Engineer: An Autobiography

This book is written for young people planning for or dreaming of their future. It is a true story of one man's career. The career has been engineering, and the field electrical engineering. The story begins with a small high school in a rural Iowa community and continues through college at Iowa State College (now Iowa State University). The author then began his work in national defense, moved from there to university research and teaching, and finally ended his career in manufacturing. Along the way he earned advanced degrees - M.S. and Ph.D., both in electrical engineering. The book is written with a minimum of technical jargon, with simple mathematical expressions in algebra and with numerous line drawings. A course in high school physics would be helpful but not required for understanding. Engineering is problem solving. In this book, problems were discovered in the testing of gyroscopes for airplane flight control, engine instruments for airplane cockpits, transistor circuits to be taught to electrical engineering students, solid-state light-emitting large-area flat-screens for digital display, integrated circuits on chips of silicon and high-pressure sodium HID lamps using small amounts of or no mercury. My work in electrical engineering took several turns along the way and presented new and interesting problems to solve.