visit today. I’m just going to ask you some general questions, and we’ll just go down the list here, and the first one is...

What would you say to the person who is entering a program in library and information science today?

Well, I would say that I think they’re in for a very fun time, that this is a fascinating career to be getting into, that it’s changing rapidly, that for people to be successful in it nowadays they have to be very flexible. I think that even just in our library here at Apple--I started it in ‘81--things have changed so much in the last fifteen years that if my staff hadn’t been flexible and I hadn’t been flexible we wouldn’t have jobs today. Things are just changing at an incredible pace. And also I think that the way people are viewing libraries is changing. And that some of the skills that I know I learned in library school are not necessarily skills that are going to make me or my library successful in the future. For instance, in our staff now training is a real big part of what we do. We teach classes on how to look for information and how to use the Internet and how to build home pages.

So you're talking about training people here at Apple, not just yourselves.

Right. Holding classes, being teachers. I didn’t learn that at all in library school. And I think that’s been a skill that’s been kind of hard for some of us here because none of us got that kind of training. But we’re finding now that that’s a big part of what we do. So, my staff’s been really great about accepting it and learning it. It’s kind of scary to get up in front of a group of people and teach them something and have enough confidence in yourself that you know what you’re talking about, but they’ve done a good job. So, I would say to somebody going into library school today, be prepared to have fun and be prepared to have the job completely change even ten or fifteen years and the skills that you need to be successful must always be learning and be flexible.

[Note: In reviewing the transcript for accuracy, Monica wanted to reword the last sentence for clarity as follows: "So, I would say to somebody going into library school today, be prepared to have fun and be prepared to have the job completely change every five to ten years. To be successful, you must always be learning and remain flexible."]

So is this a quality you look for in staff?

Definitely. It’ll probably be true in any company, especially here at Apple things change so much that if people aren’t flexible and get too upset by change, they’ll be really unhappy. This is not a stable place. And our library’s been stable. We’ve managed to survive lots of lay-offs and turnovers, but it’s disrupting, it’s upsetting. And people have had to change kind of direction on what we’re doing...but that if people aren’t flexible or get too upset by change, this is not a good place for them. And I have a feeling that’s probably true in most companies.

Would you say anything different if you were now a year later or two years later talking to these same people that got their degree and are ready to go out and look for a job? Do you have some further thoughts to share?

Well, I would say also as they’re going to school they should try to take advantage of any internships and practicums that they can, because I think those are the things that are really going to help them when you’re looking for a job. Not too many places I think have the luxury any more of hiring anybody who doesn’t have any experience. So whatever experience they can get while going to school--a part-time job, a six-week practicum, a two-week practicum. I’ve had teachers come, school librarians come and work for us for free for two weeks just on a mini-sabbatical to get some experience in working with technology. So, just even that two weeks makes a difference when they go out either to them getting promotions where they work, or being seen as experts where they work or going out and looking for another job--getting some experience. I think it is a great way to do it.

What is it that excites you about your work?

Well, I think the variety is really interesting to me, plus just this whole new world of information access is really interesting. The role of the Internet and the fact that people either can or perceive that they can go out and get information themselves and not necessarily have to go through a librarian or go to a library--is really interesting to me. Just the whole realm of how do you help people make knowledge out of information is really interesting to me about this. Many, many years we’ve been involved in supplying people with information, but not necessarily worrying about if that’s translated into anything meaningful, and I think that we’re seeing that change and I think librarians are being asked more and more to participate in designing the tools and participating in the training for people about how to be productive in this new information age. So, I think that to me is really exciting about it.

So do you still find that you look forward to going to work in the morning?

Yes. I love going to work. It’s a great job. I can’t imagine doing anything else. My job’s changed a lot. I don’t actually do anything (I have to say) in the library any more. I have seven departments and the library’s one of them. And the majority of the people who work for me don’t work in this building, they work in the other building. But the library is just such a part of my heart and soul that I want to be here at least half a day. It’s something that really...it’s my passion, I guess. The other things that I do are interesting, too. I’ve got a group that’s looking at intelligent systems or artificial intelligence--ways you can make documents intelligent. And an information retrieval group, not in the library sense of information retrieval...these engineers are working on the algorithms under types of search engines. And that’s really interesting and I think that my background is good for that. But the thing that really drives me and interests me a lot is how do you use it, and in the library is where you see it being used.

Who has influenced you in your professional life and how?

