Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine Vol. 73, No. 03 1997

Winter 1997

Alumni Magazine

Memory and Aging Cognitive Psychology at Georgia Tech

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TS Vol. 73, No. 3 Winter 1997

14

29

Memory and Aging

Executive Education

As the U.S. population grays, understanding the aging process will become increasingly important. Georgia Tech has one of the nation's best groups of cognitive psychologists studying aging.

By John Dunn

Investing in on-site public schools isn't just altruistic, "it's a profit center"—as Kirk London's Miami-based American Banker's Insurance Group is proving.

By Hoyt Coffee

20

32

Young at Heart

Living Outside the Box

Even as memory changes with age, people can remain active and enjoy life.

By John Dunn Page 24 Page 20

Access Granted Georgia Tech helps bring technology to Atlanta's public-housing complexes

By Karen Addy Crick

© 1988 David Macaulay by permission Houghton Mifflin Co

GEORGIA TECH • Winter 1997

Sony's Mickey Steinberg is helping revolutionize the entertainment industry.

By Michael Terrazas

John B. Carter Jr., IE '69, Publisher John C. Dunn, Editor Hoyt Coffee, Associate Editor Michael Terrazas, Assistant Editor Everett Hullum, Design Robb Stanek, AE '90, Advertising

Page 42

Officers

Departments Tech Notes

8

Freeing the information freeway; Imagining peace; Name dropper; Search for management dean; Technology's price tag: $25; By any other name ... ?

Nunns list ofdon'ts; Gingrich scores with Tech.

Pacesetters

42

Mike Wach: Probing the Darkness.

Fitz Woodrow: Merchant Marine.

Geary Tanner: The Best of What's Around.

Research

52

World-wide waterways model; National resource center; Curing circuit boards; On the right wavelength.

Profile

62

Professor Craig Tovey: Sweet Rewards

Cover: Charlie Fram, 94, is among the alumni who have been tested by Georgia Tech's psychology department in its research on cognitive aging. For more on Fram and the program, see page 14.

Photo by Kathryn Kolb

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine (ISSN: 1061-9747) is published quarterly (Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter) for Roll Call contributors by the Georgia Tech Alumni Association, Alumni/ Faculty House, 225 North Avenue NW, Atlanta, GA 30332-0175. Georgia Tech Alumni Association allocates $10 from a contribution toward a year's subscription to its magazine. Periodical postage paid at Atlanta,GA., and additional mailing offices.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine, Alumni/Faculty House, 225 North Avenue NW, Atlanta, GA 30332-0175. Editorial: (404) 894-0760/0761. Advertising: (404) 894-9270.

Fax: (404) 894-5113. E-mail: editor@alumni.gatech.edu

Hubert L. Harris Jr., IM '65, President H. Milton Stewart, IE '61, Past President Francis N. Spears, CE '73, MS CE '80, President-Elect/Treasurer Jay M. McDonald, IM '68, Vice President/Activities N. Allen Robertson, IE '69, Vice President/Communications David M. McKenney, Phy '60, IE '64, Vice President/Roll Call John B. Carter Jr., IE '69, Vice President/Executive Director James M. Langley, Vice President/External Affairs

Trustees William H. Avery, ChE '65, MS IM '67 Charles W. Bass, IE '69 G. Niles Bolton, Arch '69 Daniel H. Bradley, IM '61 Mary Melinda Coker, EE '87 H. Preston Crum, Arch '67 W. Elliott Dunwody III, Arch '52 Michael P. Franke, IE '66 Phil Gee, IE '81 Sherman J. Glass Jr., ChE '71, MS ChE '72 Marion B. Glover, IM '65 J. William Goodhew III, IM'61 Robert L. Hall, IM '64 Gabriel C. Hill HI, Text '57 Douglas R. Hooker, ME '78, MS TASP '85 Calvin D. Johnson, MSci '73 Sharon R. Just, CE '89 John E. Lagana, IE '68 Robert H. Ledbetter Sr., IM'58

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TECH NOTES

Freeing the Information Freeway Tech building data-transport link to connect major Atlanta universities

G

eorgia Tech is creating a new high-speed computer network on campus and in Atlanta that may help researchers find ways to ease congestion on the Information Superhighway.

Funded by a two-year, $350,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, scientists in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering are building a "backbone" between Tech, Clark-Atlanta University and Emory University that could transmit data up to seven times faster than the swiftest current Internet connections.

According to Ronald R. Hutchins, director of Tech's Office of Information Technology, additional connections to Georgia Research Alliance institutions may be "leveraged" by the new local net-

work, creating a system that will not only allow faster exchange of research information between the universities, but also provide a test bed for development of the next-generation Internet.

Hutchins says the Institute also is asking the NSF for connection to its Very-High-Speed Backbone Network Service (VBNS), which could increase the local network's connection with about 30 other institutions nationwide to 622 megabytes per second.

Georgia Tech currently has a "T3" connection, delivering data at 45 megabytes per second.

"We've got this high-speed network that John Copeland (Weitnauer Professor of electrical and computer engineering) is building; we've built a really high-speed network at Georgia Tech, with the FutureNet project

Imagining Peace Tech plans 'virtual diplomacy" project for the Middle East

G

eorgia Tech's Center for International Strategy, Technology and Policy (CISTP) is planning a "virtual diplomacy" project to bring together the next generation of leaders in the Middle East.

While problems in the troubled region won't be solved in tne the next 10 years, Project Director Alan Gorowitz says the effort would facilitate ongoing communication among people in the area.

"Sometimes breakthroughs happen because people know each other," Gorowitz says.

CISTP is also working on other "track-two" efforts, sensitive diplomatic thrusts not yet under discussion among governments.

"You generate ideas, and you work on it long enough or you set it up where, when the right time comes, governments can pick up and run with it," Gorowitz says. Among those efforts is the exploration of a limited nuclear-free zone in northeast Asia. CISTP recently held a meeting in France with 40 specialists to address the nuclear-free zone.

In September, CISTP hosted a conference exploring the effects of technology on the military of the future.

Dwayne Palmer, a technician in the Office of Information Technology, checks the status of FutureNet. Combined with a connection to the new higher-speed 'Net, the technology will give Georgia Tech "unprecedented connectivity."

and the Olympics. What we're doing is putting up what's called a 'gigapop' at Georgia Tech to connect a lot of outside entities for collaborative research and educacolls tion," Hutchins says.

"We have a significant number of folks in our machine room already. If we connect all of them with a very-highspeed backbone, and connect the VBNS to that, all of a sudden we have an unprecedented amount of connectivity."

While Hutchins says VBNS won't necessarily solve the bandwidth limitations that hamper highend commercial viability on the Internet, "it does give us a platform to do testing on multimedia applications. And that's the difference."

/PCX*'

8

GEORGIA TECH • Winter 1997

TECH

Name Dropper

Search for Management Dean

What's in a name?

Plenty—especially if it's a trademark like Georgia Tech

A

T

hat's why Tech and other colleges and universities across the country are taking issue with a Virginia company that's selling domain names for e-mail users that mimic the institution's actual domains.

New Century Technologies of Roanoke offers the "vanity" addresses, such as "DukeU.com," for $25 a year. The company forwards e-mail arriving with the notorious cognomens to the customer's real internet address.

"People can't sell anything over the Internet and use our name without paying us royalties," says John B. Carter Jr., IE '69, Alumni Association executive director and a member of the Institute's licensing committee.

Elton L. Ghee, chief technology officer at New Century, says most

nationwide search began in November for a new dean of the DuPree School of Management, following the resignation of Dr. Arthur Kraft.

Kraft, who came to Tech from Rutgers in 1993 to serve as dean, resigned Dec. 31 in order to return to teaching full-time. Dr. Lloyd Byars, a professor in management, is serving as acting dean until a replacement can be found for Kraft.

During Kraft's tenure, the management school grew in status to be ranked in the top 30 business schools nationally. It received a major financial boost recently when Tom DuPree, IM 74, donated $20 million for creating endowed chairs, recruiting top students and improving infrastructure.

'Netizens recognize the difference between the company's addresses, which end with ".com" and the legitimate institutional addresses ending in ".edu." But U.S. college and university officials disagree.

"You can't assume people understand that the address isn't somehow affiliated with the university," says David Coursey, a computer administrator at Florida State University.

Georgia Tech took action in late

October to halt the practice, sending a letter to New Century President Ed Heurtematte requesting he "immediately discontinue the unauthorized use of the domain name 'GeorgiaTechU.'" The letter also requests figures on how many e-mail users now use the bogus domain names to help "arrive at an appropriate licensing fee for any use up to this point of time."

