Dartmouth Engineer

In 1971 I was in the investment business. I had a friend who wanted to diversify his business and we set out to acquire the company for him. I became chairman, he became treasurer. The company engineered coal preparation facilities and was a small factor in a fairly large industry. It did turnkey construction based on its engineering designs, but had no construction facility. During the next three years the coal industry had a strike, the price of coal went sky high, and the company, which was capable of building two plants at a time, was building seven. We paid off all the debt and had cash left over. It was decided that we would begin a holding company and acquire other companies. We have made various investments, including two construction companies designed to assist the coal processing engineering company. I do not consider that we have been particularly successful. We should have been investing in tomorrow’s business instead of yesterday’s. We set out to develop a fast-growing company; we ended up with cyclical, smokestack companies. The most significant lesson we have learned is that it is critical to set goals, develop a plan to achieve them, and constantly review the plan and the results—and that you will make some mistakes.
—Nate Parker ’52 Tu’53 Th’53

In 1987-88 I founded a company that we named IMCOR (the interim management recruiting company). The company grew rapidly, and in 1997 I sold it for $10 million to a large temporary-help firm. We drew on the large pool of downsized executive talent that then (as now) existed in the United States. We challenged a large number of executive recruiting tenets as a part of our strategy and used networking concepts and laptop computers to locate and source specific skill sets and provide rapid service. We had a small but significant retainer and provided nearly perfect executive candidates in less than two weeks. All of our placements were interim assignments of six months. Our pricing and conversion fees were engineered to be both profitable (to us and to the executive) as well as considerably less expensive than the executive recruiting business model. And then we found that 80 percent of our placements were offered a permanent position after completing the interim assignment. Models of recruiting behaviors, economic tradeoffs, and negotiating tactics were used continuously in our training and mentoring. And all of this was before monster.com.
—Bruce Clark ’60 Th’61 Tu’61

In 1972 I left as the development officer of what is now Westin Hotels and started my own firm, Jack N. Hodgson Co., specializing in hotel development. I’d attach myself to a developer doing a major project and oversee the hotel part of it. My firm never had more than three employees. I loved that flexibility. Science courses and case studies in business school were important aids in my work. During my two-year stint in the Army, I studied interrogation techniques at intelligence school. That helps in negotiations, which you do every day. Most importantly, if you treat people nicely and do good work, more work comes in the door.
—Jack Hodgson ’60

After six to seven years with a very large firm, CRSS, my partner and I bought the Chicago office of CRSS Civil Engineers, of which I was president, in 1993. We formed Meridian Engineers & Planners Inc., saying, “Now if we’re doing anything stupid, it has to be our fault!” We functioned with a staff of 25 to 30 until 1996, when we concluded that we didn’t function well selling from a “small wagon.” We merged Meridian into Edwards & Kelcey in a great cultural and services fit that saw me to retirement in 2006. We more than doubled the size of the office to 70 and ultimately realized an excellent return on our original investment.
—Tom Jester ’63 Th’64

In 1994, after 20 years as a manager in a Silicon Valley electronics company, I left and co-founded an RF semi-conductor company called Endwave. I had been introduced by a venture capital firm to an enthusiastic group of engineers who had a new idea for building cost-effective broadband, radio-frequency semiconductors. We built a business plan and raised our first round of financing. Six years later, after more venture capital funding, we did an initial public offering and raised funds to advance the business. Last year we sold the majority of the company to a larger semiconductor company, and I retired as CEO.

I would advise a few things for budding entrepreneurs:

• Hire the best people that you can find, then empower them to do their job. Only intervene if it would be a major problem, otherwise let them learn from their own mistakes, not yours.
• When raising money from institutions, back your truck up and load in all you can get, as you will probably need it.
• Whatever your initial business plan is, it is wrong and will need to be modified. Be open to changing it as the environment dictates.
• Be careful of being too far ahead of society. Many great ideas have failed not because they were wrong, but because they were too early and ran out of funds. My company spent millions on wireless broadband in the 1990s, 10 years before anyone really cared—a real waste.
• Traits essential for success include honesty, judgment, and perseverance.
• The most important skill set in a company is sales and marketing experience in the target market. Without customers, there is no reason for the business.
• If you have a great idea for a business but no management experience, you might do best by hiring a professional manager for CEO and become the chief technology officer. A popular venture capital comment to technologists in Silicon Valley is: “With that great idea, you can either get rich or be CEO, not both.”

—Ed Keible ’65 Th’66

I was a VP and director of technology for Owens-Illinois (O-I) Inc. when I founded Plastic Technologies Inc. (PTI) in 1985. The premise for creating PTI was that Coca-Cola bottlers wanted to develop new and innovative PET plastic soft drink packaging products, including a plastic can. Four Coca-Cola self-manufacturing cooperatives agreed to jointly sponsor and fund several major product development and engineering projects. I proposed establishing a separate independent company to manage these projects—and PTI was created. The contracts assured PTI of initial funding and required PTI to manage the plastic can development project and carry out other engineering and development projects for the combined Coca-Cola cooperatives. PTI developed client relationships with other high-profile self-manufacturing concerns, resin suppliers, machinery builders, brand owners, and converters. We learned how to work with competitive customers and are recognized for protecting customer intellectual property and confidentiality. PTI customers are involved in every step of the PET value chain, from raw material supply through end-of-life recyclability process studies. PTI is recognized today as the premier PET technical development and support resource in that industry, with nearly 120 employees worldwide, and offices and labs in Ohio and Geneva. Recent technological developments include biopolymers, nanotechnology for material additives, flexible packaging and pouches, sustainable packaging initiatives, and instrument development with new sensors.
—Tom Brady ’66 Th’68

In 1983 I co-founded and was president of Aqua Design, a desalination company based in California that established seawater desalination operations on 14 islands. We sold the company in 1996 to Ionics, and it is now part of General Electric. The company was an extension of a 1963 Thayer ES 21 project with Professor Paul Shannon and a reverse osmosis graduate research project that Dean Spatz ’66 Th’67 and I conducted under the guidance of Dean Myron Tribus.

Aqua Design engineered, manufactured, constructed, owned, and operated seawater reverse osmosis desalination plants supplying water to governments and resorts mainly in the Caribbean. Essentially we were selling water by the cubic meter. Since we owned the plants, we were able to test new ideas and developments on a commercial scale under real-world conditions. By 1987 we had the reduced energy consumption for the main desalination process to less than 9 kilowatt-hours per thousand gallons by reusing the hydraulic energy in the waste brine by means of our dynamic pressure exchange systems.
—Chris Miller ’66 Th’67

I played a significant role in the rebirth of the family-owned business, Schweizer Aircraft Corp. During its first 44 years the company developed and produced a line of sailplanes and manufactured airplanes, as well as airplane parts and assemblies for major aerospace companies and the U.S. government. A second generation of Schweizers (all engineers) joined the company in the 1970s, including my brother Paul ’68 Th’69, after eight years in engineering at Boeing, and me, after picking up a master’s in aeronautical engineering from Princeton and three years at Boeing. In 1983 we acquired the company, which was in bad shape in terms of its technology, product base, and finances. Our first major move was to acquire an existing light helicopter line, which included the Army’s primary flight trainer, from Hughes Helicopter Inc. During the next 21 years the company developed two new light helicopter models and an unmanned helicopter for the U.S. government while producing in excess of 2,000 helicopter units. Another important business area became the development and production of highly specialized and sophisticated reconnaissance airplanes for the U.S. and foreign governments. In 2004 we sold the company to the Sikorsky Aircraft division of United Technologies Corp. I retired in 2007.

My advice includes: Have people around you who are ready to criticize the boss. Treat your employees fairly and your customers like gold. Recognize your mistakes as soon as possible and react. Constantly improve your products and technology. Really know your competitors. Work your butt off.

The engineering and liberal arts background that I acquired at Dartmouth helped me every day. I could solve tough engineering problems one minute and write an effective proposal the next. The most important thing I took from Thayer School was understanding that no problem was too tough for me if I put my mind and energy fully against it.
—Stu Schweizer ’66 Th’67

The photovoltaic power systems and instrumentation company I founded almost 25 years ago, Irradiance, grew out of projects I worked on and led at MIT. My advice: Follow a passion and teach others along the way—and be patient for the world to catch up. Staying in touch with Thayer is also a good thing to do.
—Edward Kern Jr. ’67 Th’68

I’ve worked at several early-stage companies and groups over the years, but the British Flag Holder Co. is the first one I’ve founded. This is a very small group that we formed to make bronze memorial flag holders for British veterans. (My dad, Ken Chapman, was at university in London when World War II broke out. He enlisted and served in the British Army until 1946.) Even though this project is small, it has all the earmarks of a successful startup: an unmet need, passionate team, and long-term commitment.
—Mike Chapman ’76 Th’77

I founded Advizor Solutions as a spinoff from Bell Labs. We are currently about 20 people. The biggest challenge has been changing markets. As a technology spinoff (I was hired to spin the technology out of Bell Labs), we had technology but needed to find the market—sort of the reverse of the ideal startup. We first went after website analytics, but that market crashed around 2003. We then went after financial services, but that got pulled out from under us when a key partner with domain knowledge went into a downspin. We then targeted higher education, but that slowed up in the 2008–09 market slump. Now we have some good forward momentum. I think the biggest lessons learned were to stick in there and adjust as market conditions change, and to make sure you address key needs and pain points in unique and valuable ways.
—Doug Cogswell ’77

I’ve been involved in two startups in the computer software industry. I co-founded Syntra Ltd. with a Columbia Business School friend while we were both at Columbia in 1983. The systems-oriented approach to engineering that was taught at Thayer and the project focus of classes such as ES 21 were excellent background for starting and growing a technology company because they made you realize that you could achieve much more than people thought if you just jumped in and tried to solve problems as they came up. I remember a number of occasions when we won competitive bidding situations because we were able to innovate around a roadblock while our competition did not. We grew the company from the two of us and $50,000 of investor capital to revenue of $6 million and a staff of 50. We sold to venture capital investors in the late 1990s, and they invested $75 million into the company in a bet on the globalization of the Internet. The bet did not work out as desired, so the company no longer exists. My second startup was an industry-funded portal called INTTRA, a global portal for the ocean container industry. Our 2010 revenues were $50 million, and we have about 300 people. Because containerized freight is a global industry, the Dartmouth global worldview was very helpful in the early days as we struggled with building a global team, culture issues, language issues, etc.
—Harry Sangree ’79 Th’80

In 1995 I co-founded Intermind Corp., a startup focused on automating information exchange on the Internet, allowing info consumers to establish persistent links with info providers, such as vendors, in a way that enabled them to control the flow. It also allowed info providers to obtain anonymous, aggregate data on what consumers are seeking, how they interact with the info, etc. The product shipped in 1996. We achieved adoption by more than 200 info providers, but the speed of the database engine proved a painful limitation. We ran low on money before we could solve the tech problems. After shedding more than 80 employees, we took the company back to just two people (myself and the co-founder), received more capital, and tried again. In 1999 I was invited to leave in favor of new CEO talent. The company is still trying to create value from the original IP. I am a co-author of one patent, and the company received several others, but patents mean little without large-scale application deployment. The startup was a wild ride. I’d do it again in a heartbeat, but differently.
—Peter Heymann ’81 Th’83 Tu’83

My company is the Energy Emporium, a renewable energy showroom and information center located in Enfield, N.H., in an 1860s renovation to zero-energy building. Zero-net energy means all of the energy needed to heat the house and provide electricity is provided from renewable sources; for us that means solar energy. We have four goals with this building: zero-net energy, LEED certification, no combustion (heating is done with all low-temperature distribution), and historical preservation. We provide information, a showroom, sales, installation, and maintenance for solar hot water, solar electric, grid-tied or off-grid systems, wind and water turbines, and composting and energy-efficient products. I hope to provide a place for people to research their own ideas in renewable energy and sustainable living.
—Kim Quirk ’82 Th’83

None of the companies I have founded has bloomed, though products I initiated have made, well, maybe billions. Under the direction of Barry Richmond, I simulated the life of a person for my Thayer M.S. thesis. In 1984 my technical recruiter presented my proposal to turn that simulation into a game. Electronic Arts (EA) turned it down, saying simulation models do not sell. Human Edge Software moved me across the country to develop it, but the company went under, so I founded AI Consultants and tried to sell the idea to IBM, Apple, Hanna-Barbera, and venture capitalists. Meanwhile, I designed and wrote computer programs and expert systems for Apple, IBM, Prudential, and other big companies. Now SIMS and SIM City are the core products of EA. Today I have two software products that will be great: one that heals the heart through individualized dialog and one that connects kids to the woods through smart phones. I still have no idea how to get a company going. Any advice?
—Sue Spencer Th’82

I am the CFO of Energy XXI Ltd., which I co-founded in Bermuda in 2005. We have a $3.9 billion enterprise value ($2.8 billion market cap) and produce about 43,000 barrels of oil equivalent in the Gulf of Mexico, of which two-thirds is oil.
—West Griffin ’83 Th’85 Tu’85

In 2007 I co-founded North Bridge Growth Equity, a private equity investment firm. We help businesses manage rapid growth with the goal of taking the company public or selling to a larger firm down the road. Our first fund of $547 million was raised from university endowments, foundations, and family offices.