That’s a good question because I ask that of people when I do an interview for the Apple Library User Group Newsletter. Well, I think that I would have to say my mother has really been an incredible influence on my life. Just...not so much professionally, but just...six kids in our family. I was the oldest. I was born when she was twenty-one and the sixth sister was born when she was twenty-nine. And she got married young. But when the youngest started kindergarten, she went back to college. She went to school part time. She got two master’s degrees and she’s a school teacher now. And she’s sixty-five years old and she’s gone back to school to become a paralegal. And she’s still teaching. And to me that is such a incredible role model of someboday that’s always learning and who doesn’t think it’s too late. I’ve heard too many people say "oh, I wish I could go back to school"..."if I could start over again, I would"--why don’t you? You can! To me that’s just a great role model. You should always be learning and you should always...it’s never too late to pursue something that you’re interested in. So, I’d have to say she was just really a driving force.

So it was her influence that sort of gave you the attitude to go for it and maybe that's why you're doing what you're doing now?

Yeah...you know, it’s never...the worst thing that can happen when you go for something is that somebody will say no. And sometimes they might say yes! And sometimes you might fail, but that’s OK. The important thing is that you try.

Following up with that, can you identify anyone in a particular period or an event that you would consider the most rewarding experience so far in your professional career?

I would have to say it’s the Apple Library User Group. That has been just so much fun and so rewarding. I started it when I started with Apple. Because when they interviewed me for the job they asked me would I automate this library, and I said "sure," and when they offered me the job I almost died because I’d never even seen a personal computer, let alone used one. I was at Memorex before I came here, and we had a teletype machine and that’s how we did Dialog searches at I don’t even think it was 300 baud--it was 150 or something. So, I thought what am I going to do to keep this great job that I had just got offered. And I knew--I had been in libraries six years or so since I graduated--and I thought, well, librarians love to share information. I knew that from doing interlibrary loans and starting a library at Memorex--how helpful librarians were. So, I just put out a call locally to people who were using computers in libraries. And that’s how I found out about you guys at Menlo Park. And thought, well, if people can maybe...we can form this group and we can share information. And it will help me keep my great job, plus maybe because I work for Apple I can share something back. It will be a mutually satisfying relationship.

How has that evolved? Do you have listservs and home pages?

Yes, it has just taken off. I sent out a notice locally, and then I thought well I’ll send something to InfoWorld and some of the computer magazines. It just got to the point where we have over 20,000 members from around the world. Every single continent, even Antarctica. It’s a quarterly newsletter, which at one point was over 100 pages, and now we’ve scaled it back to 24 pages, and we’re just about to make it Web based. But, we have an annual meeting at the American Library Association conference. We have a four-hour meeting and bring people together. And we usually get about 200 people who come. We had a gopher site up. We’ve always tried to use technology to help us and kind of lead the way. We do a booth at the American Library Association conference, and I send out a call to people--anybody who wants to come by and show what they’re doing in their library. People do. It’s just been a blast. I’ve met people from all over the world. If I travel somewhere, I’ll just look in my database and see. For instance, I went over to the Far East to Singapore for a conference and I thought, well as long as I’m over here, I’ll send out a message to some of the people who are members of the user group and see if anybody wants to get together. And then I got an invitation to Malaysia and to Hong Kong and met with people there. And I did the same thing in Australia. It’s just my circle of friends is cast across the world. Plus I do get notes from people saying that this has been really helpful for them.

Are these mostly librarians?

They’re librarians. Primarily librarians. Yes, it’s called the Apple Library User’s Group Newsletter, and it’s..I’d say 85% of our members are librarians and 15% would be consultants or people who are interested libraries. And probably 45% of our users are school librarians. And the next would be university librarians and public librarians, and corporate librarians are smaller (10%). I keep statistics and analyze them once a year at user group meetings. So, that’s been just very, very satisfying to me to see a grass-roots type of thing. Really, there’s never been any funding for it. It’s grown to be the largest user group in the world. And how willing people are to help one another. You put a question out there--people are just willing to give their names and addresses and write long descriptions about how you print labels on an ImageWriter Printer or whatever. It’s given me a lot of faith in our profession.

That's a really unique experience.

Could you discuss whether or not you see today's challenges in the profession as being any different from when you graduated from library school?

