Autobiography. How relationships enhanced my life.

The Propinquity Effect

How Relationships Have Enhanced my LifeBy Art Schmitt

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2009 Dr. Art Schmitt
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4490-0148-3

Contents

Dedication..........................................................................................xiiiIntroduction........................................................................................xvChapter One The Original Propinquity Story..........................................................1Chapter Two The Rodney Story........................................................................5Chapter Three The Eagle Scout Story.................................................................9Chapter Four Executive Officer, Navy Alcohol Rehabilitation and Training Center.....................15Chapter Five The Roy Shingledecker Story............................................................19Chapter Six The Denny Griffin Story.................................................................23Chapter Seven Harrison H. (Jack) Schmitt Apollo 17..................................................25Chapter Eight Wes Westling Captain, Chaplain Corps US Navy..........................................31Chapter Nine Air Force Stories......................................................................35Chapter Ten Admiral Kevin Delaney...................................................................53Chapter Eleven Frank Dabney and Sons................................................................57Chapter Twelve The Dave Meleski Story...............................................................61Chapter Thirteen The Del Taco Story.................................................................67Chapter Fourteen Brief, Meaningful Associations.....................................................73Chapter Fifteen.....................................................................................79The Last Chapter....................................................................................87Epilogue Unknown Author.............................................................................93About the Author....................................................................................101

Chapter One

THE ORIGINAL PROPINQUITY STORY THE RON TURCO STORY

Having spent a wonderful twenty-two years in the navy as a naval aviator, I ventured out into the corporate world. Made a lot of money, met some great people. After having been downsized so many times, I told my wife, "We are going to sell the house and start our own business." I told her, "Even if we have to pick with the chickens, we are not going to get downsized again."

In 1988, we started Business Team Builders, Human Resources Management Consulting.

Through the propinquity effect, I was asked to become the director of the North West Pain Center, Portland, Oregon-one of the most difficult positions that I have undertaken. There were four woman department heads who did want to have a man run the place. At the department head meetings, the women would argue about whether the toilet seats should be left down in the unisex bathroom. I went to a department meeting for the psychiatrists and psychologists. They asked me why I was there. I said, "Not only am I the director of this center, but I have an Oregon license." They looked at me like I had three heads. I used to go up to the biofeedback lab at four o'clock and try to get unstressed.

Out of this difficult position, one of the most miraculous propinquity effect moments occurred. I met Dr. Ron Turco. He was a consultant to the center and had a private practice and was a forensic psychiatrist for the police department. Ron suggested that I become a vocational expert witness for Social Security. I said, "No way; I am not an expert on anything." Even though I had been doing personnel and human resources management for years, I didn't believe that I was an expert.

I applied to the Seattle office of Social Security and was accepted. There was no training program, so I found another expert witness and talked him into me sitting in on his hearings. He was kind enough to allow me to do it, even though it would cut into his time. I was scheduled, and I told my wife, "I am not going to do this. I am going to call in sick." That was some estimated 18,000 cases and twenty years-and a considerable amount of income-ago.

During the twenty years doing this, I have told my wife on numerous occasions that I had to find Ron and thank him. Finally, last month, I went on the web, and lo and behold, I found Dr. Ron Turco. I e-mailed him. Two months went by, and I picked up the phone, and it was Ron Turco.

We connected the dots after twenty years. He had written four books, and I had written four, so we swapped books. Closely Watched Shadows, his first book, is about his battle with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Ron suggested that I read this heavy book first. It was the story of how he functioned as a forensic psychiatrist. He was instrumental in solving at least three high-profile serial murders. This job for twenty-five years cost him dearly. The crimes and the crime scenes that he was exposed to caused him to suffer from PTSD.

I read the book with great interest because I am in treatment for PTSD caused by my three tours in Vietnam. Ron beat the demons of PTSD and lives in almost-retirement in Oregon. When I finished his book, I broke down and cried.

Forensic psychiatry led him and his colleagues to do psychological profiles of the murderers. With this skill, he wrote Kim Jong Il and the Korean Dilemma and The Architecture of Creativity: Profiles Behind the Mask. Ron wrote psychological profiles of Andrew Wyeth, Duke Ellington, Mark Rothko, Yukio Mishima, Helen Hardin, Edvard Munch, Vincent van Gogh, and Leonardo da Vinci.

He also wrote a fiction crime story, Walk East on Burnside, an excellent piece of work.

Having made this propinquity effect connection again, I was inspired to write this book.

The rest of the story: Ron has suggested several attorneys and crime fighters to assist my daughter in her quest to bring the murderers of my grandson, Josh, to justice.

There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.

