THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, June 26, 1995 TAG: 9506240266
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEKLY PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Ted Evanoff
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
With all the ships, and all the shops servicing the Navy, Tidewater has a reputation as an engineer's town. So it might be interesting to consider the story of one those engineers, Charles R. English of Virginia Beach.
There was his finely detailed resume on display last week in the Norfolk Airport Hilton. Business executives picking up their nametags for the monthly meeting of the Tidewater Association of Service Contractors passed a stack of resumes he had left in easy reach.
What happened to him has happened to thousands of people on the southside and the Peninsula as the Navy scaled back. He hasn't landed a secure job in a year. He doesn't blame his age, 55, or his trade: ex-Navy commander trained as an engineer, experienced in the art of ship acquisition.
``It just comes with the territory,'' English said in a philosophical moment after the defense contractors had departed the hotel. ``You have to expect there will be periods when you don't have work.''
He's not even exactly sure why his last employer, Koh Systems Inc. in Norfolk, suspended his task updating the communications equipment aboard Navy vessels.
For some reason inexplicable to English, who was a mid-level manager on the project, a Navy office in Norfolk decided to suspend funding for the remainder of the project.
In a scenario common in a town where the Navy has downsized, Koh Systems put him on leave last year and in the summer folks in the office informally advised him he'd probably be better off shopping his resume among other contractors.
He worked a brief stint in the autumn at a temporary job, but only one position able to make use of his experience has appeared, and that with a contractor in Washington whom he ran into at a meeting of the Tidewater Association of Service Contractors.
Eager for the job, he was disappointed when the contractor ended up losing the work to another company.
It's not a matter of my age,'' English said about his fruitless job hunt. ``The kind of business we're in, the Beltway Bandit business, contractor support in the defense industry, there's not a big age factor working against you like there is in banking or retailing.
``It may be I just worked myself into too small a niche by virtue of my Navy career and my subsequent career,'' he said. ``But who knows? I had a perfect match with the contractor in Washington.
``I call myself an `almost type.' I'm almost logistics. I'm almost a computer type. I've done a tremendous amount of Navy logistics management.''
English grew up in Brevard, a poor corner of North Carolina, enrolled in Navy ROTC to help pay for college, and graduated with a chemistry degree in 1961 from the University of North Carolina.
Engineering school was paid for at Navy expense in the late '60s.
After stints at sea interspersed with managing construction of oilers and commanding an amphibious ship squadron in the 1970s, English entered the '80s on the U.S. Atlantic Fleet staff in Norfolk. With federal money flowing into the armed services, it was a fine time to be an engineer in President Reagan's Navy.
In 1981, English was a commander in the ship maintenance and modernization division of the chief of naval operations. In 1982 he was out of uniform, a senior program analyst, overseeing the upgrade of Navy vessels by Advanced Technology Inc.
``I haven't been working for exorbitant salaries for some time,'' English said. ``There was a time, the first five or six years that I was out, I was in pretty good demand. One company would buy me away from another. I was making a lot of money.
``That also put me at risk in the first Gramm-Rudman cutbacks in 1989. I dropped off from the company I'd been with.''
With defense contractors scaling back in the '90s, English bounced from company to company until an old friend at Koh told him about an opening at the firm. He was hired in '91.
English assumed the work would last. Although the Navy began reducing its ships, it continued to install modern communications gear aboard vessels, a niche Koh had developed. But now he's trying to land a job.
``I'm not planning to move. I've been taking advantage of the last six months to make repairs on myy house,'' English said.
``Fortunately with my Navy retirement pay, I can pay my mortgage and put food on the table. I'm not in a panic situation. I'm not being forced to sling burgers to eat.''
KEYWORDS: UNEMPLOYMENT JOB HUNTING by CNB