San Diego Yacht Club: Opening Day preparations aboard the Blue Moon
Saturday, April 22 — San Diego Yacht Club: Opening Day preparations aboard the Blue Moon.

Thank you Mary Ann, and thanks also to all of you who have responded to my blog. I have already addressed some of your comments personally, others I will respond to right now.

John Dickerson:
Nice to hear from you John. Hope to see you when you are in San Diego, so that we can re-live our great America’s Cup experiences with you and FORD Motor Company. By the way, I’m having a horrible time with the local FORD dealership – they can’t seem to find a series 500 brochure, and a car with a grey interior.

Troy Sears:
Nice to hear from you and great seeing you at the San Diego Yacht Club last week. Your collection of America’s Cup boats seems to be attracting a lot of attention. Glad to hear that the chartering business is going well. I would like to accept your invitation to go sailing on the replica of the yacht America, the original winner of the America’s Cup.

I’m hoping you’ll be successful at setting up a permanent display for the America’s Cup models and memorabilia at the Hall of Champions in Balboa Park. As that collection grows, I’ll donate many of my models and the memorabilia I collected during the “golden” years of the America’s Cup. The Cup event has changed, and most American yacht clubs cannot afford to participate anymore. I think the U.S. has only an outside chance of ever bringing the Cup back. While we still have a chance, we should collect as many of the available models and memorabilia as we can, and permanently display them in San Diego.

Scott Dowell and Paul Strassmann:
The future of information technology is a subject that I would like to see discussed on my blog. I will be getting up to speed on it again, so that I can make a contribution. I’m afraid advances in IT are occurring more slowly than any of us would like to see. I spent much of my consulting time with STRATCOM and DISA in the past, trying to facilitate progress. Maybe airing experiences and opinions on this blog will help.

Kevin Winstead:
Congratulations, you were among the first ten responders to my blog. Thanks for the great suggestion to incorporate testimonials on how SAIC helped your career along on the dust jacket of the book. I hope your life has not suddenly become ordinary, mine hasn’t!

Bill Hagan:
Many of my old associates are recommending we include in the book experiences they had at SAIC that changed their lives. We will try to include as many as we can.

Jordan Becker:
I’m dying to know what’s happening in the area of collaboration. I had great expectations a year or two ago. The primary tools we have available haven’t changed much, and collaboration sessions don’t seem to involve all that many participants. It’s really a great thing that could change how you do business. I hope collaboration isn’t just a novelty.

Bill Marlow:
Nothing has happened in the last year to change my mind about the tremendous importance of computer security. Those who have devoted their careers to providing excellence in this area, like you, should be commended.

Allen Herskowitz:
We are counting on you Al, to help us discuss interesting topics on my blog.

Neil Hutchinson:
Please share your thoughts on what made SAIC successful. I really appreciate your efforts in building our NASA business from scratch!

Alan Holman:
Hi Al, we had some fun days together at Los Alamos. By the way, let me know if you find my Groucho glasses. :-)

David Kay:
My thoughts go out to you every day when I hear or read the news from the Middle East. I wonder what you think the country should be doing, and how it’s going to get done.

Kay Johnson:
Thanks for posting your comments on my blog. Let me know what’s going on in Dayton.

Marc Warburton:
On the question of whether SAIC needed to change to grow, my answer is – Absolutely! Why? Because the world around us has decided to change at a very rapid pace. The problem has always been – how do you keep up with that change, and does the SAIC model breakdown at $4B? Well, the model has to change with the growth, but I believe E.O. can and has been extended to companies much larger than those with $4B in revenue.

Again, thanks for your comments and contributions — keep them coming!

- Bob


5 Responses to “Week one: Blue moon extended welcome”

  1. 1 Jim Gallacher

    Hi Bob…
    Dave Ferreira gave me the address to your blog. Looks like you have the right idea with the boat to keep you going. I am still working, I don’t think EMP will ever die. Seams like it has paid my bills for 25 years. I will check in and see if I remember any of the respondents.
    Jim Gallacher

  2. 2 Joseph Blasi

    Dear Bob,

    I am so very happy to see these pictures of you and see that you look well and rested and full of energy. Your book is a wonderful idea. Any way I can help, just let me know. I am hard at work on a number of scientific papers based on the almost 40,000 employee surveys we have collected through this National Bureau for Economic Research Rockefeller Foundation and Russell Sage Foundation project. It is a heck of a job. In a month or so I will know better what we are finding and will start sharing that with you. Joseph Blasi

  3. 3 Roger Webb

    Dear Bob,

    Aside from my father and mother and my favorite uncle, James Webb, Sr., you have done more to change my life for the better than anyone I have known. I was 31 when I met you for the first time on a Saturday in the summer of 1971 at the small SAI La Jolla office about a block from Prospect Street. After one or two meetings, you offered me a job at a big raise, which really startled me and I was not sure how to handle the idea of leaving my current employer. So, then, regretfully I turned down the initial offer to join SAI. But, after a year, I came to my senses and realized what a fantastic company SAI was and what it was about to become. So, I re-established contact with Elgie McGrath, and by summer of 1972 I was ensconced along Prospect Street chasing new Government contracts. I look back on those early years at SAI as the best of my career! One could not have created or imagined a better work environment than the one you created at SAI. It was absolutely the most refreshing place to work one could imagine. We were able to define work and responsibilities as we went along. I met people like Larry Kull, Jerry Pomeranian, Clive Whittenbury, Gene Ray, John Warner, and Larry Gratt that were the best of the best. I must say I was always in awe of you and what you were doing to grow SAI.

    You may not recall this, but we played racket ball at 1200 Prospect Street. We played a two games which were close in the score, and you remarked to me; “Roger stop letting me win so easily.” The next game I won 21-1, and we never played again.

    Thank you for starting this Blog, as it gives me the chance to let people know how much I appreciate you for starting SAI and making my career so memorable.

    Best regards for the future.

    Roger Webb
    San Diego, July 2006

  4. 4 Bill Weeks

    Dear Dr. Beyster,
    The formative years of my career and (professional) life were from 81 to 83 at SAIC. I learned more about the world and myself in those 3 years than all the years before. I feel very fortunate that I started my career in the Instrumentation and Experimental Products (IEPD) group at SAIC. Thank your for your leadership, and thank you for the opportunity to do meaningful work and make a difference at a young age.

    Warmest regards,
    William L. Weeks

  5. 5 Nancy Gracia

    Hello Bob:

    We saw your Yatch today at the air show. We were impressed to see you and your boat. We were the 240SD Sea Ray just behind you when you went to see the air show. It was really nice for me and my friends to see this kind of magestic Yatch.

    Nancy


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