15th Company, Major RW Hodory, U.S. Marine Corps commanding.
Honors: Superintendent's List, Dean's List, Company Commander, Platoon Leader, Admin Officer, ranked 21st in my class.

Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge (1973-74)

Dean's List, Honor Roll, 4.0 GPA.

ENGINEERING CONSULTANT, Austin, TX: Specification, design and drafting of HVAC, electrical, lighting, plumbing, and fire sprinkler systems using AUTOCAD and other software programs. Started my own software company, Bar X Software. Extensive experience in mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) design of schools, hospitals, community colleges, government, military and heavy commercial projects. I have been licensed as a Professional Engineer in five disciplines: MEP, software and now aerospace. I was Design Review Engineer for the Texas Loan Star Program (the largest energy conservation program in the U.S.) for several years.

Nuclear Power Supply, Inc. 1987 - 1988

DESIGN ENGINEER, Austin, Texas: Conducted cost estimating, product development, thermal analysis and computer-aided design of pipe supports for large bore piping in nuclear and conventional power plants, refineries, wastewater treatment plants and other industrial facilities.

Research 1986 - 1987

Various employers while writing and doing research that was well received by NASA. Positions included physics lab assistant at Texas A & M, high school substitute teacher, handyman on a startup dairy farm. I presented this research to the Post Commander MG Niles Fulwyler and the Chief Scientist Dr. Davies in a two hour formal technical seminar. This was just before the drug fracas, described below.

E4 Clark, U.S. Army

U.S. Army White Sands Missile Range NM 1983 - 1986

E4 WEATHER OBSERVER, WSMR New Mexico: Received the Army Commendation Medal or (the highest peacetime award of the Army) for "staunch individualism and impeccable moral fortitude." I turned in a half dozen senior NCO's for using drugs on the job. White Sands is the highest security installation in the U.S. and site of the "Star Wars" missile defense research.

EXXON Company U.S.A. 1978 - 1983

DESIGN ENGINEER, Inland Drilling Group, New Orleans LA: Designed and administered exploration drill well programs. Duties required expertise in fluids rheology, piping design, geological evaluation, and drilling tools/equipment specification. Extensive field supervision during critical drilling operations such as casing seat hunts and abnormal pressure detection. Project engineer for a 20,000 ft rank wildcat in South Louisiana near Port Hudson, and a member of the design team on the famous Monguere prospect (just outside of Jackson, Mississippi), the deepest, hottest inland drill well completed by Exxon to that date.

daily energy tips on this all-talk radio station (1993 - 1996) a.k.a. "BTU" Bill. These tips are in an appendix of my textbook Retrofitting for Energy Conservation from McGraw-Hill, described below.

my ancestors

The influential antebellum Erb family of Memphis, Tennessee were my father's people, and my mother's father was Professor Ralph Hayes, Founder and Dean of the School of Forestry at LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He was a direct descendent of U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes, the only president before Bush not elected by the people ~ a gruff man whom everybody hated, because he protected the South from the worse of the Reconstruction. Technically speaking, the family name "Clark" did not come into being until circa 1900 when Grampa Joseph Howard Cleary came to America from Cork County Ireland, and his name was "Americanized." The Clan O'Cleary were one of the three ruling classes of the Druids; we were the traditional antiquarians or keepers-of-history.

The Family Bible ended up in my possession recently, with entries going back to Louis Erb born in Memphis in 1844. A brother of his was Dr. William Erb, a very famous physician in Germany who did pioneering research in psychophysiology. The muscle reflex when you hit that spot on your knee, causing it to kick right up, is named after him ~ as are a dozen other more obscure neurological phenomena. Both Louis Erb and his daughter's father-in-law, Colonel William N. Brown of Memphis (commander of the 20th Mississippi Regiment, one of the very last Rebel units to surrender) fought in the Vicksburg Campaign on the Confederate side, under General Earl van Dorn.

The Erbs emigrated from Germany to seek religious freedom in America. They were fundamentalist Christians, leaving Europe in the wake of the reformation ~ and the continent-wide lessening in Christian ideals. Six of the Erb families founded the Amish Mennonites in Pennsylvania. They were pacifists. The seventh were not pacifists; they found a home deep in the heart of the Old South.

A third brother, Seigfried "Solomon" Erb was an enlisted man with the Napoleon's Rifles of the 1st Arkansas Cavalry, the very first Confederate army unit organized. He too was at Vicksburg, but there seems to be no record of him after the war. I'm thinking after they were disbanded he took on a new first name, of Wyatt. Then, at the end of hostilities, he went out west and became a U.S. Marshall by the name of Wyatt Erb, although he apparently "Westernized" the name for anonymity.

publications - textbooks