Students in Professor Rucinski’s Introduction to VLSI course suited up and ready to tour Fairchild’s South Portland VLSI fabrication facility.

MemoriesÉ

We hope that you enjoy reading this section, which always brings back fond memories of our alumni. Please keep us informed through e-mail, land-mail, telephone, or pay us a visit at Kingsbury Hall.

Ken White (’35 BS) sent a nice note to Professor LaCourse in response to last year’s issue of Signals and Noise. Ken said, "It is always great to read Signals and Noise and to learn about the things that go on in the Dept of E&CE. What a change from the days at UNH! Not to say that things weren’t pretty good in my time."

Ken especially enjoyed the recollections of Professor Hitchcock. Ken mentioned that the recollections are certainly characteristic of the precise way in which he taught and, at least for him, provided a base for what came afterward. Ken especially remembers one of Dean Case’s admonitions, after having made an engineering calculation, to stop and think whether or not the result was "reasonable" and if it wasn’t to go back and check each step along the way.

Ken said, "I think I recognize the faculty member on page 21 of the last newsletter. It’s many years ago, but it looks to me like Bill Nulsen. If nothing else, I remember the hair that stood up most of the time. We had many "bull" sessions in his office on the lower floor of DeMeritt." You are correct Ken - it was Professor Nulsen.

Ken also said, "I continue to enjoy retirement ­ it’s twenty-two years now since IBM. Now it’s Rotary, the New Castle Historical Society, church and a round of golf as often as possible. When I tell my doctor that walking the golf course will killme, he says, "good ­ keep it up."

Colonel Richard L. Norton (’35 BS) sent in an Alumni News and Information form from the last issue of our newsletter. He is currently retired. He enjoyed reading Professor Hitchcock’s article on the history of the ECE Department. Richard said, "I visited Hitch, as we called him, a few years ago after he retired. He always tried to keep track of his students."

He recognized Professor Nulsen’s picture in the last issue of Signals and Noise. Richard said, "We called him Wild Bill. At that time he taught motors and generators and vector analysis."

Richard retired from the Missile Electronic Warfare Laboratory at White Sands Missile Range, NM in 1976 after working there for seventeen years. Richard is also retired from the US Army.

Editor’s Note: We received notice that Colonel Norton passed away in December of 1999.

F. George Herring (’48 BS) sent in an Alumni News and Information form from the last issue of our newsletter. He is currently retired. He recognized Professor Nulsen’s picture in the last newsletter. He said he had Professor Nulsen as an instructor in a course called AC Circuits in the spring and fall of 1946 and 1947. He also played golf with Nulsen a few times in the spring of 1947.

Dave Sage ('58 BS) correctly identified the mystery picture in last year’s newsletter as that of Professor William Nulsen.

Walter D. Hett (’59 BS) sent us a nice letter in response to last year’s issue of Signals and Noise. Walter recognized the picture of Professor William B."Bull" Nulsen and said, "Professor Nulsen was also an inspiration to me, but a little different from Ron."

Walter said he was saddened to read of Professor Clark’s retirement, but happy to see him looking so fit, healthy and happy in the photographs. Walter mentioned that he had read Professor Pokoski’s article about Ron with great interest, as he seemed to characterize so well the man that he knew so briefly.

Walter said, "Ron was an Instructor of Electrical Engineering during my undergraduate days at UNH, having just earned his ME at Yale. Although two years younger than me, I looked up to him and greatly appreciated his help and guidance throughout my junior and senior years. Then, I was married with two children and resided at G8 College Road in the converted barracks apartments made available to married veterans at $30.00 per month. I was not a brilliant student, but worked hard on and off the campus to graduate. Ron was always a source of inspiration and encouragement during those years. It sounds like those attributes followed him throughout his career, and that certainly does not surprise me."

Everett McNally (’62 BS) you are correct, the mystery picture is last year’s newsletter is of Professor William Nulsen. Everett recalls Professor Nulsen’s deep narrow office in Kingsbury—full of cigar smoke. Professor Nulsen had a large magnifying glass on his K&E slide rule, which would challenge today’s calculator.

