No matter how urgent some jobs may require our immediate attention, Ron would always insist on finishing the task on hand first. This seemed counterintuitive at first. When a commander makes a direct request, doesn't everything else stop? Isn't that how the military works?
Ron had a different perspective.
"If I drop everything every time someone asks for something," he explained once, "I'll never finish anything. And unfinished work creates more problems than urgent requests solve."
But he wasn't rigid about it. He had a system.
He had served overseas attachments in Japan, learning from technicians whose approach to craft bordered on the spiritual. He had worked in the repair bay of an aircraft carrier, where space was tight, resources limited, and the stakes as high as they get. He had done tours back in US military airbases, seeing how different units organized the same work.
He had seen more than any of us young technicians. And he had learned, from all of it, how to handle both people and work with clarity and confidence.
That's something I learned from him. Close up. As his personal apprentice.
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