Standing form left to right are William Farrell, Professor Andrzej Rucinski, Blaise Durante, and Anthony Durante.

Mr. Durante Visits the Department

by Andrzej Rucinski

Seeing students wearing blue Air Force uniforms is not unusual in Kingsbury Hall. These ROTC students are pursuing double careers as Air Force officers and engineers at the same time. The ROTC students are not the only sign of growing interaction between the Department and the US Air Force. A good indicator of the growing interest of the US Air Force in continuing a relationship with our Department is a recent visit of Mr. Blaise Durante, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of the US Air Force (see the photo picture). Mr. Durante, whose roots are in New Hampshire, is a comptroller of the US Air Force, a person responsible for the budget of this branch of DoD. His assistance contributed to several on-going and past activities between our Department and the US Air Force:

1. The USAF European Office of Scientific Research, located in London, UK, has been supporting the Advanced Technology Workshop since its conception. The University of New Hampshire originated the workshop in 1992, and since then it has become a successful annual event. Over the last couple of years, the ATW has taken place in Corsica, France and has been organized by the University of Corsica (http://ura2053.univ-corse.fr/).

2. UNH has signed a CREDA agreement in the area of accelerated testing. This is a technology transfer agreement whereby the partners agree to share technology and the results of their research efforts. Because of the agreement, UNH has gained access to the state-of-the-art simulation package developed by the USAF Electronics Systems Center in Bedford, Massachusetts.

3. There is an on-going research activity sponsored by the USAF Office of Scientific

4. Research, Arlington, Virginia, in the area of corrosion fuses. These are semiconductor structures capable of detecting corrosion in a system prior to the system's failure.

The aforementioned activities are a clear indication of a more open policy adopted by the US Department of Defense in their dealings with academic and industrial partners.