The Early Years - the beginning....

I came back to Malaysia upon graduated with aero engineering degree from Wichita State University, Kansas USA in 1986. I reported duty at Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam (JPA) in Kuala Lumpur sometimes around June that year - I got the JPA scholarship for my undegraduate study in US - and somehow or rather I was directed to UTM Jalan Gurney (now known as Jalan Semarak).

The first person in UTM I met was En. Abdullah Ali (left photo) who was at that time the public relation officer and assistant registrar. He happened to graduate from the same university (USM Penang) with one of my uncle, Hj. Hashim Awang. (YB Datuk Hj.Abdullah Ali is now an assemblyman of Bukit Naning, Muar Johor and I still bumped into YB once in a while when he was in JB).


I was then directed to the faculty of Mechanical Engineering (FKM) and met the dean at that time i.e. PM Abdullah Idris (known among the FKM old timers like me as PM Dollah Deris - left photo). I can't remember well on the details but I understood at hat time that the Aero Engineering was the newly-introduced course at UTM starting in the early 80's. It just happened that two of the Aero lecturers at that time just left the aero group to join the private sector. They were Syed Hashim Waffa and Aslam Khan. I think both of them (or at least Syed Hashim) joined Airod Sdn Bhd, an MRO company servicing mostly TUDM aircrafts.
So PM Dollah hinted to me that the Aero group is in need of 2 staff immediately and he even asked me if I know somebody that I can recommend. So I told this to the only person I knew with the aero degree during that time i.e. Nazri Jaafar (Nazri now is still with the aero group as Prof. Dr. Mohammad Nazri Jaafar - left photo). You see, Nazri and I were in the same batch and graduated at the same time from Wichita State....

So to cut the lengthy story short, I reported duty as the Assistant Lecturer 'A' with the Aero Engineering Group, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, UTM Jalan Gurney on 1st August 1986. I believe Nazri also reported on the same day (or if not so maybe a few days later).

to be continued....