A note for New Century—it's not Georgia Tech University.

Alan David Photos

A

bout 45 former Alumni Association trustees were on campus in November for their annual reunion.

After hearing from President Wayne Clough, the group toured the new Georgia Center for Advanced Telecommunications Technology. Mike Sinclair, director of the Institute's Interactive Media Technology

Center, demonstrated the technology of the DanceTechnology Project (left), part of the Cultural Olympiad. The trustees also saw a demonstration of the Sam Nunn virtual tour of Capitol Hill, an interactive exhibit that allows users to walk through the Capitol, ride Congress' subway, even cast a Senate vote.

Winter 1997 • GEORGIA TECH

9

A,wis and your alumni association have teamed up to give you great savings on quality car rentals, and the opportunity to give deserving Georgia Tech students a real financial boost.

Here's how it works. As a participant in the Avis Alumni Association Member Benefit Program, you're entitled to special Avis rates and discounts.

You save money on both business and leisure rentals. And what's more, every time you rent from Avis, a contribution will be made to the Avis/Georgia Tech Alumni Association scholarship fund.

As if that weren't enough, you can take advantage of the coupon on the right for even more savings. For information and reservations, call an employee-owner of Avis at our special Alumni Association Member Services Desk: 1-800-422-3810. And be sure to mention your Avis Worldwide Discount (AWD) number: B105900 Now visit our Avis Galaxy Web Site at: http://www.avis.com ©1996 Wizard Co., Inc.

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For information and reservations, call your travel consultant or an employee-owner of Avis at 1-800-831-8000. And be sure to mention your Avis Worldwide Discount (AWD) number: B105900.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS Offer valid on an Intermediate (Group C) through a Full Size 4-Door (Group E) car for a 2-day minimum rental. Coupon must be surrendered at time of rental; one per rental. May not be used in conjunction with any other coupon, promotion or offer. Coupon valid at Avis corporate and participating licensee locations itt the contiguous United States. Weekend rental period begins Thursday noon, and car must be returned by Monday 11:59 p.m. or a higher rate will apply. Offer may not be available on all rates at all times. An advance reservation is required. Cars subject to availability. Taxes, local government surcharges and Optional items, such as LDW, additional driver fee and fuel service, are extra. Renter must meet Avis age, driver and credit lequireinciils. Minimum My i-, 2,1 hul m.ivvmv bv inealitm. Rental must begin by J u n e 30, 1997.

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Technology's Price Tag: $25 New fee necessary to pay for equipment used in education

S

tudents registering for Fall Quarter this year noticed a new line item on their matriculation bill: a $25 fee for technology.

Georgia Tech became the first public institution in the state to charge a technology fee in students' tuition. Administrators say the charge is necessary to maintain state-of-the-art equipment on which to train Tech students to enter the workforce.

"We are trying to educate our students to use high-tech equipment so that they are the best graduates from a public college in the country," says Dr. Mike Thomas, provost and vice president for academic affairs. "We can't do that with old equipment."

Thomas estimates the fee will raise $1 million annually for technological infrastructure. Other schools like Texas, Michigan and Purdue already have such a fee.

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Nunn's List of Don'ts

D

on't expect Sen. Sam Nunn, Georgia Tech's newly appointed distinguished professor, to be making political lectures after his January retirement from Congress.

Nunn, CIs '60, told the news media he's learned a lesson from House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who taught a college course and is being investigated by the House ethics committee to determine if it was a political activity that violated tax laws, Nunn quipped, "I am going to see my good friend Newt and say, 'Newt, give me a checklist of all the things you did.' Then I'm going to avoid those."

A 24-year veteran of the Senate and former chairman of the powerful Armed Services Committee, Nunn will be an unpaid distinguished professor in Tech's School of International Affairs and Public Policy in the Ivan Allen College; the school will be renamed the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs.

By Any Other Name ...?

Continuing Ed gets new name, new leader

R

ecognizing changes in its mission, both technology- and culture-driven, Tech's adult education arm adopted a new name to go along with its new director.

New Vice Provost Dr. Joe DiGregorio will head up Distance Learning, Continuing Education and Outreach. He intends to make

Gingrich Scores Tech and the triceratops among Newt favorites

H

ouse Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., took the ball and ran with it— though not without some reservation—and from Georgia Tech's perspective, he scored. During a visit to Frey Elementary School in Ac worth, Ga., Gingrich fielded questions from fifth graders about his favorite things. The first question: What's your favorite dinosaur?

"The triceratops," answered Gingrich. "It's the one with three horns."

The friendly grilling continued until finally he was asked his favorite sport—football. The next question was inevitable—and not for the faint of heart: favorite football team?

"I'm going to get into trouble on this one," squirmed the House Speaker. "I like a lot of football teams.... 1 like Georgia, but not as much as Georgia Tech, frankly."

good on the Institute's commitment to serving non-traditional students. "Georgia Tech is one of the best in the country in developing and delivering on-campus continuing education short courses and conferences, but now it is time to move forward in distance education," DiGregorio says. "It's my goal to make sure Tech is nationally recognized in these areas."

Distance learning encompasses video, satellite, interactive digital television and any other media or computer-based delivery mode that transmits course lectures and material from one site to another.

Georgia Tech has offered videotaped instruction for off-campus students, but DiGregorio plans to supplement the resource with both Star-Tech, the Institute's satellite program, and the Georgia Statewide Academic and Medical System, an interactive digital instruction program.

Winter 1997 • GEORGIA TECH

11

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Memory and Aging Georgia Tech has one of the best groups of cognitive psychologists studying aging in the country

By John Dunn Photography by Kathryn Kolb

W

hen the next century ushers in a new millennium three years from now, the United States will have a mature population that is growing older. Its graying population will cause cultural changes, establish new priorities and make new demands on government.

"Society will change," says Anderson D. Smith, associate dean of the College of Sciences and a former director of the psychology department, whose research thrusts include aging and memory, cognitive psychology and gerontology.

"There is a tremendous realization that aging is something that needs to be understood—not just the biology of aging, but the psychology of aging."

Crucial to understanding aging—and the accompanying changes in behavior, emotion, motivation and ability—is understanding memory, Smith says.

"We need to understand what the 65-year-old person is like," Smith continues. "The fastest growing portion of the population are those over 65—those over 85, in fact.

In the year 2020, we will have as many people over 65 in our population as we will have age 19 and under. That's a major change in the demographics of this country. A huge number of people are being added to the older age group.

"An important research goal is to understand the basic intellectual capabilities and how they change with aging," Smith says. "The core of intellectual capability is memory."

As the Nation Ages

C

ognitive psychology is growing in significance because of the role it will play, he says. "I think Georgia Tech probably has the best group of cognitive psychologists studying aging in the country. It is critically important research."

Cognitive aging is Smith's specialty. He received his undergraduate degree in psychology from Washington and Lee, and studied experimental psychology at the University of Virginia, where he received his master's and doctorate. Since coming to Georgia Tech in 1970, he has conducted cognitive and behavioral research to help understand the natural processes that accompany normal aging.

14

GEORGIA TECH • Winter 1997

Winter 1997 • GEORGIA TECH

15

Severe memory loss that would be considered a form of dementia is not an inevitable part of growing old, and only 5 percent of Americans over 65 suffer from Alzheimer's.

"Our memories change as we grow older," Smith says.

"There are a lot of cognitive changes that take place as people age. I'm interested in knowing what it is that changes with aging."

A person's memory declines as much as 40 percent between the ages of 25 and 65, he says. "Your memory is going to change; you're going to experience deficits. The good news is that you can cope very well. In general, men and women are affected the same way as they age.

"Successful aging is not the absence of psychological change—successful aging is the ability to adapt and control that change. If you do that well, you can have a very happy, active life into your nineties—even with memory losses and deficits, you will be able to function very well."

Elderly people often write down information so they won't forget. They worry about medicine and prescriptions; they mark calendars to remember important dates; they put an umbrella by the door if the weather forecast predicts rain.

"They have learned they need to do that," Smith says.

"They are coping; they are adapting. They do very well in functioning in everyday life, and the quality of that life can be high."

Losing One's Past

B

ut when people begin to experience memory loss, it can be frightening. One of the greatest fears people have about growing old is that they will lose their

memory, says Smith. "People are afraid because if they lose their memory, they've lost control of their lives. But just because you notice memory change does not mean you're not healthy."

Severe memory loss that would be considered a form of dementia is not an inevitable part of growing old, he explains. Only about 12 percent of older Americans suffer from dementia characterized by memory loss, confusion or disorientation.

