"On Their Own"
Mitchell and Ward keep things moving.
In a large, modern building on the south end of Salisbury, Maryland, John Ward and Richard Mitchell are drilling holes and running wires. They work quickly, talking only to decide what to put where, or how best to install this or that.
They know their jobs well, they have done this before. Between them, they have installed thousands of components over the years, gotten them working, or pronounced them dead. Their experience is evident.
They've done it before, but this time, it's different.
This time it's their company, their wire, and their computers. No longer a trial balloon, ICNet Internet Services is the fastest-growing and most respected Internet provider for any distance that matters, and they're not moving because they don't like the view. They're moving because they have to move.
They have to move because they have literally run out of room in their current location, and expect to grow at an ever-increasing rate. Moving is necessary, and right now, to keep up with the growth.
It's kind of like audio feedback, the harder they work, the more they grow. The more they grow, the harder they work. The technical advantage is obvious: they don't have to try to explain what they need, they just do it.
And that's what they're doing, now, talking about the best way to mount terminal servers for port access, and which way is best to run cable that gives the most flexibility and the least load on the connectors.
They know things like that because they've had to deal with machines where no one did think of that, and the simple weight of the cable over a period of time caused enough stress for a short.
They know that everything they do right will help in the long run, so they do everything right. Two distinctly different personalites, Ward the outspoken, intense fellow with a beard, who kind of looks like a Russian chess champion, Mitchell quiet, but never still for long.
Two different people, both working quietly in the back of a building, making connections that soon will carry the traffic of billions of messages and images from all over creation, probably for a very long time. They sure hope so. We all do.
They figure it's time now, they say, to bring everyone together to say "Thank You", and to toast a bright and interesting future. You can ask them what it will bring, and depending on when you catch them, they may tell you. We doubt it, though. We think they will just look at you with the same excitement that we see in their eyes that says... "I don't know, but I know I am going."
Quoting the old man who was quoting his old man, Sempre Avanti, gentlemen. Always forward.


December 3, 1995 Charles Paparella The Shore Journal

[Give that man a hammer, will you ?]

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