Oh yeah... I think they are a lot. There were challenges back when I graduated from library school, but I think now...I think the challenges for anybody graduating now, are tougher than they were 25 years ago. When I graduated there were no jobs--that was pretty challenging, you know, so you were just lucky to get anything. And things were changing. You never had enough budget and that kind of thing still doesn’t change. But just the economy of the way business is conducted now in that you have to do so much more with less and the pace of change is so rapid. And users are much wiser about information. One of the things that really floored me when I came to Apple was how much people knew already about this mysterious thing called "Dialog." When I was at Memorex it was an older company. People had been in their professions for 30 years. They had their own ways about going about getting information. I would go to a meeting and talk to people about Dialog and I could find them articles. If they gave me a subject I could get them a big list of citations and people were amazed--wow--by that. And then I came to Apple and people would come to me and say would you do a Dialog search for me and search File 16 and use Product Code equals...you know...da-da-da... And I’m--oh, my God! These people really know--I’m not going to be able to impress these people with talking about Dialog. You know, they already know all about it. They were younger...

Well, that's what I was going to ask you--It was probably a ratio of how long they'd been out of school...

Exactly. That’s exactly what it was. They were fresh out of college and they had learned about Dialog in their university libraries. And they used Infotrac and things like that. So just the rate of change now is really so rapid. And the fact that our users expect a lot from us. They’re wiser. So, I’m trying not to be, you know...thinking back to when I graduated, it wasn’t that people were stupid, it’s just expectations were lower perhaps. But I also think that, gee, maybe we were able to offer better service back then because it wasn’t so crazy. You had time to sit and think about something. People didn’t expect one-hour turnaround on things. I remember people coming in and asking for a search and we’d tell them two weeks and they’d be fine. Two weeks...really! Oh yeah--that’s great!

And that really was fine for them because they didn't have such a pace themselves...

Right--but now you say two weeks, they laugh hysterically. They need it in an hour and they need it full text. Then you’d give somebody a nice bibliography with abstracts, and then they’d return it, and then they’d circle what they wanted, and you’d say in a month I’ll get you the articles...but it’s not just libraries. It’s every profession now. Somebody in the Advanced Technology Group the other day--we were talking and saying, you know, we just don’t have enought slack time any more and we need to maybe build in slack time. Sounds crazy, but you don’t have time to sit and think about things any more.

Going back to the San Andreas chapter, you were one of the (or the) founding member--I don't know if it was just your idea--could you tell me a little bit about how all that came about--deciding to establish a new chapter down in this area?

Well, there was the San Francisco Chapter and we used to drive up to San Francisco for all the meetings. The farthest down they ever came was I think Foster City for a meeting but even rarely. They were almost always either Berkeley or San Francisco. And that was a time when Silicon Valley was really growing and more and more companies were forming and hiring librarians and there just got to be a critical mass of people. And we’d be carpooling up to San Francisco every month or every other month to the meetings. We also found that our concerns were just a little different than in San Francisco where it was lots of law firms and banking. And that in SiliconValley high tech computer science engineering types of concerns--these little start-up, one-person libraries were just a little different. It actually...I was really a fledgling librarian then. I had just gotten my degree. There were some people that had a lot more experience and who I really looked up to--who’d probably kill me if I say "the elders" in the profession--wow. These people really had been around awhile. They had bigger libraries. It was Mark Baer at Hewlitt-Packard, Julie del Fierro at GTE-Government Systems. We decided to hold kind of an ad-hoc meeting up in--it was in Mountain View one night--and just talked about what we could do. And I sure remember that meeting. It was kind of scary to me being a new, young librarian talking about breaking off from the San Francisco Chapter. And not in an angry way at all, but just because our needs were different and we didn’t want to keep driving up to San Francisco. But Mark Baer getting up and talking about what we could do and brainstorming and leaving the meeting saying we were going to do it. And Mark was going to be the chair pro-tem. It was really exciting and starting off on a new branch of SLA that was really going to be ours and really focus on our specific issues.

Was there a pretty good response?

Oh yeah--lots of excitement and energy in the room and people were a little nervous, too, I think that the San Francisco Chapter would be angry and we didn’t want to create hard feelings. What if people didn’t really sign up for this. Could we get enough members and would there be enough support. Could we get people to run for office because a lot of the people who started it had been reakkt active in the San Francisco Chapter and they knew all the work that’s involved in getting a chapter up and running and keeping it viable. ASIS had tried a couple of times to set up chapters down here, and they always just died and that was kind of in the back of people’s minds--I see it just died again.

So, it sounds like it was the right time to make the change.