Only about 5 percent of the population over 65 will experience Alzheimer's disease, a neurological disorder of the brain, Smith says. "It's not a normal progression of aging. It's not that if we live long enough, we'll get senile.

There are people over 100 years old who are not senile."

Elderly people can become forgetful, disoriented or confused because of a reversible condition unrelated to dementia, such as drug interactions, poor diet or diseases of the heart or lungs which could starve the brain of oxygen. Diseases of the adrenal, thyroid, pituitary or other glands that regulate memory, emotions, perceptions and thought processes may also mimic dementia.

Good physical health can benefit mental health, but it will not prevent mental disease, Smith says.

"Anything that improves physical health is going to improve mental health," Smith says. "The brain is part of the body, and anything that makes the body function optimally will be of benefit. Exercise and proper diet will help."

The health of individuals accounts for about 15 per-

Elixirs of Youth Do 'think drinks' or youth drugs improve your mind or keep you young?

A

wide range of products are appearing on the shelves of health food stores and pharmacies that promise to resist aging, improve your mind and memory, or renew youth.

Ranging from such commercial products as DHEA, humangrowth hormone, melatonin and antioxidants to homemade elixirs and organ extracts, the allure is to preserve youth, vitality and a keen mind.

16

GEORGIA TECH • Winter 1997

One home-remedy boasts it is a "think-drink to obtain a powerful brain." Want the recipe?

"Mix three to six tablespoons of lecithin granules (or take capsule) with one tablespoon of vinegar (acetic acid) in a nonalcoholic beverage. Some brain cells combine these ingredients to make acetylcholine for your brain cells to communicate and remember with.

More acetylcholine means more memory available, since more cells

are connected by acetylcholine."

Do they work?

"There are no known drugs, food additives, nutritional supplements, etc., that can reliably and consistently improve memory functioning," Smith says. "While it may be true that certain naturally occurring compounds are important for memory functioning, it is not true that we can improve memory by simply ingesting more of them."

Bingo Mania Skill at games does not foretell an excellent memory

I

n the crowded, frantic atmosphere of a Bingo parlor, an elderly woman keeps track of two dozen cards, deftly checking through them as the numbers are called, quickly marking off the figures in the appropriate columns.

No way this woman could have a memory problem.

But, in fact, she could. She is not demonstrating an excellent memory, but an excellent skill.

Many regular Bingo players develop automatic skills, explains Anderson Smith, a cognitive psychologist and associate dean of the College of Sciences at Georgia Tech. They can compensate for slower reaction time by knowing in which vertical rows the numbers fall.

"Elderly people may have memory problems, but they can certainly learn," Smith says. "If you practice something for a very long time, you develop a skill. You can look at any skill, and if you devote enough energy to it and enough time to it, you can learn to do that very, very well."

Playing Bingo is one way some elderly people keep mentally active, Smith says. But being men-

Great bingo players may be exhibiting great skill, not great memory.

tally active does not mean someone will not experience poor memory.

"What I cannot say is that if you play Bingo or do crossword puzzles, your memory will not change," Smith states.

"Certainly someone who does crossword puzzles or reads all the time is going to stay mentally active."

But someone can be mentally active and still experience memory problems, he says.

cent of the variations in studies on memory and aging, Smith says. "Your health is important; your health can help you."

Cooperative Endeavors

E

ach Wednesday at lunch time, Smith meets with other cognitive psychologists, post-doctoral fellows and pre-doctoral students in a "sort of brown-bag semi-

"There's a notion that if you don't use it, you'll lose it," he says. But that may not apply to the brain. "The brain is not a muscle that atrophies. In fact, we use our brain no matter what we are doing.

"Skills become automatic and don't take a whole lot of attention. The more you practice, the more components of that skill become automatic. For that reason, many skills are not affected much by aging." —John Dunn

nar" to discuss ongoing projects.

In addition to Smith, Tech's core faculty of cognitive psychologists and their areas of expertise are: Dr. Timothy A. Salthouse, editor of Psychology and Aging, reasoning, problem solving, human performance; Dr. Arthur D. Fisk, president of the Human Factors Society, visual search, skill learning, human factors; Dr. Christopher Hertzog, metacognition and methodology; Dr. Winter 1997 • GEORGIA TECH

17

PET imaging is a new technique that allows researchers to look at the activity of the brain while someone is performing memory tasks.

Fredda Blanchard-Fields, social cognition, adaptive learning, life-span development; and Dr. Jeffrey Toth, cognitive neuroscience.

"We talk about each other's research, and a student or one of the faculty members presents something," Smith says. "It keeps us all aware of what each other is doing. The projects are fairly independent of each other."

There is also interaction among projects. For example, Smith and Salthouse are engaged in a joint biomedical program with Emory University to study neuroimaging and various memory tasks, comparing older and younger adults.

"It is a whole new technique that has been very exciting," Smith says. "With PET [Position Emission Tomography] imaging, for example, we can look at the activity of the brain while someone is performing different memory tasks."

The Working—Overworked?—Memory

T

he most dramatic memory changes associated with normal aging involve the working memory—active thinking that involves processing, storing and recalling things; and episodic memory, recalling a past experience: When did you last see your sister? What did you do yesterday?

Working memory tasks evaluate the ability of participants to remember a series of numbers or words, while answering questions about the numbers or words, Smith says.

"We know that working memory involves the frontal lobes of the brain, and we know that elderly people have poorer working memories than younger people," Smith says. "But does that mean they have more activation in the frontal lobes? Do they have more activation because they are working harder? These are simple questions about the relationship between the brain and behavior that we are beginning to answer."

Episodic memory involves research about how people remember.

"One of the big changes in aging is that older people often can't remember things well that happened to them in the recent past," Smith says. "Someone asks, 'When did you last see Bill?' You think, 'Let's see, I was over here; I was doing this'—you really are remembering contextural detail about the original event. We manipulate that in an experimental setting and look to see how context affects memory as a function of age.

"If the context has to be integrated with the informa18

GEORGIA TECH •Winter 1997

tion you're trying to remember in an active way—older people don't do that very well, so there is this loss of the ability to integrate context as we grow older. When we're younger, it's done more easily."

In the laboratory, researchers use word lists and combinations of words, which participants are asked to recall—to make a deliberate recollection. "The older we are, the harder deliberate recollection is," Smith says.

"That's where we see the greatest age differences."

The research helps psychologists understand how the brain changes with age.

"Neuroimaging is a new thing we're getting into," Smith says. "We're not neuroscientists ourselves, but neuroscientists and neurologists—people who are studying the brain—need to have a better understanding of what behavior they may want to look at. That's why you see teams of cognitive scientists and brain researchers coming together to do these studies."

Georgia Tech hopes to develop a program of cognitive neuroscience that focuses on aging.

By understanding how people process information and the changes that occur at different ages, psychologists can develop methods to help memory and the learning process.

Emerging technologies demand that people learn new skills to remain productive, and with people living longer, new methods may be developed for presenting information.

"We're looking at what we can do to change the environment or change the memory task, to change the remembering task so that people can do better," Smith says. One Georgia Tech project, conducted by Fisk and Neff Walker, involves designing ATM machines that are more user-friendly for the elderly.

"We also want to understand what the nature is of the memory changes that accompany aging so we can better differentiate the normal changes from the pathological changes in memory.

"Right now we have no unequivocal way to have early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. The symptoms are all cognitive—it's almost all memory," he says.

The Aging Process and Memory

B

ut semantic memory, the ability to define words, doesn't change with normal aging, and Smith says semantic memory may actually get better.

"You don't remember the context of when or where you learned it, you just know it—it's part of your world knowledge: like two plus two is four, or George Wash-

ington was the first president of the United States."

But semantic memory does change eventually with Alzheimer's disease.

"Unfortunately, tests are not specific enough now," Smith says. "You can't give someone a vocabulary test to see whether they have Alzheimer's or not."

One of his objectives concerning research of the cognitive changes that occur with normal aging will be the

ability to better diagnose the pathologies of aging, Smith says.

"If we know well what it is that changes with aging, then this knowledge can lead to a diagnosis and development of interventions to help people with their problems.

If we know a particular kind of memory is going to deteriorate and change, then we should be able to come up with ways to help people with that." GT

Remembering Names Mnemonic devices can increase memory, but they do require practice

A

nderson D. Smith, an authority on techniques to improve memory, has a problem common to many people. He doesn't remember people's names.

"I'm terrible at names," Smith admits. "1 know now that I'm so bad at names that there are times when I don't even try."

