[kmhour]

I was a huge fan of the books growing up. I want to say I found "Raise the Titanic" in my grandfather's bookshelf and read the rest. It's a brilliant concept for a character when you think about it, part Indiana Jones, part James Bond, and Cussler had Ian Fleming's flair for the esoteric detail describing every bit of technology down to the model number. But a government agency with the broad reach of "NUMA" was a figment of Cussler's imagination and since no midlevel government employee has the scratch to house a hanger full of classic cars it's basically implied that his father the senator played a significant part in financing his lifestyle. Or if you want to read it differently, it's just another part of the fantasy.

I don't think you're asking about entrepreneurship and a computer systems engineer isn't really a coder/developer either. With a comp sys background, you aren't exactly going to be in demand as a marine biologist if you really wanted to play Pitt, but I assume your question wasn't completely literal. If you are interested in making good money and traveling/getting out of the office life, I know that there is plenty of demand in the oil business and expats can make bank. Find a niche in their technology, a traveling consultant of sorts. But usually consulting means grinding it out for a while to build up your base of knowledge and book of contents. As others have intimated, if the marine angle strikes your fancy there should be any number of ways to leverage your systems knowledge indirectly. But it's likely going to be in a government or research capacity so there probably won't be an Avions Voisin in your garage.

And as an aside, while the earlier Dirk Pittbooks are great beach thriller reading, the later books began a descent into ridiculousness in an effort to top the last. So it goes.