As immigrants from Poland, my mom’s family moved to the South Side of Chicago at the beginning of the 20th century. Brought by the opportunity offered by the booming steel industry on the shores of Lake Michigan, many in my mom’s family – my great grandfathers, grandfather, several uncles and aunts – took up work at the U.S. Steel South Works mill. Occupying a massive site between roughly E 79th and E 93rd, and right by the mouth of the Calumet River, South Works was the lifeblood of the South Chicago neighborhood. My grandfather was a welder there. He and his family lived near 83rd and Exchange – for a time they also owned a small convenience store that served the local community. Even though they had to cut their own education short, they were strong proponents of education and encouraged academic pursuits in their children. With the financial stability offered by the steel mill, both of their children got solid high school educations (my uncle at Chicago Vocational High School and my mom at St. Francis de Sales), followed by degrees from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. Both my mom and uncle studied engineering; my uncle got his PhD in electrical engineering, working on some of the first lasers in the Gaseous Electronics Lab. My mom got her degree in engineering physics and later an MBA, which she started at the University of Chicago. Their education opened up opportunities and stability that their immigrant grandparents could only hope for.
My grandfather handed down these values of hard work, community, and education. He and my grandmother built a small summer cottage on a lake a couple hours away in Paw Paw, MI. My grandfather designed, built, and added on to the place, often with his own hands. I remember visiting there as a little kid, and not one to let me go soft, he would “teach me how to work” – playfully having me carry buckets of water to and from the lake to water plants, and teaching me how to properly wade through the shallows to avoid scaring fish.
The death of the American steel industry hit the South Side hard. The South Works site was closed and demolished in the early 1990s, shortly after I was born. While several developments have been proposed for the site, none have come through. Focusing on our region’s strengths: deep science and engineering expertise — a place that was instrumental in the development of nuclear power, lasers, cell phones, and the internet — a new industry is emerging.
Sullivan's grandfather at South Works.
South Chicago is rows of brick houses with fabric awning-covered windows and a random second kitchen in the basement. South Chicago is a family wedding with far too much kielbasa, mostaccioli, and polka. South Chicago is smoked fish and fried shrimp from Calumet Fisheries. South Chicago is a blast furnace and dilution refrigerator. South Chicago is steel. And South Chicago is now quantum, the forefront of technical fruition.
As the region makes no little plans to build the IQMP at the South Works site, I have the opportunity to provide my input and, hopefully, grow with this industry. As the cofounder of a startup working in quantum tech, memQ , I’m thrilled about the opportunities this brings to the region. And I hope to soon bring my work to the same place where my family worked hard to give me this opportunity so many years ago.
Sullivan and his grandfather.
This story was originally published on LinkedIn.