-Saint Thomas Aquinas

Chapter Two

THE RODNEY STORY

Rodney found me through a networking situation. He called and asked to meet with me. He had a proposition for me. He said he was from San Diego and was going to set up a computer learning center in Portland for minorities. Rodney himself was an African American about thirty-five years old. We met at the Hilton Hotel in downtown Portland.

He said that he had found a site and had met with a gentleman, Tom Boothe, a consultant with American State Bank. He told me where the site was and that his girlfriend lived in Portland and that she was a cosmetic salesperson. Rodney told me where she lived.

He wanted me to hire instructors, buy the equipment, and set up the school. He said that he would be back in town in a few weeks and I should present him with a proposal. Rodney said, and I quote, "Money is no object." He gave me his cell phone number.

I walked him out to the car, and sure enough, it was a late model Mercedes with California license plates. I drove over to where the school was going to be, and there was an older building that looked perfect for the school, and it had a "for sale" sign on it. I drove by the American State Bank, and there it was, in North Portland. I drove by his girlfriend's house, and there was an Avon sign on the front door.

I went home and wrote up a proposal. Money not being an object, I set the price at one hundred dollars an hour. I went on vacation to Florida and skipped along the beach, yelling, "I am going to be rich."

A few weeks later, I met with Rodney and presented the proposal to him. He said, "Fine," and that he would be back in touch with me in a few weeks and we could get started.

I waited a month, and no Rodney. I called his cell phone; no answer, and I couldn't leave a message. I drove over to the American State Bank and met Tom Boothe. He said that he had not heard from Rodney either.

Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. -Viktor E. Frankl

Chapter Three

THE EAGLE SCOUT STORY

When I was fifteen years old, I was working at a lake in New Jersey as a water ski instructor. I looked up, and an F-4U Marine Corsair fighter aircraft flew over at about three hundred and flying very fast. I looked up and said, "That is what I want to do, become a pilot," and I did just that.

During my tenure as a Boy Scout, there were three of us who received our Eagle Scout awards at the same time. We all became pilots in different services.

Being extremely fortunate, I was selected as the Honor Eagle Scout of the year, in 1955 in New York. They asked me, "How would you like to be rewarded?" I said I would like to fly in a jet.

An air force general's car came to my apartment in Brooklyn, New York, and drove me to Floyd Bennett Naval Base. I flew in the general's B-25 to an air force base in Long Island. I met a Korean triple jet ace, and he took me flying in a T-33 jet aircraft trainer.

We flew over New York, and it was magnificent. It reinforced the concept of being a pilot. They interviewed me for a newspaper article, and I had lunch with the general and the pilot.

Two years after that, I went to Floyd Bennett field and took the physical and exams to become a naval aviation cadet. I entered navy flight training in June, 1955. That led to a wonderful twenty-two-year career as a naval officer and a naval aviator.

Recently, I worked with administrative law judge Gregory Wilson here in Charleston. It turns out that his father is a retired air force general. It was his father's B-25 that flew to Long Island, New York, when I flew in the jet.

The Evergreen Airline Story

The CFO/high-tech guy whose name escapes me told me about Evergreen Airlines in McMinville, Oregon, forty miles outside of Portland. I went to Evergreen to see if I could get a job consulting. I interviewed with the vice president of human resources. He was very nervous, and it was obvious he was threatened by my resume. No offer from him, so I did an end-around. My wife had a girlfriend who was dating a guy who owned a helicopter company in Canada. He called the president of Evergreen and told Del Smith, the president, about me. I had lunch with Del, and while the VP of HR was on vacation, he hired me on the spot. The VP came back from vacation and there I was, in an office right across from his office. There were 135 open positions; my work was cut out for me. Later on, I mistakenly took the job as VP of HR. My relationship with Del made a complete turnaround. I no longer had access to him at any time.

Education Sidebar

I was fortunate enough to be stationed in Pensacola, where the University of West Florida opened its doors. I was the 169th person to graduate from there with a BA in psychology. I used to be able to register, pick my classes, and pay my fees in about three minutes. Dr. Tom Stritch was a prominent founder of the university and taught psychology. He had a deal: if you had an A average on the midterm, you didn't have to take the final. I took five courses from him, got five As, and graduated summa cum laude.

When I graduated, it had taken me sixteen years and six different universities. Dr. Stritch told me when I got my PhD to please let him know. I said, "No way-it took me too long to get this degree." When I finished my PhD with a one-year sabbatical from the navy, I had been going to college twenty-two years, mostly at night.

I dedicated my dissertation to Dr. Tom Stritch-to the only person who knew that I was going to get a PhD when I didn't know that I was going to.

Navy Human Resources

Admiral Zumwalt had an idea: personalize the navy-first names between officers and enlisted, civilian clothes, beer machines in the barracks, and educate the service with regards to human resource management issues. Some of the ideas worked, and some didn't. I received orders to the Human Resource Management Center, San Diego. I was the Officer in Charge of a team. We had members that specialized in a number of areas: management, personnel matters, and race relations.

