his is the third issue of our second
year of the KlipschSpeaker. This
issue features three entrepreneurial
Klipsch School alumni that have
created their own successful businesses, a
tribute to the Klipsch School's first woman
BSEE graduate and her quest to enable the
blind to read, honorary degree recognition for
two Klipsch School alumni, and a view of a
capstone design project undertaken by two
students during the spring semester.
ENTREPRENEURS
Many Klipsch School students have the entrepreneurial spirit and the Klipsch School faculty certainly encourage them to take the plunge. We note that the entrepreneurial spirit has never been lost on the Klipsch School alumni either. In this section, we want to highlight three businesses created by Klipsch School Electrical Engineers.
Klipsch & Associates, Inc.
Paul W. Klipsch, BSEE 1926, LLD 1981. Although you all know that Paul Klipsch is one of America's audio pioneers, having patented the original design of the famous Klipschorn in 1943, no discussion of the long line of entrepreneurship among Klipsch School alumni is complete without his mention. Paul W. Klipsch graduated with a BSEE from NMSU in 1926, obtained an MSEE from Stanford in 1934, worked as a geophysicist for a Texas oil company, served as a Lt. Colonel in the Army in World War II, and founded Klipsch & Associates, Inc., a world leader in the manufacture of high quality audio systems in Hope, Arkansas. He has written many papers and holds patents in the fields of geophysics, ballistics, and acoustics.
Klipsch built his first experimental model of a folded corner woofer, a prototype of the Klipschorn, in 1940. He continued to refine the design while serving in the Army during World War II at the Army Munitions Proving Grounds in Hope, Arkansas. After the war, he settled in Hope, and began to manufacture the Klipschorn. As the business grew, he purchased a building on the old Munitions Proving Grounds which is still used as the Klipsch manufacturing facility. Now 94, Klipsch has handed operations of Klipsch & Associates over to his nephew, Fred Klipsch, Chairman and CEO.
Paul Klipsch is a Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society and of the IEEE, a member of the Acoustical Society of America, Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Xi, and listed in the "Who's Who of Engineering." In 1978, the Audio Engineering Society awarded its Silver Medal for his contributions to loudspeaker design and distortion measurement. In 1984, Klipsch was inducted into the Audio Hall of Fame, an honor reserved for only a few individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the high fidelity industry. In 1997, he was inducted into the Engineering and Science Hall of Fame. Paul Klipsch became the 46th member among such notable scientists and engineers as the Wright Brothers, Thomas Edison, and George Washington Carver.
Paul Klipsch has been a long-time benefactor and supporter of the Klipsch School and the College of Engineering, providing support for students with undergraduate and graduate Klipsch Scholarship funds, renovation funds for the Paul W. Klipsch Lecture Hall and the historical Goddard Hall, as well as other endowments. He is a founding member of the Klipsch School Electrical and Computer Engineering Academy. In 1981, NMSU recog-nized his achievements with the award of an honorary doctorate.
Volt Information Sciences, Inc.
Jerome "Jerry" Shaw, BSEE 1949. Jerry Shaw of La Jolla, California was presented with an honorary doctorate "for his entrepreneurial accomplishments and for his service and commitment to excellence in education at New Mexico State University" during NMSU's May 1998, commencement ceremony. Shaw took pre-engineering courses at Brooklyn College and then came to New Mexico State University to major in electrical engineering, receiving a BSEE degree in 1949. In 1950, Shaw and his brother, William, started Volt Information Sciences, Inc., a technical publications company, in the kitchen of their mother's home. The brothers had $13, boundless enthusiasm and a vision for the future. They called the company "Volt" because the definition of volt was an electrical measure of potential, and in 1950 all they had was potential.
In his capacity as Chief Operations Officer, Jerry Shaw is the principal driving force in directing the day-to-day operations of Volt. Today, the Volt family of divisions and subsidiaries spanning the globe represent a Fortune 1000 company with more than 30,000 employees. In 1997, Volt sales were $1.42 billion, and the company grew by $400 million.
