My Career...
My jobs | My schools | My retirement | My personal life |

I retired in 2018 but I worked for 35 years in Boston as a computer programmer, for the last 15 years a web programmer. I had other jobs before this but I went back to college and became a computer programmer, so that is what I did for the bulk of my career. I worked for Safety Insurance in the Financial District in Boston for the last 24 years of my working life. I feel very lucky that I discovered this profession that I liked so much when I was younger. As it did for many people, working in hi-tech (and writing code) became my thing.

I worked in the Boston Financial District for decades and commuted by boat from Hingham where I live.
 
Financial District Map
Working in Boston
Hingham is a
Boston suburb
My commute
from Hingham
Boat route

My jobs

These are the jobs I had after college as a computer programmer, listed in reverse chronological order (most recent at top), with the computers and coding languages shown for each company. I had many jobs before I went to college and became a programmer in 1983, but they are not listed here.

1994-2018

Safety Insurance, Boston, MA — the job I retired from (see location in aerial view of downtown Boston)
Perl on Linux servers, VisualAge-RPG on AS/400 computers

PowerDesk
When I started at Safety in 1994 they had only auto policies and AS/400 computers and software. The company had green screen (green dot-matrix lettering on a black background) applications running on AS/400 monitors in their office, which I had nothing to do with because I was hired to create PC apps for their agents. After a few years they started selling homeowners policies and set up a website (I had a website of my own, this one, but I was not initially on the web development team). I was hired because I had strong PC skills and using IBM's VisualAge-RPG I developed client-server apps that ran on PCs with OS/2 operating systems (I had to learn OS/2). The main app had the name PowerDesk and it provided information about auto policies, and we also created Billing and Claims apps. All the data for Safety Insurance policies resides on AS/400s and we used client-server apps to access it. We initially had to install the apps we created on PCs in our agents' offices (we gave them PCs with OS/2), then VARPG migrated to Windows, which all the agents' offices had and we created Windows apps—but then VARPG was discontinued by IBM so our client-server apps became web-based (and I learned Java and Perl and became a web programmer) and our software was run on our servers, accessible on the Internet on a company website. For the last 15 years I was a web programmer using primarily Perl, but also Java, HTML, JavaScript,

Margarette
and various new development software like jQuery and Markdown, all running on Linux servers (I had to learn Linux). I used Samba to access files on the servers from a Windows PC during program development, and I used the TortoiseCVS version control software to integrate the Linux servers to Windows Explorer (this software showed what coding changes were made before installation). When our software became web based we created all kinds of new apps including reports. Safety is where I met my good friend and regular walking partner, Margarette, and we have done a 20-mile fundraising walk every year since 1999 and done daily, lunchtime walks from our office in this building..

Safety used to have casual dress summers, then in the fall we went back to full dress. In 1998 the company decided not to go back so I stopped wearing suits to work. Since then the only time I wear a suit is to a wedding, usually of friends' kids (and mine).

Safety has 3 websites I worked on:
  • SafetyInsurance.com - the public website
  • AVC (Agents Virtual Community) - our agents access our apps here using certs
  • SVC (Safety Virtual Community) - the inhouse website used by employees
1988-1994

Carter Rice Paper Co., Boston, MA – this was a Boston division of International Paper (IP).
RPG initially on IBM System/38 then on AS/400 computers.
This was the first job I had where I could work from home, dialing up to the computer at work using a modem like we did in those days (because I needed this access for 24/7 support the company paid for a separate phone line to my house for the modem). I only did this at night, going to work in the office every day. One of the things that was interesting about this job was the occasional travel to other Carter Rice locations all over the East Coast including Washington (DC), New York City, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Harrisburg (PA). I most frequently went to the Washington and New York offices, and took one‑time trips to Charlotte (NC). Kansas City, Cincinnati, and Chicago (where I flew back with half-cooked deep-dish pizza in the overhead storage bin on the plane).
This company was located on Summer Street across the bridge from downtown Boston.
My first job commuting to Boston by commuter boat, which I did for the rest of my career.

1985-1988

National Teledata, Norwell, MA
COBOL and RPG on IBM System/38 computer
This was a startup company providing software to process medical claims for insurance companies.
Doctors' offices ran our software on PCs and dialed up to us to edit and submit their claims.
We had people who wrote the PC software, and I wrote the software that received the claims and called specific programs for insurance companies. I was one of the first programmers hired.
When we ordered our computer from IBM I worked for several months at IBM in Providence, RI, an hour commute from my home.
An appealing part of this job is that it was in an office park a 15-minute drive from my home. Both my kids were born when I worked there.

1984-1985

Harper & Shuman, Cambridge, MA
COBOL on Digital (DEC) VAX computer.
The first time I used COBOL, the language I learned in college.
The company was a provider of project control and financial management software to architectural and engineering firms.
I wrote custom applications.

1983-1984

ADP (Automatic Data Processing), Waltham, MA
English programming language on MicroData computer
The company's main business is payroll systems, which I had nothing to do with.
I worked in a department that provided custom programming for small businesses.
An interesting part of this job was going to customers' offices to upgrade their MicroData computer operating systems.
Another interesting part of this job is that I drove up Rt. 128 to Waltham in bumper-to-bumper traffic to commute, not something I have done since.
I went for 2 weeks of training at the headquarters in New Jersey, the first time I ever flew on a plane for work. Boston had a snowstorm while I was away and my wife had to shovel our driveway.
My first programming job after college.
It was a terrible rush hour commute up Route 128 to Waltham.

