• The Critical Path Method
  In the early 1960's, Professor John Fondahl in Civil Engineering at Stanford developed the concept of processing critical path schedules manually and by computer using compatible techniques. In contrast to the military's "PERT" scheme which involved a computer algorithm that placed tasks on the line (link) between nodes (leading to the necessity for "dummy tasks"), Fondahl's topology was to use the node as the activity. He called it "CPM" - the Critical Path Method.

  Based on his recommendation, I spent the summer of '63 developing critical path schedules for a contractor in the Oxnard area, periodically sending my data back to Stanford to be keypunched and run on a computer there. Turn-around time was several days, but we made some nice pretty reports for the construction company to impress its clients. I also developed manual methods for some of the smaller projects I worked on.

  I was a critical path specialist.

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• Bucky Fuller
  In 1965 I learned that my local draft board wanted me go to VietNam. Just in time, I got a deferment when I landed a job teaching at San Jose State College. I was hired austensibly to teach Descriptive Geometry and Computer Programming (Fortran II). But at a deeper level, Norm Gunderson (the Dean of Engineering) brought me on board to participate with a team he had built to teach a new course called Cybernation and Man, dealing with the impact of technology on society. During my second semester in the Spring of 1966, Norm brought in Bucky Fuller as our visiting scholar. I learned a great deal from Bucky, as have so many people. One thing I remember vividly was his emphatic urging that humanity save its endowment of fossil fuels for a "rainy day." That persistent thought led me to my work in developing solar energy technology.

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• aha!
  When the bottom dropped out of the solar industry because of the sweeping changes made by Reagan in 1981, I decided to get back into the computer business, building upon my experience in teaching programming from '65 to '68 at San Jose State as I waited for the Vietnam war to pass me by.) With a friend I set up a company called aha! We specialized in project management (Critical Path) software. In addition to selling other people's software, I gave a lot of trainings in critical path scheduling.

• In the early '80's, Bucky published Critical Path, the book. There he reiterated the same themes which had become familiar to me through my first encounters with him.

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• Oil Crisis
  Since I heard Bucky Fuller in 1966 talk about the transitory nature of fossil fuels, I have focused on developing solar energy solutions. The critical path for me is to create conditions for an environmentally sustainable lifestyle.

  Over the years I kept up a search for accurate information on humanity's energy future. When one realizes that World War II and the VietNam War were fought over oil, and that our oil reserves are finite, it becomes clear that a good understanding of such details can be important to our survival. If a 20 year old were to ask you about the wisdom of saving up for retirement, you would offer the sage admonition to begin saving early. How can that question be any less important for all of humanity? In the information age, the deluge of information can drown out the voice of wisdom. What consequences await us as we gobble up critical resources with no thought for the morrow?

  While in Mexico developing Tonatiuh, Mexico's solar race car, I discovered an article which led me to the geologists who know where humanity stands with oil. I subsequently created a website -- EnergyCrisis.com -- to make their findings more accessible to policy makers and the public.

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• SolarQuest®
  In 1998, with a friend I founded SolarQuest® -- a program to bring an understanding of solar energy possibilities to youth. (I hold that it is too late for the older generation to grasp the urgency of the solar transformation, except through the eyes of their children.) SolarQuest® has evolved to enable youth to serve as agents in bringing electricity (and by implication, telecommunications) to some of the 2 billion people who remain in the dark today, without so much as a single lightbulb.

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• iNet News Team
  Soon we formulated the iNet News Team. After managing a youth program at the National Town Meeting we joined Bridges of Light, and Solar Quest accompanied 23 American youth to Uganda to install solar lighting in churches, schools and orphanages.

  We have created a web based virtual schoolhouse. Our virtual schoolhouse & newsroom software mimic the classroom and the newsroom. Our goal is to create a medium whereby youth can convey their observations and solutions for restoring our environment. To build awareness of grave environmental issues, our goal is to create a channel to amplify the voice of youth who are committed to sustainable living.

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• Micro-Solar Distance Learning Initiative
  Information Infrastructure for Africa, Asia and Latin America

  In Latin America there are 100,000 schools with no electricity. The figures are comparable proportionately for Africa and Asia. Ecosage, our company which operates the SolarQuest® program, has just signed an agreement with an NGO to expand their existing LEO satellite network to provide e-mail and web access at very low cost to individuals and groups involved in humanitarian pursuits.

  To that end, EcoSage is creating "Micro-Solar Distance Learning Centers" around the world. Based on the results of our initial project in Porvenir, Bolivia, we intend to expand the program to over 30 centers centers around the world over the next three years.

Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side,
Keep on the sunny side of life...
It will brighten every day, it will brighten all the way,
If you keep on the sunny side of life. [Flatt and Scruggs]

Now more folks all the time are figuring out how to do more with less!