I was born August 9,
1952 in Kansas City, KS. I was raised for most of my life at
6671 Parkview, Kansas City, KS. There I attended Vance
Elementary (K-6th), Coronado Junior High (7-9th) and Washington High
School (10-12th) During those school years, I was a busy
person at home, doing all the tasks that dad provided me. I
can remember the following during those years 1-12: house
cleaning, farming, welding, masking and sanding cars, piano lessons,
selling vegetables, challenging my sister Sandra, Dad, Mom,
practicing piano an hour every day, hunting, little league baseball
(Liondotte League), basketball at Vance, Norman Good, Rex Morgan,
David Dunfield, Dan Freeman, Fred Toevs, Larry Devine, Debbie
Barker, Norma Goss, Mr. Donald Hudlin, Mrs. Charlton, Miss Callwell,
Gretchen Byer, Mr. William Melton, Mr. Ed Hosking, Mr. Marlin
Cooper, Mrs. Florence Gustafson.
After graduating from
WHS, I immediately started school in July of 1970 at Missouri
Institute of Technology, Kansas City, Missouri. I enrolled
into the Electronics Engineering Technology, 2 year program, (7-8
hours a day), no school breaks, only a week for Christmas. I
never missed a day of school. Our class started with 58
students and 4 of us made it to receive our degrees. Shortly
afterwards, I interviewed with Kentron, Hawaii, LTD reps at the KC
International Airport Hilton for a telemetry position opening
overseas. About a month later, I was hired to fill the
telemetry position overseas at the
Kwajalein Missile Range,
in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. I flew to California
for laser eye scans and then off to Kwajalein with a 3-day stop in
Honolulu, Hawaii. While in Hawaii, I met new some new Kwaj
friends there and ended up playing piano at pizza place making more
lifetime friends in Hawaii. Life was off to a good
start.
Kwajalein Atoll is located in the western Pacific Ocean,
about 2,100 miles southwest of Hawaii and 1,400 miles east of Guam.
The island is home to USAKA (United States Army Kwajalein Atoll),
the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site, and about
2,000 support personnel and family members on Kwajalein and
Roi-Namur islands.
 Location of Kwajalein |
 Kwajalein, Marshall
Islands |
 Carlos
(Ennylabegan) Kwajalein
Atoll |
 Flying to work transportation |
 Flying to work transportation |
 Roi-Namur Kwajalein
Atoll |
 Meck, Kwajalein
Atoll |
 Carlos
(Ennylabegan) Telemetry
Site | |
After arriving
at Kwajalein, I was in a helicopter where I was flown to a
very remote island (Carlos) and my telemetry work
site (1/4 mile wide by 3/4 mile long) for 2 years
repairing, maintaining and operating high-tech
equipment. I made frequent trips to another atoll island
called Gagan
telemetry work site (45 minute helicopter trip each
way). Flying and/or water transportion to work was a way
of life for the most part of the 23 years worked at Kwajalein
maintaining equipment at worksites on the atoll islands named
Meck, Gagan, Legan, Omelek, Enewetok, Gellinam and
Illeginni. I provided maintenance, repair and operation
support for the Range Instrumentation departments, Optic
Sensors, RADOT, Super
RADOT, Mission
Control, etc. throughout Kwajalein, each allowing me to
learn more equipment and repairing it to component
level.
My technical
expertise excelled along with receiving more than 40 technical
training schools under my belt. Among all that, I'm a
licensed piano tuner/technician and was contracted to tune all
the government pianos along with tuning about 80 privately
owned pianos at Kwajalein. I also rebuilt a few pianos
that were completely out of commission. I loved
entertaining for dances and parties along with working my many
bands I had over the years. I have even sit for USO
shows because the band members left the show. I provided
many years of service for the community fixing TVs, stereos,
video cameras, VCRs, music equipment, the church organs,
microwave ovens, projectors, walkmans, etc., including being a
Sony Hawaii and Matsushita as a representative them for the
Marshall Islands.. I also repaired medical equipment and
X-ray equipment that was used for treating the Marshallese
people. There was never a dull minute and it seems I'm
just as busy in the states.
During one of my trips of
entertainment, my band, Shermie & Friends, performed in
Pohnpei, Eastern Caroline Islands, 1977. There I met my
island girl Matea, who married a year later. She had
three children (Andreas, Catherine & Sontrigo) that I
adopted and raised. About a year after our marriage, I
moved back to Kansas City in 1978 where the 4th child Raymond
was born at Bethany Hospital, where I was born. I worked
for Storage Technology as a Field Engineer servicing all their
data equipment city wide. I loved that job but after two
years, a view moonlighting jobs with my old company taking to
other locations in the US and then I decided to go back
overseas. There I stayed for the next time around, 12
years. I gave piano lessons to my kids, was little
league baseball coach for years, attended all my kids games
and loved to dance. I was a busy family man but seem to
get a lot of work done through the years. I also played
on many softball teams through the years. I return to
Kansas City in 1992 with my family for 5
months and the company hired me back to take a position at the ALTAIR Radar
site, Roi-Namur, Kwajalein, Marshall Islands, not even getting
to unpack my shipment that returned from the islands, over 6
thousand miles away. The 6,000 lbs of shipment was
turned around and returned to Kwajalein without my household
goods leaving the crates. I worked at ALTAIR radar for 6
years performing maintenance and repair on the network
servers, the system mainframes, workstations, PCs, and many
interfaces at the Radar site (America's #1 and most powerful
radar in the world). In 1997, I left Kwajalein after
divorce proceedings, unfortunately but moved on working for
Raytheon plants in the Boston, MA area. There I work
supporting IT tasks and training. After 2 years working
in IT, I moved to Technical Writing where I spent some times
back with my Kwaj friends at MIT/Lincoln Labs at
Kwajalein. In year 2000, I left Raytheon and worked for 2nd Century Communications as a Sales Engineer with
responsibilities of installing and maintaining networks, hubs,
switches, etc. Seven months later, the IT market plunged
and the company shutdown. I then applied and was hired
by Intel in Hudson, MA working at Fab 17. I worked 7
months at the D2 plant in Silicon Valley, Santa Clara, CA in
year 2000 in preparation for working at the the Hudson Intel
facility from October 2000 to December 2005. I was
fortunate to make some really good friends while living in
Clinton, MA. while living in Clinton, MA, about 13 mile
commute to work. In 2005 I had the opportunity to
transfer to the Colorado Springs plant and I took it.
During my 7
years in MA, I
enjoyed performing weekly at the
Old Timer in Clinton,
MA and living in my home there from 1997 to 2005.
I had a great band in MA called "End of the Line". After
23 years of working overseas, I love and enjoy stateside living,
music, making friends, relaxing, gardening, and cooking.
I also enjoy keeping spending my spare time learning music and
updating my website,
Shermie's Place. I also provide website expertise
for other friends and interest, such at the 1970 WHS class website link,
Washington High School
- Class 1970.
I worked for Intel at the Fab 23
plant in Colorado Springs, CO from December 2005 until
April 2008 in the Robotics
field (operations and maintenance). I worked at
the plant until it closed February 2008 and I selected to stay in Colorado Springs.
I enjoyed playing piano and singing at weekly at the
Golden Bee
at the
Broadmoor Hotel.
Shermie moved to North Platte, NE to work as an
electrician for the
Union
Pacific Railroad starting December 2008, working for
the
International Brotherhood of
Electrical Workers
(IBEW), IBEW Local 120.
I have special friends in my life
that I would like to mention in closing: Jerry
Brewer (deceased), my interviewer that hired me and friend
since 1972; Paul Ackerman, my best friend in life (Kwaj buddy
& successful business owner); William Patton (Kentron
Hawaii/DynCorp supervisor/manager, retired); Tom White
(Raytheon supervisor & manager); Glen Eicher (Storage Technology
Manager); the Carlos Island gang; Ed Hamblin, best
musician friend (Nashville Grammy Winner); Elika,
my Hawaiian buddy, friend and musician; my Marshallese and
Hawaiian band members and friends from 1972-97; my MIT/LL
friends and Kwaj associates from 23 Kwaj years of service and many others. |
 Intel Fab
2D |
| |
I attended the 10, 20, 30 and the 40th year Washington High School Reunions. I hope to
acquire more contacts in the future with WHS class members,
email me:
shermiewiehe@gmail.com.
Shermie Wiehe. | |