Photo Delta 2914 rocket with Westar satellite at Cape Canaveral (April 1974)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westar_1
I was sitting in my office looking at a CBS newscast on my desk in South Seattle on Orca St. in the summer of 1974. It was the biggest day in the history of the Western Union Telegraph Company since building the 1st interstate cross country microwave networks following the railroads across America…
I had started with Western Union (WU) in September 1965, fresh out of the US Navy. Becoming a Radioman in the US Navy was a dream when I was attending Radioman A School in San Diego, CA….
By the time I was Honorably separated from the Navy in September 1965, I went straight down to 755 S. Flower St. in downtown Los Angeles to join WU…
From there, I started hearing about the “Information Age.” WU was Ma Bell’s only competitor back then.
But WU had a significant edge in the telecommunications industry back then. In sales, we told customers “we know data!
WU designed and built the very first “Packet Switch” networks (x.25). WU built ARPAnet for the US Government’s global secure data communications networks. This was the very 1st glimpse of Internert.
I would be part if that era on the front lines of the Information Age, bar none…
This was the beginning of the “Information Age!” Do you remember? I wouldn’t be changing my career in telecommunications and media technology business anytime soon…
As I sat with my hot shot sales team that morning in the summer of 1974, we were watching Westar I launch from Cape Canaveral on that day so long ago now, We looked at each and stood silently for the longest time and said with cheers, stars an tears in our eyes, “we can sell some major shit with that!” But we did’nt know what that was until a little later…
This is was near the beginning of my long career in the telecommunications and media business.
“What’s next?” We talked of often after that moment. “What now?”
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