- Nicholas S.,  Timeless Tales Challenge Winner, September 2025

​Introduction

Nicholas:  Hello, Mr. Poppy Bright. This is my grandfather. Do you want to do a little introduction?

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Mr. Bright: I was born in Maryland. I'm 78 years old. I got a college degree at the University of Maryland. I worked for the government for five years and then moved into industry. I left the Baltimore, Washington area after 10 years, came out to the West Coast, and worked for Ford Aerospace on some of the most interesting projects of my life. I had three children, I have six grandchildren, and they're all wonderful people.

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Nicholas: That’s definitely you. I’m Nicholas S., and we’re going to be doing an interview today. Let’s start with some questions.

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Early Career

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Nicholas: What was your first job, and what were some of your best jobs?

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Mr. Bright: My first professional job after college was with the Army Map Service. As the title says, we made maps for the military. These maps were based on satellite photography, which was cutting edge at the time, using spacecraft to image primarily Russia, where new cities were discovered that the United States or the rest of the world never knew about. We were able to build maps of “denied areas,” as they were called.

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Professional Life

Nicholas: What was your most long-lasting job, basically your career?

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Mr. Bright: Near the end of my time with the Army Map Service, I got into computer programming. At that point we used huge computers, called mainframes, that took up an entire room. Computers allowed us to solve mathematical equations very quickly, whereas before all that was done by hand. This sped up the whole process of map making. It was very mathematically oriented. We wrote programs to take the satellite imagery and reduce it to a numerical form so we could make accurate maps to support the military.​

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Nicholas: This seems like it took a lot of work and intelligent people. What was your educational background or your major in college?

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Mr. Bright: I minored in math in college and was able to get into the computer programming side of what we called data reduction. You write a program that reduces the information captured on film to a mathematical form. From that, they make highly accurate maps.

I remember looking at photographs of Vietnam, we were mapping Vietnam at the time, during the Vietnam War, and reducing that information from film to paper maps that could support operations in the field.

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Cold War Achievements

Nicholas: What about some of your biggest personal achievements?

Mr. Bright: I think my biggest achievement was when I moved out to California. Through a series of events, I was put in charge of developing a piece of software for mini-computers at a photo interpretation center. It was eventually deployed to Germany.

That system supported the U-2 at the time, an aircraft with all-weather, day/night sensors that could work 24 hours a day. It surveilled the East German border, waiting for the Russians to invade, and gave early warning during the Cold War.

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Life Lessons

Nicholas: That’s really cool. What about life goals or advice or lessons you learned?

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Mr. Bright: I think I worked too much. I loved what I was doing, but I got hooked on the technology. I’d encourage people not to get caught up like that, have a good work-life, family-life balance.

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​​Reflections​​

Nicholas: Any last thoughts?

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Mr. Bright: I’ve had a good life. Great kids, great grandkids. And the best dog in the world, Cody. Most of who I turned out to be came from my parents and grandmother, who encouraged and supported me.

Nicholas: Thank you for your time, Poppy.

Mr. Bright: You’re welcome.