R(obert). Allan Kirkhart

2.  What was the timeframe you worked at Microware?
1991-1998  MWUS
1998-2000  MWUK
2000-2001  MWNL
2001-2002  MWDE/RadiSys

3.  What was your job title(s) and what did you do at Microware?
Engineer - Support, Training, Compiler Development, OS
Manager - Porting, Testing, Packaging
Architect - Packaging
FAE - European market
 
4.  What is your most interesting or vivid memory of Microware?
Terrific friends and work environment, 18 changes of office with 16 changes of manager,
Stop smoking clinic, Three new platform ports in as many months (thus the shaving of MB's head), Having every major project on which I worked cancelled at the 80% completion point.

5.  What were some of your favorite times at Microware?
Nights out at Flirts with the gang, Late night hacking and music sessions with James
Jones, Impossibly long but entertaining meetings with Richard Russel.

6.  Have any experiences, skills, or habits that you picked up at Microware made an impact on your life? Please share them with us.
Sadly, the lasting effect has been negative. I remained a burned out shell of an architect. I've lost my ability to throw myself at a project and retain the cynicism that regardless of the effort put in, nothing will result due to forces beyond my control.  But I have so many great memories of the people, the dreams and the attempts that I still smile when I
think of Microware.

7.  What was your reason for leaving Microware?
The last straw for me at MWUS was being asked to package in two weeks a full source MIPS delivery. Such a packaging effort had only once before been done successfully and took months. A typical packaging effort at the time was still a three month process, and I had been "forbidden" from including the cancelled MIPS effort in the new packaging process I had developed over the previous quarter. Thankfully, I had ignored this directive and was able to pull off a two-week delivery of an obsolete product based on my new system. At the time I did this, the new packaging scheme was already doomed due to a knee-jerk decision to go "immediately" to ClearCase. The system was never used again and I followed the packaged MIPS product to Europe to escape the politics of Des Moines.  I left Microware overall as I felt no affinity with RadiSys and did not care to become their employee.

8.  What have you been doing career-wise since Microware?
I jumped ship to join MWAR's biggest European customer, SiemensVDO (aka MannesmanVDO, or VDO, or Philips Car Systems) to continue to work with friends and OS-9 enthusiasts I had worked with for three years already in the car navigation arena. I continue to try to promote the future of OS-9 from within as a System Architect developing next-generation navigation systems.

9.  Tell us about your family: spouse, significant others, kids, pets, etc.
Mom still lives in Des Moines and always provides hospitality to this wanderer when he returns to the states.  I let my spouse, kids, pets, etc. slip through my fingers while still at MWUS when I broke up with my best friend and five year partner and a fellow engineer/manager at MWAR.  I spend my time now either skiing or scuba diving with a varied assortment of European friends. Between holidays I continue to prove how interested, yet pathetically poor I am in learning foreign language. I can now boast mid-level reading skills (ie novels) in Dutch and German and can make myself understood in
both. I also have interest and limited achievements in each of Italian, Spanish, Polish, Turkish, Russian and French.

10.  Please attach up to three pictures of yourself, family, pets, and etc. to appear in the Reunion Highlights DVD.  We prefer .jpg and .gif images.
Alas, at present I have no digital photography capability due to lack of home computer and security policies at Siemens.

11.  Do you ever see other former Microware employees and do you have their email addresses?
Those with whom I am still in contact are all members of the mail group.