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Today's Featured Biography

 
Jere Haight

Where do I begin? I always hated the essay questions. Give me a good old multiple guess or some true-false, even fill in the blanks, but not the dreaded ESSAY question. Oh, well, here goes. Sad but true, I didn't get to walk across the stage with the rest of you mugs. This was due mainly to my lack of interest in things academic. This did not improve when I returned in the fall to give it one more try. Going to school mornings and working ten hours a day six days a week didn't leave a lot of time for homework. Mr. Gee and I came to an agreement: I would leave school and stop wasting their time and space. I got my last two credits (Math 11 & Physics) in August '64 at the Cascadilla School in Ithaca.

Went to work for Agway A&M center, then to Chris Craft. In April 1966, I married Marcia Taylor, a Homer girl. We had no children; we divorced in '73.

January 1967 joined SCM as an apprentice toolmaker. I left the apprenticeship in June of '69 to work second shift as a QC inspector. This allowed me to take Marcia to Syracuse twice a week for dialysis. After about a year of this, we were trained for home dialysis. Some time in 1970, SCM, in their infinite wisdom, downsized their QC staff. I spent the next three years bumming around at different jobs. After spending a year at Borg-Warmer as a tool room machinist, I applied for their apprenticeship. I was told that they would be happy to have me in their program, but no credit for the two and a half years spent at SCM. That was my last day at Borg-Warner. Two weeks later, I was applying for a toolmaker position with Allen Tool Corp. in Syracuse. At the conclusion of the interview, a very nice lady told me that I had impressed their shop supervisor, but they only hired journeymen toolmakers. As I got up to leave, she said to me "would you like to finish your apprenticeship?" I attained journeyman status in April 1974.

I spent the next fifteen years working on everything from fuel injectors for rocket engines to refueling equipment for nuclear submarines to automatic machines that assemble the electric door locks in your car. In that time, I progressed from toolmaker to tool room foreman.

In September 1975, I married Patricia Nevidomski. In October 1976, we were blessed with a daughter, Andrea Jane. A graduate of R.I.T. with a Bachelors Degree in Hotel and Resort Management, she is a Project Manager with the TWI Group based in Las Vegas. Her job takes her to aerospace and defense shows all over the world. She is the apple of my eye and my hero. Pat and I separated in '85, divorced in '86. In the midst of an over litigated divorce, I managed to stumble on to my soul mate. Having learned (after two)that marriage is the number one cause of divorce, Pam and I cohabited until Christmas Eve '91 when she was killed in an automobile accident.

Ill health forced an early retirement. These days, I enjoy getting out to a good hockey game, in the spring through fall you can find me at any of a number of DIRT tracks watching noisy cars do their thing. I also stay active in a fraternal group doing charity work.

(written about 2007)

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