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Oldest Texas Ranger:
A Texas Lawman Rules His Range

By Esther M. Bauer
Published in The Washington Post
Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2000

CHILDRESS, Texas –– If the measure of a man is determined by his fearlessness, honesty and respect, then Texas Ranger Leo Hickman is one tough, honorable hombre.

When a deranged gunman shot Hickman in his eye and back before killing another man and wounding a third, Hickman aimed through the blood spurting from his face and shot the killer, disabling him before he could harm anyone else. That was in 1961, when Hickman was just 33 and a Texas highway patrolman.

The loss of his left eye never slowed Hickman, who, against his wife's admonitions, drove himself home from the hospital. He later became a sharpshooter on the state police pistol team, and in 1971 followed in his uncle's and cousin's footsteps to become a Texas Ranger.

Now, at 72, Sgt. Leo Hickman is still on duty and thinking about retiring next year after 45 years in law enforcement--nearly 30 of them as a Ranger. As far as anyone knows, he's the oldest Texas Ranger ever, and he can still shoot better than most people half his age.

As one of 107 Rangers stationed throughout Texas to assist other agencies in criminal investigations, Hickman is the only Ranger in a northwest corner of Texas that's larger than Connecticut and Rhode Island combined--a region of 26,000 people scattered over eight counties and 6,600 square miles. It's a domain where three-story buildings are considered skyscrapers, prickly pear cactus thrive and withering summers blow the land into fine red dust.

Cattle far outnumber people here, but there's no scarcity of calls for Hickman's assistance. Sometimes it's for cattle rustling or simple thievery. Other times, it's for homicide, arson or public corruption.

Except for vacations and other time off, he has been on call 24 hours a day for the past 30 years.

Hickman's uniform is a Stetson hat, cowboy boots and the bearing he brings to the job. The hat and boots make his height soar over 6 feet 6, and the ever-so-slightly altered gaze of his hazel blue glass eye and the cocked semiautomatic Colt .45 on his hip make him even more imposing.

Sheriffs and other lawmen say Hickman has the look of the Rangers who came before him, a mystical bunch with a 178-year history noted for a fearless pursuit of lawbreakers.

That combination of fact and legend makes his job easier, Hickman said.

That was the case a few years ago, when he helped Donley County Sheriff Jimmy Thompson end a standoff near a nursing home. A man in a nearby house had fired a .44 magnum, and for seven hours Thompson and 10 other officers sought cover behind barricades and squad cars while trying to talk the man into surrendering.

But the gunman gave up to Hickman within 10 minutes of his arrival.

Hickman just walked up to the porch, knocked on the door and identified himself as a Texas Ranger. He still recalls the red-hot-poker sensation of the bullets when he was shot three decades earlier, and said he was "as nervous as hell" when the man stepped onto the porch, the huge handgun aimed at Hickman's gut.

Not given to prayer even at times like that, Hickman said he just talked common sense. "I told him, 'You're scaring the people in that old folks' home.' I told him to go back inside and put the pistol away and come back without it, and he did. I think he was impressed because I was a Texas Ranger."

Because Hickman made it look easy, Sheriff Thompson has been the brunt of ribbing from other officers ever since.

"It's Leo's demeanor," Thompson said. "He's not mean, but when it comes to doing his job, he does it no matter what. He's been in gunfights; you name it: Got his eye shot out, and he keeps on going; but he got the ol' boy that shot him, and that's what counts."

Hickman's tenure as a Ranger has surpassed the once-mandatory retirement age of 65 because of the high regard superiors have for him. Seven years ago, he challenged the age limit by asking to be exempted from the policy of the Texas Department of Public Safety, which oversees the Ranger division. His request led to the elimination of the age cap.

Now, Hickman is 10 years older than the next oldest Ranger. The only Ranger who may have been older on active duty was a character from San Antonio who produced so many birth certificates that no one knew how old he was when he retired in the 1970s.

Top-ranking officers consider Hickman a modern-day counterpart of the Rangers who helped bring law and order to the Old West as well as end the exploits of bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde.

"Leo's integrity and character as he got older has never at all let up," Cmdr. Bruce Casteel said.

