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Our family has had the good fortune of a friendship with Norman Jones.
We met Norman through another friend, John Hamilton. I met John running up and down Lemon Hill. We were going to join a rowing club. John got a bad back. The Fairmont Rowing Association was desperate for members and I began in a gig on the Schuylkill. John taught string instruments in the Philadelphia School District and played the viola professionally. Norman was a tenant at one of John’s rental homes.
When Norm graduated from Drexel University, he fulfilled his army, ROTC at Fort Benning, Georgia. After his basic training, the army told him they had too many officers and he would need to enroll in the National Guard.
We got a call from Norman saying he needed a place to stay for a couple of weeks until he, his wife Mary and his daughter Suzi could find a home of their own. That two weeks stretched out into three months. We became very close friends during the three month period of living basically as one family.
Norm is a microwave engineer but he’s inclined to repairing automobiles and he helped me get my Saab 96 running smoothly. At a time when all cars used mechanical points to distribute a spark to each spark, plug norm help me install and electronic distributor. I remember Norm saying don’t touch the car you’ll be electrocuted when he briefly reversed the polarity of the battery, making the car body positive. The electronic distributor was successfully installed and my Saab 96 no longer stopped and needed new points.
Norm got a job working for Philco Ford and was enrolled in the Air Force National guard at Willow Grove, Naval Air Station. The Air Force Reserve had Cessna O-2s at Willow Grove Naval Air Station. Norm had command of the modified jeeps that carried the ground component of the forward air control.
Betsy & me brought Suzi to the Air Station swimming pool. I played racquet ball at the Air Station court. I sometimes drove Norms car and the guards saluted me. Security was limited at the time.
Norm was working at Philco Ford which designed radios that went into Ford vehicles. Norm designed a radio that would work well in their vehicles. Ford told him to modify them to make them less costly. Norm said the radios would only work for a few months if they were designed that way. Didn’t matter to Ford.
Norm said he couldn’t work for a company like that.
Norm began a long career designing satellite communications for the Department of Defense leading a small number of engineers in Reston, Virginia.
Norm, divorced Mary and married Janet. Janet was a colonel at the NIH Clinical Center.
He was concerned Janet could be kidnapped and used to gain information about Norm's work. Norm was away often at Palo Alto CA and Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany. He designed a complete hard wired security system for their Reston home. His computer recorded in detail every person that came near their home.
Betsy, Julia, Jeff and me visited Norm and Janet at their home in Reston and were greeted by speaker on their security system as we walked to the front door.
Desktop computers were a new thing in the early 1990s. Norm taught Jeff and Julia how to use them. This is his office in Norm & Janets home in Reston.
In the photos below Norm is instructing Julia & Jeff on how to use computers. Norm is an excellent and very patient instructor. At the time the photos below were taken Norm could not tell us what he did for the DOD.
The military satellite communications system his team in Reston designed is still in use. Norm placed a ground unit in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. For a time it was the only communication system connecting New Orleans with the rest of the world.
Over the years Norm's original designs were modified and used by Google Maps, Skype and other commercial systems.
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