Bob Ricklefs (‘62 BS) recognized William "Bull" Nulsen right away. Bob said, " Professor Nulsen was one of my favorites..his gruff exterior hid a great many talents. In early 1961 as an EE junior, I had the misfortune to contract Bell's palsy and mononucleosis at the same time, and after missing several weeks of classes and first semester finals, Professor

Nulsen worked long and hard with me to make up the lost time. I dropped only one course (made up later) and graduated on time in 1962, thanks in no small part to his guidance and efforts. My memories of him not only include his omnipresent cigars and how his tiny office reeked of them, but how he delighted in playing with us slide rule jockeys. He'd occasionally give us a multi-step problem requiring many calculations, but the answer boiled down to something as simple as the square root of four, which we always reported as precisely 1.995 or some other ridiculous slide rule result. He also enjoyed setting synchronous speeds in the Power Labs using the 60 Hz flicker of the fluorescent lights to the bafflement of young students struggling with a synchroscope." Bob hopes Ron Clark's retirement is long and enjoyable. Bob said, "If I remember correctly, Bull Nulsen's lasted only a week."

Bill Dalton (’66 BS, ‘69 MS) was also able to identify Professor "Bull" Nulsen in the picture in last year’s Signals and Noise. Bill said, "I've had a little advantage since I knew him pretty well and in fact took over the instruction of his power lab courses after he passed away. He was a great teacher and made you learn via the school of hard knocks. Most of us blew a few breakers before we could get the experiments to work. I like to think that I picked up some of his good habits and have tried to take the same approach with new engineers that have been under my tutelage over the years. Unfortunately I've picked up one of his bad habits also. I also am a prolific cigar chomper and probably crotchety."

Artthur E. Hudson, Jr. (’66 BS) saw Professor Glanz and said he is about to retire from Public Service Company of NH.

Michael Grady (’72 BS) met Professor Glanz while getting on a bus to Logan at Pease International Airport.

Robert Moore ("72 BS) writes that he enjoyed the latest edition of Signals and Noise. He said, "It's a sobering thought to see all the profs we had reaching that retirement age. They all look great, however, and seem to have very active lives. Gives me inspiration as my retirement nears."

Rick Boyle (’78 BS) sent his greeting from rainy California to Professor Pokoski. Rick worked for Dick Jennings in the technician shop and still is a good friend of Ken Fecteau (’78 BS). Rick has been working at this little fibre channel switch company called Brocade Communications. Rick said, "Life is good here, and we are hiring, and we have a lot of great ASIC and switch development programs. His company is interested in further collaboration with UNH, especially in the arena of SANs and FC switching, etc." Rick also sent us a note saying that he heard that Charlie Walker (’70 MS, ‘82 Ph.D.) had passed away. He did not have any details, but wanted us all to know.

Dennis Giguere (’80 BS, ’90 MS) met Professor Glanz at a UNH organ dedication in which his wife performed (with his daughter turning pages). Dennis now has his own company developing microprocessor-based systems.

James Glynn’s (’79 BS) son Jimmy was featured in a newspaper article titled "Will follow in father’s footsteps as electrical engineer." Jimmy will attend the ECE Department at UNH this fall to begin a career in electrical and computer engineering. Welcome to our department Jimmy Glynn!

Grant Sandy (’80 BS) met ECE senior Mark Sinclair one evening. Grant wrote Professor Pokoski saying that he was glad to hear that that Professor Pokoski is still at UNH influencing those good young folks. Grant said, "I hope that you can make the point with them that ASIC design and design verification is a tremendous market to get into these days. Also, design verification is actually more in demand (and is often better paid) than ASIC design. Thank you for all that you did for me while at UNH. I want you to know that those contributions are appreciated by at least some of your students for their whole lives. Please give my regards to Fil Glanz, Paul Nahin, and Alden Winn."

Tom Blackadar (’81 BS) sent a nice e-mail letter to Professor LaCourse last December. Tom founded his own company: FitSense Technology, 212 Worcester Street.