Hickman's early 1990s drug investigation of Claude Lane, then a Childress County sheriff and a former high school football hero, was unpopular. But Hickman's only regret is that Lane didn't get more than a three-year federal sentence for selling marijuana. "I think police officers who get caught ought to get three times the penalty that anyone else gets," Hickman said.

The assistance of Rangers like Hickman is as critical in rural Texas today as it was in the past because local agencies--some of them one-person operations--often lack the resources to conduct thorough crime scene investigations with follow-up in forensic labs. Rangers also are an asset when a crime is too politically charged to be investigated by elected sheriffs or appointed police chiefs. And during prison breaks or suspected cattle thefts, the Rangers can bring in helicopters to expand the search.

The last time Hickman had to ride a horse while searching for missing cattle was 15 years ago along the Red River. "A helicopter rides a lot easier and you can see a lot more," Hickman said.

He is renowned for his thoroughness, and although he manages a computer keyboard by pecking out words two fingers at a time, he would rather use a pencil to write his weekly reports, which secretaries then transcribe to a computer data bank.

He has assisted officers as far away as Syracuse, N.Y., where he is somewhat of a legend even though a decade has passed since he helped convict two Texas dishwashers of setting a million-dollar fire at the posh Skaneateles Country Club, west of Syracuse. 

"He's still the man I call if I want help in Texas," said Dean Decker, who as chief investigator for the district attorney's office in Syracuse was involved in the case. "He gives the impression of being a soft man, but I wouldn't want him after me. . . ."

An Impulse to Happiness

By Esther M. Bauer
Published in The Washington PostTuesday
March 28, 2000

Every few minutes a generator that has been implanted in Claude Jones's chest emits a signal that researchers hope will make him feel better.

The device, about the size of a pocket watch, sends an electrical impulse to stimulate the vagus nerve in his neck. That nerve tweaks the limbic system, which is the mood and emotional center of the brain. The gentle current lasts a few seconds and is sent every five minutes, 24 hours a day.

Jones hopes the device will eventually help him enjoy being alive. He has not had that feeling in more than two years.

Researchers are testing vagus nerve stimulation on Jones and several other patients whose depression has not responded to other treatments. It's estimated that 1 million people in the United States suffer from intractable depression; 15 percent of them will eventually commit suicide.

Jones's depression has persisted despite treatment with many kinds of medication, counseling and electroshock therapy. For the past two years he has had weekly sessions with a psychiatrist and has been hospitalized four times, once after a suicide attempt. He now takes eight pills a day: six for depression and two to help him sleep. A series of 10 weekly electroshock treatments only made him forgetful--which has kept him from getting back to his job as a lineman for a utility company.

"Not being able to concentrate isn't too good when you work with live electricity all day," says Jones, 49, whose hands tremble uncontrollably as a side effect of his medications. He has been receiving disability payments for the last six months and lives in his parents' summer cottage 70 miles southeast of Dallas. He mostly sits on the porch, his mother reports.

Although the nerve stimulation treatment is fairly exotic, the implantation is uncomplicated, a 90-minute surgery. Earlier this year, a neurosurgeon at Zale Lipshy University Hospital in Dallas implanted the pacemaker-like device midway between Jones's collarbone and his nipple, then tunneled under his skin to attach the generator via small wires to electrodes the surgeon had wrapped around his vagus nerve. When stimulated by the electrical impulses, the nerve alters functioning of the components of the limbic system that affect mood.

By the second week after the surgery, Jones began experiencing what his doctors had warned would be a "feeling of fullness" in his throat when the electrical impulse came. Jones says, "Every time I feel that thing go off, it gives me hope."

Actually, Jones is feeling the side effects of the stimulation, not the electrical impulse itself, which is undetectable. If he tries to speak while the impulse is being administered, he is momentarily hoarse. In addition to stimulating the vagus nerve, the impulse momentarily alters the opening of his larynx and consequently the pitch of his voice.

The research is based at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, which with three other medical centers completed a pilot study of vagus nerve stimulation that was published in the February issue of the journal Biological Psychiatry.

In that study 30 patients were scored before and after the implant on a roster of depression symptoms that they were feeling: sadness, low energy, sleeplessness, feelings of guilt, lack of appetite, inability to concentrate or make decisions, suicidal thoughts and feelings of worthlessness, helplessness and hopelessness. Twelve of the 30 patients receiving implants saw their scores decline by at least 50 percent, says A. John Rush, a psychiatrist at Southwestern Medical Center.