The Shaw brothers had a rocky start, but with the emergence of Sputnik, there was great demand for engineering research, development, and management. Volt began to prosper. In forty-eight years, the Shaw brothers built an enterprise consisting of the following companies:
Volt Services Group. One of the nation's leading providers of skilled temporary administrative, manufacturing, accounting and production personnel and contract technical, engineering and computer services staffing. Shaw & Shaw, Inc. provides professional employer services under the umbrella of Volt Services Group.
Autologicl, Inc. A high-technology manu-facturer and full-service supplier of pre-press laser imaging systems to newspapers, commercial typographers, telephone directory publishers, government printing offices, service bureaus and in-plant desktop publishing operations.
Volt Delta Resources. Volt's computer systems subsidiary provides computer systems and software integration for large database service critical applications. Included in this division are the services of Maintech, one of the fastest growing providers of third-party maintenance and other desktop and network services.
Voltelcon. The telecommunications engineering and construction segment of Volt, provides outside and inside plant engineering, outside plant records conversion, construction, installation and maintenance services to telephone operating companies and the telecommunications industry.
Volt Directory Systems and Services. One of the largest independent suppliers of photo composition services to yellow pages and white pages publishers. Additionally, the VIEWtech subsidiary offers program management and services to hundreds of electric, gas and water utilities representing millions of utility customers.
Joint Ventures. Volt has major joint ventures in Uruguay and Australia that provide yellow and white pages directory production and printing services, and yellow pages advertising sales.
Jerry Shaw is a member of the Klipsch School Electrical and Computer Engineering Academy and the Dean's Advisory Board for the College of Engineering. In 1995, he was selected to give the College of Engineering's annual Bromilow Lecture and that same year was named Distinguished Alumnus by the College.
CALCULEX
Martin Small, BSEE 1985. Martin Small founded CALCULEX in Las Cruces, in 1986, when he left his position at NMSU's Physical Sciences Laboratory as engineer group leader in telemetry. Small had acquired three bachelor of science degrees from NMSU in electrical engineering, computer science, and math, and worked several years in telemetry system software design. With entrepreneurial zeal, Small began CALCULEX, recognizing that there was a demand for telemetry system integration. He purchased telemetry systems from vendors and designed the hardware, cabling, and software to complete the integration. This is exactly what customers such as, Boeing, Lockheed, NASA, the Army, Navy, and Air Force needed for data acquisition and processing of test data -- test data required in the design of the F22 Stealth Fighter.
While CALCULEX was enjoying a worldwide demand for its original CALCULUX system, it started designing the next generation system which would become the industry standard. ARMOR, asynchronous real-time multiplexer and output reconstructor, has the ability to capture numerous channels of data, mulitplex it onto a single tape channel, and demultiplex the data back into separate channels. This was the "holy grail" for tape recorder companies. By 1995, CALCULEX had a backlog of orders for 80 systems with over 300 units operating worldwide.
CALCULEX's third-generation product is MONSSTR, modular non-volatile solid-state recorder, designed to replace traditional data acquisition tape recorders. With no movable parts, MONSSTR consists of canisters of flash memory chips allowing retention of data with power turned off. It is able to withstand harsher environments and can record data at a higher rate than tape recorders.
A new product, SPIDR, smart PCI-based instrumentation data recorder, which Small calls an "ARMOR system with brains" can be interfaced to different recording devices and provides the ability to record more data, faster and at one-tenth the cost.
From the top to the bottom, CALCULEX is staffed with Klipsch School graduates, as well as other NMSU graduates. Kevin Tillery (BSEE, 1986, MSEE, 1989), CALCULEX General Manager, actively seeks NMSU graduates that want to stay in Las Cruces, but still be at the cutting-edge of digital system design. Tillery, who is really a teacher at heart, hires many Klipsch School students for co-op and summer positions. Starting this fall we plan to incorporate field trips to CALCULEX into our EE 465 Digital Logic Design course.
