Chuck Ervin
AUTHOR

Chuck Ervin

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I grew up in Texas. My dad was a Texas farm boy who became a WWII bomber mechanic. My mom was the daughter of a farmer who gave up her teaching job to become a wartime aircraft draftsman. It was probably inevitable that I would love airplanes. I’ve been an avid reader since the second grade when I spent afternoons in the school library. The county's Bookmobile program kept me reading all summer. By the time I was ten, I’d read many of the classic adolescent novels and was moving up to adult literature. Years later, when people asked me how I learned to write. I always said, “By osmosis.” You can’t read the works of great writers without something rubbing off. An English professor at the University of Texas gave me a little book titled “Stars” for my ninth birthday. It opened my eyes to the amazing universe we inhabit and was the catalyst for my later interest in Einstein, relativity, and high-energy physics. I still have the book and consider it one of my life’s little treasures. As a boy, I loved the stories my dad told about legendary aircraft like the B-17 Flying Fortress, the B-26 Marauder, the P-38 Lightning, and the Martin M-130 flying boat better known as Pan Am’s China Clipper. By the time I was ten, my dad had taught me how aircraft engines worked and the principle of aerodynamic lift that made flight possible. I had studied the detailed drawings of aircraft wings in my mom’s drafting books. I was definitely hooked on airplanes. I became interested in electronics at a very early age and earned a reputation as a kid who could fix radios and TVs. I worked in construction during those sizzling Texas summers to finance my hot rod habit. I entered the University of Texas thinking I’d become an electronics engineer. That degree path exposed me to advanced mathematics but I emphasize the word “exposed.” I’d always been a practical, hands-on kind of guy. I needed to be able to visualize things. I was never able to form a mental image of the meaning of the square root of minus one, something that pops up all over the place in physics and advanced mathematics. I escaped the torture by joining the Navy. The Navy detailer took one look at my electronics test scores and sent me directly to the fleet as a radar technician. It was a perfect job for me. I got to work with advanced electronic equipment and see the world. What a deal. I went back to college after the Navy and changed my major to architectural engineering, something tangible where the square root of minus one never again reared its ugly head. After graduation, I took a job with an engineering consulting firm in a small town in Washington State. A year later, I was recruited by Pan Am World Services, a subsidiary of Pan American World Airways, and worked for the company for seven years. When Lockheed Martin, the largest defense company in the world, offered me a vice president’s job in the Aeronautical Sector, it was like going home. The just-completed merger of Lockheed and Martin Marietta meant that I was going to work for the direct descendent of the companies that had trained my dad and employed my mom in World War II. Don’t let anyone kid you. Executive jobs in big companies are no cake walk. Performance expectations are high and the hours are long, but at Lockheed Martin there was a wonderful perk. I actually got paid to attend international air shows to help promote the company’s products and services. I might have done that part of my job for free. After Lockheed Martin, I worked as a senior executive at TRW and DynCorp. I retired as the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of one of the international subsidiaries of G4S, the largest security services company in the world. When people ask me about my career in the defense industry, I can honestly say that it was always interesting. It was a dream come true for a poor boy from Texas to wake up one day and find out that he could actually get paid for working around airplanes and traveling all over the world. During my military service and defense industry career, I set foot on five continents. I met members of royal families, diplomats, government officials, and military officers in more than thirty countries. The Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology appointed me to the Industry Council Board where I wrote a number of recommendations to senior Defense Department officials on a variety of equipment and support issues. I also served two terms as Chairman of one of the nation’s largest defense industry trade associations. When I retired, I finally had time to do something I'd wanted to do for years -- write novels. A lot of what I’d learned over the years about science, geopolitics, and the military has found its way into the books I've written.
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