After Thayer I started my career in the semiconductor capital equipment industry, working for Teradyne as a sales engineer. Since earning my M.B.A., I have spent the last 20 years in private equity focused on technology investing. My A.B./B.E. in engineering have been crucial to my career in so many ways. The beauty of the Dartmouth degrees is the breadth of exposure to technology combined with the opportunity to build great communications skills. I am at ease discussing technology with entrepreneurs, whether it is semiconductors, software, communications, medical devices, data storage—you name it. I couldn’t possibly have succeeded in my career and started my company without it.
—Doug Kingsley ’84 Th’85

My first six years out of Dartmouth were spent as a nuclear engineering submarine officer. The motivation for this service, back in the 1980s, was derived from my time in Leningrad (foreign study program in Russian language) that tapped a patriotic vein within, while at the same time looking for a challenging engineering experience. I was later able to lean on my double major in engineering and Russian studies in the early 1990s, when I co-founded a company with two Russian scientists to lease a Russian nuclear-powered submarine for civilian science research under the Arctic. In 2000 I founded a company in Brazil offering energy services to electric utilities and large wholesale customers for their energy management and efficiency needs—services just now coming to the United States, as power finally becomes of interest to consumers. A year ago I co-founded SI Energy for the development, acquisition, and management of hydropower assets in the Republic of Georgia, once again utilizing elements of my double major. We have a partnership with a Norwegian utility, but I feel it hard at my age to pick up another language.
—Dale Perry ’84

My partners and I have co-founded at least half a dozen companies focused on everything from oil and gas exploration and production to trucking. Some have been winners and some have been dogs. I think I am most proud of the fact that we have never gone bankrupt!

The most recent venture is Absolute Completion Technologies Ltd., started in 2002 and focused on developing and commercializing technologies for the down-hole control of solids and fluid in-flow in oil and gas wells. We have some exciting IP in this area that we largely developed ourselves. ACT’s products are currently sold in 35 countries around the world, and we work in some very interesting and challenging environments—from deep water to high-temperature, in-situ combustion. ACT will double in size this year to about $30 million in annual revenue and more than 80 employees. Schlumberger, the world’s largest oilfield service company, took a minority stake in ACT in 2007.

Important things I have learned are:

• Knowledge and understanding really are two very different things, and there is no substitute for experience! Trumping all: the courage to take risks.
• Judge yourself on the progress you are making toward your goals, not on whether you have achieved them. Goals have a habit of getting bigger. It’s better for your confidence to focus on progress.
• The 80-percent rule is a universal law—don’t over-engineer. It is better to be moving in more or less the right general direction than in exactly the right direction.
• Simple is super.
• You need more capital than you think.
• If you enjoy the creative aspect of engineering, once you hear the words “market share,” move on.
• Save the weekends for your family.

—Thane Russell ’84 Th’85

I started a small company called Focus Embedded to design electronics for deeply embedded systems. We do digital and analog electronic circuit design, programmable logic design (including field-programmable gate array design and synthesis), deeply embedded firmware and device driver design, some user interface software design, printed circuit card layout, and short-run prototyping for “design for manufacturability” feasibility studies. The company got its first big lease on life in late 2007, when I was handed a severance package at my position as a field applications engineer with a major semiconductor manufacturer. I was unemployed about a week when my phone rang. It was one of my former employer’s customers. He’d hunted me down and became my first design customer. By the spring of 2008, it dawned on me that this was my next job. Having collected lab equipment for years (to do all my little “garage shop” projects) and having made innumerable contacts in the electronics industry, I pretty much had all the pieces to pull the plug on working for a large corporation. Now Focus Embedded is up to six and a half employees.
—Eric Overton ’87 Th’89

After seven years of running an early stage/incubation venture fund (Momentum Venture Management) I returned to my operating roots and launched my newest venture, Graphight. I realized that great ideas must be surrounded with great people in order to build great companies. Graphight is a relationship management system that helps business professionals develop new contacts into valuable relationships while ensuring they don’t neglect important existing relationships. I am also juggling five other board roles and two young kids (Spencer, 9, and Dylan, 6). I am super lucky to have a fantastic wife, Liz, who helps me keep all the pieces together.
—Andy Wilson ’88

I had a fabulous experience founding a company. In 1994 I was working at SRI International on a team doing speech-recognition research, and we decided to spin out a company. I was one of four co-founders of Nuance Communications. I stuck with it for 10 years, during which we grew to $50 million a year in revenue and went through an IPO in March of 2000. After I left in 2004, Nuance was acquired. The acquirer took the Nuance name and NUAN ticker symbol and continued to roll up other companies in the speech space. Nuance is approaching $1 billion in revenue. Today’s Nuance bears little resemblance to the company I helped to create, but it’s exciting to see it live on.
—Peter Monaco ’89

In 2008 I founded B2B Venture Partners USA. We were a small team with considerable experience in business engineering, website design, and marketing. We set up an online social network at usaB2Bvp.com to attract experienced people for the creation and management of new public companies. Our biggest challenge was getting entrepreneurs and professionals to understand our business model. In 2010 we applied the business model in two areas: charter school funding and vegetarian fast food. I credit my Dartmouth experience for giving me the entrepreneurial guts to work on something that has never been done before.
—Ananda Glover ’91 Th’92

A couple of years after I returned to Colombia, I decided to get into the digital post-production and computer animation business for two main reasons: 1) After two years in the innovation business of research in Thayer, I was bored in the manufacturing sector where I was required to comply with norms and guidelines without much room for challenges; and 2) my husband is a TV commercials director and I could see lots of room for growth in the computer animation and nonlinear editing areas. At first, taking advantage of the enormous experience I had acquired at Thayer in computer-assisted design, I became a digital effects designer for a production company my husband worked for. In 1993 we started our own production company, Metro Studio S.A., and I took on the  job of designing software for managing the business. I also did computer animation, nonlineal editing, and digital effects. In 1997 we started our own animation and digital effects department inside the company. Since 2002 these areas developed enough throughout Latin America so that we could outsource them. Last year we had sales of $2.5 million. We plan to double this sales figure by the end of 2012.

Thayer taught me how to become an entrepreneur, and I have enjoyed every second of it. I took a very special class with Dean Charles Hutchinson. He taught us the link between engineering and business that has helped me wade through stormy waters. My mottos are: Persistence is king. Never, never, never give up. The only constant is change. Failure is not an option.
—Doris Martínez ’91

I have co-founded startups within large companies like Cisco and have started a new solutions unit in Cisco called Healthcare Solutions. We are looking to do $25 million next year and scale to $100 million in three years. The key challenge is to build a team that has both the urgency and focus of a startup but also can leverage the big company engine as we scale.
—Vishal Gupta Th’94

I formed a medical device manufacturing company, Surgical Planning Associates. It is nearly a “virtual company” insofar as it has no employees, only subcontractors for manufacturing, regulatory, marketing, sales, CAD, software development, web interactivity, billing, and quality control. Our primary product is the HipSextant.
—Steve Murphy ’94

I founded Audio3 Ltd. in 2007. At the moment it is one person and not really making money, as most revenue, when it exists, is invested back into R&D. I also do consulting.
—Bradford Backus ’95

I co-founded  ZSX Medical, LLC in 2009. ZSX Medical is reinventing surgical closure in women’s health, developing alternatives to sutures for major surgeries women encounter, such as caesareans and hysterectomies. We have two full-time employees and an army of consultants and advisors. Our biggest challenge has been raising financing in these difficult economic times. I’m not sure we’ve had “success” yet, but two things that stand out to me are: 1) you should know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it; and 2) when the facts change, you need to revisit your assumptions to make them match the facts, and then draw new conclusions and change course as necessary.
—Dan Mazzucco ’98

I co-founded a company called Liquid Light. We are developing catalysts, initially discovered at Princeton, that allow carbon dioxide to be converted to a variety of chemicals and fuels with high efficiency. To date, we’ve synthesized 19 different chemicals. The process can take place using only sunlight (artificial photosynthesis) or it can be powered by any source of electricity—preferably a low-carbon source! We have built a team that includes some of the best chemists in the world and believe we have the first credible platform technology for using CO2 as a chemical feedstock. I always wanted to work in clean tech, but was sidetracked by a 6.5-year stint in the Army.
—Kyle Teamey ’98

In 2010, I co-founded Frontier Capital, an alternative investment firm to acquire and manage illiquid credit and equity assets from hedge funds. Our first transaction was purchasing a $258.7-million portfolio from a Greenwich, Conn.-based hedge fund. We expect to acquire an additional $100 million of assets during 2011. An engineer at heart, I always look for high-quality, tech-related assets.
—Rahul Vaid Th’98

I founded Mundy Technical Communications in 2009 to provide marketing and communications support to companies in technology. Where engineers have a tough time whittling down their message, I help them identify and promote that message. I’m still in startup mode, so the biggest challenge is remembering to focus on sales almost constantly. My goal is to develop a strong enough base so that I can set aside time to help technology startups, a group that usually can’t afford marketing support but needs it greatly.
—Marty Mundy Th’99

I started Bynum Design Build, LLC, in Boulder, Colo. We do design, landscaping, and excavation work. Our five employees are expected to perform a multitude of tasks, from CAD to backhoe work. I believe that in order to truly understand what you’re designing, you must have perspective of the implementation of that design. Therefore, time spent in the field is paid at the same rate as time spent in front of a computer—and real-life experience is reflected in design.

My thesis project at Dartmouth set the foundation to my career. I worked on a project for Costa Rica involving the design of low-cost housing. With the help of alumni donors and the Tucker Foundation, funding was available to head to Central America and put the plans into action. The project was completed on time and on budget in 2001, and I am very happy to report (upon returning to Costa Rica this past February) that the houses are looking great and the previously struggling families are thriving!
—Casey Bynum ’00

I co-founded Flurry with two other Dartmouth grads in 2005. Today Flurry is the leading provider of services to developers of mobile applications for iPhones, Androids, etc., with more than 40,000 developers using our services to manage more than 70,000 applications on more than 250 million mobile devices. We have offices in San Francisco and New York and soon will expand into Europe. I credit all of my Thayer classes with teaching me one simple lesson: There is always a way to make it work.
—Sean Byrnes ’00

I opened Mighty Yoga in Ithaca, N.Y. I have a successful career working in energy efficiency as an engineer, and started the studio as a small, low-risk business because I love teaching yoga and there weren’t any other heated yoga studios in Ithaca. I discovered that the niche market I was looking to serve is much larger than I had anticipated. I run the studio like a business, using my engineering and M.E.M. experiences from Thayer. My engineering background has helped me to appreciate the value of and create clear procedures, a website that is easy to navigate, and a professional presentation of the business. My engineering career and yoga studio are a great match.
—Heather Healey ’00 Th’02

I’m the CEO of PlotWatt, which I co-founded with John Cunningham ’02 in 2008. PlotWatt helps people reduce their energy bills. Our cloud-based algorithms analyze smart meter data to figure out appliance-level energy cost without monitoring the individual appliances. The PlotWatt Energy Dashboard then boils that insight down into easy-to-understand feedback and recommendations. Users (in 22 states and counting) have cut their electricity bills by as much as 50 percent. Today we are a small team of (mostly) engineers. We are hiring.

In a scrappy startup, slow decisions are not an option. We look for non-utility, fast-moving customers that help us become profitable quickly while providing a platform and proof points that entice the big guys and open doors for massive future opportunities.
—Luke Fishback ’02 Th’03

I recently co-launched eProfit Partners to provide Internet marketing services to e-commerce businesses. The New York City-based company works with clients to multiply online sales and profits through increasing website traffic and enhancing conversion rates. We manage search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, conversion rate optimization, and email marketing campaigns, and also advise clients on Internet marketing strategy. We work with web-based businesses that have the capacity to dramatically increase their profits through Internet marketing. Our typical client is an e-commerce website that is already generating sales online and is seeking to scale its growth through Internet marketing. We also advise pre-revenue Internet startups that have significant growth potential. Our report, “The 5 Fastest Ways to Double Your Online Profits,” is available on our website.
—Philip Frost ’04 Th’06

I have started a few companies. I started a business improvement and coaching company called 1 Group Inc. in 2010. I started and was president of a solar technology company, AxiSol, until early 2011. We were awarded a N.H. Innovation Research Center grant working with Thayer Professor Jifeng Liu. I’m forming a new Maine-based company, Beltane Solar Inc., which is commercializing technology that will concentrate the sun’s energy to create power and hot water. The design has a total efficiency of more than 60 percent, yet is simple, scalable, reliable, and low-cost. Future accessories will allow energy autonomous water desalination and sanitation. We believe that you can and should get more from the sun.
—Steve Musica Th’05

The drug-authenticating company I founded, Sproxil, has seven full-time employees and five contractors. It has implemented technology from my Ph.D. research. We have two of the world’s five largest pharma companies as clients.
—Ashifi Gogo Th’09

For more photos, visit our Alumni Events and People and Summer 2011 sets of images on Flickr.

Elizabeth Gerber ’98 knows a good design isn’t just about technical function—it’s about developing a product that is both usable and desired. Trained as a product designer and behavioral researcher, the Northwestern assistant professor of mechanical engineering uses behavioral science to understand and inform the design of products and services.

Gerber’s “aha” moment came while working on an aircraft fuel gauge while at B.F. Goodrich Aerospace Engineering. “At the very end of a long discussion on functionality, very casually someone introduced the fact that a mechanic refueling the plane is going to need to read the gauge—while standing on a ladder leaning against the side of the plane,” she says. “One of my favorite parts is talking to people about how they actually experience a product—understanding the technical, behavioral, and emotional needs.” She is exploring that interface as the principal investigator for the Creative Action Lab at Northwestern’s Segal Design Institute, which investigates the role of technology in supporting individual and group creativity. There she applies behavioral sciences to the design of tools and practices to improve creative performance.