CALCULEX Klipsch School alumni, and other NMSU alumni are: Rick Williams (BSCS 1985), Joe Downing (BSGS 1994), Francisco Tamez (BSEE 1997), Raymond Bullington (BSEE 1993), Sandra Shoar-Harrison (BSCS 1992), Jim Johnson (BSEE 1977), Ken Stolop (MSEE 1993), Radwan Jallad (MSEE 1993), Ellen Perry (Associates Degree, Secretarial Administration/Office Management 1993), and Ida Hernandez (Associates Degree in Applied Science 1991).
A TRIBUTE TO THE KLIPSCH SCHOOL's
FIRST WOMAN BSEE GRADUATE
Diann Smith, the Klipsch School's first woman BSEE graduate died on May 20, 1998 in Mountain View, California at the age of 66. In our discussion above of Klipsch School alumni entrepreneurship, we focused on "those who organize, manage, and assume the risks of a business or enterprise." Diann Smith was not an entrepreneur in that sense, but certainly assumed the risks by not accepting the stereotypical roles for women of her day. The following is excerpted from two of her obituaries.
Diann Smith, nee Jessie Diann Krall, grew up in Mason City, Iowa, graduating from Mason City High School in 1949 with Honors as Salutatorian. She received a Lions scholarship to attend North Iowa Junior College where she took technical classes and built her own radio transmitter and receiver. She became Mason City's first lady Ham when she obtained an Amateur Radio License, call letters W0DBU. In 1951 she moved to Alameda, California and was employed at the Naval Air Station as a technical librarian for one year before transferring to White Sands Missile Range as an Engineering Aide in the Flight Determination Laboratory's telemetry section for research and testing of guided missiles.
In February 1953, Diann Smith was accepted into the Klipsch School and was employed part-time at the Physical Sciences Laboratory reducing telemetry data for her husband-to-be, Kenneth Smith. In May 1955, she became the first woman to earn a BSEE degree at NMSU. In August, she and Ken were married and moved to California where Ken was employed by GTE Lenkurt and Diann was employed by Ampex as an electrical engineer in the Audio Custom Products Division. She was a member of the design team for many custom audio recorders, one of which was an 8-track audio recorder that Les Paul & Mary Ford used to mix such hits as "Mockingbird Hill."
With motherhood, Diann Smith chose full-time homemaking. Then in 1969, she signed up for an adult education class in braille and was certified in literacy braille by the National Library of Congress in 1972. She went on to learn the Nemeth Braille Code for Mathematics and Science Notation. As a member of the Braille Transcription Project of Santa Clara County, she helped produce many math, physics, and engineering textbooks for university students, primarily those at Stanford. She was a board member of the National Braille Association from 1980 to 1985. From 1983 to 1997 she was a Computer-Assisted Braille Specialist for the California Transcribers and Educators of the Visually Handicapped.
For nearly thirty years, Diann Smith gave thousands of hours to embossing page after page of textbooks for blind students to read. She continued to elevate her expertise in math, science, and computer programming. Such braille can be produced only by transcribers familiar with the subject matter, and Diann Smith's experience in electrical engineering qualified her. "Mom had such a love of reading," her daughter said. "She wanted to give reading to everyone and anyone."
Diann Smith learned in August 1997 that she had squamous-cell cancer, an aggressive form that spread from her throat to her lymph nodes and lung. She died the following May and is survived by her husband Kenneth, her children Leslie and Steven and their families, and her mother Jessie Krall.
ALUMNI RECOGNITION
Two Klipsch School alumni were recognized during the May commencement ceremonies. Jerome "Jerry" Shaw was granted an honorary doctorate which is discussed in the earlier section on entrepreneurship. Jack Ward, a 1993 recipient of the NMSU Branding Iron Award for community service, was presented with a Professional Degree of Electrical Engineering. After a 40-year career with AT&T, primarily in Colorado, Ward returned to Las Cruces and continues to donate time and money to several NMSU endeavors in music and engineering. Jack Ward's citation reads:
Be it known that for the forty years of engineering and management contributions to the communication industry; service to the Society of Professional Engineers; the many contributions to the students of New Mexico State University, and in recognition of his community service to the State of New Mexico, the Regents of New Mexico State University hereby confer upon Jack W. Ward a Professional Degree of Electrical Engineering.
