My Working Trip - What I do here in Turin

My Job In Turin - The Specialist Who Knows Everything about Nothing

Many people think I am in Italy on vacation. In some ways that is true. I have enjoyed magnificent food, wonderful people, beautiful and historic sites, and learned many new things. In many ways this is a tremendous vacation from normal ordinary life. In fact, however, I also do some work every day. I am the president and chief engineer of an engineering consulting company called Cobalt Global Technologies. This means I get to work hard in technology projects all around the world, hopefully making a little money at the end of the day.

On this trip I am working with a company called Alenia Spazio. Alenia Spazio is an aerospace company who makes scientific space satellites, the human habitat modules for the International Space Station, and many other very high tech things for space exploration. I am here as an expert to teach them how to design and build the world's lightest weight pressure tanks for oxygen, nitrogen, and other gases.

This is a strange twist in life. In 1982 I began my career designing and building rockets for satellites such as the GPS global positioning satellites. Later I left the aerospace industry to bring space technology to the commercial market - saving weight and improving technology for firefighters' breathing systems, medical oxygen tanks, and clean fuel automobiles. Now I am bringing commercial technology for efficient design and manufacturing to the space industry. Life can form interesting circles, don't you think?

Working with the very clever engineers and technicians at Alenia Spazio, I have to prepare every day to keep one step ahead of them. We have meetings during the day where they ask me many difficult questions. Every night in my hotel, I must research and learn the answers - providing them the next day. Thank God for computers, emails, internet phones for cheap calls to other countries, and thank you Google. Without these tools every evening, the Alenia people might quickly overwhelm my limited memory.

I am not really sure how I became an expert in this small area. Some people are well educated in many things: history, technology, business, art, philosophy, languages. You might say these type of people know a little bit about everything. As for me, however, I am very knowledgeable in just one tiny field of technology. I am so specialized that I know everything about nothing.

On this project we do a difficult balancing act. In addition to knowing the technology, I must also be an expert in ITAR regulations about which technology the US government allows me to provide to foreign companies. Aerospace technology is controlled even to friendly countries like Italy. Therefore I must always make sure I am discussing only methods and techniques that are publicly available through open sources. On this project, for instance, I am restricting my teaching solely to pressure vessels using the latest lightweight technology developed for clean fuel buses and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

Today is my last day of working and straining my brain. Tomorrow is a vacation day for touring the area with Wonderful Jane. We have been receiving suggestions from all our friends - Genova, Venice, cross country skiing in the Italian Alps, museums and castles in Turin. Where do we start? So many great things to see and only one day. But then, who's complaining?