Pacific Northwest - My Interview at Tektronix

As I came to my last semester in graduate school, the impending end of my student loan access, and the sense of impending responsibility associated with the sight of my pregnant wife encouraged my very serious search for employment.  I had several opportunities that I pursued.  It was in this window of time that I decided that I really must consider living outside of Utah.  Employment opportunities were few and salaries were depressed in Utah at the time.

Amongst other opportunties, I interviewed in Pennsylvania with Ford New Holland, the tractor and farm equipment manufacturer.  When I was there in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, I saw Amish people with their horse drawn buggies and carriages.  I was fascinated.

I intereviewed with Hillenbrand Industries in Indiana, in a sort of diversified medium size-ish conglomerate of sorts.  I never traveled to Indiana, but I looked up the local.  It was in the heart of mid-western farm country, where they grew "corn and beans," the staple commodities of conventional agriculture.  How would it be to have enough rain in the summer to not require irrigation?  I could only dream of that possibility.

I had the opportunity to interview with Tektronix.  Tektronix was headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon, but I intereviewed with a group that was in Vancouver, Washington, across the Columbia River from Portland.  I had been to Washington one time previously, when I was age seven.  We visited my aunt and uncle and their family in Seattle, or more precisely, Renton.  I didn't recall all that much from the trip of my childhood.

I flew into PDX, the Portland airport, in the evening and stayed at the Sheraton Inn, just a bit east of the main terminal on Airport Way.  As with all of my interviews, I was a bit nervous.  I fretted.  I reviewed my resume.  I practiced answers.  I anticipated questions.  Luckily, I never really had a hard time sleeping.  In the morning, I met the recruiter from Tektronix's HR department in the restaurant for breakfast.  For a poor college student, I had a breakfast of kings, scrambled eggs, hash browns, and bacon.  And a little more bacon.  And a glass or orange juice, or two.  Such was the luxury of having my meal paid for by the recruiting company.  We had our interview then packed up to drive to the plant in Vancouver for interviews with others in Finance in some of the oscilliscope and instrumentation divisions.

Shortly after getting onto I-205 northbound, we crossed the Columbia River.  I was jaw-dropped.  In Utah, the Weber River, or the Green River were giant rivers.  Each of those may have been 50 yards across, in the spring runoff season, if it was raining.  The Columbia river was approaching two miles wide at the I-205 bridge.  There was so much water.

We got off the freeway onto Highway 14 and headed east.  The houses became sparse, the trees, both conifers (firs) and deciduous (oaks and maples) were plentiful.  Along the edges of the woods, I noticed what looked like berry bushes.  As we pulled off the highway onto 164th Avenue, I saw more and more of the berry bushes.  I asked what they were.  Non-chalantly, the recruiter said they were wild blackberries, a literal thorn in the side to many residents and farmers.  Now the truth is that I loved berries and I love berries.  Yet, I had never had a blackberry.  I was surprised by the idea that these berries could just grow wild.  In effect, they would spontaneously spring forth and bear fruit.

The green was intense, even in February.  Having grown up in Utah, where the common color is a parched, dry-grass brown look, or perhaps dry grass and sage, intermingled with snow, the green was captivating.  My imagination went wild with the thought that other berries or other fruits and foods may also grow easily in the climate and soils of the area.  I became excited and enamoured with the idea of moving to the Portland area.

My interviews went well, particularly when I responded to questions with my experience and approach to managing the raspberry farm that I ran with some of my brothers in the mid-80's.  I was told that I was exceptionally animated and engaged when I talked about the raspberries, the market analysis, the financial analysis, and my passion for the product and the production of the product.

I returned home and excitedly told Michelle of what I had seen and how it felt.  Then the waiting started.  It's hard to be patient, when you are hopeful and ignorant at the same time.  In that waiting period, my first daughter was born and I completed school.  Then I got the call.  I was offered a job as a financial analyst in Tektronix's Personal Test Instruments Division.  I was ecstatic!

Maybe soon, we could buy some property and grow wild blackberries, and raspberries, and strawberries, and chickens....