John Hopper
SCADA Analyst/Electronics Technician/Car Builder.
Hi, I have been a tinkerer since a young age as my father was an aircraft mechanic and attempted to teach me all he knew. My coloring books were old aircraft manuals and the “toys” I played with most were the old machines, radios and TVs that my dad would drag home for me to tear apart. This sparked my desire to learn all things electrical and mechanical that drives me to this day. I began working construction in high school when a friend’s father caught us ditching for like the 100th time and said “if you (colorful name) aren’t going to school then you are going to work”. He taught me the framing, plumbing and electrical trades along with the importance of doing things correctly the first time. During these years I owned (mostly crap) motorcycles and cars to get me to work that always needed repair just to stay running. This is when my love of Mopar cars began. This was when you could buy a running ’68 Road Runner for $300 in the late ‘70s. I went back and finished high school so I could join the Army and was a helicopter mechanic on first OH58s and then Blackhawks. I was with the 1st/17th AirCav, 82nd Airborne division. After the Army I worked construction until I decided to open a computer store in Redondo beach. During that time I met Joe Steenstra who was one of the neighbors that owned an electronics design/assembly business. He saw some of the projects I was playing with and then gave me one of the biggest breaks of my life when he got me an interview at Hughes Aircraft. I was hired as an electronics technician. Hughes was bout out by Raytheon and I worked at the Space and Airborne systems group in El Segundo for 10 years. Then I went to work for Dynamic Research in Torrance as an electronic technician. Robert and Debby Bernstein, Chris Steenstra, Karen and I opened Blue Sky Dynamics, a Mopar shop at the Torrance airport and that was probably the greatest times of my life. We built some great cars, repaired many others and got to work with some brilliant people. One of the best things of this shop was the Friday afternoon dinners with the greatest group of friends you could ask for. My wife Karen and I moved with our 5yo son Kenny to the Coachella Valley in Southern California and I began working for the local water district as an electronic/telemetry technician for years and then once I got tired of working in the desert heat I studied SCADA systems and networking so I was able to transfer to our IT department. I work with a great group and really enjoy the work. In my life I witnessed man walk on the moon, remember black and white vacuum tube televisions, rotary dial phones, the huge lines for gas during the gas shortage, the end of the Vietnam war, the dawn of the personal computer, the fall of the Berlin wall, the 9/11 attacks, smart phones, the space shuttle successes and disasters and a Tesla roadster flying through space. All of this because my father took the time to teach me technology and physics and my mother taught me right from wrong and to never to give up.Thanks for reading.
Hobbies
- SGI vintage computer restoration
- Atari vector game board repair
- Vector CRT monitor conversion
- Vintage car and truck design / build
- Rifle and pistal shooting with my wife and son