But Smith, associate dean in the College of Sciences and a professor of psychology, knows the answer to his problem. He can teach anyone the mnemonic techniques that will enable him or her to remember telephone numbers, shopping lists and even names.

"Fifty percent of the problem in name remembering is that we don't encode the name when we first meet the person," Smith says.

"Just pay attention and make sure five seconds later you can remember it. Memory for names goes up 50 percent just by that little activity."

Repetition Helps

A

nother trick is reinforcement; get another introduction.

"Thirty seconds later—the next time you see the person—if you don't remember his or her name, go ask," Smith says. "People are

kind of honored if you want b know what their name is. What you are doing is making sure you have at least encoded their name."

Smith recognizes that if learning the name of one person is difficult, it can be daunting in a roomful of strangers.

"At a meeting where 20 people sitting around a table introduce themselves—we aren't going to remember that," Smith says.

But you can identify certain people you want to remember.

"You can concentrate on those names, you can remember them. If I'm in a meeting where I am going to be with a group of people for a long period of time and I don't know them, I'm going to make an effort to remember their names. I remember the names of students in my classes, but it does take an effort."

Mnemonic devices that help with memory skills are wellknown and available on the selfhelp shelves of bookstores.

"The problem is it takes a lot of time and practice to be able to do it well," Smith says. "With a mnemonic, you typically have to memorize something else that you use as a memory crutch. Once you

do that, you'll be much better at remembering names or faces or telephone numbers.

100 Percent Success ... If

I

once attended a conference of memory experts," Smith says.

The conference was attended by professionals in applied memory who research memory techniques.

"I gave them a questionnaire and asked, 'How many of these memory techniques do you use?'

The answer is they don't use them much at all. They don't have a need to spend all this time learning very elaborate mnemonic strategies.

"I can promise you 100 percent success when using mnemonic techniques, which you'd have to practice," Smith says. "You would never have to write down a grocery list when you go to the grocery store; you would always remember what it is that you went to buy. There is no question that it would work 100 percent of the time.

"The question is whether it is worth spending all those hours learning this little trick. Isn't it easier just to write down your grocery list?"

—John Dunn

Winter 1997 • GEORGIA TECH

19

Young at Heart Even as memory changes with age, people can remain active and enjoy life

By John Dunn Photography by Kathryn Kolb

F

orgetfulness comes with old age. Memory deficits may be inconvenient and sometimes aggravating,

cope and deal with that very well. People learn."

Here are profiles of four senior Tech alumni who have

but people can adjust, says Georgia Tech's Anderson

successfully adjusted to the changes that occur with age.

Smith. "The ultimate truth about aging is not the absence

Two of them, Charles Fram and Frank Player, have

of change," Smith says. "Change happens. People can

participated in memory experiments at Georgia Tech.

Charles Fram, 94 "I'm not a rocking chair hoy... I've got to move some or I'll start going nuts."

F

ram found international fame as the oldest volunteer at the Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta. "I was even on the Internet," Fram says with surprise.

"I'd never even seen the Internet."

In a television interview, Fram, Cls '23, said he enjoys being around young people. "Old people forget what they're talking about," he says, adding parenthetically, "that's me, of course."

He quips, "I'm deficient in memory and terrible at age."

Fram, who attended Tech as a freshman in 1919 but earned a business degree from the University of South Carolina, has twice participated in memory experiments conducted by the Georgia Tech psychology department. He first participated in 1977 at age 75 in a test conducted by Anderson Smith, and 15 years later 20

GEORGIA TECH • Winter 1997

at age 90. "I did pretty good the first time," he says. "The second time, the computer whipped me. When they want to test 95-year-olds, I'm going to skip it."

Fram, who retired after a 62-year career in the publishing business and now lives with his daughter, says he began additional activities following the death of his wife in 1982.

"I'm not a rockingchair boy," Fram says.

"You can only cut the lawn once a week, and you can only jackleg so many things around the house and then you start going nuts. I've got to move some."

To aid his memory, Fram keeps a calendar, and he repeats information he wants to remember over to himself. Two items he keeps scheduled are classes at Georgia State University and workouts at the gym.

Fram has been taking courses twice a week at Georgia State for the past 14 years, and he makes a trip to the gym equally as often. "Georgia Tech didn't have many humanities courses," he says.

"I missed the sociology, political science and all that—I think I've taken 39 or 40 courses in the humanities since I've been there. It's been a ball.

"I started going to the gym five days a week and

did that for about five years. Then I started going to the gym three days a week. But at 94, twice a week is enough."

Fram donated his 1919 rat cap to a Georgia Tech collection of memorabilia that is on display in the Alumni/Faculty House. "I lived on the top floor of the old YMCA building [now the Alumni/Faculty House], so my rat cap ended up where I started out," he says.

George Papageorge, 92 "The more we know and the broader we are, the better life we have.'

P

apageorge is coping very well with memory and age.

While near-term memory may give him some trouble, he has an enthusiasm for learning and a zest for life.

In December, he set off on an adventure aboard a cruise ship that departed Acapulco, Mexico, destined for the Caribbean.

Papageorge, CE '25, has traveled extensively in Europe but had never

been to the Caribbean. A key engineer's attraction of the cruise was passage through the Panama Canal's locks as the ship crossed from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean.

During a 14-year-career with the Georgia Highway Department that was interrupted by World War II, Papageorge became Georgia's first traffic engineer.

After the war, his interest turned to city plan-

ning. He was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study city planning in Greece in 1962. Shortly after retiring in 1974 at age 70 from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Papageorge enrolled and taught at The Senior University, now a non-credit community program at Mercer University in Atlanta. He has taught a variety of subjects, including music apprecia-

tion, lives of great composers, history and Shakespeare. He can quote extensively from Shakespeare's Julius Ceasar. "\ can't stress enough the importance of the broader cultural aspects of one's life," Papageorge says. "We're happier people. The more we know and the broader we are, the better life we have—instead of being simple technicians in one's line."

Winter 1997 • GEORGIA TECH

21

Frank Player, 89 Humor, sports and "taking care of myself" have been the keys to longevity: "I never smoked or drank whiskey."

P

layer is a familiar figure to the members of All Saints Episcopal Church, where he has been ushering for 70 years.

Player, CE '29 (below left), has been attending the church on the corner of North Avenue and West Peachtree Street since 1926, has served six terms on the vestry and is a past senior warden of All Saints parish. A bronze plaque on the church porch acknowledges his many years of service, and he continues to usher at the church.

Humor helps Player cope and compensate for any memory problems.

Earlier this year, he participated in a memory

experiment conducted by Georgia Tech's psychology department. "I have no memory," he says deadpan.

A member of the Georgia Tech sports Hall of Fame, Player was a forward on the basketball squad and the leading scorer his senior year. He is the retired chairman of Player and Co., a mechanical engineering firm he founded shortly after World War II. He received the Georgia Tech Alumni Distinguished Service Award in 1993. Among the projects he and his wife, Vaughn, support are Tech's Ferst Center for the Arts and Canterbury Court, an Episcopal retirement

home for the elderly.

He has been blessed with a long life. "I have always tried to take care

of myself," Player says of his longevity. "I've never smoked or drank whiskey."

Randolph Whitfield, 87 An environmentalist, Whitfield remains alert, involved

W

hitfield says his chief problem with forgetfulness is names, which doesn't stop him from being involved. He is on the executive council at Canterbury Court, an Episcopal retirement complex in Atlanta. A longtime sailing enthusiast, he is an active member of the Atlanta Yacht Club.

Whitfield, ME '32, MS ME '34, had a 40-year career with Georgia Power Co. An environmentalist, he is a founder of the Georgia Conservancy and a former trustee. In 1995, Whitfield received the Alumni Dis-

22

GEORGIA TECH • Winter 1997

tinguished Service Award.

He is a past president of the Greater Atlanta Georgia Tech Club and a former trustee of the Georgia Tech Alumni Association. He continues to serve as class president and class representative.

He is a member and usher at St. Phillip's Cathedral.

He is co-author of a genealogy book about the Randolph family and is preparing for family members bound books of letters written by his son, Dr. Randolph Whitfield Jr., who for the past 25 years has been an ophthalmologist practicing in Kenya, GT

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Access Granted Georgia Tech helps bring technology to Atlanta's public-housing complexes

By Karen Addy Crick Photography by Alan David

G

eorgia Tech is helping bridge the technology gap between rich and poor by providing Atlanta's public-housing residents with access to computers and computer training.

