I have had a great life since HMC, I have worked on everything from military to law enforcement to environmental analysis in the Amazon to farming software. I am most proud of my work in remote sensing combined with knowledge-based earth / terrain modeling. This work has led me all over the US, Europe, and South America. The thread of satellite imagery combined with GIS data and then pumped through human rules of expertise has spanned almost all of my projects. I couldn't have done this at all without a strong background in physics.

The scope of my technical education at Harvey Mudd made it possible for me to design products in physics, mathematics, chemistry, and electrical engineering. I felt confident enough to teach myself new subjects... My current team covers a lot of technical ground, and I think that the broad scientific training I received in physics at Harvey Mudd continues to contribute to my ability to successfully educate myself in new subjects and to understand the post-graduate-level work being done by the group.

It turns out that Physics was a great intro for my particular job. I started as a digital electronics design engineer and the electronics part could be handled with the few courses HMC offered. The tough part was understanding the complex interrelationships of the functional blocks of the system. My physics background helped in this area although I did spend some intensive time reading electronics books. As time progressed, my job became more of an architectural endeavour and that was where physics really started to help: architecture involves understanding the big picture, not just the details of electronics but mechanical, thermal, software etc. At one time or another I have used almost every branch of technology. Only physics gives you enough understanding of theory to let you jump in and start swinging no matter where you land.

Regarding the employment opportunities for physicists; I've found that physics offers a great deal of flexibility in choosing a career path. When I decided to return to the west coast and join IBM, I was also actively recruited by a teaching college, research university, national lab and I had a tenured position at Argonne if I had chosen to stay there. Presently, the job market is very strong for Ph.D.s.