Hilltop Global Associates, LLC

Scottish Pride

I am proud to share this story about growing up in Scotland and hope that you find it interesting.  

I grew up in Loanhead, Midlothian, a coal-mining village in impoverished post-war Scotland.  I was named after my maternal grandfather, John Aitken King, a Deputy in the coalmines, who had died some years before I was born.

At Lasswade High School, I did well in the Classics and languages including Esperanto but not so well in the Sciences.  Lasswade was a new comprehensive school in Bonnyrigg taking students from the region.

Before I went to high school, I delivered newspapers morning and evening.  Then during high school, I worked in a local butcher’s shop, and helped the farmers in the fields.  Like a much more famous Scot, Sir Sean Connery, I delivered fresh bottled milk early each morning before school for St. Cuthbert’s Cooperative Society, based in nearby Edinburgh.  At sixteen, I worked every Saturday in an Edinburgh department store, first in electrical equipment and then the records department.

I was active in the Boy Scouts – camping and hiking in the hills - and in the Civil Defense Corps, a rescue organization left over from WWII.  When I was 14 years old, I was lucky enough to visit the Netherlands on a Boy Scout exchange visit - my first trip overseas.  At 16, I represented my high school at an International Youth Camp with visitors from all over Europe. 

After graduating High School, I spent the most boring year of my life as a Tax Collector with the Inland Revenue Service in Edinburgh.  Then, I sought adventure by working underground as a Hard-Rock Tunneller on the big Loch Awe hydroelectric project in Argyll, Scotland.  Still infected by wanderlust, I spent a very cold winter in Copenhagen, Denmark working for a Ship’s Chandler.   I tried to work my passage back home as a Galley Boy on an old tramp steamer but the ship was damaged in the Baltic ice, and the British Government repatriated me to the UK as a “Distressed British Seaman” after living by my wits for a few months in Copenhagen.

I volunteered for the British Army as an Officer Cadet to launch a new serious career although the military draft had just ended.   I passed through Royal Artillery basic training in Shropshire in England, became an Adventure Training Instructor, and was promoted up through the NCO ranks.  In summary, I served two years on active military service, and seven years with the Army Reserve, participating annually in NATO exercises in Germany against the Warsaw Pact.  Later, I was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Corps of Signals. 

After the British Army, I spent a stint as a Bus Driver for the handicapped for the Social Services department of the City of London, and then moved to Darlington in County Durham in northern England as an Airline Ground Agent - great title and uniform but too little money!  To earn more money, I worked as Production Controller with a metal fabrication company.  In this role, I negotiated the piecework rates with the welders.   

Chrysler and Cummins had just formed a joint venture to build new high-speed diesel engines at a brand-new manufacturing facility in Darlington, England.  Chrysler-Cummins hired me as a Personnel Trainee in 1966 based upon my negotiating experience and started me on my Human Resources career. I gained various promotions and within a few years I became Personnel Manager for the two-plant manufacturing complex. 

In 1970, Cummins Engine Company promoted and transferred me to its Columbus, Indiana head office in the USA.”