When the Girl met the boy

I thought it might be nice to tell you who we are, what we are all about and really, how we became George, and Bing, Angeski and Chen… our family.

Well, picture this! 1998, yes it was a long time ago.  I just graduated from Penn State and accepted my first “real”job at Eaton Corporation.  I entered their management rotational program and my first rotation was in Sarasota Florida.  That’s how we met! George was the supervisor of the plating department, and I was this new kid on the block.  Trying my best. My one rotation was a Quality Engineer for the assembly lines.  This particular Eaton plant made airplane cockpit switches, and the big Caterpillar, John Deere rocker buttons among other products.   All these devices had a critical component- silver or gold plated contacts.  These darn contacts kept on coming in not completely plated, especially down in the small contact holes.  (Well, George would later tell me that its a physical impossibility to plate down a hole that is deeper than it is wide)… blah blah… well, I kept on rejecting the whole lot.  Which is 5000 of these, and someone in the plating department will have to sort these under a microscope.  So this happened twice.  The third time, we heard the door that separated the assembly line and the plating department slam open! With this angry roar, “Who is this B.Chen?! That keeps on rejecting the contacts!” Just about everyone pointed to me, and me, of course, looked up, stood up, and happily raised my hands to introduce myself.  He was here to confront me! Well, it turned out OK! He calmed down, and offered to give me a tour of the plating shop and teach me about plating.

That was my official introduction to Mr. George Angeski.   I would like to say the rest is history… but so many little and one BIG thing happened before we became a family.  First, we became friends.  I learned a lot about manufacturing and plating from him.  I learned about sacrifice, love and commitment from him.  I was fresh from college, thinking I knew what I wanted from life.  Thinking Sarasota was just a temporary stop in my rotational program.  I was dealing with what do I want to do when I grow up… but love does not follow any rotational programs.   It happens when 2 people finally touch hands and realize maybe that friendship really is blossoming into something else.