In the mid-1960s, I began a journey that started in the lab working on basic research projects in artificial intelligence. As AI evolved, and particularly with the identification in the mid-1970s of expert systems as a promising technology, my attention turned to practical applications. In this narrative, I sketch a personal trajectory that mirrors the historical development of AI from its first stirrings to the beginning of the era of deep learning. My path included the first theoretical analysis of a widely used pattern classifier, the creation of the world's first robot with artificial intelligence, the development of the first expert system that provably solved an economically important problem, the founding of the first AI research lab in a commercial company, the founding of an expert systems company, and the restarting of a corporate research center. My account pays special attention to Syntelligence, the expert systems company that represented my most-focused effort to bring AI into the real world.