Yes.

Could you describe how you became associated with Apple and some of the highlights of coming on board here. Your previous experience--so what happened you came over here?

Well, it was kind of...this is a serendipitous story that I think has a real moral for all of us in the profession. Good things happen when you do good things. I loved Memorex. It was a fun job and I started the library there. I wasn’t looking to leave at all. And the company was starting to have some problems so people were leaving. One of the things I used to do when I was at Memorex was I used to read the Official Gazette every week, the US Patents Gazette. It was really boring--you know, this big, thick thing would come out every week. I would look up all the Memorex patents and then anything that had to do with magnetic recording or toner and things like that. And then I would send out a list to different people in the company saying these are the recent patents. And if somebody at Memorex had received a patent, I would order it and then send them a copy of it with a little note saying "congratulations!" So, I had sent one to Vice President of the Toner Group or Magnetic Tape Group. Disk Drives--that’s what it was--Disk Drives. And, no big deal--I did that for everybody. And then he left Memorex. But he was so thrilled because he didn’t know his patent had come out. He called me and was really happy. Well, he came to Apple. And one day there were a group of engineering managers getting together--the company was really small--talking about how they needed to hire a librarian--a library--because they needed to keep up with their magazines and what was happening. And he said, "I know a librarian" and he remembered me because I had sent him this silly 50-cent patent, and so they called me. And I really didn’t want to leave Memorex. I liked it. But they had me come over and I talked to them here. And it sounded kind of interesting. And then I never heard from them again. What happened was Apple had one of its infamous lay-offs and the people who had talked to me had gotten layed off. But about 8 months later, I guess, the conversation resurrected. Somebody happened to have been in that conversation and remembered me and they had my resume, so they called me up and I came and interviewed. And I just really didn’t want to start another library again from scratch. It was such a drag. I had built the library up at Memorex. I had been there about five years and we finally had a collection, and I had staff and it was nice--we had a room, and I didn’t want to fight the space battles. But, it just was so intriguing. And this company at that time in ‘81 was getting a lot of press. It just seemed like an exciting thing to do, so I said yes. And it was the best decision I ever made.

It wasn't that big, actually, at that time.

No.

So, did you actually have contact with all the main players?

Yeah--I was interviewed by a lot of the main people. I met Steve Jobs right after I got here. They took me over to see him. There was this guy in a little building and he had a dirty, orange towel kind of over this box. And I was waiting to talk to him. He was busy, and finally he got off the phone or got done talking to somebody and turned around and I just introduced myself--the guy who brought me over was busy talking to somebody else--I said, "I’m Monica Ertel and I’m here to start a library for you." And he said, "Far out!" He had sandels and bare feet--long, scraggly hair and plaid Pendleton or plaid flannel shirt. And I thought--what a difference from Memorex with such a button-down place to "far out!" "Come on over here and let me show you what we’re working on" and he takes the orange towel off and it was a little Macintosh. So that was ‘81 and the Mac came out in ‘84. It was really a prototype and they were off in another building. So that was really fun.

Was Wozniak still around?

No. He had just a couple of months before had a plane accident and suffered amnesia and was trying to decide if he wanted to come back. He’d been in and out of Apple, but he had pretty much stayed away from the day-to-day. I have met him a couple of times. A really, really nice guy. But, yeah--those days it was easier. Steve Jobs--he was president then, and he had an open door policy and anybody could go and talk to him. Down the line I hired some people and this woman was about 32 years old I guess, and she went to talk to him. And you could just go in his office. And he made some remark about how nobody over 30 ever had a good idea. And he was like all of 24 years old. And she was just inflamed by this! So she came back to me and said we have to do some research. We have to put together a list of people over the age of 80 who had great ideas, so we found in the Book of Lists people over 80 who had revolutionary ideas and we sent it to him and we never heard from him again. But, I’ll never forget that because he was 31 when he started Next. And I never forgot it and I thought--I wonder if he remembers his arrogant youth when he said that no one over 30 ever had a good idea. You know, Next hasn’t been all that successful, so maybe he was right! Maybe it’s come around.

So, any highlights, just thinking back over the years then. That was the beginning. Were there some things that come to mind since you've been here?