Gerber is also the founder of Design for America (DFA), an extracurricular, design-based learning initiative building creative confidence in students through design for local and social impact.

“DFA is a ‘product,’ a pipeline for future innovators,” says Gerber. “My dream is that all DFA students firmly believe that they have the ability to innovate solutions to challenging societal problems and believe that their ideas are valued.”

Her efforts came full circle this spring, when DFA staff led an innovation workshop at Dartmouth. More than 70 participants from various academic departments—anthropology, geography, English, and engineering—gathered to tackle a single design problem: helping out elderly people living in rural New Hampshire and Vermont.

Gerber says she first found inspiration for unconventional design education when leading Dartmouth’s first-year outdoors orientation. “I realized the potential of peer-to-peer learning and the transformational power of physical and mental immersion experiences in transforming our identity and confidence,” she told Dave Seliger ’12 for his first post in Core77, the leading industrial design blog. “I danced the ‘Salty Dog Rag’ with the first years…then sent them off on their trips with a sense of excitement of what they would learn from each [other] and about themselves.” You can read the whole post at core77.com.

A new Dartmouth chapter of DFA, led by Alison Polton-Simon ’14, Sean Hammett ’14, and Lucas Yamamura ’14, begins this fall.

Elizabeth Gerber gave a Jones Seminar entitled “Designing to Enhance Confidence and Effectiveness” at Thayer School on January 15, 2010.

>> M.E.M. grad Gabe Farkas Th’02 is putting his second graduate degree, in statistics, to work in the San Antonio Spurs’ front office as coordinator of basketball analytics. Farkas, a former contributor to Mike Kurylo’s CourtsideTimes.Net, says his research is used primarily as part of game strategy and to build the roster. The amount of data being collected—publicly and privately—is growing exponentially, he says, and the next big thing in sports analytics will be the development of systems that integrate all the disparate data sources. A basketball fan since he was a kid, Farkas brings a passion for and understanding of the sport to his review of the numbers. “The NBA is definitely the sport I’ve followed the closest,” he says. “To work in professional sports, you need to be really dedicated, since the hours sometimes can be long and the workload demanding. Also, you need to have a solid, non-numerical understanding of the game to be able to gauge if your results pass ‘the laugh test.’ ”

>> Dave Lindberg ’09 Th’10 is bringing his experience working on Thayer School’s Formula Hybrid racecar to Mombasa, Kenya. As the lead engineer of Mobius Motors, Lindberg is hoping to create the next generation of reliable and affordable transportation across Africa. The challenge is to create a vehicle capable of handling the continent’s unpaved and poorly maintained terrain while keeping it inexpensive. “My company plans to incorporate low-cost components available from small-production cars into a welded tubular steel chassis, sparing the amenities and using only the most essential systems,” says Lindberg. “We hope the end result gives lower-income people access to mobility and also serves as a platform for transportation entrepreneurs, giving even the most impoverished access to employment.” He’s working on developing two prototypes (Mobius Two and Mobius Three), lowering costs, and organizing production. A majority of the parts are off-the-shelf Toyota components, he says, but the steel chassis and all custom parts were modeled in SolidWorks for fabrication by local workers in Kenya. After spending the last two months in the shop, Lindberg has almost finished his first prototype. Then it’s on to the development of Mobius Three before he returns to the States this winter.

ASK THE EXPERT

The Expert: Philip Coyle ’56 Th’57

Associate Director for National Security and International Affairs,
White House Office of Scientific and Technology Policy

When it comes to national security, there’s not much Philip Coyle hasn’t handled in his 40-year career. He spent 33 years developing and testing nuclear weapons, lasers, and other high-tech systems at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory—and worked for several Democratic and Republican administrations.

During the Carter administration, he oversaw the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons programs, nuclear safeguards and security, arms control, and non-proliferation. During the Clinton administration, he served as assistant secretary of defense. President George W. Bush appointed him to the Defense Base Realignment and Closure Commission. President Obama appointed Coyle to his current position in 2010.

The going hasn’t always been easy. Coyle attracted both praise and criticism following his 2009 assessment before the House Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee that America’s missile defense program suffers from technological and testing shortcomings and questionable strategic value.

In the following, Coyle discusses his career in national security.

What lessons from your years developing and testing weapons did you bring to your current position?
This answer isn’t original, but it’s true: I learned that the devil is in the details. Success can hinge on persistent attention to engineering details. In products for everyday life as well as for our soldiers in battle, those details also involve the expected operational environment and the expectations of the end user in practice.

You’ve worked for Democratic and Republican administrations. What challenges come with that territory?
All administrations feel vulnerable to accusations that they aren’t doing enough to solve this or that particular problem, even as they are doing everything that they can, and doing it as well as anyone could. Why haven’t we solved cancer or world hunger or world peace? It’s certainly not for lack of trying, but rather because the problems themselves are so difficult.

What is it like working at the Office of Scientific and Technology Policy?
From one day to the next we may not know what issue we are going to have to grapple with. It may be the outbreak of a new disease strain, something new happening in the Middle East, or something to do with cybersecurity. We worked hard to help the Japanese with the aftermaths of the earthquake and tsunami and the subsequent nuclear reactor accidents near Fukushima. We need to be able to adapt quickly, and we do.

We also work on America’s energy security. For example, the Navy and Air Force are experimenting with biofuels made from algae in fighter jet aircraft. The Department of Defense (DOD) can help America develop a clean-energy economy by being an early buyer of effective clean-energy technologies, much as DOD investments in semiconductors spurred commercial industries in computers and cell phones.

What has been the most rewarding aspect of your career?
My entire career has been devoted to American national security. I’ve worked on developing and testing some of America’s nuclear weapons. I’ve worked on experimental new sources of energy. In the DOD my job was to make sure that the systems we provide our troops would be effective in battle. It has been rewarding to see the things I have worked on come to fruition and contribute to a strong national defense.

Let’s spool backwards. What did you study at Thayer?
My degree was in mechanical engineering, but at Thayer I studied fluid mechanics, heat transfer, optics, electronics, economics, and many other fields. That turned out to be important because my career was never limited to mechanical engineering. My education at Thayer gave me the confidence that I could solve just about any technical problem that came my way.

Did any professors particularly influence you?
Professor J.J. Ermenc was an important influence for me. He was studying renewable energy decades before it was “cool.” All the professors at Thayer engaged students in a way I’d never experienced. They discussed each topic with us, taking our feedback and questions until they were sure we understood. They didn’t just lecture at us; they worked with us. It was a wonderful experience, and it changed my life.

For more photos, visit our Alumni Events and People and Summer 2011 sets of images on Flickr.

1940s

Henry Keck ’43 Tu’44 Th’44: Three years ago I retired from the firm Keck-Craig Inc., which I founded in 1951. Since then I’ve been very busy with inventors from all over the United States who need help in getting their inventions ready for production. I write business plans for them to help raise money. I’ve also written a new book, How Design Changed America.

Robert Sundblad ’44 Th’48: I retired from active engineering work in 1989. I moved to Florida in 1994 from Marion, Mass. I have served as president of our local engineering society for several years here in Florida. Otherwise, I enjoy a quiet retirement watching boats and the world go by from our waterfront property.

Bob Pretat ’46 Th’48: I just returned to Virginia from Dartmouth, where we drove for the class of 1946 65th reunion. I have only been to my 50th reunion, previously living farther away in Texas and Florida. I live in the Tampa area six months of the year but now have a home in southwest Virginia during the summer and fall. I called Paul Lacke ’46 Th’48 about the reunion, but he couldn’t make it. I haven’t been involved in engineering since I retired from a cement company in 1989, starting there in 1948 when I left Thayer School. Lafarge ended up being the largest cement company in the world—I helped a little. My life has been recently blessed with a new soulmate, Carol, after my wife of almost 52 years died in 2002. Between travel and hobbies—mine is genealogy—we keep busy. I’m working on my fourth book, and more beckon me.

Charles Quinn ’47 Th’47: I was one of the approximately 25 Navy and Marine Corp V-12 members, all Thayer classmates, who received our degrees in early 1946. It was a wartime program that compressed the eight college semesters into less than three years. Dartmouth, the Navy, and engineering have always been wonderful, happy memories for me. But after two more years in the Navy, I felt that I was being called to the priesthood. I was ordained as a Catholic priest of the Dominican Order at Washington, D.C., in 1955. My first assignment was to Pakistan, where I stayed for 16 years. I was then elected the superior of the Dominicans of New York Province. Following eight years as provincial, I then did much parochial ministry in the States (mostly in Jersey City, N.J., and Pleasantville, N.Y.). I also had another foreign mission assignment to the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. For the past year, I have been at the Dominican Priory in Cincinnati, Ohio, helping out at a large parish, but also being present for the young men who are here in our novitiate, beginning their years of study for the priesthood. I have not remained in engineering, except for those memorable years at Dartmouth and the great group that made up that V-12 portion of the class of Thayer School 1947.

Tad Comstock ’48 Th’48: We have moved into a very nice continuing care facility in Exeter, N.H., known as the Boulders at Riverwoods. I have met a number of Dartmouth grads here. We are looking forward to making my class of ’48 mini-reunion next fall.

1950s

Pete Knoke ’55 Th’56: I’m a full-time associate professor of software engineering at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. I teach graduate and undergraduate courses in computer science and software engineering, conduct and publish research in software engineering, mentor students, and perform the usual other university service activities. I’m working on a book titled Legal Issues for Software Engineers. For several years I have performed volunteer work for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Computer Society (test development for the IEEE computer software development associate and professional as well as the evolving nationwide software engineering professional engineer program). I do this work because I believe more professionalism might help in improving software quality. I am 77 years old and am thinking of retiring; my children and grandchildren in Florida complain that we don’t get to see each other very often.

Stanley Sklar ’55 Th’56: My first engineering job was as a summer intern at the Bell Telephone Laboratory, working on a vacuum tube project. After graduating from Thayer in 1956 my engineering career moved on to the design of aerospace data processing and display systems based on digital transistor logic circuits, then integrated circuits, then microprocessors, hybrid circuits to reduce size, and finally custom integrated circuits. In 1972–73 I designed the command/control display system for Boeing’s AWACS airplane that was based on the first 1,024-bit (128 byte) memory chip. We received the serial number 1 chip from National Semiconductor Corp. in 1973. Today chip capacities reach one megabyte and beyond. Since I graduated at a time of transition from vacuum tubes to the digital world, the components and digital system design techniques were not yet taught at Thayer. They had to be learned on the job and through night courses at local universities. I think there is a message here. In retirement my technical activities are limited to keeping up with the ever-growing advances in personal computing and communications. I am an avid follower of national and international affairs. Also, I have become obsessed with ballet. I attend a performance every week when one is playing in N.Y.C. I go to Broadway shows and museums and take long walks. When my wife was alive we took yearly trips, to Russia, China, Spain, England, Israel, Malta. For the last seven years I have been taking yearly trips to Europe with my youngest daughter. I have four grandchildren, ages 13 to 17.

Rick Burkhart ’56: I am owner and CEO of RMB Consulting, which I started 12 years ago after retiring from ExxonMobil Chemical (with more than 32 years of service). The consulting business continues to thrive and that, along with being the president of our local American Contract Bridge League duplicate bridge studio, keeps me active. My wife of 43 years and I enjoy travel and look forward to many more years of semi-retirement.

G. Leonard Neely Jr. ’56: For the past four years I have been confined to home and the local Kaiser health facilities. I now do not drive or take long vacations, so I couldn’t attend my class 55th reunion. For the same reasons I did not attend my 50th M.B.A. reunion at Stanford.

Jerry Allyn ’59 Th’60: I have been retired from engineering activities since 2003. Other than keeping all my equipment running (I take care of 10 acres of land) and maintaining my sailboat, I am not active in any engineering endeavors. Nevertheless, life is good, and I spend time with family, friends, and church. I enjoyed attending my 1959 class reunion in Hanover and found that most of my classmates have retired, too.

1960s

Peter Tuschak ’61: Other than doing university teaching for several years, I have been an employee of the DuPont Co. for the last 38. Sometimes a person can prepare for one type of career for years and then circumstances move him into a somewhat different field, which ends up being the perfect fit. I was training to do research, accumulating two bachelor’s, a master’s, and a Ph.D. degree in engineering. I worked about 14 years in research, development, and teaching, but due to circumstances out of my control, I ended up in marketing. It still involves some engineering consulting, but the nature of this is quite different from pure engineering. It turned out to be the perfect fit for me. One never knows what lies ahead.

Mel Meyers ’63 Th’64: I own my own manufacturing company, Bry-Air Inc. We manufacture large equipment to precisely control humidity and temperature in mostly manufacturing operations. I have three children and two granddaughters. My youngest, a daughter, is a junior at Ohio State University. I have stayed in touch with the College through the alumni fund. Plans have been made to spend a week in Portland, Ore., with a group of my Phi Gam brothers.

John Kunz ’65 Th’66: I teach and lead a center in the civil and environmental engineering department at Stanford. I just finished an inspiring 100-person workshop on integrated facility asset planning and management that is enabled with virtual design and construction methods.

Steve Smith ’66 Tu’68 Th’68: I am president of the board of Chikaming Open Lands, a nonprofit land trust in southwest Michigan. We have protected 1,000 acres in the 11 years since four neighbors formed the land trust in 1999. We now have a small staff of three. I also have started a home energy inspection business in southwest Michigan. I conduct energy audits for homeowners that give them an analysis of the energy efficiency of their home and what they can do to improve the energy performance and consequently reduce their energy costs. Most owners of homes over 25 years old can usually save 25 percent of their utility costs if they follow up on my recommendations.

