My career started as the son (and live-in help through high school) of a country veterinarian with a small cattle farm on the side. Went to college and then spent 20 years in engineering at Texas Instruments building integrated circuits, then started a second career as a professor at the University of Arkansas as director of an interdisciplinary graduate program in micro and nanoscale materials and devices. Retired in 2014 and live in the middle of a forest in the Ozark Mountains.