My schools

I went to many years of college at these schools but kept changing my field of study before graduating: The school I eventually graduated from in 1983 (CCE) I was at for only a year, and I had a great, well-paying career for decades before I retired in 2018.
    Idaho (home state):
  • 1966-1968 - University of Idaho (Moscow, ID, aerial view) - I majored in Mechanical Engineering, my first college after I graduated from high school
    Boston area:
      Computer programming:
When I first went to college in 1966 I majored in Mechanical Engineering (I had high SAT math scores in high school) at the University of Idaho in Moscow, ID, my home state college (where both my parents had graduated). After a couple of years I quit college and moved to Seattle (where I worked for Boeing because I had learned to read blueprints in my engineering studies). I had started playing guitar in college and played regularly and got quite good and started playing jazz. Then after years of reading Downbeat magazine (a jazz magazine) and reading that a lot of jazz musicians had gone to college at Berklee College of Music in Boston I moved to Boston and went back to school majoring in music where I was asked to switch to upright bass because the school had an abundance of guitar players and a shortage of bass players. After 2 years at Berklee (1973-1975) I had a summer job that became a fulltime job, and I enjoyed having an income that allowed me to buy new stereo components and a TV, so I decided to take a break from college and stop being a "student pauper." Because I could read blueprints I looked for work in manufacturing. Due to my natural upward mobility, after a few years I became Manufacturing Manager at a plastics company (AAA Plastics) in Boston that had a job shop that made parts for electronics companies, but I realized it was a career I had not chosen. When a friend quit her job as a school teacher and went back to school to become a programmer I found that very appealing, so I interviewed at several schools around Boston and took a one-year course in computer programming, graduating in 1983. After I was working as a programmer I took classes at MIT and Northeastern. For the last 35 years of my career before I retired I was a computer programmer (ultimately a web-programmer), and I commuted to Boston from Hingham, where we lived, by commuter boat and worked in the Financial District.

After retiring, though I've learned and used many programming languages, the only programming language I use now is HTML for this website (and a little JavaScript). I've put a few Java and Perl things on the site but I don't code any of those anymore.

I never realized how sexist programming has become until I read an article pointing out that although the earlier programmers in the 50s and 60s, who wrote the code on the first computers, were mostly women (Margaret Hamilton wrote critical software used on the Apollo 11 Moon Landing), programming has become a primarily male occupation (unfortunately there is much reflective sexism and racism in Silicon Valley). I have known many women programmers and my managers on my first two jobs were women programmers, so I don't entirely agree with this. More power to women programmers!

My retirement
  I retired in May, 2018, after college and many decades working as a computer programmer, the last job at Safety Insurance for 24 years, and even though our office had the official designated address of "20 Custom House Street" that was a side street so the front door to the building that everybody used was on Broad Street (note the 20 address on the column). I turned 70 that April, which is when I had planned to retire, but I couldn't leave the company just yet because since 1999 I have done a 20-mile fundraising walk, the Walk for Hunger, the first week of May every year with my very good friend and colleague Margarette that I collect donations for at work (the company generously matches pledges from my colleagues), so I didn't retire until after the walk in May (I miss you, Margarette, and our daily walks). I took up Perl as my main programming language and became a web programmer for the last 15 years of my career, and I was making over $100,000/year when I retired.
  • Retirement is not what I expected (not that I ever thought about it before it happened), but I am enjoying my life.
  • An interesting thing about retirement is that you know you will do it your whole life but when it happens it still requires major adjustment!
  • After commuting to Boston by boat for 35 years (half-hour each way, twice a day) that is a big chunk of my daily lifestyle that is now gone, including a monthly transit pass and parking permit!
  • I had daily contact with people on the boat and people at work that I had no social connection with, so those relationships also ended.
  • I used to use Saturdays for things like going to the dump and dry-cleaners, but now I can do those any day since every day is Saturday.
  • During the "pandemic" I have switched to Dependable Cleaners for pickup-and-delivery of my dry-cleaning, but I still go to the dump weekly (and now that I'm not working my dry-cleaning needs have lessened).
So far my main retirement activity has been more dogs walks around the neighborhood in Hingham, where we live, so I'm sure Casey and Quinn are liking my retirement!

When I see people on the street in my neighborhood I forget that not everybody is retired, or maybe not working becase of the pandemic. Some people have normal jobs like it used be for everybody. I read an article in the paper that said older workers in their 60s who got laid off in the 2008 recession are having a hard time getting jobs. Companies think they will increase health care costs with ill health, and also employers think they can't learn new things, aren't good with technology, and reject new ideas. Whew! I'm glad I was college educated to do contemporary things and was able to continue working until I retired. I haven't made any plans yet so retirement is just like being on vacation. Patti will work as a Nurse Practitioner for a few more years, then after she retires we can do some serious, non-vacation traveling.

I applied for Social Security in July, 2018, and they said they would date it back to April, when I turned 70. Patti can also collect an amount equal to 50% of my SS pay (which is NOT deducted from my payments) until she turns 70 and starts collecting her own Social Security. Let's hope that Trump and the GOP don't screw this up.

My personal life


Our wedding 		I have been married to Patti since 1979 and we have owned 3 homes in the suburbs, raised 2 boys (who have graduated from college and now have great adult lives). Alex, our oldest, lives in New York City and teaches in college. Ben (a few years younger), who previously lived in San Francisco and New York City, then moved to Taiwan, and is now relocating to Lisbon, Portugal, is also a programmer like his dad.
My family