Over the past 18 months, Tech alumni, staff and stumts have helped equip and operate computer labs for sidents of the Red Oak and BoatRock communities in south Fulton County. The training substantially increases employment options for residents, particularly those without high school or college degrees, according to Tyronda Williams-Minter, self-sufficiency coordinator for

: i m i * . ÂŤi

the Fulton County Housing Authority.

"We are so happy that Tech took us on," WilliamsMinter says. "As a result, a number of our residents are learning valuable job skills, like how to prepare newsletters, spreadsheets and resumes. Another thing that excites me about the lab is that parents no longer have to leave the community and go to the public library so their kids can type research papers."

The labs are housed in vacant apartments converted for use as Family Resource Centers. There, Georgia Tech students teach groups and individuals how to use pro-

Maggie Walker ipeneamore than Fie St. Dike! Bark.

5 cop She opened doors,

grams like WordPerfect and Lotus. Their part-time salaries are paid by the Fulton County Parks and Recreation Division.

Residents learn and practice their new skills on computers donated by the Georgia Tech Alumni Club at Georgia Power and by Alumax Inc. And staff members in Tech's Office of University Partnerships assist Housing Authority administrators with everything from day-today problems in the lab to long-range planning.

Just like the nearby playgrounds designed and partially built by Georgia Tech architecture students and volunteers, the computer labs are highly appreciated by many residents.

"The first thing that hits you right in the face about the computer lab is that it's here," says BoatRock resident Ahmad Abdullah, 52. "The second amazing thing is that it's free."

A jewelry maker by trade, Abdullah currently works as a VISTA volunteer in his home community, designing and creating computer-generated reports, memos and publicity flyers for a construction-industry apprenticeship program.

"Before I started the computer training, all I knew was how to type," he says. "Now, I at least know some of the

basics of using a computer."

Williams-Minter says Red Oak and BoatRock are the two largest public-housing complexes in Fulton County.

Nearly 700 residents are in the "working-age" category, although many lack high school diplomas and job training. Currently, the average age of residents is well under 40, and the average household income is less than $6,000 per year. About 1,000 children under age 10 and hundreds of adolescents live in the two communities.

The Atlanta Project

T

ech's multilaycred involvement with public housing in Fulton County began in 1993 when The Atlanta Project (TAP) requested help designing and building large play structures for families living in Red Oak and BoatRock. Desperate to improve their neighborhoods and quality of life, some Red Oak families had formed a community action group to work with public entities such as the housing authority, the sheriff's department and TAP. In an effort to reduce crime, they set their first concrete goalâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;to build a playground, a syniJaoFof hope, on a rutted site,wl]ej*Htffee local teenagers had been murdered.

That's when TAP approached Tech for

Tech student Tony dinger directs a group of eager cornputer trainees in the Boat Rock public-housing community.

I lor

Winter 1997 7

â&#x20AC;˘ GEORGIA TECH

25

"One problem with technology and society is the increasing gap that's created between the rich and the poor. What we're trying to do is narrow the gap."

help. The playgrounds were built by about 100 Tech volunteers working alongside others from Delta Air Lines, Chapel Hill Harvester Church, TAP and the community. The playgrounds cost around $75,000 to build— about one-third of what the project would have cost in the private sector. The funding came from the Fulton County Parks and Recreation Division and the Housing Authority.

Partners in Change

S

imilarly, the computer lab project is a collaborative effort. For instance, the computer desks for the labs were made by Chapel Hill Harvester Church members.

According to Tom Hamall, director of Tech's Office of University Partnerships, such cooperation between business, academia, government and the community is essential in the search for solutions to the daunting economic and social challenges posed in part by technological change.

"One of the real problems with technology and society is the increasing gap that's created between the rich and the poor," Hamall says. "What we're trying to do with these projects is narrow the gap by giving residents access to the same equipment and knowledge others have available."

Hamall points to recent headlines that warn of the consequences of unequal access to technology. USA Today recently reported that 3 million workers have been laid off since 1989 because of corporate downsizing and technological change. A recent editorial in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution cited economic forecasts that within 15 years about 60 percent of new jobs created will require skills now possessed by 22 percent of the work force.

"The pay gap is guaranteed to widen as computers become even more important in the workplace," the editorial states. "The demand for computer-literate workers will drive up their wages, leaving the rest further and further behind."

Even though most children will have access to computers and training in school, and even though President Bill Clinton has set a goal that all schools will be linked to the Internet by the year 2000, a huge segment of society— primarily people who did not go to college and older Americans—may find itself without the skills needed to earn a livable wage in years to come unless special measures are taken. As Syntellect Inc. CEO Larry Bradner, IE '74, recently said in a public television discussion of technology, those who are "technophobic" are going to be left behind, possibly "doomed to a life in the service-based

26

GEORGIA TECH • Winter 1997

economy and a fairly low wage structure."

BoatRock and Red Oak are examples of the needed measures, Hamall says. The first lab opened at BoatRock last summer, with 15 residents completing a three-month course. Several found full-time employment as a result.

Others have continued to improve and expand their skills with further instruction. Residents are also utilizing the typing and equivalency-diploma tutorials available on the computers.

"Although participation has been good, we're starting to see even more interest in the training, probably because of plans for welfare reform," Williams-Minter said.

Tom Barnett, MS '70, hopes the labs will make a sizable difference in the lives of public-housing residents.

Recently retired as a network coordinator for Georgia Power, Barnett and other Tech graduates at the utility played a major role in acquiring the first set of computers for BoatRock.

"Georgia Power has the largest number of Tech alumni under any corporate roof in the world," he explains. "A few years back, in an attempt to meet the requirements of the President's Award (a competitive program for Tech clubs), the Georgia Power club had to come up with a community-service project. Since Georgia Power had been named a corporate sponsor for the TAP Washington Cluster, we decided to ask permission to donate some 286 and 386 computers the company was getting rid of to Georgia Tech's University Partnership efforts and to Washington High School. This was around this same time that Tom Hamall's involvement in the BoatRock project was beginning. His vision tied everything together. As a result, BoatRock has been a stellar success.

Urban Test Tube

H

amall views the computer-lab and playground projects as a stellar opportunity for Tech students.

"Public-housing communities are microcosms, containing most, if not all, of the socioeconomic problems and challenges within urban society," Hamall explained in a recent report on the projects.

Physically working alongside community members drastically increases sensitivity and understanding of these challenges, he says.

"The reason I think it's important for Tech students to be involved in projects like this is that as alumni, they will have tremendous capacity to help change society for the better," Hamall says. "Many will be policy makers and board members. And this sort of experience helps

Preparing to participate in a WABE-TV Georgia Public Television program on the future of technology are (left to right) Bill Todd, Larry Bradner, Tony Olinger, Tom Hamall and Dan Howard.

students become more capable, well-rounded individuals and future leaders."

Tech student Tony Olinger found his experience as a BoatRock tutor over the past year "tremendously rewarding." A senior industrial engineering major from Lexington, Ky., Olinger particularly enjoyed watching both children and adults overcome their fear of computers.

"When they sit down at a computer the first time, most people freeze; they think if they touch the wrong button, the machine will blow up," he says, smiling.

"Working with children, seeing the glint in their eyes when they master a new skill, seeing doors and opportunities open for parents that previously weren't thereâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;it was a very satisfying experience all around."

According to Fulton County Housing Authority Executive Director Bettye Davis, new opportunities are materializing for those utilizing the computer labs. In addition to expanded job opportunities for adults, the children are making better grades in school.

"Last year, we tracked the students' performance in terms of how well they were doing in science and math classes," she says. "Through our homework-assistance program ... and the assistance the children get through software like Mathticlp and some of the algebra software, grades have improved. Their teachers are asking, 'What

are you doing in BoatRock? What are you doing in Red Oak?'" Davis says the partnership between Tech and the housing authority proves the federal government is on the right track in efforts to encourage similar collaborations nationwide, through such projects as the "Campus of Learners" initiative being promoted by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. As part of this initiative, public-housing communities "connect" with a university or technical college to create their own centers of technology.

So far, Atlanta and Georgia Tech are at the forefront of such efforts, Davis says.

A Computer-Literate Work Force

B

ill Todd, IM '71, president of the Georgia Research Alliance, points out that this type of cooperation between government, academia and business to increase access to technology will benefit all the residents of Georgia, not only its lower-income sector. The state is working to become a top U.S. technology center by the year 2010, and cultivating a computer-literate work force is vital to the effort.

