About Me
This is the story of how I got here (sort of). For a more formal version, see my curriculum vitae.
An Engineer at Age Three
I was born and raised in Lincoln, Nebraska. My first experience with electricity was with an American Flyer electric train set when I was three years old. After a few years I graduated to HO slot cars and at one point became Nebraska state champion. (Through this process I learned that rewinding motors is easy ... it's making them work better that is difficult).
From Slot Cars to Punch Cards
On the strength of my knowledge of electric trains and slot cars, and one electronics course which I took in high school, I began studying Electrical Engineering at the University of Nebraska in 1969. While at U of N, my personal computing power was delivered by a high performance Pickett slide rule with special electrical engineering scales. On campus, we had a room full of card punch machines to create our computer programs. As I remember, solving a relatively simple math problem and plotting the results required a 12" thick stack of cards which you delivered to the input window at the computing center. Frequently after waiting for 2-3 hours for my printout, I would discover a small syntax error in my program that required starting over!
From Buffalo to Fresno
I finished my Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering at the State University of New York at Buffalo, which is also where I learned to ride a bicycle in the snow. While at SUNY, my personal computing power was delivered by a Hewlett Packard HP-55 scientific calculator. Most of the features of this $400 gift from my future father-in-law are available on $35 calculators today. Still no personal computers in 1972, but we did have a PDP-8 minicomputer with 4K of memory! It was booted up by setting switches on the from panel.
After a stint in Fresno, California as a Biomedical Equipment Technician, I studied Clinical Engineering at Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, Ohio where most of my computing was done on a PDP-11, complete with a high speed tape drive.
A Working Engineer at Last!
I completed my Masters degree in 1976 and went to work at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan. At Beaumont I evaluated, tested, specified, designed and built medical instrumentation. I also helped educate the staff and investigated accidents involving medical equipment. Our department purchased one of the early Apple computers. Program storage was conveniently done on a standard cassette tape recorder at transfer speeds approaching 600 baud! I started programming microprocessors with the 8-bit Fairchild F8. We used it as a communications interface between a Nuclear Medicine instrument and an HP-1000 mini-computer. We programmed that one with paper tape and assembled our own paper tape punch from Heathkit.
Back in School... at WCC
I have been teaching one thing or another since high school ... swimming, dulcimer, medical instrumentation for nurses, doctors and technicians ... I began teaching part time at Washtenaw Community College in the Electricity/Electronics Department in 1991. I joined the full time faculty in the fall of 1994. I currently specialize in teaching courses in industrial automation, renewable energy and electricity for HVAC. I am also active in various sustainability projects around campus including the Environmental Committee, the Climate Action Task Force and The Sustainability Literacy Task Force.
Outside Interests
Enjoying the great outdoors: commuting to work on my bicycle, hiking, backpacking, x-c skiing, canoeing
Making music: guitar, mountain dulcimer, penny whistle, vocal
Listening to music: folk, topical, singer-song writer, jazz, classical, world, bluegrass, country