WHAT OUR STUDENTS ARE DOING
An annual survey by Michigan State University finds that employers expect college graduates to find 28% more job openings this year than last, and that the average starting salaries for electrical engineering graduates will be $41,167. The Klipsch School BSEE graduates are all beating that average. The highest offer received by one of our students was in the $53,000 range with an additional $4,000 signing bonus.
The Winter 1998 KlipschSpeaker discusses our increased emphasis on capstone design courses which include design, simulation, and implementation of systems typical of what would be expected of an electrical or computer engineer with one to five years of on-the-job experience. In this and future issues of the KlipschSpeaker we want to show the level and type of work expected.
College Assistant Professor David Pippen, retired from a long career with NASA in quality assurance and test, really enjoys working with student groups in capstone design. Dave has an electronics workshop with printed-circuit board fabrication capability in his garage and spends many one-on-one hours with the capstone design students. At the beginning of the spring 1998 semester, Gareth Greenwald and Esther Melton asked Professor Pippen to supervise a capstone design project. Pippen had been searching the Internet for information about rheumatoid arthritis and found a discussion about an electronic device claimed to be a cure of arthritis. The fact that there is no hard scientific evidence to support the claims, but an interested customer base, made for an excellent capstone design project. Pippen proposed that Greenwald and Melton form a company and build that product. Following is the abstract for their ZAPPER DESIGN presentation given at the end of the spring semester.
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Zapper Design
EE 490 - Special Topics
G. Greenwald, E. Melton
May 15, 1998
The project consisted of two parts. The first task was to design and build two prototypes that worked on Dr. Hulda Clark's theory of pathogens. In the book The Cure For All Diseases, Dr. Clark's theory states that all ailments are caused by pathogens and that by passing a positive, offset voltage (at approximately 2.5k-3Hz) through the body, these pathogens are destroyed. The timing interval Dr. Clark recommends that the user subject himself to voltage for seven minutes and rest for twenty minutes. The procedure should be repeated again and then end the cycle with one more seven-minute session of voltage. The entire process should take approximately 61 minutes. The second task was to manufacture these prototypes and deliver them to paying customers.
Two units were available to the customers: a basic unit and an advanced unit (called the "Zap-O-Matic"). The basic unit requires the user to time himself with an external timer to keep track of his position in the cycle. It uses a CMOS 555 (timer) to generate a 2.75kHz, 7-8V output. A 9V battery is used as the voltage source and a LED indicates when the 555 is working.
The Zap-O-Matic completely automates Clark's procedure and no other props are needed. A 15V voltage regulator (MAX633) boosts the 6V input (four D-cell batteries) and supplies a BJT 555 (timer). The BJT 555 supplies the circuit. A clock with a 14-minute period is generated by a CD4060 (counter). The clock is conditioned by a CD4040 (counter). The clock and conditioned clock generates a 7-minute on, 21-minute off signal achieved via CD4001 (Ouad NOR gate) logic which controls a CMOS 555 (timer). This CMOS 555 generates the 2.75kHz, 7-8V output for the user. A CD4017 (Johnson counter) supplies the LED's which tell the user which stage he is in in the procedure. The CD4001 also activates a BJT 556 (dual 555 timer) at the end of the final 7-minute session. The BJT 556 powers a melody generator that plays "You are My Sunshine" for 15 seconds telling the user his session is over. Upon completion of the 15 seconds, the BJT 556 waits one second and the puts the device into idle mode. A LED is provided to indicate when power is applied. LED's to indicate when the user is in the "rest" or "discharged" mode are also provided. A pushbutton switch starts the entire process.
The second task of the project was to interact with prospective customers to determine their desires in this product and to provide completed units to those who requested them. A total of two Zap-O-Matics and two basic units were ordered. The manufacturing phase of the project was not completed due to inability to provide production units in the time remaining.
This project was a great experience for both of us. We got the opportunity to broaden our technical skills, improve our interpersonal skills, and make some difficult decisions. It allowed us to use all of the skills we have acquired throughout our studies: analog and digital design, technical writing communication and teamwork. We learned that an engineer must combine common sense, intellect, discipline, and tact to be successful. Most importantly, we learned that no matter how much you want something with your heart, engineering decisions must ALWAYS be based on fact.