"We're chasing California and Massachusetts," Todd says. "Right now, we're the talk of the country (regarding Winter 1997 â&#x20AC;˘ GEORGIA TECH

27

Researchers at Tech are pioneering other solutions to limited computer access that take advantage of objects and services already found in most homes.

Christopher Pope ponders his next move while classmates Jalaa'a Brinsiey, Latasha Story and Renardo Pope explore the computer's wonders.

the growth of technology), but these three segments— business, government and academia—must continue to come together."

Of course, wise technology development may do more than anything to ensure equal access, says Tech Senior Research Engineer Dan Howard, who works at the Georgia Center for Advanced Telecommunications Technology. There, researchers are pioneering another solution to limited computer access that takes advantage of objects and services already found in most homes.

"Our approach will provide access to computers even if you don't have one in your home," Howard says. "It involves the use of existing television and phone lines.

This is combined with low-cost interface equipment like a mouse and keyboard. All of the computer power and resources, however, will be located somewhere else.

"For instance, we could put a computer in either a school or a local cable company and convert the screen output of the computer to a television signal. We can 28

GEORGIA TECH • Winter 1997

pipe it into homes via cable television and scramble it so that only the person who is logged on can see the screen."

Steps in the Right Direction

I

n the future such a system could work, Howard says, and it would dramatically decrease the cost of in-home computer access. But it won't be possible until cable companies expand their fiber-network systems to allow for "personal" channels, a development he says is a long way off.

Until then, other ways of making technology equally accessible to rich and poor alike will have to suffice. And the computer labs at Red Oak and BoatRock are a step in the right direction. "Believe me, they are making a definite impact," Davis says.

Karen Addy Crick is communications coordinator for the Alumni Association.

Executive Education Investing in on-site public schools isn't just altruistic, "it's a profit center'

By Hoyt Coffee

W

hen Kirk Landon agreed to build a public school at American Bankers Insurance Group's Miami headquarters, his aim was to help ease overcrowding in Dade County classrooms and offer employees an additional benefit.

What the CEO ended up with was a good deal more.

"This we determined afterward—it makes money, which is what we're trying to get the world to understand now," says Landon, IM '50. "It becomes a profit center, the reason being that you really don't have any labor costs or material costs. That's done by the school board. All you have really are occupancy costs and depreciation, and that's a small part of the profit equation in any business.

"So it ends up that because you have such low turnover when parents get their children in the school, it saves so much in training and recruiting costs that it returns a profit."

And no small profit. Landon estimates the low employee turnover rate will save American Bankers around $450,000 this year in training expenses, a fact he wants to share with other executives.

"What we're trying to say is, 'Hey, it's a profit center. Wake up.'

Obviously it's an employee benefit, but if you tell a CEO it's a profit center first, then he's going to get interested. And that's what we're trying to get over to the world."

Landon's experience with an

on-site school began in 1987 when Dade County School Superintendent Joseph Fernandez approached him with the idea. Heading the nation's fourth-largest school system, one that grows by 10,000 students a year with a constant influx of immigrants, Fernandez was faced with the universal problem of too many kids and not enough money.

Two months after Fernandez' request, the country's first worksite public school opened on American Bankers' 84-acre corporate campus, primarily to serve the company's 1,600 workers. The company, which already had a day-care program in place, invested $2.4 million in the yellow and coral building for about 300 students from kindergarten through grade five, and it spends another $146,000 a year on operating expenses—a third of what the company saves by having a 5 percent turnover rate among workers with kids in the school. Taxpayers foot the rest of the bill as the school system provides teaching materials and pays the union teachers.

Profit Center Results

A

ccording to an article in Forbes magazine, American Bankers' original investment should pay for itself in slightly more than 10 years. It's also paying off in good grades—first-graders at the school scored in the 74th percentile in reading on the Stanford Achievement Test, compared to the 48th

percentile for the rest of Dade County—partly because "200 teachers apply for each job," Landon says.

"Most of the kids have been in day care before they go, so they're very advanced in things like computers. They get a very good education there." The school features a media center with books, computers and a closed-circuit TV system—and connectivity with company computers.

Another plus for the students— and the parents—is increased interaction with mom and dad.

"They get a lot of quality time driving back and forth from school with their parents," Landon says.

"And they have supervised afterschool care until their parents leave in the evening, so you don't have that empty nest they have to go to in the afternoons."

Children also interact in the company setting: The "Lunch Bunch" unites kids and parents in the company cafeteria once a month, and graduation ceremonies are held in the corporate auditorium.

On holidays the company invites kids in for parties, or to show off Halloween costumes and such.

"I give the kids Easter bunnies in the day care," Landon says.

"Whenever 1 go over there, they go, 'Hi, Mr. Landon.' They all know me. So you get some personal satisfaction as well."

Would Landon be surprised to find future American Bankers executives in the company school?

Winter 1997 • GEORGIA TECH

29

"It'll work in any state, any county, any place that has a cooperative company and a cooperative school board."

"The company is 50 years old, and we have a lot of third generation already working here. I'm 67 now, and I have some working here now whom 1 held in my arms when they were babies. So that would not be a big surprise at all.

We'd just have more of them."

Little wonder Landon thinks more companies should be interested in locating public

schools o n their site.

Company-School Cooperation

I

t works fine for anybody with a reasonable number of employees and enough land," Landon says. "Other than that, it's really simple. Every school district in the country needs more schools, and none have enough money. That's a given. So it'll work in any state,

any county, any place.

"If you have a cooperative company and a cooperative school board, there's not that much to it."

Companies already on the bandwagon include Barnett Banks Inc. in Jacksonville, Fla.; Florida Power and Light in Turkey Point; Target stores in Minneapolis; and Hewlett-Packard in Santa Rosa, Calif, GT

American Bankers' Kirk Landon visits with students in the satellite school. The facility will save the company $450,000 this year.

30

GEORGIA TECH- Winter 1997

<^/d&

February 8,1997 Lula Washington Dance Company - $14 Founded in 1980 as the Los Angeles Contemporary Dance Theatre, Lula Washington's repertoire includes diverse works ranging from West African dances to abstract modern works, to the traditional dance theatre style.

February 14-16,1997 Savoyards Light Opera - The Merry Widow - $24 The beautiful, rich widow, Hanna, is the target of all the French noblemen in Franz Lehar's light opera. The piece includes some of Lehar's most popular music including "The Merry Waltz".

February 21-23,1997 Ballethnic - The Leopard Tale - $11 Choreographer Waverly Lucas presents this dramatic portrayal of the leopard and his innate survival skills, complete with the jungle wilds an various members of the animal kingdom. Drama, power, high energy, and non-stop action mark this as one of the company's more popular ballets.

February 28 & March 1,1997 Pilobolus Dance Theatre - $18 Celebrating their 25th Anniversary, this world reknowned dance company returns to the Ferst Center with their new piece, VVA Reduced History of the Universe" - a work co-commissioned by Dancers Collective and the Robert Ferst Center.

March 13-16,1997 The Atlanta Ballet - Rite of Spring - $20 In the film, Nijinsky, a young Igor Stravinsky slammed out piano rhythms while Nijinsky yelled at dancers struggling to keep in step with the complex cadences of the 1913 ballet score The Rite of Spring. In 1997, the choreography of Jill Eathorne-Bahr brings a different interpretation to Stravinsky's score. Eathorne-Bahr's is a primitive story of a tribal Matriarch, The First Man and the chaotic and tragic consequences of their union.

March 28 & 29,1997 New York City Opera National Company - La Boheme - $44 After three straight sellout years, this nationally acclaimed Opera Company returns for TWO peformances of Puccini's sentimental glimpse at the lives, loves, sorrows, and joys of four impoverished artists in Paris.

April 10-13,1997 The Atlanta Ballet - DanceTechnology Project "97 - $20 The Atlanta Ballet, Georgia Tech Researchers, and the Robert Ferst Center for the Arts join forces with world renowned choreographer, Danny Ezralow for a full evening of dance, including the world premiere of the latest development for the DanceTechnology Project.

May 3,1997 Peter Schickele - $14 Composer, musician, author, satirist, and host of the weekly, sydicated Public Radio International program, uSchickele Mix" visits the Ferst Center with his unique ability to make classical music more fun for everyone.

May 16-18,1997 Savoyards Light Opera - The Sound of Music - $24 Sister Maria leads the Von Trapp family into your hearts with some of musical theatre's most famous music: "Climb Every Mountain", "The Sound of Music", and "Do-Re-Mi" among others.