1970s

Bob Stevenson ’74 Th’76: I am the COO for TerraSpark Geosciences, a software provider to the oil/gas industry.

Will Fraizer ’78: I am continuing in my senior project engineering role with Chevron in Houston. We are completing the front-end engineering (FEED) phase for our new Wheatstone liquefied natural gas project, which will be built in northwestern Australia. Since Bechtel is providing the engineering support for our FEED, I spend most of my workdays in the Bechtel office near the Houston Galleria. I traveled to Australia for several weeks to assist our staff there in making presentations to the local regulatory authorities on our project. A Greenfield LNG project is a multibillion-dollar development, with a construction phase typically lasting around four years. I enjoy the challenge of continuing to work on world-scale projects. Outside of work, I take advantage of the various cultural activities in the Houston area, like the symphony, museums, and musical performances at the local pubs and clubs. I don’t see too many Thayer alums here in Houston, but I do participate in the periodic Dartmouth alumni events. The various alumni clubs of the Ivy schools, “Seven Sisters,” MIT, etc., also collaborate to sponsor a monthly “InterClub” social hour. I took advantage of my Australian trip to catch up with old friends in Perth (I had two prior work assignments in Perth and lived there a total of about four years). A pleasure of working in the international energy business is that you have friends in many corners of the world.

Martin Sklar Th’78: Presently my company, Automated Medical Instruments Inc., is in the early stages of developing a “game-changing” instrument for treating a major cardiac arrhythmia. We are presently seeking early financing. As we progress through this process I have seen a few Dartmouth alums referenced, and plan to connect with them soon. We will also be trying to connect with electrophysiologists (Drs. Gerling, Greenberg, Holzberger, and Sangha) at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Any contacts within Thayer or the greater Dartmouth community are appreciated. My wife, Janis, is helping along with a team of colleagues. Medical Development Group, which I co-founded in 2001, is the leading grass-roots med-tech business organization in New England, with more than 30 programs per year, almost 2,000 individuals in the network, and more than 400 dues-paying members. This June I am stepping down from the governing board, after serving on it as the organization’s first president and then as a board member for the past seven years. Our offspring Adam is heading back to school to learn and obtain a master’s in project management. Our daughter Jennifer and her husband, Evan, are doing well in a Boston suburb. She works as an account manager for a growing telecom firm and Evan for his dad’s healthy vending company.

Bill Hooper ’79: I’m married to Christy Reid Hooper and have two sons, Will (28) and Christopher (21). I’m a professor of computer science at Belmont University—not exactly engineering, but close!

1980s

Pat Guiney ’80: I just finished a nine-year stint at Hologic, managing new product development programs for the diagnostic division. Hologic focuses on women’s health, and my teams developed imaging/microscopy systems for cervical cancer detection as well as an analyzer for quantifying risk of pre-term birth. Next, I am moving on to Philips Medical Systems, where I will be senior program manager in the emergency care and resuscitation division.

Laurie Komornik Hartman ’80 Th’80: I did some engineering early in my career. However, in my journey I branched into a few other areas. I started my own baking business providing desserts for a natural food store. I then got an M.E. in counselor education with an emphasis in community counseling. And I am now working in pastoral care—and have been privileged to work with a few trauma survivors who suffer from dissociative identity disorder (DID). My Thayer education gave me tremendous tools and orientation that I use to this day. Someone with DID is someone with a system—albeit in a human body rather than in a machine.

Donald “Brad” Bradshaw ’82: I run a high-tech clean-energy company in the Boston area that manufactures systems used to power cell towers in developing countries. We manufacture hydrogen purifiers and hydrogen generators that feed pure hydrogen to fuel cells that deliver electricity to the radio transmitters in cell tower installations. The market for our technology is focused in areas of the world where power is either non-existent or unreliable. For context, about 1.5 billion people in the world have no electricity, but want cell phone service. The greatest growth in cellular subscribers in the world is in areas where power constraints are the most significant, especially in Africa, India, and Southeast Asia. The only alternative to fuel cells is diesel generators, which are expensive to operate and unreliable, hence the interest in fuel cell power systems. The company I run, Hy9 Corp., manufactures a system that efficiently and cleanly converts liquid methanol into pure hydrogen, which is fed into polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells to generate electricity. My engineering education at Dartmouth has helped me work with engineers to shape and integrate advanced technologies into practical business products and strategies. Applying sound engineering principles and process in a purposeful and focused manner is critical to overcoming technical challenges in high-tech startups.

Peter Lambert ’82: I am senior VP of Nordson Corp., a multinational company with direct operations in 30 countries. I lead the company’s adhesive dispensing segment, which includes the packaging, product assembly, nonwovens, and web-coating systems product lines. I joined Nordson in 1993 as product development manager in the powder systems group and in 1997 became managing director of Nordson Australia. In 2001 I was named director of corporate development and global business information, responsible for the company’s acquisition activities as well as the integration of information systems across all of Nordson’s geographic locations and businesses. I also chaired the company’s technology strategy committee. In 2003 I was named vice president of packaging and product assembly and was responsible for engineering, product development, product line management, marketing, and communications activities. I was named vice president of EFD Inc. in 2005 and served in that position for four years before being named to my current position in 2009.

Mike Adams ’83: I have been working for Bechtel, the global engineering, construction, and project-management company, for the past 20 years. I am a main board director and president of one of Bechtel’s five global business units, the civil infrastructure business. I am responsible for a number of exciting projects around the world, including a new airport in Qatar, a new offshore port and related industrial zone in Abu Dhabi, a new motorway in Kosovo, an extension of the Washington, D.C., metro toward Dulles Airport, and a new rail line across London. I have lived in London for the past 11 years with my wife and four sons. I have enjoyed my career at the sharp end of building infrastructure around the world, and in so doing, helping enable countries achieve stronger economic growth.

Thane Russell ’84 Th’85: We live in Alberta on a small ranch about halfway between Calgary and the Rockies. My lovely wife Kerri runs an equestrian center that we started about five years ago now and we have 65 horses that board and train there. We also have a small but growing herd of purebred Black Angus cattle. I work in the oil industry at Absolute Completion Technologies when I am not feeding animals, fixing fences, or haying. Every once in a while my partners and I seem to be able to come up with a new bit of kit that people want to pay for, so that’s what covers the bills. However, most of the people who want it seem to live in places like Venezuela, Indonesia, or West Africa, so I spend quite a good deal of time on airplanes. Kerri and I have two children, Paige (18) and Matthew (16). Paige is a freshman at Texas A&M and a member of the equestrian team there. Matthew is a gentle soul who was born with autism. He has a great sense of humor, attends high school (where he is in regular classes with the help of an aide), and generally keeps us smiling. His was a gift of a very unexpected sort, but a blessing all the same.

Mark Gies ’86 Th’88: John de Papp ’86 Th’88 and I were good friends at Dartmouth and Thayer, and we have been working together since 2009 at PanelClaw, a solar energy startup making commercial roof and ground-based solar panel mounting systems. I was the third employee and am VP of Technology and Innovation. John is VP of Western U.S. sales and is employee No. 5. The company is based in Massachusetts with more than 30 employees and offices in Texas, Vermont, and California. We’re always looking for people interested in a career in renewable energy.

John Rajala ’88: I have been keeping a blog as part of my role with Rajala Companies in Bigfork, Minn.

1990s

Durward Sobek ’91: I am a professor of industrial engineering at Montana State University, completing my 14th year here. I’ve been doing work in the areas of product development and healthcare delivery systems, applying lean and other industrial engineering principles to those sectors. Starting in September, I’ll be on sabbatical as a visiting professor at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. My wife, Sarah Robbins Sobek ’91, and I would love to connect with Dartmouth folks who may be in the area.

Maureen McGrath Hahn ’92 Th’93: What have Steve Hahn ’92 Th’93 and I been up to? Brendan (13), Clara (11), Eveleen (9), Maeve (7), Delia (5), Quinlin (4), and Tilley (2). We love our crazy life in South Carolina.

Takami Kihara Th’93: I work for Accenture as senior manager and am based in Tokyo. My current responsibility is to lead Asia-Pacific process improvement activities, such as quality assurance, high-risk engagement management, and Capability Maturity Model Integration appraisal and training. As everyone knows, Japan had the worst natural disaster in March. I had to stay at the office in Tokyo since all transportation was stopped. Luckily we are recovering from the disaster; however, we face an electronic power-saving challenge in the summer since we are heavily using air conditioning due to the hot and humid weather. Each company must establish some policies, such as shifting working hours or dates, forcing employees to take longer vacations, or adding extra days off during the summer to save the electronic power as much as possible. I have a wife and three kids. My hobbies are working out, fishing, and reading.

Michael MacAvoy ’93 Th’94: I am a hand surgeon and orthopedic surgeon in south San Francisco. I use my engineering skills both in surgery and in my publications pertaining to fracture fixation and muscle strength testing.

Jim McClellan ’93 Th’95: I’m the bald guy with glasses and blue shirt sitting next to Katherine Knapp Carney in the TIME video of Pratt & Whitney Co., “What it Took to Create a Job for One Bright Engineer.”

Ted Arons Th’94: After graduating from Thayer, I spent three years working as a research scientist for the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, doing geophysics fieldwork in polar regions. Then Fish & Neave, a major New York patent law firm, asked me for assistance understanding petroleum exploration technology. I went to work for the firm in 1998 and have been practicing patent law ever since. I spent about 10 years working for the firm and its successor, Ropes & Gray. For the last four years, I’ve been practicing in New York at my own firm, which I founded with a colleague. I advise major international corporations and startups regarding intellectual property in connection with product development, fundraising, litigation risk, and patent portfolio development. My Thayer education proves its value every day in both legal and technical analysis, whether I’m dealing with telecommunications, energy, mechanics, bioengineering, quantitative analysis, or finance. I invite fellow Thayer and Tuck community members to be in touch.

Ryan Bradeen ’94: I am the cultural affairs officer for education and exchanges for the U.S. State Department, based at the U.S. embassy in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Jim Bradley ’94A: Even though I retired almost four years ago, I continue to work on patents for Navistar. I also continue to use and study the Russian Theory of Inventive Problem Solving. When we are able to slow down, Sue and I love to travel.

Dan Frem ’97 Th’97: I am starting off on a new career, my third, and I hope, last. I recently graduated with a doctorate of veterinary medicine from the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University and will be an intern next year in Ventura, Calif. I hope to obtain a residency in small animal surgery afterwards. I had worked at Ford Motor Co. with Chris Dorros ’97 Th’98, Sharon Spatz ’96, Jeremy Crane Th’98, and several other Thayer M.E.M. graduates, but after two-plus years I left Ford to return home to Massachusetts to help manage the family business, Cyprian Keyes Golf Club, a public golf and reception facility in Boylston, Mass. After seven years there, I needed a dramatic change and took post-bac classes and applied to vet school. Professor Kennedy wrote a recommendation for my application.

Jan Lammerding Th’97: I just accepted a joint faculty position between the Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology and the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. The research in my lab combines engineering and microfabrication approaches with cell and molecular biology techniques to probe the physical properties of cells and how they modulate cellular function under physiological conditions and in disease, with applications ranging from muscular dystrophy and cardiomyopathies to premature aging and cancer.

Stephen Lee ’99 Th’00: I’m working at a stretchable electronics startup, MC10 Inc., in Cambridge, Mass., as their senior electrical engineer. We have several projects but I spend most of my time developing stretchable circuits that lie on an elastomer. In one case, the elastomer is a polyurethane balloon catheter. Our electronics can stretch with the balloon. We map electrophysiological data and perform ablation at the same time on a balloon catheter, simplifying a pulmonary vein isolation procedure. I’m happy to note that we’ve had several Thayer interns here this year. They include Andrew Ceballos ’12, Robert D’Angelo ’08, Roja Nunna Th’12, and Nishan Subedi Dual-Degree ’12.

2000s

Joe Brown ’00: I finished a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2010. I’m currently employed as a post-doc research associate there. My research areas include microelectromechanical systems for nanomaterial tensile testing and mechanical and electrical characterization of nanoscale structures and materials. The company I helped start in 2004, NanoComp Technologies Inc., continues to improve its capabilities to produce bulk quantities of high-quality carbon nanotubes and is currently based in Concord, N.H.

Jonas Akermark Th’01: I work for AGA Gas AB (a member of the Linde Group) and market liquified natural gas (LNG) as a fuel for shipping. A major activity included in this work is the distribution net of LNG and being able to supply vessels with LNG from ship to ship. Coming regulations (from International Maritime Organization and the European Union) force shipowners to run their vessels on fuels that reduce sulphur emissions close to zero. The LNG environmental impact is also reduced for CO2 (25 percent), nitrogen oxide (85 percent) and particulate matter (about 0 percent) emissions as well. Apart from AGA, I’m trying to get involved in “early-bird” projects at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Family life dominates my spare time, with our daughter and two sons, 8, 6, and 3.

Mara Winn Th’01: I live in Alexandria, Va., with my husband, Rob Winn ’99, two children, and new puppy. I work for Zeichner Risk Analytics, a small cybersecurity and risk and security governance analysis government consulting firm. I act as the principal program manager, directing programmatic and strategic management support for Department of Homeland Security’s supply-chain risk management program and the management of programs within the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative.

Zac Carman ’02: I’m the CEO of ConsumerAffairs.com.

Gabe Farkas Th’02: We had our first child in September 2009 (a son, Jacob). In October 2010 I accepted a new position as coordinator of basketball analytics with Spurs Sports & Entertainment. It’s a bit of a divergence from engineering. My other grad degree is in statistics, which is what I’m using more in this position.