A six-month follow-up shows continuing improvement. Now 17 patients show a halving of symptoms. "People with depression of this magnitude are in an extremely disabled state . . . barely functioning," says Rush.

A comparative clinical trial scheduled for later this year is to consist of a randomized, double-blind study of about 200 patients at 15 hospitals.

Mark George, professor of psychology, radiology and neurology at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, has high hopes. "The fact that we're seeing sustained improvement among people this ill shows something important is going on," he says.

Which is not to say that anybody yet understands precisely what is going on.

The mood-enhancing effect of vagus nerve stimulation was discovered accidentally after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved it in 1997 for treatment of epilepsy. Patients began noticing that in addition to decreasing their seizures it also seemed to zap them into a good mood.

"We stumbled onto this and it has the chance of saving lots of lives . . . and to help us to fundamentally understand what's going on in the brain with depression," says George.

Should the surgery win FDA approval for treatment of severe depression, surgical and long-term follow-up care would cost about $15,000, according to Houston-based Cyberonics Inc., manufacturer of the stimulation device.

Not all patients improve. The device was removed from one patient because it over energized him, making him manic and irritable. After the implant was withdrawn, his depression came roaring back, says George.

Of the study's other 12 patients who have not felt a large reduction in their symptoms, several have improved somewhat and continue to receive the treatments while those who have noticed no change are keeping the device implanted in the event that further study suggests that a different dosing schedule might help them. (The impulse can be adjusted by the researchers using a remote control linked to the generator.)

This research opens new possibilities, says George, and not just for those fitted with the implants. "If we can understand the road maps of the brain as the result of this work," he says, "we can find a way to fix it without a little tickle 24 hours a day. This technology may be a bridge to a cure that can eventually be done without surgery."

The Irrepressible Dell

The HP-Compaq merger might have crowned a new King of the Hill, but don't count Dell out yet.

By Esther M. Bauer
HostingTech Magazine, August 2002

The merger of the second - and third-most dominant computer companies, Hewlett-Packard and Compaq, has shaken the PC market. The newly unified company has done more than displace Dell Computer (www.dell.com) as the world's largest PC company in unit sales; it is a challenge to Michael Dell and his company.

"The merger of HP-Compaq is almost like a red flag in front of a bull for [Dell], creating a new internal incentive to rally the troops to push yet further," says Barry Jaruzelski, managing partner of Booz Allen Hamilton (www.bah.com), a management consulting firm in New York.

Regaining the top spot might be psychologically important, but Dell won't sacrifice profitability to achieve it. Along the way, however, Dell can make things difficult for competitors. "They have the ability to make money; their structure allows them to be profitable," Jaruzelski says.

"We've been No.1 in profitability and customer loyalty for several years. Being No. 1 in revenue and units will naturally follow," says Dell Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Michael Dell.

Although PCs have made Dell what it is today, desktops now are a commodity, and the higher margins on servers and storage is where Dell is headed.

It's all about volume - the right kind of volume - and Jaruzelski predicts Dell can be No. 1 in revenue relatively quickly, due to its focus on valuable customers. For PCs, key customers are those in the institutional market, enterprise corporations, government entities, and power-user consumers.

For servers and storage products, the crucial clients are the large enterprises, small to midsize businesses, and Internet datacenters. Indeed, the marketing of its servers and storage products has brought Dell most of its unit growth and new opportunities in the last couple of years.

The service provider space had been a huge area of growth for Dell, but due to industry consolidation, Dell backed away from focusing on that market last year. Today, the design and technology of its servers are a good fit for enterprise and hosting companies, because the same issues affect both kinds of customers, Dell officials say.

In the next 12 months, modular computing (blade servers) is going to be a key area of opportunity for Dell.

"We expect to be in the forefront of the growth that takes place in that type of server design," says Darrell Ward, senior manager of Dell's PowerEdge rack server products.

The migration away from traditional rack servers to blade and modular servers will affect service providers and datacenters wishing to lower power, cooling, and per-server costs - in other words, the entire hosting industry.

