James Drogan

Re Conversations with Dave.

I don’t take a lot of stock in miracles, but I do understand the notion of chance and that chance has favored me in many ways.

By chance,

1. I was born in the US
2. of parents of modest means,
3. in a small, rural community
4. which instilled in me fundamental values of fair play and hard work.
5. I graduate from high school in 1960 when the draft was in place,
6. but went to Southern Illinois (after being rejected by West Point, Annapolis, and Colorado Springs),
7. then got married,
8. then became pregnant,
9. and was not drafted to Vietnam.
10. I joined IBM (the first to offer a job to a very pregnant man and woman)
11. and found myself as a programmer the year after System 360 was announced.
12. I installed serial number 13 of the IBM Data Acquisition and Process Control System to control pipeline gas flow
13. and was a member of the team that installed the first online Service Order Retrieval and Distribution System in the global telephone industry.
14. I became a IBM salesman in 1969 when IBM unbundled
15. and, over the course of four years, earned six Hundred Percent Club pins and a Golden Circle.
16. I became IBM’s global expert in the railroad industry,
17. becoming associated with a number of first-of-a-kind projects and was on the forefront of taking Transportation Industry Marketing into the field of logistics.
18. I was a member of the second set of IBM Consulting Group Principals,
19. cutting my management teeth establishing the Freight Consulting Group.
20. I survived the restructure of IBM in the early 1990s – going from the heady days of the late 1960s through the nadir of the early 1990s and emerging in the late 1990s.
21. I retired from IBM at about the right time and found my way into higher education as a teacher involved in the governance of academic centers
22. and meeting, and continuing to meet, interesting people with interesting opportunities.
23. All the while I have remained married to the same woman, with whom I’ve raised three great children who, in turn, have brought into the world two great grandchildren.
24. My physical, mental, and spiritual health is good, my debts modest, my outlook positive, my friends true.