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Show CerrFs Life s Rockets By CIIER1E Hl'BER Cornflake boxtops and good teachers helped shape his life interest, says Seven Cerri of Infotec Development in Bountiful. Boun-tiful. CERRI WAS born in 1946 on a farm near Stockton, Calif. He remembers that the elementary school that he attended had two rooms, eight grades and 50 students. The area was rural then w ith a mile or so between farms. Time away from school was spent w orking on his father's farm or for a larger farmer operation like Del Monte. But farming was never his real interest, rockets were. That interest started when he was seven and he could send for Willy Ley books about space for cornflake box tops. He collected and then avidly studied the whole series. BY THE time he was 10 he had built his first rocket. That first time his father let him go with him to a machine shop in town where the farm machinery machin-ery was usually repaired. The machinist there helped him build the body for that one. When the rocket was completed, com-pleted, friends and cousins were invited to the launch site to watch and then to a special meal at the house afterwards. Cerri continued to build rockets and now he was encouraged en-couraged by his elementary school teacher, Bill Hawth orn, who let him use later versions ver-sions of his rockets as school science projects. He remembers remem-bers that that teacher said to him many times, "You can do anything you want to do." WHEN HE reached high school there was another special teacher. Mr. Weslake, who taught physics and chemistry, che-mistry, was a rough gruff teacher with a heart of gold. Cerri remembers that none of the more sophisticated rockets rock-ets that he was building by that time were ever good enough to suit Mr. Weslake. " 'You can do better than that," he would always say and I was challenged chal-lenged to build another even better rocket." It was at this time that Cerri built his first liquid fuel rocket and was invited in-vited to tour Aerojet General. "ROCKETS, by this time, were all-important to me," says Cerri. 'and it took a diffe-' diffe-' rent kmd of experience in college col-lege to teach me that people are important too. I had a job off-campus as a housing counselor. coun-selor. 1 got free room and board for living in a dorm situation situa-tion with 40 students who had caused problems on campus. Working with them made me See that we all have strengths and weaknesses and there is more to life than science." After he graduated with a degree in aerospace engineering engineer-ing he went to work for Rockwell Rock-well International. Later he returned re-turned to school for a masters degree in geophysics and then - i 1 ' - ' X - f ifr-rifiiifftiiiniiiiiii(iHirj.'Ji v;-:,- ' M f , i ; . ! . f ; fj A I i f 1 " '' ? ' - STEVEN CERRI worked as part of the U.S. Geological Survey. THEN HE joined Infotec, a young California company, when he found that the people there felt as he says, "that people peo-ple are as important as science and it is possibh to provide them a good atmosphere in which to work." Cerri transferred to Bountiful Bounti-ful when the Utah branch of Infotec was opened here. And he has tried to help promote the same atmosphere here. "We've tried to hire good people peo-ple and then let them know that we care about them," he says. At Infotec Cerri is still dealing with rockets but here it is software soft-ware or computer programs that will help keep tabs on the status of missile guidance systems sys-tems in the Minute Man missiles. DOES HE still build rockets? rock-ets? "Yes, I'm still very interested in-terested in building rockets, but now I know to look at the big picture too. I evaluate myself my-self constantly to see that I am spending my time on the right things and that I'm reaching the most important goals. Steven Cerri and his wife Allison are residents of Bountiful. Boun-tiful. They have one daughter McKenzie, 19 months. |