Fred - The Hi-Z years

I am quite proud to announce that this morning I weighed in at 208.9. That would be nearly two pounds less than yesterday and two and a half pounds from Wednesday. You guys are really helping me here. Here we go for Fred Leavitt part IV - The Hi-Z years. It all started in Wales. I was at a thermoelectric conference in Cardiff (Wales) and I made an off the cuff remark to a guy from Hi-Z that he should come and work for us at Global. His response was that I should go and work for them. Well this was in the dead of winter and in the dead of winter in Canada, San Diego looks very attractive. One day during a blizzard I decided to call the guys at Hi-Z and ask if they were serious. To keep a long story short, I started work at Hi-Z, in July 1992. Hi-Z is a small company with about ten full time employees. They gave me shares in the company and I was the number three person in charge. Their technology was world class and working at Hi-Z was so much fun that I almost felt guilty getting paid for it. We worked on everything from wood burning stoves that make electricity to powering probes that land on Mars. The hand in the picture is mine and if you go to their website I was involved in just about every project you will see there although my name only appears on a few things since. I left Hi-Z nearly ten years ago. I have a patent on the module in the picture plus at least four other patents as well. I still consult for them. The only problem is that when we moved to San Diego we were a bit naive in the cost of living in San Diego. While my time at Hi-Z may have been the most fun part of my life it was certainly the poorest part of my life. That doesn't count my college years but then we were too dumb to know that we were poor. As the kids got closer to college age I went to the President and told him that when I came to Hi-Z I had counted on my shares being worth something and helping out with providing for my family. I pointed out that my kids were heading for college soon and I needed more money. I said I didn't need it right away but I needed to be heading in that direction over the next few years. He told me that I wasn't worth that much money. I then accepted an offer at Qualcomm making more than I had asked Hi-Z for. I can tell you that making a 65% increase in pay sure changes your lifestyle. Now all of the sudden I was worth what I had asked for. They offered to match my offer from Qualcomm and promote me to be president of the company. I pointed out that at this point in my life I can't afford to take that kind of a risk and offered to stay on as a consultant but I needed to accept the offer from Qualcomm. It was the right thing to do but not nearly as much fun. I owe a lot to Hi-Z and they are still very good friends. The problem is that they are all scientists and not business men. The company has tremendous technology and should be a multi-billion dollar company. I believe some day that will happen and when it does I hope to be involved.