Teacher Appreciation Day 2022 – who inspired and taught you?

Hi Cabe,

The one teacher in High School that got me even more into science was Professor Savage.

Yes we called him Doc Savage, though he only had a masters degree.

He had many fascinating stories on how he used science throughout his life.

I hope I have done him proud.

DAB

My teacher was a student. They gave me the assignment to mentor a senior technician in the Engineering group I was working in. I had just finished extensive training in the field and was wrapping up a major project. The manager decided it would be ideal if I passed on the knowledge to a recent transfer to the group.

The individual had worked in the company for close to 25 years and had recently transferred to engineering because of his knowledge and skill set. What he had accumulated in experience and knowledge, the company could never replace. To keep him, they promoted him to Engineering.

My initial reaction was to question how this was going to work. I was 25 and the individual was almost twice my age, old enough to be my father. I was tasked with training him?

I am here today because of that person. I never realized how much I was missing. He was kind enough to share his knowledge. Over eleven years, we built a relationship that was more than just work. When he retired, I took a career path away from Engineering.

John is still a friend and mentor today. After retiring, he left technology behind. “If I need something, I will call you.” He has done that a few times. At well into his seventies, he teaches level 1 volunteer firefighter training.

I also had a high school teacher named Savage, also with a masters degree and we also called him Doc. He taught history and everyone liked his extremely animated lectures.

In my freshman year of High School, I signed up for electronics as one of my electives (I had already built several radio shack kits and was fascinated with electronics) .  The instructor, Mr. Wilson, was an excellent electronics teacher. He taught us the basics of electronics and encouraged us to find circuits and build them as a part of the class.  We learned how read schematics, to fabricate circuit boards, and even helped us to debug our builds.  Mr. Wilson also led a student run FM radio station that was located on the campus.  After the electronics class I signed up for the Radio Station class, which was a real eye opener.  The students were allowed to focus on various aspects of running a radio station, including a tech crew that maintained and built broadcast radio electrons.  Over the next two years (as I graduated as a Junior due to all the extra credit classes I took in radio, before and after school), I worked on several projects, like restoring/updating a 10KW FM transmitter, building and tuning an antenna system, building a stereo mixing console along many other projects.

When I graduated and moved onto college, about 80% of my freshmen year (of my three year BS degree) was a review of things that I had already learned in High School. I always knew I wanted to work in electronics and Mr. Wilson made this seem very possible and also very exciting.  I still communicate with Mr. Wilson to this day.

These are all great and inspiring stories! Keep them coming...

Teachers truly shape our lives.

When I was a junior engineer, my company hired an experienced engineer to run the group. I learned analog electronics from him, which had been decidedly lacking in my school curriculum. Over the decades his methods and ways of designing and analyzing analog circuitry have made a huge difference in my ability to exploit analog electronics effectively. He was my mentor for 5 years until I became a senior engineer. After that, I never had another technical mentor and had to progress through my own initiatives, but that early good grounding was crucial in successfully tackling some wild and wooly projects. And I had learned the value of mentoring less experienced staff. Thanks Jim.

No new mentors? .... you know what that means....

Time to mentor others!

It is so surprising how foundational those seasoned veteran can be. Comments from students that attended my retirement play testament to that. I had people do it for me. Always nice to know I'm paying it forward.