The Only Ring I Wear

by Edmund Zaremba

After leaving the Navy, my first job was with the Westinghouse Electric Corporation in Buffalo. My first big break came when all the control factors for the new Nautilus submarines were being manufactured in Buffalo by Westinghouse.

I was lucky enough to be one of several chosen to expedite all of those conductors on for final establishment on Nautilus. That was a thing I enjoyed, because they had to check you out especially to see if you had a shady or criminal background. You had to get prior approval for it. I respected that.

Then I went on to a big opportunity which came when I joined the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical company. They had a tremendous program for people that worked for them. They would take your life over!

They interviewed your wife, and they set up a strict dress code. The image of J&J, at that time, was a snap-brim hat, a thin tie, a dark suit, and horror of horrors, if you ever wore white socks with that outfit, they'd probably fire you on the spot.

But it was a nice experience because it trained me to have a good work ethic. During that time, I was taking courses off and on at Millard Fillmore College to keep my momentum on that college level.

J&J demanded so many things . . . they showed you how to do things, and that's how I really started my career in sales and marketing. They had many benefits there. They gave you psychological analysis at no charge, to try to determine where your weaknesses and strengths were, and where your direction should be.

I kept going along pretty well there, and then I got into middle management in a supervisory capacity. They called me in for an interview. They gave me an I.Q. test. Evidently I qualified for top management there. They said, "Now, what you must do: you must have completed a degree program, whether it be two, four, whatever years, from a university before we can consider you for promotion above your present position."

So I was capped at the supervisorship, and I knew that I had to complete my academic requirements. I completed my Associate degree in Applied Science at Millard Fillmore, and that qualified me for the upper echelon of sales management.

Because of that, they allowed me to take over the mid-west area of the United States as sales manager, the results of plugging away for all those years. So I was able to go one step higher - something that I really owe the university for.

When I graduated in '57, Mom and Dad bought me the school ring as a little surprise. I don't wear much jewelry. Actually, I've studied karate, where you don't wear jewelry on your hands. They're used so much for self-defense that you can harm yourself by wearing a ring.

I put the UB ring on, and I was really proud of it. You have to understand this - it took ten years of plodding along to achieve it, and the fact is that the ring exemplified to me a lot of the success I had. At J&J you had to have that legitimate degree in order to qualify for higher jobs. I was really proud of that, and it's the only ring I wear, and I wear it constantly.

My wife kids me about it. She says, "You're not wearing a wedding band, but you're always wearing your school ring."