[from Herb Dawson]

For those who knew Al Jarrett this may rekindle memories.

Sadly, Al Jarrett passed away in late March. Al was a DC native. Graduated from McKinley Tech. Joined the Air Force and was stationed as a radar tech at Hopedale, Labrador in the early fifties. When I joined E. C. Page Consulting Radio Engineers in May of 1953 and went to Goose Bay he was in Hopedale. We didn't know each other then nor for years afterward. When Al left the AF he went to work for Capitol Airlines and then, either in the late fifties or early sixties he went to work for Page under Burt Sweet when Page was at 710 14th Street NW . He went from procurement to contracts to marketing during his career with Page. He then started his own marketing company, probably in the early seventies and was located on Gallows Road . He again worked for Page in the eighties and he and I became somewhat acquainted when we were with competing companies for the Army EWCS study. His marketing skills were fully displayed when one evening he walked into the Fort Monmouth OC with the Army project engineer and had drinks with him at the bar. The TCAS contingent was sitting at the bar when he came in and was flabbergasted. I said to Doug Carter "how in the world can that PCE guy Al Jarrett walk in here with the project engineer when we're fighting for the job?" TCAS did win the job but I related that story to Al quite a few times over the years and he chuckled each time.

He later (late eighties?) opened a new marketing business (A. L. Jarrett Company) in Ambassador Square in Manassas . Tom Palm and I went to Collins Radio in Cedar Rapids for him on an HF program sometime in the late eighties. He represented about five to ten major government contractors in the nineties but government contracts began to dry up in the nineties and he had to close his business. He moved to Hamilton , Virginia , about five miles as the crow flies from our house. For the last ten years or so we've traded dinners and vineyard visits and reminisces. In fact, the last time we got together was on the 16th of March. Nothing impacts more, after the sudden death of a friend, than the realization that we're all very close to that "drop edge to yonder".