The team would go into a command and conduct surveys to identify the command's problems. Then we would conduct a one-week workshop, the content of which matched the needs of that particular command. Our team did the USS Kitty Hawk after they had the race riots. The workshop was something else. We had in the room an admiral, the captain of the ship, and other shipboard crew. There were thirty people in the workshop, from the admiral down to the lowest-ranking seaman. One of the black seamen confronted the admiral on an issue. It took the team's incredible facilitating skills to keep the workshop on course. We got through it and received a letter of commendation. It was a very rewarding tour, and from this experience, I learned the skills which equipped me to run my own business years later.

From that tour, I made some close friends. One is Dr. Tom Moore, management consultant. Fixed him up with my dental assistant; they have been married twenty-five years. Tom has his own business and lives in Wilsonville, Oregon. Another friend is Carol Stroud, retired Chief Petty Officer. He has retired from four positions in his life.

Success is often the result of taking a misstep in the right direction. - Al Bernstein

Chapter Four

EXECUTIVE OFFICER, NAVY ALCOHOL REHABILITATION AND TRAINING CENTER

Somehow, somewhere, Captain Clancy Priddy found me. I was finishing up my tour of duty at the navy's Human Resource Management Center. Clancy was looking for an executive officer to come to the navy's Alcohol Rehabilitation and Training Center. There were eighty patients and eighty-eight training professionals running the center. Clancy wanted a straight man who was not a recovering alcoholic to help him run the center. After long deliberation with the Bureau of Naval Personnel, they consented to ordering me to the center as the Executive Officer.

This was the assignment of the century for me; it put me in a position to finish my PhD in psychology. I actually ran the center, and Clancy did what he wanted to do, and that was counsel the patients. We had a 70 percent success rate, the best treatment facility in the country.

Steve Buckey, who was the psychologist for the center, was also a professor at a university in San Diego. I chose to do my PhD dissertation on alcoholism. The title was A Study of Personality Predictors of Treatment Outcome of Young and Old Alcoholic Patients. The dissertation was almost a cakewalk, because I had already jumped the hoops. The process for completing the dissertation was very similar to completing my master's thesis.

The rule was that you could have a third member for the dissertation committee. I chose Dr. Steve Buckey to be the third member. I had all the data for the study at my fingertips, and Steve's office was just down the hall. I would write a chapter and walk down the hall and get some guidance and approval from Steve.

I completed the dissertation and appeared before my committee. They grilled me for three hours. When the question was over, the committee members stood up and shook my hand and said, "Congratulations, Doctor."

After my PhD was completed, I had nothing to do, so I invented an alcoholism education board game. I sold it to Comprehensive Care, an alcohol treatment facility. They paid me $5,000 for it. I made it to Who's Who in California for the invention.

Captain Priddy retired, and he and Dr. Steve Buckey started FACES (Family Alcohol Counseling and Education Services). I received my California license as a psychologist and worked at night, counseling. I was counseling court-referred Native American Indians and trying to guide them to recovery. It was an insurmountable task, but I learned a lot from the experience.

Do not dwell in the past; do not dream of the future; concentrate the mind on the present moment. -Buddha

Chapter Five

THE ROY SHINGLEDECKER STORY

I served as a vocational expert witness for a gentleman named Roy Shingledecker. I didn't know that I would later meet him socially and he would become part of my propinquity effect. Roy and I met at a private neighborhood club sometime after that. We became fast friends and even traveled to Alaska together on vacation.

One of my door gunners, Mike Dobson, who served with me in Vietnam, went to Juneau after the navy. He ran a fishing and hunting business in Juneau. Having been born in Brooklyn, New York, I had never been fishing, so we went to Alaska. Roy and I spent ten wonderful days on the boat. I caught a forty-eight-pound halibut, and Roy caught a sixty-pound halibut. My first fish, and probably my last.

We had Alaska king crab soup and king crab dip and halibut every which way it could be cooked. The scenery was unbelievable and astoundingly quiet. At five am, I went outside and had a cup of tea. The sun was always up in the summer, and you could hear a pin drop.

My helicopter squadron from Vietnam was having a reunion in Charleston, South Carolina. My wife's son was playing at a restaurant in downtown Charleston. We went with my friend Roy Shingledecker. A squadron mate and his wife met us at the restaurant. They started taking pictures, and we laughed and said, "No pictures-we are in the witness protection program." It turns out that Fran had just retired from being a police chief in Washington, DC, and his wife retired from the CIA. Here is the propinquity effect. Frank's wife's maiden name is Shingledecker. What are the chances of this?

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Propinquity Effectby Art Schmitt Copyright © 2009 by Dr. Art Schmitt. Excerpted by permission.
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