In summary, I got lucky.  I started as an apprentice at NNS&DDCo and retired as vice president of a Mobil Oil company.  Currently I am playing with my toys. In there someplace is a lot of stuff and a hell of a good ride.  Jay Burke

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The career part had to do mostly with being the only one there with a semblance of credentials when opportunity came looking. NNS&DDCo took me in and gave me a scholarship to the University of Michigan. In between, I married Lolly Wynne.  Upon graduating, we returned to Newport News where Esso International came across me and offered a job in their Manhattan office. My work was initially scattered about Western Europe, and subsequently I was transferred to our field office in Surrey, near London.  I followed the advice from that great song of our youth, "Hey baby, let the good times roll" . . . and they did!

When those programs completed, it was back to Manhattan and contract work that focused on Japan, Korea, and Taiwan.  Shortly, I got "loaned" to Exxon USA in Houston when an unexpected management vacancy occurred.  They needed a warm body quickly, and I could fog a mirror.  The loan lasted five years; I have only recently recovered from the culture shock.

I returned to the Manhattan international office, and from there I got headhunted for a Mobil Oil vice presidency in their international marine company; I bounced across town to a corner office.  In 1990, Mobil relocated all their headquarters to Fairfax, and with that relocation, we returned to Virginia.  Except for the Houston stint in the mid 1970s, almost all my programs were overseas.  If water lapped its shores and it was in Western Europe or the Far East then chances are that I have spent time there, and, as in the best of all worlds, did it on someone else’s dollar.

I retired in April 2000.  Now, its six Saturdays and a fat paper day.

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There are of course, a number of rewarding personal memories, but there is one that is special.  In 1997, representing Mobil Oil as the buyer in negotiations with the builder, Newport News Shipbuilding, I led the Mobil delegation in the negotiations and then, in behalf of the buyer, signed the construction contract.  Following the vessel’s completion, and as the buyer, I also signed for its delivery and handed over the check to the president of Newport News Shipbuilding.  Where else in this world could an apprentice boy buy a ship?  I like to think mine was an apprenticeship run full circle.

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And, along the way I played.  I did a touch of scuba diving and got so scared I quit.  I took up white water canoeing with Jim Michie and was so scared of Mic’s seeing me the coward that notwithstanding bashed canoes and body, I couldn’t quit.  Slow to learn, I crewed on racing sailboats leaving that only after being plucked out of the water by a U.S Air Force crash boat for the third time in one race.  Age taking its toll, I opted for the safety and comfort of crewing on ocean sail cruisers.  A good choice until May 2003 when crewing to reposition a 50 foot ketch from Fort Lauderdale to New York by way of Bermuda, we ran into a massive storm.  After 48 hours of being cork-tossed in cascading seas, whipped by winds gusting to 60 knots, and blinded by driving spray and rain, we had no sails left, no serviceable motors, no radio but the short range set, wreckage above deck, and chaos below.  Neither was there a lifeboat; it had departed the previous night taking the davits with it.  Fortunately, the radio got us an unseen vessel who relayed a distress call and nine hours later, still in storm seas, we were found by a searching Coast Guard helicopter dispatched from Charleston, SC.  Once located, a cutter was sent to tow us into Savannah where we made landfall some twelve hours later. We made the local Fox news.  I have no immediate plans to renew a sailing interest.

Away from water, planes had always had an attraction so I picked up a pilot’s license while still an apprentice boy.  Best part of that period was "dog fighting" balloons that me or my brother would throw out the cockpit window or snagging toilet paper stringers.  Stringers happen when toilet paper rolls are heaved out of the plane at the top of a loop.  They would unroll and the paper hang vertical on the air currents until, from coming out of the loop at the bottom, they could be snagged on the plane’s wing.  Joe Wise (NNHS 54) and I did that over the 1958 NNHS and HHS Thanksgiving football game; Joe was riding backseat that day and threw out the blue and yellow rolls of paper.  Did some other things with the plane, but I’ll let Jim Michie note them if he would like.

Living in England, I took up riding horses and, a few broken ribs worse for wear, ended up riding in amateur show jumping events and fox hunting.  I gave that up upon returning to the states.  In the 1980s, I went to driving formula type race cars in amateur events after passing the race car driving course at the Pocono International Raceway and obtaining a race driver’s license.  I liked it so much that, in a partnership, we bought a formula, open-wheel racer, a trailer, and the whole nine yards.  We campaigned that bad boy at Limerock, Watkins Glen, Pocono, Bridgehampton, and Summit Point.  I had to leave that behind when we moved south away from road course racing circuits and into the NASCAR influence.

But, it was a move into Virginia’s horse country where I found I might resurrect my equestrian skills–much rusted–as a fox hunter.  The rust got polished off, but the stupidity piled on, and I got meaningfully smashed up testing a horse in an off-season accident.  It took eight months, but the recovery was good.  I am now riding with two hunts; the season begins September and finishes the end of March.  It is just in time too, because come spring I like to find myself with Jim Michie, my friend and fishing sensei, fly fishing the mountain streams that characterize the slopes and foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  Mic and I start that adventure in early April, and it runs good until mid-to-end May.  I then invite myself to his place at Waves, NC for occasional salt water fishing and out-of-body philosophizing.  One of those episodes resulted in Mic forcing my brother and me to join him in the wilds of an Alaskan wilderness for a fishing sojourn he gifted his son as a birthday present.  Check Mic’s bio for details; it was a great adventure.

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Along the way, I picked up the idea that I might want to ski.  It is fun but dangerous; ended up with a bad knee out of one adventure, a dislocated thumb out of another, and recently, very repugnant gestures, curses, and threats from grubby snow-boarders not wanting to respect my age implied privileges in the tow line.  The last time out, I got back at the bunch of hip-hop, drop-pants, pushy show-offs by "accidentally" tripping the emergency stop on getting off the lift. Shot them the one finger salute, too.  I last saw them swinging in a cold wind on the stopped lift.

Old age and treachery will win out over youth and skill every time.  Life is good.

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No more James, no more.  I quit. Jay