 But upon graduation, he determined that it was time to repay his adopted country for the opportunities it had given him, so he left Digitus to join the U.S. Navy, where he served as a nuclear submarine officer (1982-1989).As Digitus fell victim to the accelerating consolidation of the computer industry, Kim resolved that on leaving the Navy he would start his own business and avoid the mistakes Digitus had made.Unable to obtain financing for his own start-up, however, he signed on as a contract engineer for AlliedSignal at the Naval Research Laboratory (1990-1993), where he became aware of the asynchronous transfer technology used to link different modes of electronic communication.