Jieli Li Th’02: After a few years working as an electrical engineer at Apple headquarters in Silicon Valley, I was assigned by the company to Shanghai, China. I helped establish the first local engineering team and am now the China office’s engineering manager. I manage a team of both hardware and software engineers and look to continue to grow the team in the region. When I’m not busy tinkering with Apple’s next cool gadgets, I devote my time to my twin toddlers, Jennifer and Andrew.

Bob Neill ’03: I spent the last four years working for an energy consulting firm in Atlanta. I left at the beginning of the year to travel in South America and am headed to MIT in August for a master’s in logistics. Although in my last job it varied a lot by project, I think you could say I’m still working in engineering.

Tom Byron ’04: Since my years in law school, I’ve been working as in-house counsel at the MathWorks, a company familiar to all Thayer engineers as the makers of MATLAB. (And Dartmouth is certainly not unfamiliar to us at MathWorks—we’ve got a conference room named Dartmouth, right next to conference rooms MIT and Stanford.) In my spare time, I write intellectual property law review articles. My latest offering was chosen for inclusion in Thomson West’s 2010 Intellectual Property Law Review publication, a collection of what they deem the best intellectual property law review articles of the year. Personally, I’m living in Allston, Mass., with my wonderful wife, Elise Robinson ’05, and two dogs, a 10-year-old Lab hanging around from my days at Dartmouth and a 3-year-old snaggletoothed terrier mutt that does half marathons with me.

Erik Dambach ’04 Th’05: I completed my Ph.D. in aerospace engineering at Purdue University. My dissertation’s title is “Ignition of Hypergolic Propellants.” I moved to Los Angeles to join SpaceX as a propulsion development engineer working on the Dragon capsule.

Tara Ryan Rahemba Th’04: In 2009 I joined the law firm Axinn, Veltrop & Harkrider LLP as a patent attorney. I practice in the firm’s Hartford, Conn., office and my focus thus far has been on patent litigation relating to pharmaceuticals and medical devices, as well as FDA/regulatory issues unique to pharmaceuticals.

Riad Khan ’05 Th’06: After graduation I spent five years outside of the engineering field and one and a half of those years searching for a job during the recession. In mid-June, I started a new position in energy management at Toronto Hydro, where the M.E.M. is certain to come in handy.

Min Song Th’05: I became a full professor in Central South University in Changsha in September 2010. And I was also named a New Century Excellent Talents in University by the ministry of education of the People’s Republic of China.

Adams Baker ’06: Improving the energy efficiency of commercial and industrial infrastructure can be a lot like buying a new hybrid car: It can be difficult to determine how much energy and money you’re actually saving. I work as an energy engineer and am developing statistical models for our customers who make large investments in energy-saving technology (often based upon our recommendations) so we can show them how much money and energy they are actually saving on an ongoing basis, even as conditions change going into the future.

Josh Kjenner Th’06: After four year of doing energy and daylight simulation and research at an architecture firm, I’m going back to school to become an architect. I’ll be starting school at the University of British Columbia in the fall.

Chuck Rosenwasser ’06: I earned a master’s of engineering in product architecture and engineering from the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J., in 2010. The program is part of the mechanical engineering department and is directed by John Nastasi, a practicing architect. The program operates as a design studio, encouraging students to work on self-directed projects while applying theory from the coursework. Courses I took outside the core studio work were sustainable engineering, physical computing, numerical optimization, parametric design, and active and passive heating and cooling analyses. I am currently a product engineer at OXO, where I am part of a team that develops water bottles, travel mugs, thermometers, scales, baking tools, and other consumer products. It’s a great place to work and I’m really enjoying it!

Mukta Acharya Th’07: I use quantitative and analytical skills that I gained from my engineering education to solve real-world problems in the healthcare industry. I have been working with CVS Caremark since 2010. I started off working as an analyst in the retail strategic product development group, performing analytics to understand the performance of various pharmacy products and then help implement strategies to improve these products. Just this month, I was promoted to a senior analyst role in a different group, called enterprise strategy and analytics. I am working on a program called pharmacy advisor, which is focused on improving healthcare outcomes and reducing the overall healthcare costs. So far I really enjoy my job.

Jing Tan Th’07: I’m currently working in Bonn, Germany, for the logistics company DHL. I’m working on lean projects (Six Sigma, continuous improvement, etc.) in warehouses.

Wei Xing Th’07: I am currently working as a client manager at a Swedish financial technology firm in New York.

Ada Danaher Th’08: After graduating from the M.E.M. program, I was hired by Eaton for their engineering and technology leadership program. I was a product engineer for Eaton Automotive, supercharger division, for one year in Michigan, functional excellence product engineer for Eaton industrial sector in Minnesota for one year, and now I’m the lead design engineer for Eaton Aerospace, conveyance systems division, in Warwick, R.I.

Elizabeth Jensen Th’08: I just completed my third year of graduate school (out of five) for a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering at Princeton University. This summer I married George Young. I look forward to returning to Dartmouth next year for graduation to see friends graduate.

Watson Sallay ’08: For a little more than a year I’ve been working in Seattle at a company called Electroimpact. We specialize in providing assembly automation for aircraft manufacturers, both in tooling and robotics. The project I’m working on is an assembly line for the wings of a new business executive jet for Embraer. It has allowed me to work abroad in Brazil and Portugal and has provided some excellent design challenges.

Matt Wallach Th’08: After completing a two-year development program with BMW MC in Greenville, S.C., I moved over to Munich in January for an 18-month ex-pat assignment. I’m working on engineering development for the next generation X5, which should be released to the market around the end of 2013.

Katie Gray ’09 Th’09: I graduated in 2009 with the B.E. from Thayer and have been working as an engineer ever since. I currently work as a development engineer for Encana Corp., Canada’s largest natural gas producer. My current role is in the regulatory and government relations group where I am able to work across the company on many different projects. In my latest project I helped to submit 11 applications to the Ministry of Energy and Mines in British Columbia requesting $55 million under its infrastructure program. This program promotes putting production from stranded wells online by granting 50 percent of the project cost to the producer, which greatly helps the economics of certain projects within the Encana portfolio. We will hear back in early September on the results of the projects that we submitted. I hope they will grant us at least $30 million!

Andrew Herchek Th’09: I have been working in Taiwan for the last six months for their government, refurbishing and upgrading various government owned-equipment. Because of the island’s hot and humid climate, the mechanical equipment requires specialized maintenance and technology in order to keep operational. In addition to maintenance, we work with their government to install and upgrade communications equipment, hardware, and software to modernize their older equipment. Some of the challenges we face are collaborating between our offices in the United States and in Taiwan, time zone (12-hour difference, EST) and travel time (about 30 hours), and, of course, the language barrier and cultural differences. I’m grateful that I’m able to work directly or indirectly with fellow Thayer alums Andrew Pitts Th’08, Jason Rathbone Th’02, and Chris Castonguay ’96 Th’97.

Emily Koepsell ’09 Th’10: I’m finishing up my Fulbright Scholarship studying sustainable energy with a focus on energy savings in the built environment at the Technical University of Denmark. I’ve had an incredible year here studying engineering, learning Danish, visiting museums and historical sites, and making friends with Danes and other international students. This opportunity has enabled me to learn a lot about a field of engineering that greatly interests me, but I think that the most valuable part has been the intercultural experience.

Lauren Miller ’09: I’ve been living in Chicago since last September and finished up my first year in a Ph.D. program at Northwestern University studying mechanical engineering (yes, still in engineering!). I’m working in the laboratory for intelligent mechanical systems there.

Nolan Reis Th’09: I live in San Francisco and work as an engineer for Tesla Motors. I am on the propulsion team designing the motor for our next electric car, the Model S. I am loving it.

Steve Walker ’09: I started a new position as a project engineer for Stanadyne Corp. in Windsor, Conn., as of June 6. Previously, I was working as a management trainee for Praxair in Austin, Texas, so this new job marks my transition back to engineering after a short hiatus to develop my project management skills. Stanadyne is a fuel systems manufacturer, and I’m working on developing their line of common-rail diesel injection pumps.

2010s

Claire McKenna ’10: I am enthusiastically employed as an energy engineer at Solar Design Associates in Harvard, Mass. We specialize in custom photovoltaic (PV) system designs, but we also work on solar thermal and wind power systems. It’s my job, as part of a small team of architects and engineers, to design PV systems from the feasibility stage through many iterations to construction documents. At home I’m attempting to make rustic furniture and assembling a portfolio for my application to M.Arch. programs.

For more photos, visit our Alumni Events and People and Summer 2011 sets of images on Flickr.

In our post-senior year Thayer students did a few weeks in the field in a house in Etna, N.H. Our classes were in surveying, and our fieldwork was to make a plan of the road that went past the house we were staying in. I was a saver of all my college papers. Some 50-plus years later my daughter Jean ’74, a graduate of Thayer (in one of the first classes for women) who was married and had a young daughter, bought a lot on the same street that I had surveyed many, many years earlier. Her husband has built a house on the lot during a nine-year period. They vacation there now in winter and summer. It is really a small world.
— Charlie Weinberg ’42 Th’43

“Structural Engineering” in 1951: On the first day we met our professor, John Minnich. He explained that on the first day of deer season he might be in late, with the dean’s permission. “But never been in later than noon!” he bragged. What we thought originally was that we had a New Hampshire farmer as professor, but John turned out to be the most brilliant, logical instructor we ever had. He made structural engineering come alive! But the most memorable event was the trip to Corbin Park Hunting Preserve in mid-New Hampshire. John owned 1/20th of the fenced park stocked with game animals of all sorts: deer, German boar, and who knows what else. We went in a surplus GI open truck with a winch we used several times to extricate us from the piled-up snow. Then for lunch, prepared by John’s wife, we partook of deer burgers, elk burgers, and boar burgers! Being from Hawaii, it was an unbelievable opportunity for me. Two years later, I had the pleasure of taking John fishing, where he caught his first marlin, and only then, got horribly seasick.
— Peter Nottage ’50 Th’51

From 1960 to 1962, my friend and lab partner Peter Stone ’61 Th’62 and I worked on a unique air cushion vehicle. Our advisor was Bob Dean. We built a 3-foot model with a model aircraft engine and tested it in the Dartmouth gymnasium guided by a wire.

It went like a bat out of hell, and we were encouraged to continue. We obtained funding from the U.S. Army research and engineering division in Ft. Eustis, Va., and spent the summer of 1961, just after I got married, building a full-scale working version. Pete lived on the base, and my wife and I lived in a trailer park. We built the device on the Ft. Eustis base, but were unable to complete it during the summer, so the Army trucked it up to Hanover, where Pete and I finished it during our fifth year in mechanical engineering. It was powered by a 45-horsepower Nelson aircraft drone engine and weighed somewhat more than 1,000 pounds. We made a number of modifications, including stripping off excess weighty parts, and ran it on the lawn behind Thayer School.

We discovered that air cushion vehicles are very slippery devices, and the least little grade will send it sliding downhill. We then added some light stabilizing wheels that could be removed and replaced with fins for water travel, and thus we could steer it on the ground and in the water. The Army guys then came up to Hanover with a camera crew and we plunked the device into Lake Mascoma and they chased it with a rented outboard.

We had great fun doing this project, and it got a bit of attention in the press. After completing this project and graduating, I went on to Polaroid and designed cameras for a living. Peter went on to Harvard Architectural School, became an architect, and eventually ended up teaching architectural design at the college level in Florida.
— Bruce Johnson ’61 Th’62

As my fifth-year project I “designed” a two-phase flow heat exchanger for a nuclear power plant. The cooling medium was powdered coal that was to be lofted into a fluidized bed by air. The coal was to collide with vertical pipes that were exchanging the heat from the nuclear reactor coolant (which I believe was liquid sodium). The coal was thus heated and gave off “coal gas,” which would have been distributed in a manner similar to natural gas today. Looking back on the experience I can see why my project grade was not as stellar as I’d hoped. Seems to me my design failed to provide for many things, especially maintenance. On the other hand, my learning was immense, as both the thermodynamics and various mechanical aspects required quite a bit of knowledge (much of which I did not have at the start of the project). Graham Wallis was my advisor and provided help when asked, but I just should have asked more questions and dug deeper. I received a real-world lesson from that project.
— Steve Brenner ’63 Th’64

One of my most memorable projects was a combined Thayer-Tuck project where we were asked to redesign (the Thayer part) the Gillette razor with market considerations (the Tuck part) in mind. We thought that having a blade that would set Gillette apart as opposed to a heavy-handled razor was the right trajectory. However, we did not think of multiple blades (now five). I have followed the industry ever since and have seen that our ideas were partly prescient.
— Lee Chilcote ’64 Th’65

Three projects come to mind: ENGS 21, where we designed and partially built an energy-storing bicycle; ENGS 22, where I designed and built an air-bearing seismograph; and the Thayer B.E. plus M.S. program, where I designed a hand-written character recognizer (someone else implemented it).
— Mark Tuttle ’65 Th’66

