Crazy Fish May Redefine Computer Industry

Fish was soon up to his neck in controversy after the mayor demanded under-the-table payoffs or else. After discovering police records that showed the mayor in 1962 had killed a man by slamming his skull with a billiard ball, Fish took the mayor's threat seriously, and loudly, denouncing the mayor in front of the city council.

On Halloween night in 1986, Fish was awakened in the middle of the night to the news that his factory had been torched. He discovered equipment missing, files destroyed and goo poured into his mainframe computer.

A private investigator found the arsonists and recovered most of the equipment. Almost all the data was retrieved. But Post Technologies was on life support.

It was Thanksgiving weekend 1987. After giving up skydiving for five years, Fish had leaped back in and, as usual, went overboard.

About 50 top professionals and amateurs were competing in the Budweiser Pro-Am Sky Diving classic in Kerman. Fish was a prime organizer. Most competitors attended the charity event to do formations, accuracy jumps or canopy hot-dogging. Fish and one other competitor, a woman named Cheryl Stearns, were the only skydivers attempting to break the Air-Enduro record for the most jumps in 24 hours. The men's record was 250; the women's record was 76.

Started by the military in 1926 and held every two years, the Air-Enduro was attempted by few.

"I figured, 'What the hell?'" Fish says. "I might as well try."

At 34, Fish was too old; most who attempted it were in their 20s. But once committed, Fish tackled conditioning as if he were D.B. Cooper training to leap from a 727 with the FBI on his ass. He called Stearns, whom he'd met on the skydiving circuit when she was 17, to see if she would compete with him. At 33, she was known as "The Falling Angel" and the holder of numerous skydiving world records.

"She is the best and most proficient skydiver to ever put on a chute," Fish says. "I think I taunted her about the female record."

While in the military, Stearns had become the first female Golden Knight, a member of the skydiving team of the U.S. Army. Her name would draw crowds so they agreed to try to beat the record together.

"People don't say no to him," says Stearns, now an airline pilot. "He's a hard-charger, but he works in a different dimension."

They recruited 50 volunteers as packers, riggers, dressers and undressers, as well as seven or eight pilots flying Cessna 210s. They made their first jump at 4:30 p.m.

A five-and-a-half-minute cycle was two minutes to altitude, two minutes to spiral to landing, and 90 seconds to get stripped, sprint to the staging area and get dressed with a new rig.

"It is fun in the same way running a marathon is fun," Fish says. "Your adrenaline is pumping. But it's physically draining. Your body is taking a lot of Gs."

On one fall, he slammed into the hood of a car where a drop zone was supposed to be, dodging the windshield but shredding the fabric of a pant leg on his flight suit. His crew raced to grab Fish, field-strip him and check for injury. But Fish wasn't ready to stop jumping. He and Stearns were ready to go, again and again.

By midnight, the weather at Lodi Airfield was 28 degrees. The only lights were car headlamps and TV lights. Satisfied his leg wasn't broken, the crew strapped on another parachute rig. Fish threw a slice of kiwi in his mouth as he limped for the next airplane, dove in with his partner and the plane began its quick race to 2,000 feet.

Starting to tire, Fish looked at Stearns. Trembling with the cold, she looked nauseated. Fish squeezed Stearns' knee in encouragement and then stood behind her at the door. Jump...pull...fall into a deep black well. Whoomp.

As soon as their square canopies opened, each pulled a handle to collapse one corner of it and started spinning. A jumper normally drops at 10 feet per second; spinning increased that to 40 feet per second. They beat the plane to the ground.

At sunrise, Stearns started feeling better; Fish was tiring. The meet director told them since they had made only 113 night jumps they had no chance of beating the record. Given their health, they should quit.

"The hell we are," Stearns said. She looked at Fish. "Can we pick it up?" she asked. More than anything Fish wanted to stop. But he looked at Stearns and nodded. They ran for the next plane.

This time, she pushed their tempo. With two hours to go, Dave Huber, the record holder, rushed up to them holding a calculator and said they'd gained so much ground that they had a chance to beat 250.

After jump 242, Fish landed and as the crew stripped him, a volunteer slipped on wet grass and kicked him in the chest, breaking two ribs. A doctor began riding with them to altitude.