Profile


Credit Is Something to be Plowed Back into the                     
Earth; with Allusions to Aaron Copland, Plowed
Back into the Tender Land. And from a Piece Which I
Wrote Called American Portrait, I Will Save My
Seed for The Tender Heart And The Tender Land,
Knowing that It is But Wasted Otherwise. It is
With This That the Following is Written.

I Will Always Plow My Seed Back into The Tender Land ...


I was born on September 25th, 1952 in Oklahoma City, to be the eldest of five brothers and one
sister. Early years were relatively uneventful and I can only characterize certain aspects of my
homelife. My mother was very kind, working extremely hard and with few complaints to raise 
a total of six children. This was very largely in the absence of my father who was a doctor 
who enjoyed and continues to enjoy a great deal of fulfillment from his patients.

Then in 1962 one of my brothers drown in the pool of a day camp. Although I did not realize 
it at the time, a great deal of blame was cast in this incident and most of it fell quite
unjustifiably on my mother, a condition which I believe had profound repercussions. 
My parents divorced when I was 18, three years after my sister was born. 

We lived in Northeast Oklahoma City which integrated in the early 1960's in a sub-division
called Thompson's Woodland. I am extremely proud that none in our family wanted to move.
We stood our ground and forced it to work. And in retrospect, I see that the only integration
that works is residential integration.

Starting in 1970, I went to Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for two years and had the
good fortune to have met and received instruction from a gracious Dr. Leo Nussbaum 
who now instructs businessmen and diplomats from around the world at Eckerd College. 
I then went on to graduate from the University of Oklahoma in 1975, Bachelor of Science 
in Electrical Engineering With Distinction, and worked for a brief time at Champlin 
Petroleum Company in Enid, Oklahoma.

I went to work in Houston in 1977 and was quickly and adequately promoted. Within the 
first couple of years I had converted a complex data acquisition system from use in a 
marine environment over to a land environment, had taken over a large share of the system
maintenance duties, and had written a test program and procedure which would later 
greatly enhance real-time problem detection. I was later to write essentially all software 
for the next generation of systems, both land and marine, including the first marine 
multi-streamer system. This system which I saw through prototype stage has since 
evolved into 12 Titan-1000 systems which are to my knowledge still gathering data 
throughout the world.

During this time I had to cut out a certain amount of freedom to operate, and a part of this
was to ask that subsystems be done as promised and to take an active part in their 
specification. In retrospect, the progress that was made would not have been possible 
without this freedom and there was little indication based upon reviews and promotions 
that I exceeded any limits. The benefits of this freedom were extensive, culminating 
in 1994 when at my own insistence I incorporated a test procedure which isolated a very
obscure, but extremely significant problem in the beta test installation of a supercomputer.
This problem was of such a nature that it would have plagued the system for months and 
may well have caused failure of a project that was already severely behind schedule and
starting to suffer demoralization. Massively-parallel supercomputers of this particular 
brand are now a key factor in the 3-D processing which has dramatically lowered 
the percentage of dry holes.

In 1981, I married a woman with two children by a previous marriage. Although the marriage
was not successful, the first five years were very happy ones. In our eight years together, I hit
my wife on only one occasion by slapping her, and arguments were infrequent until the last 
two years when we argued on an average of two weeks and with only moderate intensity. 
With the current justifiable emphasis on spousal abuse, this is to say truthfully that it did not
happen in our home.

My daughter Allison was born in 1987 and various factors associated with her birth triggered 
a period of anxiety in my life. Then during the period from 1988 to 1992, I took an anti-
anxiety drug, prescribed without warnings, whose side-effects include loss of inhibitions, 
and changes in libido and perceptions. In spite of many temptations afforded in the Geophysical
Exploration field-environments, this was the only time in my adult life in which my behavior
was embarassing, and that is all that it was. In light of the same concerns of anyone who
would lead out in a controversial issue such as infrastructure, I clearly and accurately
state that I have no abnormal tendancies which others have been, or will be, able to
exploit with any degree of truth.

In the middle of 1995, I took a job at Ft. Hood with an admitted ulterior motive of 
advocating rail in the area. Ft. Hood has great potential as a future technology center 
which would even eclipse expensive centers in California. There is a large manpower pool 
in the surrounding area and a first-rate technology base in Austin. Mass transit and rail
connections will bind it all together. High-speed rail links to Ft. Bliss and Beaumont will
connect two major test centers and speed logistics.

I am an avid protestant, and this is only in the uncapitalized generic sense of one who 
protests. And again citing American Portrait, any religion which allows protest is, by 
nature, protestant. It gives the simplest solution, unencumbered by human failings of 
vanity and ego,  the result of a direct encounter of innocence with God. "Out of 
nothing, something miraculous is created. This is the genius of protestantism [from 
Ken Burns' essay The Shakers]." All else is but cult. 

"Sing God a simple song. Make it up as you go along. Sing it as you like to sing. God 
loves all simple things. For God is the simplest of all... 

I will sing the Lord a new song. To bless Him, to praise Him, to bless the World...  Blessed is 
the man who loves the Lord. Blessed is the Man who praises Him and walks in His way. 
(from Leonard Bernstein's Mass. A Simple Song by Bernstein and Schwartz)."

To the extent which Man departs from this, He is in trouble.

I am an engineer, a designer. My motives are and have always been to guide events in the 
right direction to the best of my ability even to the point, if need be, of seeming to be reckless
and foolish. I recall once being referred to as a "save-the-world type", which is fine. I am an
unabashed save-the-world type. However, it appears that I am not perfect.

But that is actually good news. 

For you see, you don't have to be perfect to save the World. The only requirement is that you 
care enough to try.


                                                              Phil A. Hughes
                                                              Founder
                                                              RAIL/90 






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