Sep
18
Howard was an irascible, demanding, aggravating, brilliant, out-of-control, technical leader in the fleet ballistic missile side of our business. Everyone acknowledged that Howard was very difficult to work with. Howard demanded of himself and others to look beyond the obvious of what had been done in the past to achieve better results from our technical engineering designs of military equipment. Fragile egos need not apply. I do not condone Howard’s techniques. However, everyone acknowledged that Howard was brilliant.
I recall being a comparatively younger engineer and reporting to Howard on the hydrodynamics of a towed array-sonar system. At first I was taken aback by his blunt, confrontational style of conversation. Nevertheless, I realized that I was the expert on the topic he was inquiring into. Accordingly, I responded to his questions, and came back at him with justifications for my approach. Howard immediately became content with that aspect of the project, realizing that it was on solid technical ground. His technical concerns had already been addressed in the performance factors analyzed.
I have realized since that facts are facts. One cannot avoid them. Often they are in the past or otherwise unchangeable. As patent attorneys, we deal with a broad range of inventors and technologists. We also work with a curious set of non-technical judges, attorneys, and others. Still, facts are facts. Facts are not as easily proved to people who are not trained in the laws of physics. However, once they see facts clearly, most people, probably even the overwhelming majority, want to deal with them rationally and abide by the truth.
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