Jack of all trades, master of none

So, how does a kid born in Texas and going to school at the University of Southwestern Louisiana Lafayette end up in the Design Department of Southern Illinois University Carbondale in the Fall of 1973. It starts with a fascination with a geodesic dome that the school of architecture builds on campus and the discovery of instructions to construct a model of one in the Whole Earth Catalogue. After building one I was totally hooked and learned all I could about R. Buckminster Fuller. Bucky was the head of the design department at SIU and I made the fateful decision to follow my curiosity and enroll in SIU. By the time I arrived Bucky was gone, but my fascination turned to the some of the most formative and interesting people I had met up to that point in my life. Harold Grosowsky, Rich Archer, Larry Busch, Herb Roan, Alan Schoen, John Lonergan, William Fetter, Dick Helstern, and Terry Svec. I also became enthralled with Pizza King and my grades reflected it. I found myself emersed the coolest things I could ever have imagined. Building my first exhibit. building a wind generator, learning the intricacies of fonts, exploring the methodology of solving a problem and how to use it, creating a mathematical model of a 3 dimensional figure and using newly developed 3D modeling software to render an image and coding the input using punch card inputs, exploring the shapes and structures created by soap bubbles and the 3 D labyrinths that could be created by Infinite Periodic Minimal Surfaces Without Self- Intersections, and of course the skill of learning how to build a cardboard boat. My extracurricular activities and paying jobs outside the design school included; becoming a grill cook at Denny’s, starting a furniture design and build studio with a few of my classmates, starting a construction company that built a solar heated home and remodeled an old house into a German beer pub on Illinois Avenue. Co-authoring and receiving a patent through the University on the roof mounted solar collection and passive heat storage system, based on the system we used on the solar home. Playing computer based video games like Pong and Spacewars with other university students located in California over the Plato computer system, and finally, witnessing the birth of my first child. What a ride that was and it was one that would serve me well as I navigated my life through a design and construction career. I know it was one of the main reasons that my work experiences covered such a wide range of projects and experience in public housing, hard bid construction, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, JFK and other airport expansion programs, Department of Energy nuclear and environmental remediation projects, Orlando Convention Center expansion program, water and wastewater utilities, Middle East development projects, and finally a key position for 6 years on the Panama Canal Expansion program in Panama. I retired in 2017 and immediately started working on my own design and construction project, a very humbling experience that I recently finished and took all the skills, especially problem solving, that were instilled in me those many years ago in the Design Department in Carbondale. I look back with so much gratitude for the education, experiences, insights, and camaraderie that started with my leap of faith to enter and finish the Design curriculum at SIU. I am forever indebted to everyone whose path I crossed. Michael Bryan Kane - Metairie, Louisiana