Joe's life was forever changed when he met the Hamerstroms in spring 1970. He and his friend Karl Lang, drove down to meet with Fran & Hammy, as they came to be called. Karl wanted to apply for a summer job as a "gaboon". He had seen an ad in a German falconry magazine asking for someone who was a falconer, could do field work studying Harriers, and help translate Fran's book "An Eagle to the Sky".

Somehow when they left, it was Joe who was hired and Karl went back to Germany to study medicine. He always attributed this to the fact that he spent a fair bit of time chopping wood, and not much time talking.

At the end of that fateful summer, they helped Joe get admitted to the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. They became the "sponsors" he needed as a foreign student. This meant that they would pay his medical bills if he became ill, or in serious debt. Thankfully that service was not required. But they spent many hours helping him translate the essays he wrote first in German, then in English to be correct grammatically.