In remembrance of my Grandfather, Bert the Engineer / Mathematician / Scientist / Husband

As a young child, there was one particular person who greatly influenced my life. Colvin J Bertrem, yes his middle name is J, it is not short for anything, but everyone called him Bert. Every time I would interact with my Grandpa Bert, he would always open my mind to the possibilities of technology and the workings of quantum physics and the universe. My life has been guided by the influence of my grandfather who was an electronics engineer. It was he who introduced me to computers, programming and even the outdoors throughout my childhood.

My first memory of Bert was him leaning over a workbench in his garage. On the bench there was a circuit board. It did not much resemble a computer; rather, it looked like a pile of wires, transistors and other components that would be used to build a time machine. I was astonished and very curious. I thought my grandfather was related to Doc from the movie “Back to the Future” and that he was building a time machine. Eventually my grandfather, who stood at 6’ but might as well been a Yeti, looked so tall and looked down at me and grinned. He asked me if I was interested in what he was doing, and of course I was, so he explained to me that he was building a digital clock. A few years later he taught me how to program the computer to count to one million. I couldn’t believe that anything could count that high, and I imagined that the numbers would stretch all the way to the moon. It took a long time for his computer to do the count, because Intel 8086 back in the early 80’s were limited. Personal computers were just becoming commercially available and were nothing like the computers we have today. Intel 8086s ran as slow as molasses in January.

As I grew older, Grandpa Bert opened up to me. To me, he was Albert Einstein, an electrical engineer, mathematician and self proclaimed astrophysicist. My mind would float around in outer space as he explained to me the quantum entanglement theorem. We would discuss black holes, when they were still just a theory; he was like a child on Christmas morning when their existence was proven. Even though he was as smart as the nerdiest nerd, he really enjoyed the great outdoors. Every time my sister and I came to visit him, we would go fishing. I could tell that he was annoyed because I always insisted on throwing the poor innocent fishys back into the water after we caught them, but I believe in his heart he was happy to throw them back too. There was only one time do I remember him keeping a fish. It was a rock cod, and it was as ugly as an ogre, its face wrinkled and it was almost as big as I was at the age of nine. I pleaded for the fish’s life, but he wouldn’t return it to the ocean. Later that day my Grandma Mary was shocked when she opened the refrigerator, that there was such an ugly face looking back at her.

As time progressed, I grew older and after a stint in the military, I would come to visit Grandpa Bert quite often. I felt like a big rig driver, going from San Francisco to Lompoc and back again every few months. Every time I came to Lompoc, I would make sure I took time to visit with him. I would tell him about how we lived in a Star Trek world and how technology had progressed. He spent his last years studying quantum mechanics, and while we would discuss the latest scientific breakthroughs, we always ended up watching basketball. His favorite team was the Los Angeles Lakers, and if there was a game on, he was watching it.

Grandpa Bert had a lasting impact on my life. He was the one who helped guide me into my chosen field of study. He sparked my interest in the world around me and also in technology. I feel like part of him is still alive in me. I spend countless hours watching documentaries on astrophysics. I have incorporated his thirst for knowledge into my life by spending most of my time studying, reading and writing computer programs. He was an electrical engineer, and I am going to be a software engineer. Without my Grandfather, I would have turned out to be somebody completely different than myself.

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