10 years in the 602 (Chapter 2)

Our truck (a Ford Ranger that I bought in '91) showed up on our first full day in Phoenix. Our other car (an old Nissan), we sold back in Florida since we were worried it wouldn't make the trip cross-country. We should have hung on to it - it probably would have made the trip, and we wouldn't be stuck in a new town with just one vehicle. We had to remedy that situation, so we drove to Avis in Chandler and rented a car (a Dodge Neon, as I recall).

Our furniture still hadn't arrived - we were informed that the truck broke down in Texas, and it would be at least a few days. We ended up going to Wal-Mart to get some clothes and an air mattress. We spent our time doing the stuff that folks do when they move to a new place - stocking the fridge, opening a bank account, and driving around to get the lay of the land. We were in south Phoenix (they had just started to call it Ahwatukee), just above Ray Road on 48th Street. We had a first floor apartment (neither of us wanted to shlep our stuff up a flight of stairs).

I actually had the rest of the week off to take care of stuff - I was going to head in to work on Monday. I was with Motorola Manufacturing Systems, and expected to be put on contract to one of the Motorola Semiconductor plants in the Valley. At that point in time, Motorola had near 20,000 people in the Valley, and was the second-largest employer in the state (after the state of Arizona itself). As of this writing, Motorola is a shadow of its former self in the Valley. Semiconductor is gone - part sold off to On Semiconductor, and the rest spun off to Freescale. Looking back now, I guess I could have seen the first signs of the wheels coming off. Semiconductor management was moved to Texas by "Hurricane" Hector Ruiz (the then-manager - he acquired his nickname by blowing away thousands of jobs). COM1, a state-of-the art new plant was mothballed before it even opened - a half a billion spent, and nobody working there but a cleaning crew.

At the time, though, Motorola was rockin'. The stock was high and headed higher, and I was looking forward to applying what I learned about manufacturing to the semiconductor business.