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40 AN T I OC H CO L L E G E C L A S S O F 19 6 5 5 0 t h A N N I V E R S A R Y B O O K A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z FINE ERNEST G. Sue and Ernie visiting Chicago. FAMI LY 4 Wife, Sue 4 Daughter, Pamela 4 Son, Daniel 4 Three grandchildren CONTACT egfine@cygnet.org L I F E H A S C E R T A I N L Y been in- teresting. My career was primarily in information technology, begin- ning right after college, but about ten years in, it included a side trip into chimney sweeping through Woodstoves and Chimney Sweeps, Ltd., which my wife and I launched, although I continued to work full- time.Yes, we both swept chimneys; more on that later. CAREER My information technology ca- reer was launched in IBM’s Federal Systems Division in Bethesda, Md., I worked on IBM projects for 28 years during a period that saw im- portant changes in the information technology industry: the downsizing of powerful mainframe computers, the advent of personal computers . . . well, no need to say more.We’ve all lived those years. I spent eight years on IBM’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) project programming and test- ing the National Airspace System and using automation to enhance the job of air traffic controllers.Think of me when you fly! For the FAA proj- ect, I was a computer programmer at headquarters outsideAtlantic City, and then testing in air traffic control centers in Los Angeles and Houston. In Houston, I met and married Susan, my wife of 42 years. IBM sent me to Washington, D.C.,with Sue,ostensibly for just two months,while waiting for funding ap- proval for a new transportation proj- ect for which I was slated.That fund- ing process actually took two more years. Unwilling to wait, I transferred to IBM’s Data Processing Division, left programming behind, and became a systems engineer. My primary ac- count was Giant Food, the dominant grocery chain in the Washington, D.C., area.This was during the period of rapid expansion of grocery store checkout scanning systems. It was different from other work I’d done at IBM and I enjoyed it. Next, I moved to the IBM Washington Systems Center where we assisted customers who were running benchmarks on our equip- ment. These were, generally, IBM’s largest customers. Their complex workloads made for one of the most challenging and interesting periods in my professional life. I continued to move around within IBM, becoming a manager in our regional office, then an inter- national support representative for some leading-edge projects. When IBM ran into financial trouble in the 1980s and early ’90s, it started offering buyouts to employ- ees, with a “bridge to retirement” for those with 25–30 years of service. I took what proved to be the last such buyout and established my own com- puter consulting company, Cygnet Computing Solutions. I worked for large and small businesses and busi- ness was good. Clients included the National Geographic Society; MCI; a nonprofit in the law enforcement field; a software company in Reston, Va.; and many small companies and associations. The attacks of September 11, 2001, changed all that. I retired from Cygnet and returned to government service as a computer scientist in the Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Defense (DoD). (I’d had co-op jobs at the U.S. Navy and at the IRS.) At the IG office, I worked with teams of auditors as they ana- lyzed computer systems of DoD agen- cies, to insure that they were meeting federal regulations and standard ac- counting requirements. ABOUT CHIMNEY SWEEPING It was in Mother Earth News that we first read about the revival of chimney sweeps as a trade in re- sponse to the oil crises of the 1970s. Chimney fires, while almost un- known before then,were growing in number, and houses using wood for heat were catching fire from dirty chimneys.No longer were such fires F I N E