Is there a future after "Star Trek"?

Hey, Matt:

I was digging through some old (really old) books left over from my junior high school days. As I was flipping through A Star Trek Catalog: The Complete Guide to the Fantastic World of Star Trek I noticed a listing of Star Trek fan clubs around the country. One of them was called "Star Fleet Club La Jolla" with a Paul Jacobs [with a La Jolla street address] as the point of contact. Is this the same Paul Jacobs that now runs our favorite local telecom company, Qualcomm? If so, I think I know were Paul got his hi-tech ideas. No doubt it was inside scoop from the Great Bird of the Galaxy himself!

-- JM, somewhere in San Diego

Jeez, where's a mole when you need one. We tried all our insider tricks to get at the source for this answer, but I guess we're not insider enough. Which suits me fine, actually. There are other ways to crack this nut. So in the late '70s, when this Trekkie book was published, exactly where was the Jacobs family? According to a brief published bio, in La Jolla, by golly! Pop (Irwin M.) had just finished a stint as a professor at UCSD. So where, precisely, did Dad and young Paul live? Zap to the always-so-helpful public library, drag out the old (really old) San Diego phone books, find Jacobs, Irwin M., assuming Paulie didn't have his own phone. And there it is-- the same street address listed in the catalog. So by the excruciatingly exacting standards of the Matthew Alice Center for More or Less Correct Information, we declare Dr. Paul Jacobs, CEO, Qualcomm, to be the former lead Trekkie of the Star Fleet Club of La Jolla. We don't have first-hand confirmation of this, mind you. I may get a flurry of outraged memos from some highly placed suits at the big Q on the hill. If so, I'll pass them along. And by the way, when you think about it, it's unlikely that Paul Jacobs is the only tech exec who, as an inquiring tad, was fascinated by the Star Fleet. He's just unfortunate enough to get caught at it. So to JM we say, "Make it so."