I applied for a job as a staff accountant, but because I didn't get my degree (I'm nine credits short of a double major in engineering and accounting) I couldn't get the job. I applied for the job and 17 seconds into the interview they asked where my accounting degree was from. I said, "I'm sorry I don't have one." They said it was required and the interview was over.

So I went and got on the elevator and an elderly gentleman was standing next to me. He said, "Boy, you look a little upset." I replied, "Yeah, I applied for a job at this stupid company and I can't get in because I don't have a degree." He asked "Why, do you think you can do the job?" I said, I know I can do the job, but I don't have a degree."

We get down to the bottom level and we're walking across the lobby and this gentleman asked me if I had a few minutes. To make a long story short, it was Mr. Webb who owned the company. So I thought, "Holy cow, this man's going to beat me up because I had just bad mouthed his company. He called the Human Resource Director and the VP of Administration and said, "Get on up here, we have a young man who needs a job." The constructed a job for me and I ended up being his driver and took care of the motor fleet of cars for the company. I kept them gassed and oiled and cleaned and all that stuff. I also ordered all the office supplies and administration details.

About four months later I was driving Mr. Web back from the airport and he said, "Al, you know that staff accounting position is still open and I haven't found anybody in the last four months since you started working. Would you like to have it?" I reminded him that I didn't have the degree that was required and he told me that they'd make another exception.

Another example of someone giving me a chance was Mr. George Reeve. We were really struggling. I was offered a second job part-time taking care of an apartment complex. I worked there three years and loved my job and liked Phoenix, but my wife and I missed our families. So I went in to resign to Mr. Reeve and asked him how I could ever repay him for his generosity in helping us make a living. He said, and I'll never forgot this philosophy and I still live by it today, "You don't owe me anything, but do me a favor. Someday if you run into a young person who needs a helping hand, you can repay me by helping them. Think if everybody did that what a wonderful world that would be. I learned that in 1967 and I'm still paying Mr. Reeve back.

When I graduated from high school I wanted to be a teacher and coach. My parents told me that I'd never make any money as a teacher and a coach and that's why I went into the sciences. That was my plan at 17. As you look back on it, I would never have believed that I would have owned my own company where both of my majors would come into play everyday. And the neat part about it is that I get to be a teacher and a coach every day as well.

To me success is only in your own eyes. There are so many different levels and degrees of success one might define as success. I know some people who are laborers who in my opinion are successful. Having wonderful standards, ethics and morals is part of success.

There's a big difference between today and 35 years ago. It was pretty natural to take a job for a long period of time. They didn't go there thinking they'd work a couple of years for the experience and move on. Young people in my opinion today don't have the commitment then people in my generation and my father's generation had. It seems like they're passing through a career.

You've got to be conscientious. You've got to have ethics and morals that are second to none. You can't have a huge ego. And you have to be hard working. I know this sounds like the Boy Scouts, but to some extent it is.

Surround yourself with people who are optimistic. Talk less and listen more. I see a lot of young people that come in here and think that what they learned in a book is all they need to know, and that's not always the case. So you have to be willing to take sound advise from people who have been there and shut up and listen.