Well – as of this past Monday (03 May 2010), I officially ended my career at Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne; a career that began shortly before my 40th birthday and continued for 21 of the past 23 years. I had a half-hour exit interview with my boss, the Director of the Program Management Office, part of which involved my turning in my laptop, my SecureID token, and by BlackBerry. I then walked around and said some good-byes, after which I returned to my boss’s office, handed over my badge, and was escorted to the front lobby. When I walked out of that door, knowing I could not walk onto the campus again without seeking special permission, it was a very emotional moment. There was the exhilaration of knowing I was now headed into another life adventure, and there was the sadness of leaving behind so many people I’d grown close to and a life that provided both challenge and a semblance of security for over twenty years. I had to fight back tears for a moment.
I now somewhat officially start the next chapter of my life, though I’m really going to try and take a little time to be with my family, play and study with my girls, help my wife around the house some, and generally enjoy a little bit of leisure – something I’ve not had a lot of for some time. Time to wind down a bit. Soon enough I’ll have to do some heavy lifting. I can feel it!
Systems Savvy 
May 18th, 2010 at 2:29 am
Rick,
Best wishes for life after P&W. Enjoyed working with you during the early days of AskMe implementation – was real fun. Looks like you are continuing your passion and crusade on KM and Web 2.0 :-).
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May 18th, 2010 at 6:53 am
Hello Anil:
How nice to see you here. Yes, my passion hasn’t diminished in the least. What’s really changing, I believe, is I think I’ll have a better chance of seeing more done than in the past as I’ll have the choice of working with people and organizations that are actually seeking – not resisting – change.
I trust all is well with you and your family. I’ll bet you got here through LinkedIn. Perhaps we’ll find a way to work together in the future. I surely hope so. BTW – It’s been right around 8 years since that first implementation and I maintain now that it was one of the first for social media – though we didn’t call it that (don’t think we even quite understood it, as “expertise location” was the mantra back then) at the time.
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May 7th, 2010 at 8:50 am
Rick,
I just wanted to wish you well on this new journey. I have no doubt you will recreate your life to fit all of your unique and timely interests! Now go spend some time helping out your wife!
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May 8th, 2010 at 10:20 am
Thanks, Lisa. I truly am excited about the possibilities ahead of me. Hopefully, some of them will actually bring income as well! So . . . How’d I do? Was I helpful enough? Probably not. It’s never enough IME (in my experience). 🙂
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