John H. McCoy - csc_jhm@shsu.edu
Undergraduate Collegiate Days
I
was discharged from the US Air Force in time to start the 1960
Spring semester at Sam Houston. I
wanted to major in Physics, but to avoid Chemistry I majored in
Mathematics and minored in Physics. I took a rather circuitous
path but I did finish and received a BA degree
in December 1962.This detour began on a weekend trip to Oklahoma where I met a girl who was to later become my wife. Verna lived and was teaching in Michigan. To be near her I moved to Kalamazoo and attended the Spring 1961 quarter at Western Michigan University.
It was in a math class at Western Michigan in 1961 that I first wrote a computer program. The University did not have a computer (at least not one for academic use) but the instructor had arranged with the Upjohn Pharmaceutical Co. to use theirs from midnight to six AM on Tuesday and Thursday nights. This should give some insight as to why I've never been sympathetic to complaints about inconvenient lab hours.
We were married at the end of the Spring quarter and came back to Texas for Summer school at Sam.
Verna had committed to teach the next year so it was back to Michigan in the fall where I attended Michigan State for three quarters. Then back to Sam the next summer and fall to finish up. Surprisingly the only course credit I lost was due to round off in the conversion from quarter hours to semester hours.
Financing My Education
Like
a lot of students, particularly those who are married, I had a part
time job during my collegiate
days. Early on as a kid I had an interest in "things"
electronic. I learned the morse code - 13 words per minute
required back then - and
got a ham radio operator license while a sophomore in high
school. Within a
couple of years after graduation from high school I had passed the FCC exam and obtained a Commercial First Class Radio
Engineers License .In the 60's many commercial radio stations were required to have a First Class engineer
on duty at all times. Small stations often could not afford
announcers and engineers so engineers did double duty. Conroe's
station KMCO was one such station. I got a job with them as their
"Sunday boy".Through a treaty with Mexico, KMCO was restricted to daytime operation only. Thus, from sun up to sun down on Sunday I was it: DJ, weatherman, newsman, engineer. The whole crew. It was indeed a one man show.
"As the
sun goes, so goes KMCO in Conroe, Texas..."
The caricature above is from a KMCO promotional brochure of that era.
Graduate Studies and Beyond
In January 1963 I started graduate work in the physics program at
Sam Houston and at the May 1964 graduation, I received a M.A. in
Physics. Switching majors again, in June 1964 I joined the
ElectroScience Laboratory as a Research Assistant and started doctoral
work at The Ohio State University in the Electrical Engineering
program. Lasers were a new phenomena then and of high
interest. Consequently most of my research was laser
related. I completed a dissertation on Atmospheric
Absorption of Carbon Dioxide Laser Radiation and received a Ph.D in
August 1968.After graduation I was persuaded to continue working with lasers at the United Aircraft Research Laboratories in East Hartford, CT. It was interesting and productive research but after two cold, snowy winters - JFK was even closed by the snow for three days - it was time to answer the call to return to Sam Houston in June 1970.
My academic career began as an Associate Professor in the Mathematics department as the Computer Science program did not come into existence until 1971. At various times I served as Director of the Computer Center, Coordinator of the Computer Science program and Computer Science Department Head before retiring as a Professor of Computer Science in the summer of 2003.
Since retirement, and thanks to the support of my former colleagues in the Mathematics and Computer Science departments, I have been honored by being designated as Professor Emeritus of Computer Science.