JG Sylvester and Associates consulting apprenticeship

How Tom learned failure analysis. Returning to MIT from Bethlehem Steel in 1976 with a one-third pay cut and a growing family, Tom needed consulting income. Bruce Sylvester (who ran his late father's metallurgical/NDT firm south of Boston) hired Tom on the side. Sylvester wanted to expand into diving and nuclear failure analysis; his prior staff metallurgist had been Dave Holt, a former MIT junior faculty member who'd gone into the ministry after being denied tenure. Bruce Sylvester turned out to be embezzling from his mother's company via fake invoices, caught ~1983; he embezzled half a million dollars and disappeared, leaving his mother to mortgage her home.