The Biography of Harley F. Brownie
I was born on June 17, 54 at St Mary’s Hospital in Waterbury Connecticut [aka Brass City USA] My parents were working-class Irish Catholics who made great personal sacrifices all the time so that my younger sister and I would be the best they could provide.
In 1972, I finished high school in the Cross Cross (Catholic) high school in 10% of my class. Then I attended the University of Connecticut in 1976 with a B.Sc. Degree.
All summer long I was looking for work, but no one would hire me. It was the most depressing time of my life. I decided that if I could not land a civil engineering job by September 76, then I would join the army, at least they would work. I checked all the armed forces and loved the best American Marines. The only problem was that my experience as a USMC combat volunteer would not be considered valid for the requirement to become a registered professional engineer. The nearest engineering unit to the Marines that will provide me with an experience that is acceptable to the US PE Board is the US Marine Corps [
So I joined the Seabees and was assigned NMCB-1, “Naval Mobile Construction One” where they made me an engineering officer and then Bravo Company Commander when I was still only a rank (0-1). Generally, company commanders are senior officers (0-3)
After Cybis was placed with the Scottish “war bride” “Linda” (whom I met at a bar in Tangier Morocco), at the Marine Arms Support Center, designed the Indiana where I was a public works officer responsible for 450 civil servants in transportation, The base was 63,000 acres, larger than Washington, and we produce and produces 750,000 tons of conventional ammunition for the military, navy, air force and navy. While at NWSC Crane I finally earn my professional engineer license from the state of Indiana.
After my emancipation in November 1982, I worked in the War Department as a civil engineer in the civil service.
I was the chief planner of the military building for Infantry Division 172 Infantry, Ft. Richardson, AK; Infantry Division 7, Ft. Orad, California; Whitman Air Force Base, MO, Strategic Air Command; And GS-12 project management, US Army Corps of Engineers Ft Drum, New York.It was a $ 2.0 billion project to actually build a city for 26,000 people from scratch; I was a responsible engineer in all demolition operations.
After leaving the civil service, I worked in a number of occupations, including the president of my engineering consulting company, the president of my demolition company (“There is not too much work”). I drove motorcycles from the sea to the shining sea.
I was also a cab driver and a preacher in Boise, where I brought about a thousand lost souls to the Lord Jesus Christ: drunks and whores, prostitutes and strippers, idlers and homeless; The hippies, the cyclists, the scoundrels, the truck drivers and the construction workers, the businessmen and the proletarians, the psychos and the strange, the gays and the lesbians; Even some people who looked normal and smelled nice.