EDIT: also, that same LinkedIn profile claims he started his masters degree in Plasma Physics in 1972, when he would have been around 16. Come on people, engage some critical thinking here. You're not hearing the whole story, and you're not hearing it from a reliable source.
This is an excellent point. I was working for a Boston-area acoustical consulting firm in the late 1990's and we had a hell of a time recruiting people. After an unwillingness to so so, the firm had to start giving out signing bonuses to attract candidates and still lost applicants to competing firms.
Basically, analyzing large, complex systems (especially economic and social systems) is hard and we should try to do it with an element of formality.
Whenever someone comes along with actual acoustics training and/or experience, companies are usually falling over themselves to hire the applicant since the hire can be effective from day one.
Perhaps Mr. Johnson doesn't want to do acoustics and hasn't applied for an acoustic position. Or it could be transportation problems or something logistical. But I have a hard time believing that he applied in the field and no one in the Boston area would hire him.
In his case there definitely turned out to be more to the story.
I've taken a class on homelessness. The short version is that it is usually rooted in intractable personal problems: Chronic health issues, abusive childhoods, mental illness and so on.
That is not intended to blame the victim. That's just reality: Employers pay you for value added to the business, not as a charitable act. If you have very big personal issues, you may not be very employable. I have a chronic illness myself and was very fortunate to be able to be a homemaker and military wife for a very long time. The good medical coverage from my husband's career was a godsend and it was helpful to be able to claim "homemaker" instead of "unemployed bum for 20 years" after I was finally diagnosed and well enough to work. I still had a hard time getting a job at all and I am still "underemployed" if you go by my education/skills. But until very recently, the job I currently have was all I had energy for. Anything more demanding would have gotten me fired.
I will also add that my understanding is that there is a general rise in homelessness, which points to systemic problems. That should concern everyone, not just folks like me.
He's 55 years old now. He was 33 in 1990, when he stopped working (according to him). The idea that an electrical engineer and physicist with tons of programming experience to boot, and with references from Lockheed as a Senior Research Engineer, could not get a job from 1990 to 2007, is just not plausible, even if he took a lot of time off to care for his parents. The story is not reasonable, and there are parts of it we're not hearing and parts that have been distorted (I doubt he really got to Dartmouth at age 16).
People pass this along as two things: a) a sad personal story, and b) a commentary on the sad state of the country. The fact is that it fails as both. As a personal story, it is implausible and clearly incomplete. I feel like I am being pulled around by the nose. I feel like I am hearing only one source, and that source is less than totally truthful. The real story is probably still sad, but it's probably different and less pithy. Right now, I just feel like I am being manipulated.
And it clearly has nothing to do with the state of America in 2011, since this man's problems existed decades before, and in an excellent economy.
And even if they did, wouldn't it take maybe 5 minutes worth of correspondence to figure out if he was or was not? Unless you are saying there is rampant racism in the acoustical engineering industry to the point that he would not even advance to a correspondence level with a hiring manager based soley on the fact that he is black.. Which I would doubt.
I doubt that would be much of an issue, especially since a lot of the acousticians in the Boston area are around that age and I can think of at least a half-dozen Boston-area hires in that age group.
>and has been out of work for sometime
If I had to guess, I'd say this is the big issue.
>His race might play a part in potential employers being doubtful that he has those skills
Maybe, but again I've seen no evidence of this around Boston-area acousticians. I've certainly can't remember ever being on the receiving end of it.
Something does not compute. I highly doubt it's racism (I'm black and very active in the acoustics community in Boston and have witnessed basically no intentional racism). Everyone I know out that way is very busy and a lot of firms have hired recently so it's not a matter of employers not willing to hire.
There's either more to the story here or people are missing out on a potentially fantastic hire.
edit: I've put out some feelers to see if any knows or might be interested in speaking with this guy.