I will not confine my remarks to my retirement. Instead, I will extrapolate from there to the broader topic of transitions. In the context of transitions, I will touch base with the scripture passages for this week. I will season this mixture with some understanding that came from a recent trip to a northern wilderness of Ontario. During the first 27 years of my career, I conducted research on technical ceramics at the National Bureau of Standards.
Technical ceramics are the kind of ceramics used in power plants, cutting tools and so forth.
The Bureau is known today as the National Institute of Standards and Technology. For the past almost 12 years, I have been a program manager in the Division of Materials Sciences at the Department of Energy. These years in the Division put me at the forefront of fundamental materials research that dealt with many kinds of materials. As a program manager, I came to know many scientists throughout the U.S. and abroad. It was a time when I felt that my career had come to fruition.