Oh, just the rapid growth of the beginning, hiring people on, building the collection, getting people aware of what we were doing. Just going into staff meetings in the beginning of other groups to tell them about the library and what we were going to do and being greeted with applause and people were so excited about having a library. And people have just...and I’m sure it happens at other places but just didn’t happen that much at Memorex...was how nice people are about saying thank you when you do something for them. How they’ll take the time to send you a thank-you note and copy your boss on it. And it’s really nice. And I think that when people treat you that way you tend to treat other people that way. So, that’s been a nice atmosphere. Another thing that sticks out in my mind is, gosh, I don’t even no how long ago it was, we had an Internet teach-in. And that was when the Internet wasn’t that well known. And we just sent out a couple of flyers about how we were going to have a talk in the auditorium about what is the Internet and show you some demos. And we had standing room only. That’s when I thought, we’re on to something here and we really need to capitalize on this. And make sure that people see the Apple Library as the place to go to learn about the Internet. That was a pretty big light bulb going off, too, and I think that changed some of our direction.

Well, I think Apple for those of us who observed it over the years has always been the ideal as far as support for the library. And that was another question I had. How do you think...obviously it would have to do with you because you started the library and it had to be something that you were doing...but also what else do you think went into that, that was a factor that the library has always had such good support in this organization?

Well, a couple of things. One is I think the fact, and I mentioned it before, people are young in the company and they’re right out of college. And I think universities are doing a really good job now of training students about how to use the library and how information is important in part of their curriculum and part of what they’re doing. They come to Apple and they expect a high level of service when it comes to information. And so, just the expectation is there. Plus, just this industry is an information-intense industry. It’s not one where people can get by on a lot of past history. You have to keep up with what’s going on or you get left behind.

Although there are other companies that it's not like that there. They do get by without the library. They don't support the library. It's the first thing they cut in hard times. What do you think is the difference here?

Well, I always get nervous talking about the because we’re going through hard times now. And, God, who knows what’s going to happen in the next couple of weeks or months. So far what has worked is, I think it’s the organization we report into has been a huge part of it. We report into the Advanced Technology Group, which is the group that’s chartered with looking five to ten years out to the future for Apple. And, when I started, I reported into a group called Corporate Engineering Services, which was a centralized engineering group that had drafting and the library and component engineering and testing. And it had a lot of the engineering service types of things and the library was part of it. I’ve had, I think, 17 bosses in the 15 years I’ve been here, so we’ve moved around a lot, although we’ve been in the Advanced Technology Group since 1987. But I had lots of bosses within that, too. We’ve reported into HR. We’ve reported into legal. We’ve reported into manufacturing, which was probably one of the strangest places, but that just happened to be because the guy I was reporting to got a promotion and we stayed with him. But, in one of the many reorganizations, I think it was back...well in ‘87 I think, I thought I’m taking fate in my own hands on this one. I always thought the library should report into the research research part of the company. And if you read articles and you kind of look at where libraries have been successful, they’re part of a group that understands what they do and why you need a library, the library just plain does better. When you’re in HR, it’s not so good.

So it's not so much a question of justifying yourself as it is being part of an organization that already understands the value to the organization.

Yes. I think it’s really critical. Certainly we’ve had to justify our existence, but it’s never that level of question, like why do we need a library? Well, they don’t ask that because they know why we need a library. They might ask, well, why do you need to spend so much on document delivery or online searching or why do you need to hire another person. Why can’t you use the Internet? But, they never ask the basic question.

The basic value is a given.

Right. Right. To me that was really crucial. And I approached the vice president at that time of the Advanced Technology Group. I told my boss who was going away at the time, worked with him on well, how about if I approach the VP and ask him if we could report into him. And I did. And he said--oh, that’s a great idea! So, it’s been a really nice partnership since then. I think he’s seven bosses ago or something for me...

Not the same person...

...but always whoever’s been head of the Advanced Technology Group has been really aware of why you need a library.

Just to switch gears a little bit, if you were going to interview someone in Silicon Valley about our profession, who would you pick and what would be your reasons?

Well, right now I’d love to interview our new CEO because I have no idea how he views information and libraries. I know Roseanne’s tried to contact Mary Holland up at National to say, is this guy an information user or not? John Sculley used the library a lot. As a matter of fact, he wrote his book in the library. And when he used to have pictures taken for articles, he’d love to come and have his picture taken in the library. Spindler didn’t use the library as much. So, I would love to talk to our new CEO Gil Amilio and ask him what his information habits are and how does he keep up to date on what’s going on. What could we do to help him stay on top. And offer him service that would extend what he wants to do. So, he would be somebody I would love to talk to.

