Richard L. Holt

Physicist, Oceanographer, Aerospace Technologist, Rancher, Land Developer and Lecturer

Professional Resume

Education

Military Service

Getting Started

Active duty - US Army

Naval Missile Test Center

Navy Dolphin Research

NASA

Cal Tech Jet Propulsion Labs

TRW

EG&G/Wolf

Natl Cancer Institute

Cancer Control Programs

SAIC

TRW II

Extracurricular Activity

Houston Black Angus Ranch

SCUBA - World Underwater

Flying Airplanes

Sports in my Life

Idaho Sage Mesa Ranch

Ranch & Land Development

Making of Subdivisions

Retirement Activities

My Family

Introduction

Pergola Building

Colorado Dreaming

Family History

Panama and Me

My Early Years

Maternal Ancestry

Paternal Ancestry

The Panama Canal

Panama Railroad

French Canal Effort

U.S. Construction

Construction Photos

Canal Operations

Panama Today

Panama Links

Panama Canal DVD

 
Science Applications International Corporation

Dr. J. Robert Beyster, President and Founder Science Application International Corporation SAIC

I have had the privilege of working with some of this nation's top engineers and scientists throughout my career.  But right at the top is the man that started Science Applications International Corporation, SAIC as it is now known, Dr. J. Robert Beyster.  Bob and I had been friends since my days with NASA.  He only had about a dozen employees at that time in a company known as JRB Associates, the JRB for his initials.  For years, as our paths crossed, Dr. Beyster had tried to convince me that I ought to be working for him at SAIC. 

When I joined the National Cancer Institute in 1970, I contracted with one of his companies, JRB Associates, to help us put together the National Cancer Plan.  The manager of that group was named Jim Russell, a direct descendant of the Charles Russell that had been one of the most famous of the western artists and who was from Idaho and Montana.  This was to really impact me later as you will see in this web site.  I was really impressed with the caliber of people on Jim's staff.


 
My leaving the National Cancer Institute started me out on a road to develop my own ideas on my future, outside of the normal work routine.  Cancer Control programs in Idaho was the start, but at the time I was doing this work in Denver, developing a six-state cancer center, I was also looking for what I could do for myself.  I was determined not to go back into the normal routine of office work as I had already done for many years.

I'll cover later in another section the steps I went through to purchase a large ranch in Idaho with the idea of developing the property into housing areas.  My plan was simple, but implementing wasn't.  I had to set up the property to pay for itself for a number of years until I could get enough money ahead to do the developing.

Cattle and crops wasn't enough to pay all the bills.  I found out that farmers are gamblers, and most of the time they lose.

I've already written in the previous section of this web site how I became involved in the development of the comprehensive cancer center development in Denver.  This did a good job in paying the bills.  When that came to an end and I had found my property in Idaho, I had to figure out next how to survive financially.  


I also found out soon enough that I just couldn't sit on a piece of property that I was going to develop and watch the world of technology flying by.  I had to keep myself involved somehow in this exciting business and still meet my objectives of making a life of my own.  One day at Los Angeles airport, I accidentally ran into Bob Beyster, the President and founder of SAIC out of La Jolla, California.  We were both waiting for flights in the American Airlines Admiral's Club.  That meeting culminated in Bob getting me to agree to join SAIC in La Jolla, California, be his Assistant, and live in Idaho Falls where there was already an SAIC office working at the nuclear training site for Navy crews that would be working with nuclear propulsion systems on ships.  That allowed me to work on my development plans in Idaho and stay in the technology business that I had grown to love.


My assignment was to be able to pick up and go anywhere in the world at Bob's beckon call.  If he had a problem somewhere, he wanted to be able to call me and I would drop what I was doing, jump on an airplane in Idaho Falls, and proceed to the trouble site.  Quite an arrangement, and people to this day can hardly believe I could work in that fashion, or that Dr. Beyster would hire me under those conditions, but he did.


At this time, Bob had about 600 people working for him mostly located in La Jolla, California and in the Washington, D.C. area.  Lots of other cities also housed SAIC people, but these were the largest groups.  The company now is one of the largest in the world, with over 50,000 employees.  Must have been something there, don't you think?  I was given an apartment just north of San Diego towering over the beach to use whenever I was to be in that area, and a beautiful office with a private secretary also at my disposal in La Jolla.

But then I got so busy with my farming and ranching and land development and then my Idaho Cancer Control work under the Governor of Idaho that I had no time to continue to do consulting jobs for SAIC as I had agreed to do for Dr. Beyster.  I sadly had to notify him that I had a choice to make and it was to stay in Idaho and not travel any longer.  He accepted this and left the door open to me to return to SAIC any time I wished.  Couldn't ask for better from this great business and science leader.  By then my income from the Idaho Cancer Control job was adequate to take care of my financial needs.

I left SAIC and made some bad personal decisions.  In 1982 TRW talked me into returning to the company to take on a program that was ideally suited for me, the development of the World-wide Military Command and Control System.  See this section for my second tour with TRW Space Systems.