Wellesley, MA 02481 (http://www.fitsense.com). His company has just developed a low power personal area network (RF) for physiological monitoring. His system runs at 9600 baud and consumes less than 1 mw of power, and is fully networked. His company has just finished putting it into a watch, and its coin cell battery will last for one year.

David Sekel (’82 MS) stopped by Professor Glanz’s office. David works on small research submarines at the Naval Research Laboratory in San Diego, CA.

Christopher Salter (’83 BS) met Professor Glanz at a UNH piano recital. He currently does surveying.

Christopher S. Daly (’84 BS) visited the ECE Department last fall (1999) to give a guest lecture on patents and intellectual property in EE690 Engineering Design Principles I. The ECE students really enjoyed his presentation. Christopher sent us an announcement that his law firm Daly, Crowley & Mofford, LLP is opening a new office at 275 Turnpike Street, Suite 101, Canton, MA 02021. Thanks for your commitment to our department.

Alison Hawley Barrasso (’84 BS) writes that she is a Systems Analyst for Ciber, Inc. After several years living in Boston and working at both Raytheon and Wang Laboratories, Alison relocated to New Jersey and has been working at Ciber, Inc. Her family includes her husband Peter, who is a Columbia graduate, and 3-year-old twin sons. Alison said, "I do miss New England and hope to move back again someday. I enjoy reading Signals and Noise. It would be nice to find out what others from the class of '84 are now doing."

Bryan Santarelli (’86 BS) sent in an Alumni News and Information form from the last issue of our newsletter. Bryan is a patent attorney and is a partner in the law firm of Graybeal Jackson Haley LLP. Bryan’s legal practice includes patents, trademarks, and intellectual property. Bryan lives in the Seattle area. He said he received a very good education at UNH. He thinks Signals and Noise is great and will gladly talk to students interested in becoming patent attorneys.

Professor Carter met Edward Holmes (’88 BS, ’91 MS) twice in the past couple of months. Ed and his wife Lynn live in Durham, NH. Their first child, David Edward Holmes, was born in November 1999. Ed now works for Interspeed, a networking equipment firm in North Andover MA, as a software engineer. Ed said that he is only playing his guitar now at family gatherings! (Ed's EE 758 project was a wireless guitar pickup/transmitter, and he gave concerts to his dorm friends over their FM radios while he was a student here!).

Jason Jeffords (’89 BS, ‘93 MS) very kindly volunteered to be a judge at this year’s Senior Projects Day Poster Session. Thank you Jason! PS, Helen Lawson, our administrative Assistant, remembers Jason as one of the best-looking ECE students from our department.

Christopher Bridge (’90 BS) stopped by Professor Glanz’s office one weekend. Christopher lives in Colorado and works for a startup networking company. He loves what he is doing and where he lives.

Eric Wilson (’90 BS, ’93 MS) sent along an announcement of the birth of his son. Bennet Neville Wilson born on September 16, 1999 at 9:30 am (after a long night). He was 6 lbs, 4 oz and 18.5 inches long. Congratulations Eric; will Bennet become an ECE engineer like the rest of us?

David C. Johnson (’91 BS, ’92 MS), President of Johnson Kinetics, Inc., Groveport, OH visited our department this year. He gave a guest lecture in EE691 Engineering Design Principles II, attended the IAP meeting, and spent some time with the seniors talking about senior projects. Thanks for paying us a visit Dave!

Jim Pacocha (’92 BS) met Professor Glanz at a wedding in Vermont. Jim is married and works in Ohio.

Gabriel Thomas (’93 BS, ’95 MS) sent us a nice e-mail update. Gabe has been working for Quantum Bridge Communications since January 1999. Last August (1999) Gabe said, "We're still basically in "stealth" mode, but should be making more noise by the end of the year." Thanks for the e-mail Gabe.

Lester French ('93 BS) sent us his email address for our database. Lester is currently finishing work on his MSEE and will be continuing with his Ph.D. at the University of Maine. Lester is working in the area of microwave acoustic sensors.

Vince Kayser sent Professor Pokoski a message looking for qualified ECE students. He is currently the Director of North America Applications for Infineon Technologies Corp. in San Jose, CA. (http://www.infineon.com)