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Since Greenwald and Melton were unable to complete the manufacturing phase and deliver production units by the end of the semester, they disbanded their company, graduated, and started their engineering careers independently.
FACULTY/ STAFF HIGHLIGHTS
J. Eldon Steelman, Associate Dean of the College of Engineering and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, will retire July 31, due to his wife's health problems. Eldon joined the Klipsch School in 1968 and became Associate Dean in 1988.
During the spring, four Klipsch School professors submitted proposals to Intel Corporation for donation of Pentium II PCs to be used for teaching and research. Dr. Kwong Ng received six PCs to be used in the Electromagnetics Laboratory for the study of simulation techniques in the electromagnetics and microwave areas. Dr. Paul Furth received seven PCs to be used in the VLSI Laboratory for microelectronics design. Dr. James Le Blanc received three PCs to be used in the Communications Laboratory for work on advanced signal processing for communications. Dr. Bob Paz received five PCs to be used in the Systems Laboratory for control system design using the CTOOLS toolkit he created to allow the students to design and test many different control designs in a simple, straightforward way. See the Spring 1998 KlipschSpeaker for a discussion of CTOOLS as well as Dr. Paz' new text Computer Controlled Systems.
Dr. Paul Furth recently received a $48,000 equipment gift from Hewlett-Packard consisting of eight oscilloscopes, eight function/arbitrary waveform generators, eight data acquisition units with internal digital multimeters, and eight triple output power supplies. The equipment will be used in the new freshman circuits laboratory for EE 111 Introduction to Electrical and Computer Engineering and EE 211 AC Circuits starting this fall.
In April, Dr. Patricia Hynes, was promoted to Director of the Klipsch School's New Mexico Space Grant Consortium. Dr. Stephen Horan, founder, original Director, and also Director of the Klipsch School's Manuel J. Lujan Space Tele-Engineering Program relinquished his directorship in order to devote his full efforts to the Tele-Engineering research and education program. Dr. Hynes had served as Associate Director since 1991. Bill Ryan, Associate Director of the Space Tele-Engineering Program, will leave the Klipsch School in August to start a similar program at University of Arizona.
Robert Paz received tenure and is promoted to Associate Professor effective with the start of the 1998-99 academic year. Krist Petersen, Klipsch School College Instructor, completed his PhD on July 7. Krist continues to have responsibility for undergraduate advising and record checks.
KLIPSCH SCHOOL NOTES
We now have the KlipschSpeaker on our web site. Locate http://www.ece.nmsu.edu/alumni/ alumni. html, select KlipschSpeaker and bring up the issue you want.
It's important to us that all of the Klipsch School alumni receive the quarterly KlipschSpeaker. We get our mailing labels from the NMSU Alumni Association, but we know there are Klipsch School alumni who are not members of the NMSU Alumni Association. We want to put these alumni in a Klipsch School database, but we don't know how to find them. Please send us addresses of alumni not receiving the KlipschSpeaker.
We can also provide the KlipschSpeaker as an attachment to an E-mail message for those alumni who prefer electronic service. This may be especially attractive to foreign alumni. If you want E-mail delivery, send your name and email address to jtaylor@nmsu.edu. Indicate any special requirements.
If you haven't already, please check the Klipsch School's web page at http://www.ece.nmsu.edu. Our web page tells about the Klipsch School students, faculty, programs, and research. Look us up. The NMSU web page address is http://www.nmsu.edu. You can get to our web page from NMSU's or directly at the address above. The University has a calendar of events web page at http://www.nmsu. edu/general/calendar. If you want to get in touch with us, obtain additional information, or tell us something about you or other alumni, contact the Klipsch School Head, Dr. Jay Jordan at 505-646-3115 or E-mail to jjordan@nmsu.edu, or Dr. Javin Taylor, Associate Head and KlipschSpeaker editor at 505-646-1239 or E-mail to jtaylor@ nmsu.edu. Or use the Klipsch School fax number, 505-646-1435.