He got his BEd in 1980, founded a tech company in ’96, sold 50% interest in ’99 for, as I mentioned before, a very tidy sum. Didn’t hurt him that the transaction happened prior to the bursting of the tech bubble, but he still earned it, building the business through days that were long enough to cause him health issues.

After stepping down as CEO, he bought a professional sports team, which apparently was one of his long-time dreams.

I don’t know him nearly well-enough to simply ask, “how did this all come about?” He always struck me as the ambitious type, the kind of person who just never stops moving. Perhaps, having proven himself as a teacher, he simply had to move on to another challenge. Some people seem to have a great talent for starting, and building, and less interest in maintaining.

A lot of entrepreneurs I’ve studied seemed to move from their childhood directly into business, having developed no real solid career up until then. Some, like your teacher example, pulled up stakes and made new starts.

It would be educational to find out exactly what process that history teacher went through. Is he a semi-public figure whose name or company name you could give?

One of the most successful people I’ve ever met was a history teacher for years. He decided one day to start his own business, and about five years later he sold that business for just under $100 million. Did his study of history, or his experience as a teacher, help him make his fortune? I expect so, as these things are formative, though I can’t say with any certainty. Clearly didn’t hinder the process.

Even pure mathematics, the most objective of all sciences, still is under constant revision and hosts debates and controversy.

When you are out on the frontier, there are no maps and sometimes we just grope around in the dark. Engineers and physicians can afford the luxury of certainty, scientists often don’t know what they’re doing.

I am a qualified stereo plotter operator, its a machine used to look at air photo negatives and produce topographic maps. I am also, as you know, an old school maritime navigator, using charts, compasses, sextants, and tedious mathematical tables and publications.

Both jobs are very different now than when I learned them, they are done with software and digital devices, not paper and pencil, drafting tools and eye/hand coordination. The new ways require certificates and licenses from the practitioners. I can no longer earn my living that way, and I can no longer teach my skills to the next generation.

But just because some of us work hard, smart and lucky, it still doesn’t mean anyone can do it. And it certainly doesn’t mean everyone will do it.

I think people like our artist friends figured that out. They know the world doesn’t owe them success, even if they thoroughly deserve it.

Field work takes its toll, and when he was approaching fifty, he went back to school, earned an advanced degree in art, and now teaches photography at a respected university. His photos have been in shows around the world.

I just think that is really damn wonderful.

Funny you should say that. I have a very good friend at USF who studied art there, and he is very good. His art is traditional, although he doesn’t reject 20th century art outright, he is quite selective about it and is appalled by all the bullshit in the art world and what nonsense passes for the avant-garde.

He learned early on his classes were a waste of time (art turned to BS long before the other disciplines did) using the university facilities and collections, and the few teachers he respected, to teach himself traditional technique. He went to classes just enough to get his bachelors degree, and then refused to go any further because it was a waste of time.

He earned his living like a true artist, working as a lowly clerk in the bookstore, but soon became involved in the union there and rose to become the head of the (non-academic) union at the college, quite a powerful and influential position. He earned his living by working for the state, lived his intellectual and public life in the union movement, and painted strictly for personal fulfillment and a few private commissions, mostly portraits. He was very good at all three. He’s retired now, married a beautiful girl, and is one of the most kind, sane, decent and intelligent men I know, and one of the happiest.

Sometimes you just have to take charge of your own education.

It’s sort of like buying a job, you pay someone (like a crooked floor manager) for the privilege of being a hotel waiter or bartender because the tips are enormous, and it may take years to pay it off. This used to be a common practice in Miami, when many exiled educated Cubans, like doctors, businessmen and lawyers, were trying to get hotel work because their professional licenses were invalid in the USA or they didn’t speak English. Welcome to Capitalism, Pedro.

An education has always been expensive, even for those that could afford it, or in countries where it was subsidized by the state, you still had to be affluent enough to pay for your room and board, books and clothing even if your tuition was taken care of. This kept most people out of school, especially those with families.

America partially solved this problem with the state university system of the turn of the century, and later with GI Bill (I needed both to be able to afford my education). Without it, and a university within commuting distance of my home, I just couldn’t have gone. But even this was a racket, because there was still tuition and expenses, so only those that could afford the price of admission could take advantage of the government subsidy. Welfare for the affluent, free enterprise for the poor.

But as I mentioned, you shouldn’t need a university degree for most jobs, and most scholarly pursuits, like our French Medieval Linguist, were not that high paying anyway. Some careers, like medicine or the sciences, required big investments in equipment, labs and libraries.

But once you could get an almost guaranteed position in a cushy office job (or as a military officer) just because you had a degree in speech or political science, it really didn’t matter what you studied. Education was commodified, and it became a prerequisite for white collar employment. Employers used it to weed out lazy and dumb kids, not because they needed the diploma skills.

Now you have to borrow to afford the price of admission, so it has become a source of revenue for the banking industry, and the government facilitates the whole system with loan guarantees. I was lucky because I was born in 1947 and served in the military and lived near a brand-new big state school. Ten years earlier or later, or if I hadn’t been in the service, I would have missed the bus. I’d probably be an out of work bus driver or something like that now.

Damn straight its a racket. And those academics that do make it into the system, get very petty and mean about protecting their turf and their little departmental wars. At the student level, you get grade inflation, erosion of standards, all sorts of other destructive consequences.

But fortunately, at least I got a good education, both in my technical discipline and in my humanities electives. These weren’t just padding, USF was serious about the General Studies program, and top professors and resources were thrown into those courses. My teachers really cared, too, they busted ass to help me succeed. That’s why I am so positive about that experience. My fellow students were also highly motivated. Yeah, we had sex, drugs and rock and roll, but we were hungry to learn and idealistic, ready to change the world. And we weren’t all spoiled rich kids, either. We were working class kids, many of us veterans, we were already tough and street smart when we got there. I don’t think kids have that today.

I suppose the university system started to decline about the time I was a student, or maybe a little later. But it wasn’t politics, or ideology. If you need one single driving cause to blame it all on, it comes from the fact that the taxpayer felt he was entitled to send his kid to college so his kid could get a necktie job. What he studied, or how good he was at it was irrelevant. It was all about the job. Well, that attitude has turned the university into a marketplace, and its a seller’s market.

I got in and out just in time, for more reasons than one.