Ian vistis kDy Automation!

This past Monday, Elaine and her parents brought Ian to my office in Research Triangle Park. kDy Automation Solutions is the small engineering consulting and design firm that I run with my business partner Allan and our new employee Michael (not to mention a host of subcontractors and outside fabricators). As kDy continues to grow and expand (it started out as just me in my home office only a year and a half ago), I can't help but wonder whether Ian will want to work here or even take it over someday.

He will certainly have a great place to learn to tinker (the CNC milling machine behind me is capable of making the world's most intricate pinewood derby car, if he joins the Boy Scouts. Don't worry, the power is off - I'm not about to accidentally mill off Ian's foot!),


but I don't want to be that father who foists the old family business onto the shoulders of a son who chafes at the very idea of getting involved. I definitely hope Ian grows to love tinkering, soldering, wiring, desigining, programming, drawing CAD and all the stuff that I do all day. He certainly has the love built into his DNA. However, I most of all want him to find his own passion and his own creative voice. If that turns out to be golf, or skateboarding, or writing poetry, or building houses, I hope that he does it passionately, develops his craft, and has the opportunity to do it as close to full-time as is practicable.

Still, there is something that never gets old about seeing your logo on an actual product, like, Ian posed next to this control console for an automotive enghine testing system (seen in the background, sans engine) that we'll be shipping to India soon:


Or, seeing your logo strapped to the side of the 2006 NHRA Powerade Pro Stock champion's racecar (you can find it if you click on the image to load the larger version):


This previous picture is a perfect example of stumbling onto something you love completely unexpectedly. I was the farthest thing from a drag racing fan until I did a contract with Jason Line and Greg Anderson (big names to anyone who follows drag racing, but perhaps not household names to others) and their KB Racing team. I began to follow the sport after taking a personal interest in their team, and as I watched races to see their team in particular, I began to become more interested in drag racing in general. This is exactly what I most urgently hope for Ian: that he meets people along his life journey, becomes interested in them and what they are doing, and cultivates his own passions as a result of these relationships. So many people slog through their jobs, thinking only of reaching the weekend so they can relax or get drunk or whatever. They punch the clock, staring at that image of a tropical beach they want to visit, perhaps in their two weeks of vacation a year. But living all year just to splurge on a vacation for two weeks, or working all week to party on Friday nights, is a waste of so much of the journey we are on. I am passionate about my "day job," as Elaine is about hers. I hope Ian will be, too.

The ability to help Dad write some code and bill some customers wouldn't hurt, either: