Jonathan Katz and Yvette Morton
Kenyon Class of ’62 Reunion Memory Book Input
Jon Katz
Spring of ’62 graduation and commissioning as a 2nd Lt in the US Air Force – and simultaneously it was AFROTC pay-back time. Forget about exploiting my Chemistry degree to work for DuPont or using my WKCO experience as an engineer for WNYU. I had signed orders to report to Kessler AFB, MI, NLT 30 June to be trained as a Communications-Electronics Officer. I suppose that’s’ why Lt. Col Georges insisted I take and electronics course in the Physics department, or else. The tour in Mississippi was breeze, and my previous training permitted me to “wash ahead” as they termed it, and graduate early. So I was off to Travis AFB, CA, barely making it over the Rockies in a 1950 MG-TD ( you know – the one with wax bearings and a wooden engine) to be assigned as a Wing Communications Officer with the 5th Bomb Wing, a literal copy of the script from “Gathering of Eagles”, or perhaps “Dr. Strangelove”. At the 5th, they discovered I could read and write so they promoted me – and I owe this to Kenyon as well. . When not on nuclear alert I would drive to Berkeley and play Golf and party with John McInnis, who had already engineered his first divorce.
After a short tour on Guam briefing bomber crews before their missions dropping 750 pounders on monkeys in North Vietnam, the Air Force acknowledged my volunteer statement for Vietnam by sending me to Korea for 13 months. Then back to Keesler to be trained, again. This time I had broken the code and graduated with honors and an assignment to the 1137th Special Activities Squadron (code for the Defense Communications Agency in Saigon) – except I was really stationed in Bangkok with the embassy crowd. With frequent trips back and forth to Washington, DC on Pan Am, I got to visit many cities.
Reassigned to DCA Headquarters in Arlington, VA, I earned my MS while writing plans and position papers for the JCS. After a long hot summer at Squadron Officer School, I received my first command assignment at England AFB, LA with squadron supporting the 23 Tactical Fighter Wing of Flying Tigers fame and provided enroute FAA air traffic control radar coverage for the Baton Rouge to New Orleans area.
Back to school again, this time the Army Command & General Staff College where I received OR/SA certification and completed post graduate work in computer science. Then a most exciting tour on the Joint Staff, JCS (Counter-terrorism and crisis support) followed by my second command wearing 5 hats including Director of Communications-Electronics for the Field Command, Defense Nuclear Agency. During my next tour at Scott AFB, IL, I became seriously interested in the emerging information networking technologies. That got me a follow-on assignment as founder and director of the Air Force Networking System Program Office at Hanscom AFB, MA.
Upon retiring from the Air Force, I tool a position at The Analytic Science Corporation (TASC), a company focused on employing analytical tools and methods to solve difficult problems. Retiring from TASC in 1989, I reactivated a company I had formed some years earlier, engaged in high end telecommunications systems engineering for large complex systems. Yvette and I are currently living in Newton, MA. My daughter, Laura and her husband, Mike, are both teaching music, and reside in Salem, NH. Will probably retire again in a year or so to devote more time to travel and my antique telephone collection and, of course, support for Kenyon.
Yvette, Laura (Jon's Daughter) & Mike (her husband)