"These dense environments are exactly what modular computing is about," Ward says. "Our modular strategy has several components and designs based on the performance requirements of the servers. Modular computing overall has been extremely well received ... just about anybody sees the value proposition."

Dell differentiates itself by adding flexibility into its modular design, Ward says.

"Our design is very unique in that we don't plan on giving the customer any limitations on flexibility or configuration, and we still maintain a great, proven density in ease of use and serviceability.

"The Dell direct model is continuing to prove itself to be a superior model in this industry. The direct model plays very well in many areas. It is going to be the fundamental cornerstone of any and all success we have going forward, regardless of the markets we address," Ward says.

Last fall, Dell partnered with EMC (www.emc.com), gaining the right to sell CLARiiON storage devices as a cobranded product and provide profitable professional services to enterprise customers.

IDC described the deal as a win-win proposition, giving EMC an "inside track" to Dell's installed base and giving Dell a higher-end storage solution for its customers.

Dell took steps with EMC in June to broaden its reach deeper into the storage market. It introduced enhancements to its PowerVault line of NAS (Network Attached Storage) servers that will allow consolidation of enterprise resources and integration with the Dell/​EMC SAN (Storage Area Network) component.

The offering allows growing companies with direct attached storage to migrate to a NAS device and, ultimately, a Fibre Channel SAN as their capacity needs dictate. The connectivity technology, jointly developed by the two companies, is among the first in the industry to add NAS servers in a heterogeneous environment.

Fine-tuning its product and service offerings is part of an ongoing strategy for Dell to continue its profitability. Michael Dell knows his company cannot repeat its phenomenal growth of the 1990s and will have to be smarter to incrementally grab market share from competitors.

"Customers have become much savvier," Dell says. "Technology will remain a large part of their capital expenditures, but business leaders are going to be more concerned with buying technology that fits their needs and will deliver desired results. So, we're not planning for another dot-com boom. We do know, though, there's a lot of old equipment out there, about 150 million systems that need to be upgraded. It's not a question of if people will buy, but when.

"Dell is known for change. We're always making adjustments to bring more value to our customers by increasing our productivity and improving efficiencies. We don't have specific plans for a major operational shift, but everyone at Dell knows that we'll change to best serve our customers," he adds.

Flexibility has been the cornerstone to the company's success. It has always maintained a lean profile and is always looking for cost-cutting measures, even before the economic slump and falling technology demands that led the company to cut $1 billion from its overhead to increase profits last year. Some of the reductions included cutting jobs, which had numbered more than 40,000 early last year. Today's head count is 34,800.

This year, Dell promises to cut another $1 billion - an action that many analysts say is likely to be a bone-cutting move. They say Dell's flat revenue, which is hanging at $31 billion, shows the company is sacrificing profitability to gain market share by lowering prices against rivals, then making up the difference by cost cutting.

"If the market isn't really growing very much ... they have to make it up on volume, which means taking it out of the hide of everybody else," says Jaruzelski. "They have to sell more just to stay even. If you are Dell management, you know you can always be the last man standing, because you have superior cost structure. They are lean to begin with. As bizarre as it sounds, their biggest problem is having been so successful. If you are already best in class, squeezing another one percent out of SG&A [Sales, General and Administrative] can be ungodly difficult. I'm really wondering if they can continue to improve their overhead structure."

Chairman Dell isn't worried. As he wrote in his 1999 best-selling book "Direct from Dell: Strategies That Revolutionized an Industry," people have been telling him it couldn't be done ever since he started selling PCs by going directly to the customer instead of through retailers and resellers.

Dell is a data-driven company always looking for ways to improve. "It is easy to fall in love with how far you've come and how much you've done," Dell wrote. "It's definitely harder to see the crack in a structure you've built yourself, but that's all the more reason to look hard and look often ... it can always be improved."

As long as efficiencies aren't at 100 percent, there is room to improve, as Dell says today.

"Until we get days of inventory down to zero, we still have room to improve our supply chain," Dell says. "Until customer service calls are down to zero, we still have plenty of room to improve the customer experience. The long-range impact? Better products, services, and value for our customers."

Dell credits his parents with teaching him to look for commercial opportunities. Today, he's just a grown-up version of the kid always on the look out for opportunity, and his company is a reflection of that philosophy.