Although there were a number of interesting projects during my time at Thayer School, there are three that really stand out, and they share a common thread: All three taught me a valuable life lesson and all three could have easily killed me. Number three on my list is a project that never happened. During my freshman year, the professor asked us to investigate parawing gliders. NASA was studying the parawing as a way to return manned capsules from space. While tossing gliders off the top of the football stadium, I actually calculated the size of glider I’d need to launch myself and worked out how to guide it. But I never jumped. Several years later, seeing pictures of hang gliders out in California, I realized that to innovate takes more than good engineering; it takes courage, and success is only for those willing to take the risks. Number two on my list is my fifth-year project to design and evaluate the world’s worst lawn mower. (It wasn’t intended to be — it just turned out that way!) I actually built a prototype, and when it self destructed and the blade went flying inches from my head, it occurred to me that the first step in any engineering project ought to be to analyze the potential risks. At that time, risk evaluation was not being taught at Thayer — another good idea ahead of its time. The number one project was not the result of any course and was not approved by any professor. One of my fraternity brothers and fellow engineering majors found an old drone engine and propeller in the basement of Thayer. Another frat brother and fellow engineering major was a professional water ski jumper. So, naturally, it was obvious to them that we needed to build an air sled on skis and run it up and down the frozen Connecticut River! They let me join the group, and after weeks of sleepless nights and countless challenges that stretched our inventiveness and engineering capabilities, we were racing up and down the river — no helmets, no seatbelts, no fear. Though running it was fun, it turns out the real excitement was in accomplishing that crazy goal, so after a few runs the sled was dismantled and the engine put back where it was found. The lesson we learned is that a small group of dedicated people free from restrictions and “good common sense” could accomplish amazing things. For me, Thayer was always about amazing things. Every day was a magic show with the professors teaching us how to do the tricks.
— Pat Bremkamp ’68 Th’69

“How do you play if you can’t move?” With that question, Professor Paul Shannon began the first class of ENGS 21 in the fall of 1965, but only after making us wait for five minutes before he said anything. We wondered: What was going on? Professor Shannon explained: How can a physically handicapped child play with toys made for the commercial market? Can toys be successfully adapted for use by children with special needs? That was our ENGS 21 project assignment. We visited the Crotched Mountain School for children with disabilities in southern New Hampshire to understand the nature of the problem and try out our ideas. For many, it was our first encounter with children with severe physical disabilities. My project team decided to take an existing toy — an electronic slot car game — and redesign the control unit so that handicapped children could steer the slot cars, adjust their speeds, and even flip them out of the slots. We named our team TREPHCo: Therapeutic Recreational Engineering for the Physically Handicapped. We learned as a group. Made mistakes. Tried again. And eventually built a slot car unit that could be controlled by some of the handicapped children. In the process, we were introduced to a systematic approach to problem solving. This was not only my most memorable project at Thayer; ENGS 21 was among the best courses I took as an undergraduate and was a lifetime experience.
— Dennis Drapkin ’68 Th’69

As part of a structural analysis class, I wrote a program in 1972 that simulated the performance of a cross-country ski. At that time, it occurred to neither the professor nor myself that the work was probably marketable. My hope is that this no longer happens at Thayer School, and that work with commercial value is always encouraged even though it might conflict with the goals of academia.
— Mark Totman ’71 Th’72
Editor’s Note: Thayer now encourages entrepreneurship for students at all levels of study.

In our first semester in the master’s program at Tuck, Stephen Matzuk Th’77 and I collaborated on a project for ENGG 196, “Introduction to Design Methodology,” to develop an isokinetic stack sampler.

As an undergraduate engineering student, I spent two semesters as an engineering intern working on environmental air pollution remediation at a major chemical company. I had used equipment to sample effluents in emission gases from chemical reactors. To get an accurate measurement, the velocity in the sample probe had to be adjusted to match the velocity in the emission stack. This was done by using a pitot tube in the emission stack to find stack velocity, measuring the sample rate through the probe, calculating the velocity in the sample probe, and manually adjusting flow rate through the sample equipment to match these two velocities. We proposed to create an automated system to match the gas velocity in the sampling probe to the gas velocity in the effluent stack. The design that resulted consisted of two major devices: first, we created a novel differential sampling probe; second, we created an inventive pneumatic-electronic-mechanical feedback system to control the flow. We successfully created a proof-of-concept prototype, though we knew it was well short of optimizing the design for a potential product. The most critical lessons we learned had nothing to do with engineering. We learned the value of collaboration to solve problems. Our advisors — Professors Hooven, Converse, Grethlein, and Dean Long — each made essential suggestions. And we were well matched to solve this problem: Steve covered the electronics and I covered mechanical design. We learned about the real-world engineering process: No matter how obvious the need appears or how clever our first guess at a solution may be, our proposal was only accepted when we were halfway to solving the problem. Since that class, both of us have gone on to pursue independent careers in new product development — Steve as a patent lawyer and me as president of Technology Consulting Group, providing market research, strategic planning, and new product development.
— Bill Downey ’74 Th’77

I’d have to say that my two most memorable projects from the time I spent at Thayer School — the Women in Science Project and the Dartmouth Project for Teaching Engineering Problem Solving — were both very much influenced by the ENGS 21 engineering problem-solving approach and the whole entrepreneurial environment fostered at Thayer School.
— Carol Muller ’77, Assistant Dean 1987-92, Associate Dean 1992-96

The most memorable project for me was from ENGS 21. We were charged with developing products for energy efficiency. Our team conceived of and built exterior auto closing shutters to insulate windows in homes located in cold climates. We built a small model of a house and demonstrated the shutters closing and the improved insulation and draft reduction. We did our testing at the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory. While ENGS 21 was most memorable, I have several runners-up. I remember putting small-scale integration (SSI) chips together to simulate a clarinet, only to have a short in the breadboard and the whole project fail. I worked for 36 hours straight to rewire the whole thing. It is ironic because all that circuitry and more can now fit on a tiny chip smaller than the 30 or so chips I had on the prototype. Other comical memories are doing a superconductivity experiment one afternoon when Friday beers were being served. We thought we might super-cool our beer by dangling it over the liquid nitrogen only to have it explode on our experiment. The silicon did superconduct, and the beer slushie wasn’t too bad after we cleaned it all up. Additionally, the bridge-building project haunts me from time to time, especially when I go over rickety, small suspension bridges.
— Anne (Davidson) Barr ’83

The best project I ever worked on was for a class that was both a Thayer and Tuck class. The class operated as a consulting firm and was assigned to review and solve a problem in the community. For our particular class, the town of Brownsville, Vt., asked us to look into the Mt. Ascutney expansion that was planned in the 1984-to-1985 timeframe. For my portion of the assignment, I reviewed the engineering plan for the sewage treatment system and also the traffic analysis that had been done. Other class members looked into tax implications, environmental impact, social impact, pollution, and a number of other elements that were of concern to the residents of Brownsville. The culmination of the class was a presentation at the Brownsville town meeting. It was televised locally. This class cemented my interest in becoming a consultant, which I have been now for my 26 years following Dartmouth graduation in 1984.
— Howard Jones ’84

Without a doubt the bridge contest was my most memorable project. Our team won for least deflection and was dead last for projected deflection — never did quite get the math behind it! I still have the bridge on my shelf at home. Another memorable project was my B.E. project to build a fluids-flow apparatus for the fluids lab. I toured Thayer with my four sons last year and saw it was still in use! I do remember lots of interesting projects, such as the plan by Bob Donaldson ’84 Th’85 to attach an out-of-whack car engine to the base of tall communications towers so the vibration would inhibit ice build-up. No idea if it worked, but I loved Bob’s creativity!
— Doug Kingsley ’84 Th’85

My most memorable project at Thayer was my B.E. design project, completed with Samantha (Scollard) Truex ’92 Th’93 Tu’95, Kristen (Morrow) Johnson ’92 Th’94, and Bruce Northrup Th’94. Our project involved redesigning a boat hatch that could be opened in multiple directions, depending on the direction of the wind. What was most memorable to me about the project was less the outcome than the process and the teamwork involved. It was truly a collaborative effort with a group of people I really enjoyed spending time with and learning from.
— Sue Roberts Th’93

It is fun to sit back and remember all those great Thayer School projects, but if I had to choose the most memorable, it would have to be our B.E. design project. Linda Blumberg ’95 Th’96, Tony Mamone ’96 Th’96, Brian Spence ’95 Th’96, and I worked on this gem: designing environmentally and behaviorally appropriate “toys” for captive polar bears at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. I am aware that there was much debate outside our group regarding the true engineering value of our project, but as far as we were concerned it was perfect. We applied our well-honed Thayer School problem-solving skills to building a device that encouraged the bears to work for their food, as they would in a more natural environment. Unfortunately, our best solution — just release some live seals into the polar bear pool — didn’t meet the parameter that the solution had to be palatable to zoo visitors.
— Pam Brockmeier ’95 Th’96

I had a great experience with ENGS 21. We did a project — Bike Buddy — that involved careening down an icy hill on a bike connected (through our contraption) to someone in the project. It was crazy.
— Jay Bruce ’96

My ENGS 21 project somehow ended up with me on top of Balch Hill, along with project-mates Erin Morse ’02 Th’03, Derek Hansen ’02, and Abby Faulkner ’02 Th’03, skinning a moose.

Rewind a bit: Our theme was safety innovations, and our group chose to tackle the largely unrecognized but serious problem of moose-vehicle collisions. Moose unfortunately possess the potentially lethal combination of enormous mass, windshield-level height, and a general lack of concern for traffic whizzing by at highway speeds. After reading in some obscure journal that moose fur is known to fluoresce when exposed to UV light, we sought to investigate this as a possible key to our solution. We were “lucky” enough to find a nearby butcher shop that had recently received a road-kill moose and was more than willing to part with the hide for the low, low price of $20, with the caveat that it wasn’t entirely cleaned. So that’s how we found ourselves up on Balch Hill stretched out on tarps over a reasonably disgusting former moose, trying our best to clean the hide to a sufficiently sanitary level. The best (or worst?) part was the look on other hikers’ faces when they unwittingly wandered over to our secluded area to see what interesting thing was going on over there. So cut to a few days later and — surprise! — we did not observe any noteworthy glowing of the moose fur under UV light, journal claims notwithstanding. So our ultimate solution involved a series of heat-sensing infrared sensors and warning lights deployed alongside particularly dangerous highway areas frequently trafficked by our favorite half-ton mascot of the Granite State. I think one of our friends might still have a pair of moose-hide mittens somewhere, too.
— Tom Nichols ’02 Th’04

My most memorable projects at Thayer were both team-based design classes. In “Machine Design” we had to build a machine that could create a Lincoln Log cabin. Since we were constrained in degrees of freedom, we built a clutch into our car that allowed us to have another motion.

The clutch was driven by the crane arm. When the crane arm was up, the motor would drive the wheels and move the car around. However, when the crane arm was down, the drive motor was disengaged from the wheels and drove the crane arm out and in to give us precise control when placing the logs. It miraculously ended up working as we had designed it. My team members, James Lamb ’04, Jon Kling ’04, and Chad Steinglass ’02 Th’04, were a blast to work with.

A close second to this project was the CAD/CAM class, where our final project was to build a tricycle. We pushed the limits a little bit and ended up designing a Potty-Training Trike, where the seat doubles as a toilet.

When the kids were invited in to test drive the trikes, one of the girls saw it and immediately ran away to her mommy crying. I guess it was too much for her to understand how those two worlds could be combined. However, one of the little guys loved it and pedaled all over the Great Hall.
— Brian Mason ’03 Th’05

ENGS 21 started about two weeks after 9/11. My group of James Lamb ’04, Jon Kling ’04, and Andra Pool ’03 wanted to do something that would benefit firefighters. We learned that although their outer clothing provided protection against flames, the material did not breathe well, and many firefighters suffered from hyperthermia while combating fires. At our first presentation, our solution involved having firefighters wear mini-refrigerators. We quickly learned about the value of the design and redesign process to ultimately come up with a device to monitor the firefighter’s body temperature and serve as an early warning system for hyperthermia.
— Erik Dambach ’04 Th’05

As a junior in the dual-degree program we ended up having five of us from Colby College on the same team — I worked with Spencer Boice Th’05, Eric Fitz Th’05, Dave Fouche Th’05, and Monica Thomas Th’05 — and we ended up being referred to as the “Colby Mafia.” We won the Jackson Prize for our internal boat trailer, which Leonard from the machine shop described as a $500 boat with F-16 landing gear. With our design you no longer needed a separate trailer for your boat. You would drive the boat right up to the edge of the water and then, with a press of a button, the wheels would deploy out of the bottom of the boat and out of the front would come the tow hitch, which you would then just connect to your car. It would eliminate the hassle of having to store the trailer when the boat was in the water, and could also help in point-to-point trips: All you needed in the new location was a car with a hitch; no need to move the trailer around.
— Peter Rice Th’06
Editor’s Note: See “A Few of Our Favorite Things.”

My most memorable and glorious project from Thayer has to be the mechanical design project Margaret Martei Th’08, Laura Weyl Th’08, Andrew Herchek Th’09, and I completed in “Machine Engineering” (ENGS 76) in fall 2007. The goal of the project was to design a robot that would pick up as many walnuts as possible in the allotted time on a course built in the Atrium. Our robot then competed against the robots of other teams. As the one with the most points at the end of the round, our team won! The project may be my most memorable project because our team won, but it was also great because our robot began as just raw materials: sheets of metal, wheels, and gears. Then, using CAD and mockups, we designed a beautiful, fine-tuned machine and built the whole thing in the machine shop.
— Anders Wood Th’08

I feel like all of my projects were so memorable — I loved every one! My two most favorite are ENGS 76 (“Machine Engineering”) and ENGS 190/290 [now ENGS 89/90]. ENGS 76 was probably the most fast-paced class I’ve ever taken; however, by the end, I felt as though I had learned and accomplished so much. I also feel it was the first true “engineering” project because you design and build the robot from the ground up, which allows you to really learn about the process and take ownership of the results. ENGS 190/290 is phenomenal preparation for the real world, as you have the opportunity to work on an actual project that has real potential.