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Outsid the Box Sony's Mickey Steinberg is helping revolutionize the entertainment industry

By Michael Terrazas Photography by Gary Meek

"And now," cried Max, "let the wild rumpus start!" â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

I

f there was one thing Mickey Steinberg learned at Georgia Tech that changed his life, it was a game of connect-the-dots. Upon walking into his mechanical drawing class one day in the early 1950s, Steinberg found the professor putting up on the chalkboard a box of nine dots.

"He said, T want you to connect those dots with four connecting lines, and you can't backtrack/" Steinberg recalls. Recreating the scene, he draws the dots on a sheet of paper in front of him. "Can you do it? Let me show you." He draws an arrow of sorts, extending the edges of the tip beyond the implied box created by the dots, and connects all nine with four lines.

"Going outside of the box," as he calls it, is what Stanley P. "Mickey" Steinberg, BS '54, Arch '58, has been doing for nearly 40 years. And today, as chairman of Sony Retail Entertainment in New York, he is working to carry that imaginative spirit into a realm no one has ever seen.

First with John Portman, then Disney and now with Sony Retail Entertainment, Mickey Steinberg has had a career of creativity.

32

GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Winter 1997

Winter 1997 • GEORGIA TECH

33

Steinberg's new task is to create

a new environment for the entertainment industry.

That's Entertainment

S

teinberg joined Sony two years ago, fresh off a sixyear stint of building theme parks as executive vice president of Walt Disney Imagineering. Today he is being asked to draw on that knowledge in creating what Sony hopes will revolutionize the out-of-home entertainment industry. Called "urban entertainment centers," these sprawling complexes are neither malls nor theme parks, but they incorporate characteristics of both. The attractions will use state-of-the-art multiplex theaters as a magnet to draw in consumers who want a little more for their money than just a salesperson's smile. Other components will be unique retail, food venues, attractions and clubs designed to serve every age group.

"We do such a good job at in-home entertainment that you buy the systems we're selling, and you say, 'Why should I go outside the home?'" Steinberg says.

"Except for theme parks, the entertainment companies have not worked hard on the out-of-home experience; it's been led by retailers and restaurateurs who are not the best at it."

34

GEORGIA TECH Winter 1997

Sony already is operating hints of what its creation will look like. Its Sony Lincoln Square Theater in New York features 15 screens with the latest in sound and projection technology, along with an IMAX screen.

Steinberg says 2.5 million to 3 million people a year pass through it, and the neighboring businesses have flourished as a result.

Also, basketball star Magic Johnson's budding theater chain is part of a partnership with Sony/Loews Theatres, a division of Sony Retail Entertainment. These high-tech movie houses incorporate stadium seating and other advances in trying to revitalize minority neighborhoods around the country, which Steinberg believes are large, underserved market segments. One Magic Johnson Theater opened in Atlanta's Greenbriar Mall in November.

With a theater as the main draw, Sony will operate, joint-venture or lease space in the centers to entertainment-oriented retailers. While admitting the concept of these stores is somewhat amorphousâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;"Normal retail people don't get it," he saysâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Steinberg uses as examples operations like Warner Brothers and Disney stores, restaurants like Planet Hollywood and Hard Rock Cafe, and the company's own Sony Style electronics store in Manhattan.

Occupying a street-level and basement space on Madison Avenue, Sony Style boasts employee uniforms

by Donna Karan, a Ralph Lauren-designed screening room, Deco furniture, a cappucino bar and a staff trained to make the shopper feel at home.

"We're showing people how to sell electronics differently than they have in the past," Steinberg says. "It's geared toward people who don't normally buy them; it's very friendly for women. You come in, and we've got all the latest Sony equipment displayed, so it's accessible to the customer to operate. We have a welltrained, friendly staff to explain it.

"It's high-touch, not high-tech. We sit you down in a sofa, wheel up a

Sony proudly points to its own Madison Avenue consumerelectronics store, Sony Style, as an example of the entertainmentoriented businesses it wants in its urban entertainment centers.

complete system mounted on a movable cart and show you how to use it while we serve you an espresso. If you like it, we'll install it anywhere you want."

This approach to retailâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the soft-sell, entertainmentwhile-you-shop philosophyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;is the kind of business Steinberg wants in his urban centers. "We are not trying to do everything ourselves, but we only want companies willing to look outside the box to create unique, entertaining businesses," he says. "Some will be our partners; some will be our tenants."

And with 350,000 square feet to play with, there will be quite a bit of space to accommodate them. The first urban center, set to open in San Francisco's Yerba Buena Garden in 1998, will rest on top of the city's underground convention center.

Coming from the company of a more famous

Mickey at Disney, Steinberg knows that familiar characters and motifs are important, especially to children, to create the kind of atmosphere he envisions. That's why he's enlisted the help of Maurice Sendak, author of Where the Wild Things Are and other children's stories, to use the books' imaginative protagonist and his monster pals to add some color to Sony's project.

Also, David Macaulay, whose 1988 book, The Way Things Work, uses creative drawings, easy-to-understand explanations and a herd of animated woolly mammoths to detail the inner workings of even the most intricate machines, will lend his expertise.

"Everybody under the age of 35 knows Where the Wild Things Are, and David Macaulay's book is sold by the millions," Steinberg says. "It's going to be very clever. Working with renowned authors and illustrators to create attractions is some of the expertise we brought from the theme parks."

A Career of Innovation

A

sked of what he's proudest in his career, Steinberg replies that every project in which he's been involved has broken some new ground. Upon graduating for the second time from Tech with a degree in architecture, he went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a master's degree in the field before returning to

1adical chan_ Steinberg doesn't like the

in the construction industry.

Atlanta to work for John Portman.

"He was the first architect to become a developer," Steinberg says. "We had a vision of what we wanted— we wanted to develop urban centers. We wanted to stay in the cities at a time when everybody else was leaving the cities. And we developed unique projects—projects that had an impact."

Steinberg worked for Portman for 27 years, contributing to projects around the country and the world. Among his major achievements were Peachtree Center in Atlanta, Embarcadero Center in San Francisco, Marina Centre in Singapore, the Renaissance Center in Detroit, the Westin Bonaventure in Los Angeles and the New York Marriott Marquis Hotel, to name just a few.

Disney tapped him in 1988 to head up Imagineering, and the next six years saw him personally oversee completion of new parks or major additions at Disney locations in Orlando, Fla.; Anaheim, Calif.; Tokyo and Paris. Euro Disneyland in France, the first phase of which was completed in 1992, was one of the largest construction projects in the continent's history, with a main park roughly one-fifth the size of Paris itself.

"In the years I was there, we took the Walt Disney Co. and multiplied it six or eight times in size, and we built $4 billion worth of theme parks and attractions in existing parks," Steinberg says. "I mean, you talk about exciting."

But all along, he continues, it was about looking outside of that box for solutions, going beyond the accepted ways of thinking. And he stresses that Georgia Tech is where he learned to loosen his mind from the tethers of convention.

"That's what everybody was doing all through Georgia Tech, whether you realized it or not—teaching you to look outside of the box," he says, "especially in architecture."

Once he began study at MIT, Steinberg found Tech had done a superlative job of teaching him the trade of architecture, as well. Surrounded by 41 other master's students, he realized those who hailed from the "more

36

GEORGIA TECH Winter 1997

workmanlike schools," such as Tech, Michigan, North Carolina State, were drawing circles around their counterparts.

"Many students from Northeastern schools couldn't keep up with us because they couldn't draw as fast as we could," Steinberg recalls. "They could talk it; they could philosophize about design, but they didn't understand how buildings really worked as well as we did.

And they didn't have the work ethic we did. I was very proud of what Tech did.

"When I was hiring people, when I was working with John Portman, I knew one thing: The people coming from Georgia Tech would be of use to us immediately, whereas people from some of the other schools had a much longer learning curve."

Making a Difference

O

ver the course of a nearly 40-year career in architecture, Steinberg has seen some radical changes in his industry. And he does not like them. Construction, he says, is no longer an industry, but a fragmentation of smaller interests battling for control of individual projects while at the same time shunning their respec-

tive responsibilities.

"It's a terrible legacy people my age have left," he says. "There is no clear definition of the process of building; we spend an inordinate amount of time creating a new process tailored for each individual project.

We need to go back and readdress it. What is the process for building buildings, and why can't we develop some sort of process that all the job disciplines understand, and then display the proper respect for each other's work and abilities?"

To find solutions for these problems, Steinberg helped found Georgia Tech's Construction Research Center, operated out of the College of Architecture. The CRC's mission is to improve the productivity and competitiveness of the American construction industry through sponsored research. Steinberg served on the alumni committee that recommended the CRC's creation back in 1986; in 1988, he was a founding member of the organization's advisory board.

