Back around 1980, I worked as a professional cartographer for the US Army Corps of Engineers, Portland District, Photogrammetry Section. I loved the job but didn't fit in with the culture there, being the only "longhair" in residence. Before my position was eliminated I was asked to submit a proposal for a GIS project. CRREL was looking for demonstration projects to evaluated Geographic Information Systems. GIS was brand new at the time and data crunching was done on mainframe computers such as the Burroughs at the EROS Data Center in Sioux Falls, SD. I proposed that a video of a flight up the Columbia River be used as a base for a series of "hot spots". The spots would be points along the river where information sources, such as aerial photography, maps or other geographical data was located. The user of the system would be able to "fly" along the river and stop at points of interest. They would then be able to dig down through the stack of data. GIS's were imagined as sandwiches of data, layers that could be related by geographic coordinates.

My proposal was actually accepted as one of the studies CRREL was going to undertake. We got as far as compiling sources of data for the project when my "superiors" in the Portland Office decided to terminate my position. I was told I could become a Park Ranger or collect unemployment. I took the Ranger job. A month or so later my counterpart from CRREL showed up in Portland expecting to proceed with the project. There was no one there for him to talk to. He actually called me from the Portland offices. I was at my new job in Cottage Grove, OR smoothing out a fresh poured slab of concrete. There was nothing I could do to help him. A lost opportunity. I had even less success fitting in as a Ranger and was gone from there a year and one day after taking the job. I'd still like to find a way to return to GIS work.