I did a project with Jetboil, in which we redesigned one of its camping cookstoves. I still can’t believe that we got to speak with the CEO regularly, access proprietary information, learn about the manufacturing process, and come up with different innovations so that we could design a system that will actually be marketed! Now that I am studying at another university (I have a Fulbright to study sustainable energy at the Technical University of Denmark), I realize just how unique an experience that was. I think this type of learning really prepares Thayer students for the workplace and gives them the tools to innovate new procedures or products and present their ideas in a persuasive and effective manner to all types of audiences.
— Emily Koepsell ’09 Th’10

For more photos, visit our Alumni Projects set of images on Flickr.

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) recently named John Collier ’72 Th’77 the 2010 New Hampshire Professor of the Year. Collier was one of 38 state winners selected from more than 300 top professors in the nation.

Collier, Dartmouth’s Myron Tribus Professor of Engineering Innovation, received his A.B., B.E., M.E., and D.E. from Dartmouth and has been a member of the engineering faculty since 1979. For three decades he has mentored students in ENGS 21: “Introduction to Engineering,” Thayer School’s signature undergraduate project-based course (see “A Few of Our Favorite Things”). He also teaches courses in design methodology, product design, and biomaterials, and advises the Dartmouth Formula Racing team on designing and building hybrid racecars.

At the end of a busy fall term — his ENGS 21 class had more than 70 students — Collier sat down with Dartmouth Engineer in his Cummings Hall office to talk about his approach to teaching. Behind him you can see photos of his students, which he uses to memorize their names.

“I love working with students and student groups to teach them problem-solving. In my view, those skills are one of the key distinguishing characteristics of Thayer graduates,” says Collier. “We work really hard at getting students to take a global perspective in solving problems. Teaching those techniques and making sure everyone has picked them up and demonstrated that they have also learned the skills to design and fabricate what they dream about — I’ve always thought of as my responsibility.”

Collier believes that to get a lot out of students, you have to give a lot of yourself. “If you’re going to do this effectively, you’ve got to get to know them. It’s important to learn the names of the students and be able to discuss their efforts in an informal atmosphere. I look for opportunities to show them that I am as invested in the process as they are. I’ve found that coming into the Couch Lab on Monday and Wednesday nights and working with the students has been very effective. I also encourage those who are interested to come over to the house and play pond hockey, or I mountain bike with them. I try to eliminate the barriers to dialogue and learning and share the hands-on fabrication process. For me that’s how I know that what I am doing has some impact,” he says. “My hope is that we are providing our students with the tools and strategies they need so that they can achieve their goals, whatever it is they want to make, whatever difference they want to make.”

Despite being N.H. Professor of the Year, Collier currently is taking extra advice on teaching from two engineering students who know him well: his sons Tom ’11, a senior, and Rob ’13, who just finished ENGS 21. “I don’t think there’s anything more intriguing than having your son or daughter in class. You get direct feedback on what works and what doesn’t work: ‘Dad, why do you do this, can’t you make your notes clearer, why don’t you tape the lectures?’ So now I tape the lectures and work on the notes,” says Collier. “I don’t think either of my children hesitates to criticize me. You know you’re going to get really honest criticism. They’re just going to be blunt. What could be more helpful than that? It’s too bad everyone can’t get that.”

For more photos, visit our Faculty and Student Projects sets of images on Flickr.

A professorial pick of outstanding ENGS 21 projects

By Karen Endicott

For decades Thayer School’s “Introduction to Engineering” course has been a favorite with students — engineering majors and non-majors alike. That’s because ENGS 21 (a.k.a. ES 21) isn’t just any intro course. In 1961 Professor Robert Dean, now a veteran entrepreneur and an adjunct professor, turned a three-year-old course about the theoretical foundations of engineering into a hands-on experience of doing engineering. Continuing to evolve over the years, ENGS 21 gives students the means to design solutions to real-world challenges, build working prototypes, develop business plans, and present results to a professional review board.
Continue reading A Few of Our Favorite Things

Tackling surprises in multi-component systems, from human behavior to robotic smarts

By Lee Michaelides and Karen Endicott

Cover art by Michael Austin

Don’t worry if you’re not sure what a complex system is. Even the people who study multi-component systems, such as the internet, communication networks, industrial processes, and interacting teams of robots, define complex systems in various ways.
Continue reading Complex Systems

I came to Dartmouth with the dream of entering the Tuck-Thayer major, the best of engineering with a solid underpinning of business savvy. The only problem was when I entered Dartmouth with the class of ’46 in the summer of 1942, the nation was at war. After several months of relatively carefree freshman life, I had to decide about serving in the armed forces. The Navy had a strong presence in Hanover, and the V-12 program offered Thayer students a continued study in civil engineering leading to a degree, then officer training school, a commission in the Civil Engineer Corps, and service in the Seabees. When I told the recruiting people about my Tuck-Thayer dreams, they said, in effect: “If you want to study business you may end up with a commission in the supply corps, but more likely as an able-bodied seaman in the fleet. Is that what you want? We’re looking for civil engineers who will earn a degree and be both a top-level technologist and a leader of men. Make your choice.” That’s when I had an “aha” moment and opted for civil engineering. As the timing worked out, I received my degree and commission and military training, and arrived in the Philippines on the very day that the peace treaty with Japan was signed. I am a member of the luckiest generation. Once I got hooked on civil engineering, and on construction in particular, that is the path I followed.
— Sam Florman ’46 Th’46

My professional engineering experience has been involved with building construction, usually as a construction manager and in recent years as a forensic engineer. Some projects were major constructions, such as the New York State Exhibit at the World’s Fair and Harkness Medical Research Building at New York Hospital/Cornell Medical Center, but many were of moderate size. Even after 56 years in engineering, I experienced my “aha” moment this past March in Puerto de Valle, Mexico.

Engineers Without Borders (EWB) had received a request from the village of Puerto de Valle for an assessment and design to improve the water supply for the 2,000 inhabitants. I was on vacation in nearby San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and volunteered to do the preliminary reconnaissance. The drilled well has been unreliable and contaminated by poor sanitation practices. Inhabitants draw water only three hours each day. The adjacent river, used as backup, is polluted. I spent maybe four hours in Puerto de Valle, but I consider it a most rewarding engineering experience because I was able to contribute to the solution of the problem in support of this Mexican rural population. As a civil engineer I felt at home in evaluating the well and distribution system to the 300 separate houses. I never would have obtained permit approval in New York for a well only 50 feet from an open sewer ditch. I took three water samples, one from the Lerma Santiago River and two from the well distribution.

My ability to speak Spanish at an intermediate level was important to my communications in Puerto de Valle. I gathered together drawings and documents from the village elders and made my report to the EWB chapter in Tucson, Ariz., which has the design responsibility for improving the water supply system. A new well located above the community and away from the sources of contamination may be the solution.
— Harlan Fair ’53 Th’54

Memorial Day 2010: My “aha” Thayer day, perhaps my penultimate such day. My wife of 53 years and I are in what is euphemistically called “downsizing.” We dispose of physical objects, all of which evoke memories of which we cannot dispose. Today I discarded several dozen books from Thayer days: Strength of Materials, Concrete Design, Timber Structures, Soil Mechanics, Mathematical Analysis, and more. These are obsolete, irrelevant except to one matter: what they and Thayer enabled me to accomplish through a career and a life, full of satisfaction and dedication to the essence of the Dartmouth liberal education and the Thayer School discipline. So now, as I approach my 80th birthday, after a life with countless “ahas” attributed to Thayer and Dartmouth, downsizing comes easily. All readers will eventually be where I am, and will revere their Thayer faculty as I revere Carl Long and others.
— Albert G. Melcher ’53 Th’54

I don’t recall any “aha” moment, but I did have a “?” moment. At Thayer I began to wonder what computers could not do. After about 55 years in the computer field, I still don’t know the answer to that question. However, I’m beginning to get a feel for what computers can — but maybe should not — do.
— Pete Knoke Th’56

So much of school is not about learning exactly how to do a particular task, but rather how to go about solving the diverse problems one may face later in life. Two years after I graduated from the Thayer School of Engineering I started working at the University of California’s Lawrence Radiation Laboratory in northern California. One of my very first assignments was to design a special screw made from a rare-earth metal. Of course, I knew about metal screws from the hardware store, but I didn’t know how to design one from scratch, least of all in an unfamiliar metal. How would I decide how many threads per inch and how deep should the threads be? Should they be square or round or some other shape? How much clearance would each thread need? How would I show the machinist exactly what I wanted? To make matters worse, the ramp angle of a screw thread — how fast it climbs — depends on the frictional properties of the metal, and rare earth metals have very different properties than brass or steel. So I couldn’t just copy the dimensions of a brass or steel screw and expect it to work. I’d never even thought about how to design hardware involving exotic metals, and Thayer School had not taught me about nuts and bolts in such detail. Fortunately, I remembered that Thayer School had taught me how to solve problems, and soon I finished designing that screw and gave all the dimensions to the machinist to cut on a lathe. He thought it was pretty unusual too; he’d never seen a bolt or screw like that before. It was probably the most trivial engineering task I ever did, but I got a lot of satisfaction from the experience, and over the years have met many other engineers who didn’t know how to design a screw from scratch either. Thanks to Thayer School, my “aha” moment was realizing that Dartmouth had prepared me to solve all kinds of problems — trivial and difficult — with the scientific and engineering insights and skills necessary to tackle them.
— Philip E. Coyle III ’57

After receiving my A.B. as an engineering sciences major at Dartmouth and Thayer, I followed Thayer Professor Sidney Lees to Boston, where we founded the bioengineering department at the Forsyth Dental Institute. Our principal project, “Looking into Teeth with Ultrasound,” became a five-year graduate program that, with Sid, remained an extension of my Dartmouth-Thayer experience, leading to a master of science in electrical engineering from Northeastern University. In 1973 I became responsible for continuing development of a real-time ultrasound imaging system at the University of Washington. The objective was to detect atherosclerotic plaque in the carotid artery, one of the primary causes of stroke. The first patient I looked at was scheduled for surgery the next day to remove a major arterial blockage that had been diagnosed, correctly, by standard x-ray angiography. To our collective dismay, the artery looked just fine (blood-filled) with our new ultrasound machine! An ultrasound system produces images by transmitting pulses into the body and detecting echoes from minute structural variations in soft tissues. Therefore, if the patient’s plaque was not differentiable from blood it must not contain these structural characteristics. Then came the “aha” moment: Though plaque and blood might look the same, as seen by pulse-echo ultrasound, they would not sound the same if they were examined with Doppler ultrasound, which would recognize flowing blood by the Doppler shift in the frequency of minute echoes scattered by the blood cells. I realized that by integrating imaging and Doppler into the same machine one could see both stationary tissues, such as artery walls that are normally reflective, and simultaneously differentiate very weakly reflective tissues, such as the patient’s plaque, from blood, by the Doppler shift. This discovery led to the development of duplex ultrasound, the early and current standard for every medical ultrasound imager. In 1974 I performed the first examination of a carotid artery by duplex echo-Doppler ultrasound on my technician, and the first duplex echocardiogram on my 4-year-old daughter, Jennifer.
— Frank E. Barber ’62

After consulting with companies on environmental issues for about 30 years it occurred to me that my clients’ problems were not environmental problems but rather business problems. Viewed through this lens, a portfolio of solutions emerged that led not only to solving problems but also to delivering bottom-line results. Such solution sets have come to be known by phrases such as pollution prevention, life-cycle product development, sustainable supply chain management, product stewardship, and triple bottom line management. The “aha” moment set the stage for my professional morphing into academia (about half time), where I teach sustainable business practices in the Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University. My courses are delivered at both the M.B.A. and undergraduate level and teach future business leaders how to grow a business and prosper by managing the triple bottom line: people, planet, and profit. My courses are a mix of lectures and projects carried out for local companies, including large corporations such as American Electric Power and Limited Brands. The other half of my time I spend as executive director of two nonprofits focused on recycling: the Waste Not Center, which takes items that would otherwise be discarded by businesses and individuals (about 60 tons per year) and turns them into educational and creative supplies for teachers and artists; and the Association of Ohio Recyclers, which works to instill recycling best practices in businesses and promote a regulatory environment conducive to recycling in Ohio.
— Neil Drobny ’62 Th’64

I’m the president of Bio-Detek Inc., and I’ve developed a handheld device that reminds a rescuer how to perform CPR. Using accelerometer technology, the device actually measures the depth of each chest compression and gives feedback to the rescuer to “push harder” if compressions are too shallow. We wanted to enable 911 calling in the device when the “aha” arrived — put our software in a cell phone. We launched PocketCPR for iPhone last fall and have had more than 65,000 downloads. My hope is that within five years, all smart phones will arrive with my software preloaded.
— Mark Totman ’71 Th’72

I’m an architect (fisherarch.com) with an undergraduate engineering degree. I was working to win the trust of husband-and-wife clients who wanted to build a home above their glass factory that would be like an old-time foreman’s shack perched on a warehouse roof. However, my early analysis had demonstrated that code and structural restrictions prevented their dream from becoming a reality. The “aha” moment occurred when I proposed cantilevering the home out 50 feet over the warehouse from a concrete block base garage that would be located behind. This was an outlandish idea for a number of obvious reasons, and I risked losing the client if they thought my idea was unsound. Yet, despite my misgivings, they were intrigued. The result — the Emerald Art Glass Home, or “the mother ship” as it has come to be known — became what we believe to be the world’s longest cantilevered home. Why was this an “aha” moment? When they gave me the go ahead, I realized that although jumping off the Ledyard Bridge at midnight with my engineering major pal Ken Marra ’82 as a college junior may not have been a strong idea, sometimes risking everything is necessary in order to move forward.
— Eric Fisher ’82

