Author Spotlight: Mahlon Palmer, author of “Destiny”
Mahlon “Dick” Palmer, author of the memoir “Destiny“, served at the U.S. Air Force, observing the weather for the service for four years. Palmer grew up on the family dairy farm in upstate New York and never actually earned a college degree.
Nonetheless, Palmer began working in the field of data processing when IBM’s punched cards business came to life in the early 1960s. He immediately became fascinated with the IBM 650 computer, and he quickly learned to program it, thus the beginning of over three decades of career in the field. He has programmed virtually every make of computer up through the early twenty-first century using the same methodology.
Palmer started designing computer systems in the Bahamas for a large navy contract named AUTEC (Atlantic Underwater Test and Evaluation Center). He then used the design techniques for that system as his blueprint for the next 25 years while designing systems for the Air Force, including BMEWS and the DEW Line and NASA for Apollo 11 and 12. He then built the largest business system for Lockheed Martin Corporation, which still runs today after nearly 30 years of successful operation.
Palmer treated all those self-taught skills as necessary elements to accomplishing his initiatives throughout his professional career.
Correction: The initial version of this blog stated that Palmer was a retired U.S. Air Force officer. This has been updated to reflect only his short-lived tenure at the service.