First on your list...anybody else?

First on my list. Well, I’m not sure what I would ask them, but the Netscapes and the Yahoos and the companies out there that are involved in a lot of what you might call traditional library activities but don’t necessarily see it that way. I’d love to talk to them about how they see their companies’ roles in serving information. So, I worry about our profession sometimes. I’ve seen us think for awhile that we should all be CIO’s, chief information officers. And MIS was another thing. We never really quite made it there in those things. And I worry that with the Internet and World Wide Web and all of that, that maybe we’ll be sitting back and thinking now that’s someplace for us to go to. And it kind of goes by because the people that are in those companies and in those slots don’t even...the library doesn’t even cross their radar when they’re thinking about it. I think maybe in the Netscapes and the Yahoos they are. I know the guys from Yahoo came and spoke at an SLA meeting and what they’re doing is cataloging and classification. I see here at Apple people really appreciating that aspect of librarianship and library science and "getting it" and understanding it. So, I would really like to talk to some of those folks and try to understand where they’re coming from and where they see it and how we could fit into it. I think we have a good...there’s a good fit there. I don’t want it to be like these other things where we weren’t even on the radar. We thought we were. If you talked to an MIS director and you said library, they’d think--oh--books and quiet people.

Well, maybe that will be another theme for one of the faultline issues.

If you were not in this profession...and of course you're still a librarian at heart from what you've said, although your role has expanded...If you had not gone this direction however, what would you be doing?

You know, there’re so many things I’d like to do. I always think of my mother when I think of this. This is a really weird one, but I would love to be a taxi driver. I think that would be really fun because you’d get to meet lots of people to me it would just be kind of interesting. I don’t know why, but I’ve always thought that would be a fun thing to do. It would probably be fun for about a week and then you’d go crazy. If I was going back to school now, I would get a degree in something technical--probably computer science with emphasis on information technology. I wish I knew...I wish I was more technical about that side of our business. And so, if I was going to do it over again...but I have really just enjoyed so much about this profession from this side of it. So I wouldn’t want to be just a programmer or a technologist per se, but I really wish I could build things more...well, I can’t build them at all. I mean, I’m just not technical even though I’m in a fairly technical role. That makes me insecure. But I also think teaching would be an interesting profession to get into also, and I think they’re lots of similarities between what we do in libraries and what teachers do.

We've talked about the rapid pace of change. How do you personall go about changing with changing times?

I try to read a lot. I try to attend seminars. We have seminars at Apple all the time, and I try to go to those even if I understand every fifth word. Now I’m understanding every third word, so that’s a little better. And I belong to some organizations. I belong to all the library organizations and I try to go to those. But I also belong to some that are kind of on the periphory of library organizations, Industrial Research Institute and Industrial Technical Information Managers Group. I go to those meetings and try to pick things up that way. I also try to look at at least two or three Web sites a day, but it’s hard. It’s really hard. I never have time to go out and read in the library. My office is fifty steps from all those journals out there. But all week long I look at things and I print things off. And usually I have a binder or folder that’s a couple of inches thick and on Sunday afternoons I sit and read. But that’s basically how I try to do it. But it’s kind of scary sometimes because sometimes you feel like all you can do is skim. And if you’re trying to learn, it’s really hard to do.

Just for a little fun question, what would be the most important elements of your epitaph?

I would want to have something about how she made us think. Something about being people oriented or service oriented. But something about making people think and challenging people to think about the future and think about what people’s roles can be. I have a boss now that makes me think a lot and I enjoy that. That’s a good thing in a person, I think.

Since oral history interviews are intended primarily as a primary source for future historians, what would you like to say to the future historian who may come across this record?

Oh, God, I don’t know. I’m just an idiot! It would be--it’s not worth doing if it’s not fun. So, if you don’t have a passion about what you do and you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, that’s just pathetic. You have control over your life and make sure you’re doing what you enjoy doing because it reflects in every aspect of your life. So, there’re lots and lots of interesting and exciting things to do, and it’s never too late to change direction and just make sure you love what you do.

Is there a question that I should have asked that I didn't ask?

You asked really good questions. My gosh. I’ve interviewed a lot of people for jobs and things and been on the other side. Those are great questions. I think you covered it.

Well, just to phrase it a little differently, just in case there's a little something else we can get, is there a question that you wish I had asked?

No. I think you did a great job.

Sometimes I get a response to that. Well, thank you very much.