My “aha” moment came when I learned that my engineering drafting professor, Edwin Sherrard, was also a violinist in the community orchestra. This meant a lot to me because here, right in front of me, was an engineer and a musician, a violinist no less. His example gave me the impetus to keep right on with my musical activities, which became a lifelong devotion to choral singing and solo activities (I was in Paul Zeller’s Glee Club for three years). I learned that an engineer can be a person of many talents, and that a well-rounded life is good for the soul (and good for those around you as well).
— Jerome B. Allyn ’59 Th’60

Several years after graduation, working at Metcalf & Eddy in Boston, I was assigned to work with Doc Sawyer on industrial waste designs of his “concepts” reports to clients. Clair Sawyer had taught at MIT for 25 years and wrote the book on sanitary chemistry (Sawyer and McCarthy). I was in awe of him and learned something every minute spent in his office (shared with a lab assistant). After tannery waste, poultry waste, wool dyeing waste, and optical grinding waste, we moved into a major metal finishing waste project (Scovill Manufacturing Co., long gone). I spent hours researching technologies and concepts applicable to our particular needs. At one juncture I was struck by the assertions of two very well-known experts who were completely contrary one to the other. Perplexed, I trotted into Doc’s office and presented him with this conundrum. He absorbed the material, observed that my assessment was quite right, lit up like a Christmas tree, and gave me an “aha” moment I have always treasured: “Young man, we are going to learn something here!” That moment has been with me for a lifetime of seeing, reading, and puzzling over conflicting expert opinion — it’s a learning experience.
— Tom Jester ’63 Th’64

Friday, November 22, 1963. President Kennedy assassinated. Students wondering if classes will be called off. Professor Taylor says that life goes on, and there will be an exam in our next methods engineering class on Tuesday. We walked in and sat down. Professor Taylor passed out newspaper clippings of the weekend’s events. The exam was to redesign the funeral for more efficiency. Using techniques learned in class, there were many things that could have been done in different order and timing that would have saved idle time and provided something to watch for the thousands of people who waited for long periods for things to happen. Those lessons of analyzing and effectively improving activities served me well throughout my careers, first 20 years with GATX in Chicago and then 15 years at Coopers & Lybrand/PricewaterhouseCoopers as a consulting partner and, even now, 10 years into retirement, in my volunteer activities.
— Rick Van Mell ’63 Th’64

Carl Long taught a course that was essentially an introduction to structural engineering, where we had to figure out the stresses on bridges and things like that. For the final paper the class was divided into groups of two and told to design a structure made out of balsa wood and Elmer’s glue that fit within a certain set of shape parameters. We were supposed to design as strong a structure as possible relative to the weight and also predict the breaking point of the structure. Randy Wallick ’69, who was the football captain of our class, and I got our only A’s in engineering when we figured out that balsa wood was such a lousy material (both inconsistent and unpredictable) that the design was irrelevant. The key was to use as much Elmer’s glue as possible. It turns out that glue has a much stronger weight-to-strength ratio than balsa wood. Because the structure was so simple to build, rather than come up with an elegant theory for how strong it would be, we simply made six of them and broke five of them ourselves. The paper we submitted was less than two pages, our structure was orders of magnitude stronger than the next best submission, and we were the only team that was able to estimate the breaking point within 50 percent. We also got the prize for the ugliest-looking structure — but that’s engineering.
— Clint Harris ’69 Th’70

When I was a Tuck/Thayer student, Tuck ran a business simulation in the fall for all of the second-year students. This simulation lasted for a week. We went to no classes. The simulation consumed us 20 hours per day for the week. Three of my classmates and I did not participate. We ran the simulation — one manager for each “world” of six companies. I managed the three world managers. Each manager took the inputs from each company in the world and entered it into the simulation. We then ran the simulation. All went well until the third evening. I pushed my managers to get one more set of data entered for each world. In one world, one critical process step was skipped and I did not catch it (and we found out from the subsequent experience that when skipping this step, recovery is not possible). A world crashed and burned prematurely. One-third of my classmates were deprived of a major learning experience. In the big picture, it was a cheap lesson for me, but a major “aha.” When doing mission-critical work, you cannot afford to overstress the system. There is a downside to fatigue, and if what is being done is critical, the downside can be disastrous.
— Mike Sulaver ’74 Tu’77 Th’77

I don’t have an engineering “aha” moment. It’s been a steady application of technology, trying to make it fit for purpose, along with steady improvements in the measurements and the answers that are derived from them.
— Steve Askey ’76 Th’77

I have had a number of “aha” moments all along my career, and it is probably why I studied engineering and why I enjoy figuring out how things work, finding solutions when things don’t work, and coming up with ways to explain and demonstrate these concepts to others. I think I became an electronics engineer due to the application of calculus to electronic circuits. I was really blown away when we converted equations from the time domain to the frequency domain to solve problems that otherwise seemed impossible. Professor Stratton’s teaching methods were key to many “aha” moments, and a solid understanding of electronics that excited and motivated me to learn more and get into circuit design when I left school.
— Kim Quirk ’82 Th’83

I discovered the power of “nice” in managing/motivating people — not only do you get world-class results, but people actually like working with you. Now I’m trying to influence other managers to adopt this and drive a culture change. I have discovered some great authors in the process: Syd Finkelstein (Tuck), Robert Sutton (Stanford).
— Sumit Guha Th’88

I find that I had little “aha” moments almost every day of my Thayer School experience and that they continue through my career. I think that is what lets me know how much and yet how little I know about engineering even today. Every engineering challenge results in a time when I finally figure out my design solution, and that is when I say, “A-ha!”
— Scott A. Sabol ’88 Th’88

Professor Stratton knew me better than I knew myself, and immediately exhorted me to get a Ph.D. I did so — not in engineering, but in accounting! Professor Stratton’s early confidence in me and Professor Hansen’s subsequent guidance played a big role in where I am today. I went on for my Ph.D. at Wharton and now teach at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.
— Venky Nagar Th’90

After graduating from Dartmouth, I entered graduate school at the University of Michigan. I ended up taking a design management graduate course taught commensurately with an undergraduate engineering design course. We were given a design challenge to move a brick the greatest distance using only a prescribed set of materials. I severely underestimated the mass of the brick, so when it came time to demonstrate our designs, my device collapsed under the weight of the brick. When the results were tallied for the class, mine was the only device with a negative distance traveled! An embarrassing moment to be sure, but I learned a valuable lesson: Know your design specs!
— Durward Sobek ’91

The first thing that comes to mind when I was thinking back over engineering “aha” moments was when I was introduced to the idea of stress and strain. It made so much sense! The basic relationship between the two is so well captured on the graph where visually the modulus, yield, etc., just come to life.
— Brian Mason ’03 Th’05

I remember sitting in Thayer’s ProE lab in the basement doing work. It was a typical all-nighter spent at Thayer, and I was trying to focus on my work but this alarm kept going off for the door next to all the bike racks on the north side of Cummings. When you entered that door, you could go upstairs into the Great Hall or downstairs to the machine shop, ProE room, and project lab. Dartmouth had recently installed a campus-wide door entry system where you had to swipe your ID past a sensor to get into buildings after-hours. If doors were left open for more than 30 seconds or so, an alarm would sound until the door was closed. If you needed to brace the door open so you could go grab something heavy from your car and carry it in, everyone would have to endure the alarm until you closed it. So this alarm just kept going off because there was something wrong with the self-closer or the door, and every time somebody left, the door would remain ajar and the alarm would go off until I went up to close it. At last I decided to go figure out how to fix this. It didn’t seem there was much I could do about the door, so I started looking at the security system to figure out where all the wires were flowing to. All of a sudden I had this “aha” moment and realized there’s an electrical box on the wall that seemed new and sort of out of place. So I run down to the project lab, grab a screwdriver, and come back to see what’s inside. I loosen the screw, slide open the cover, and inside there’s just a single Piezo electric buzzer between two wires. I remember thinking to myself, “It really can’t be this easy. I can’t believe somebody installed this in an engineering school in plain sight, where sooner or later one of us would figure out how to disable it.” So I removed the buzzer, closed up the panel, and tossed the buzzer into a drawer in the project lab like it was a spare part. I went back to my work and never heard the alarm again. Months later, nobody had replaced the buzzer. I’m curious if now, several years later, anyone has yet replaced it.
— John Turner ’04 Th’07

The reason why drawings must be perfectly neat and legible is that you lose basic arithmetic skills when standing at the mill. I have cut straight through holes I just tapped because 5-2.3 does not equal 3.7.
— Nolan Reis Th’09

Cellulosic Ethanol Breakthrough

Lee Lynd, Thayer’s Paul E. and Joan H. Queneau Distinguished Professor in Environmental Engineering Design, and his team have engineered a cellulose-dissolving bacterium that could lead to cheaper and more sustainable ethanol production. In this country, fuel ethanol is produced from corn. Producing ethanol from cellulosic feedstocks — such as wood, grass, and various residues — rather than food sources has obvious advantages. But a key constraint to the feasibility of ethanol production from cellulose is the cost of cellulase, the enzymes that convert fibrous biomass into sugars that can be fermented.

Currently, ethanol production also utilizes yeast, which grows at moderate temperatures of 30 to 35 degrees C. In a major breakthrough, Lynd’s team has engineered a new bacterium, strain ALK2, that grows at 50 to 60 degrees C. — a temperature that speeds the breakdown of cellulose — and ferments all sugars in the biomass into ethanol. Under controlled conditions, Lynd reports, the amount of cellulase needed to break down cellulosic feedstocks is slashed in half when ALK2 is used in place of yeast.

“This work shows that a new class of potentially important organisms can be engineered to produce ethanol as the only fermentation product,” says Lynd, who is chief scientific officer and co-founder of Mascoma Corp., a leading developer of cellulosic biofuel technology. “This opens up new and exciting possibilities going forward,” he adds, noting that Mascoma plans to test strain ALK2 in its pilot plant in Rome N.Y.

Lynd and his team published their findings on the ALK2 thermophilic bacteria online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science during the week of September 8, 2008.

—Elizabeth Kelsey

Therapy in Space

Cramped quarters. Life-or-death decisions. Missions that last months or years. These are just some of the psychological stressors astronauts face. To help them cope, Thayer adjunct professor Dr. Jay Buckey Jr., a former astronaut, has teamed with Dr. James Cartreine of Harvard Medical School and other researchers with the National Space Biomedical Research Institute to develop an interactive, multimedia program called the Virtual Space Station. According to Buckey, the multimedia aspect of the program, which enters clinical trials this winter, provides an important emotional component. “Just like a good movie, it will draw you in and let you respond to the characters,” he says.

While participating in NASA’s Neurolab mission on the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1998, Buckey became interested in addressing potential barriers to flights to Mars or other long-duration missions. Psychological stressors, such as interpersonal conflict or depression, can destroy missions if they are not handled well, he says. With the Virtual Space Station, on-screen psychologists lead users through lectures, exercises, interactive simulations, and programmed interventions. Astronauts can take diagnostic tests, work through simulations, and practice problem-solving strategies. The system, which runs on any laptop, will be accessible anytime, anywhere. Currently, space-based astronauts can only consult with therapists on the ground when communication links are available.

The Virtual Space Station also has practical applications here on earth. Doctors’ offices, schools, oil rigs, and other remote locations would benefit from the portable therapy. Buckey hopes the program will enable more people to receive assistance for conditions that are sometimes stigmatized. “Often people are more comfortable working with a computer for these kinds of problems,” he says. “With this program, we hope that people will seek help earlier, rather than letting the situation become worse.”

—Elizabeth Kelsey

Fighting Decompression Sickness in Space

Another space project of Buckey’s that has earth-bound applications is his work with decompression sickness (DCS). Because current spacecraft and suit designs require astronauts to move through different pressure environments, the prevention of DCS is a priority for spacewalks. When humans move from areas of high pressure to low, nitrogen can be released in the body in the form of bubbles. Buckey and Creare Inc. are currently developing a dual-frequency instrument to detect and size nitrogen bubbles in body tissue. The instrument uses two frequencies of ultrasound (similar to the frequencies clinical ultrasound machines use) to detect and size bubbles through the chest wall as they move through the heart. The instrument also can detect small, stationary bubbles in tissue — a unique capability. One potential benefit is the ability to detect the earliest stages of DCS and allow for preventative strategies like oxygen pre-breathing and the limiting physical activity at critical times. Further, the instrument can potentially be used in coronary bypass surgery to distinguish between solid and gaseous emboli and in industrial and aviation applications to determine the gas saturation in fluids.

—Elizabeth Kelsey

Power Line De-Icing

Russia and China are taking advantage of Professor Victor Petrenko’s de-icing system for power lines. Both countries have placed orders with Petrenko’s company, Ice Engineering LLC.

Petrenko’s variable resistance cable (VRC) de-icing system switches the electrical resistance of a standard power line from low to high, automatically creating heat to melt ice build-up or keep it from forming in the first place. The system can be implemented for less than a ten percent increase in overall cost and can also be installed as part of regularly scheduled maintenance. “The beauty of the VRC system is that it’s fully customizable and is an affordable addition to the current manufacturing and installation process,” says Ice Engineering vice president Gabriel Martinez.

—Kathryn LoConte

For more photos, visit our Engineering in Medicine and Research and Innovations pages on Flickr.

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