"Mickey knows the construction industry inside-out, and he doesn't pull any punches," says Dr. Lou Circeo, CRC director. "He's very highly motivated, and these

things really disturb him, when he sees inefficiencies happening."

One of the major problems in the industry is a difficulty in introducing new technology. With no one willing to assume responsibility should the technology fail, everyone is all too willing to fall back on the tried and true. And with no central organization testing and approving technological advances, the only people advocating them are the vendors themselves.

"You may have a good test result on a new technology, but it's not accepted by the local building official because we've got too many building officials, and they don't have the wherewithal to properly evaluate them," Steinberg says. "Everybody would rather stick with what they know, and consequently the construction industry in the United States is not as innovative as those in other countries."

CRC plans to fulfill a role Steinberg says is sorely lacking in the construction industryâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;that of a national technology clearinghouse. It currently does not have the budget to do so, but as Circeo says, "Who knows what we may get out of the Capital Campaign?"

Winter 1497 â&#x20AC;˘ GEORGIA TECH

37

Jhearts For Steinberg,

offer inspiration.

Until then, Steinberg He's careful not to say serves on the board of the word "retire," beanother organization that cause retirement is the tries to perform such a last thing on his mind. function, the WashingOne possibility he won't ton-based Civil Engineerrule out is a return to ing Research Foundation. campus; he's very proud For instance, in the field of his alma mater, as of highway materials, Georgia Tech's leaders with which Steinberg recognize it is in need of says the organization has a change or two itself, been especially helpful, and they are taking the CERF will sift through steps necessary to idenavailable test data on a tify those needs. product or method. Then "Georgia Tech, like it will issue a report, not every other school, is In his Atlanta home, Steinberg has surrounded himself with art. recommending or construggling with what the The learning experience, he says, should include exposure to demning the subject, but curriculum should be," the humanities, as innovation and creativity displayed in any rather summarizing the Steinberg says. "I would field come from an ability to think in non-traditional patterns. information available say the biggest shortcomfrom other sources. ing I experienced there was the lack of humanities, and this problem still needs to be addressed. No one "If they think it's something that should be tested taught me philosophy, art, history, great literature or more, they'd recommend four or five labs that do the music at the proper level. testing to the sponsor," Steinberg says. "Or if it needs basic research or proof, they may advise the designer "Some of these other schools that taught you the to go to some university. In other words, CERF does philosophy of architecture, but not really how to do a not go into competition with institutions and labs building, they did a better job of giving you a backperforming the research that's already being done; ground in the humanities," he says. they just become more of an evaluator and facilitator, The finer things are important to Steinberg, who and one that everybody recognizes is not on sits on the board of the New York Council for the anybody's payroll."

Humanities and is active in the arts community in Manhattan.

"Mickey gave a very dynamic, thought-provoking keynote speech at a major workshop," says Harvey M. He admits Tech has made strides in broadening the Bernstein, president of CERF. "He's so down-to-earth liberal arts side of its curriculum, but he maintains and practical; he's dealt with many of the things we there is more to be done. Many engineers and techniface now and has done it in innovative ways." cal people believe it is enough to master the elements of their "trade" in order to succeed, but Steinberg Ultimately, all this work filters down to students at thinks they're missing the broader picture. places like Georgia Tech. Once problems are identified, at least, schools can better prepare future engi"If you're going to reach certain levels with any neers, contractors and architects to resolve them. company, you have to have an appreciation of these "Everybody is trying to figure out how to solve the things," he says. "I have worked very hard since problems in the construction industry," Steinberg graduation to overcome my lack of knowledge in the says. "With the industry in disarray, how do you train humanities, but I will never catch up. Anything I've people to go out into it?" gotten I've had to pick up on my own, and I hold Georgia Tech partially responsible for my shortcomAn Appreciation for the Finer Things ings. We must correct that situtation." teinberg still owns a home in Atlanta and plans to Seems that even in the arts, Mickey Steinberg has move back after finishing his work with Sony. looked outside of the box. GT

S 38

GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Winter 1997

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Probing the Darkness Mike Wach has found a new way to monitor industrial processes, nuclear waste, even the human body

By Hoyt Coffee

W

hen Mike Wach discovered the Energy Department's technology-transfer program, he found an opportunity to engineer an innovative industrial tool. His method of marketing the invention has been equally innovative.

"We went out to see what we could sell, and if we could sell it, we made it," says Wach, EE '83, MS EE '86. "Using this approach, we figured out one thing that will really go in the future, one thing we could manufacture and sell investors on. And we did."

That one thing is a laser probe that can perform remote chemical analyses in real time in the harshest environments, making it useful for everything from industrial process control to nuclear-waste detection to medical testing. Based on Wach's patented GASER light-management technology, which allows complex chemical analysis of materials impervious to other light-characterization schemes, these probes already have found their way into the operations of such industrial giants as Amoco, Shell, Monsanto, Westinghouse, ABB and Hercules.

Coming from an instrumentation background in the pulp-andpaper and petroleum industries, Wach began developing the new technology in 1991 when he founded Visionex Inc. at Georgia Tech's Advanced Technology Development Center in Warner Robins, Ga. "There is a program by which you can access research and devel-

42

GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Winter 1997

Building on research at the Energy Department's Savannah River Site, Mike Wach has developed a probe that, among other applications, can cut waste in industrial processes.

opment done by the government, particularly the Department of Energy," Wach says. "These agencies had been in the business of developing things primarily in national defense. Suddenly, national defense had a little lower priority, so their focus shifted to economic development."

The tip led Wach to the Savannah River Site, a huge complex on the Georgia-South Carolina border where the government manufactured tritium for the nation's nuclear arsenal. Energy Department researchers at the site had developed a technique for taking measurements similar to those Wach had used in the past, but the devices delivered data via fiber optics to centralized analysis equipment.

"You did not have to extract a sample; you could just mount them anywhere and pipe the light over there," Wach says. "I'd been around these systems enough to know this had tremendous poten-

tial." Visionex licensed patents for the technology and began developing packages with specific industrial applications. That's when Wach discovered that the Energy Department's probes weren't quite ready for prime time.

"The technology was great, but the engineering had not been done as well as we had hoped," he says.

While the concepts were "solid," the hardware wouldn't stand up to industrial applications, and "the software and process interfaces weren't up to speed." Wach reengineered the system, incorporating filters that refined spectroscopic data, miniature photon manipulators with lenses of silica and sapphire, and exotic alloys.

"Now we don't use any of their technology. The physics of our product is radically different," Wach says. At the ATDC, Visionex found the facilities and support to make the company fly. Starting in a 500-square-foot office, Visionex has expanded to 2,000 square feet, with offices, displays, a development laboratory and machine shop,

where Wach and his team fabricate probe components.

Having polled the market early on to determine what products he could sell, Wach has developed a line of probes for specific applications, such as the Captron Raman Probe, which can be placed inside chemical pipelines to supply realtime chemical analysis. Wach says the system allows quicker process adjustments than the old method of extracting samples, cutting down on waste and the chance of imperfect end-products. Another device, dubbed Manhattan after the World War II atomic-bomb project, allows detection and monitoring of radioactive wastes.

And Wach is working with doctors to develop the Enviva probe, a "virtual biochemical laboratory on the tip of a needle," aimed at medical applications such as detecting the phosphorous emissions of cancerous tumors.

"We envisioned a market right from the beginning," he says. "Now it's evident the market is there, and it's growing rapidly."

Helping develop Visionex earned the ATDC an Economic Development Institute Partnership Award, and it put Wach on the EDI Advisory Board. He also works with the President's Scholarship Program, and as is often the case with alumni, he attributes much of his success to a Georgia Tech education.

"Georgia Tech is well known for being able to produce people who do real things in the real world. The nature of our business is you have to do research, and you have to do the real thing. Tech did an excellent job of preparing me to learn things outside my discipline."

As an international broker, ex-Marine Fitz Woodrow's "next hill" is the business at hand.

Merchant Marine Fitz Woodrow left a career in the Corps for success as an international broker

By Tom Nugent

H

e's the ultimate Washington insider—a high-powered deal maker who relies on a personal network of friends to peddle everything from armored vehicles to heavy construction equipment around the globe.

He's also a bona fide war hero— a former Marine Corps infantry officer who won the Bronze Star and a Purple Heart for his valor during a Viet Cong mortar attack outside Danang in 1966.

But if you ask 67-year-old Fitz W.M. Woodrow Jr., MS IM '70, to describe his proudest accomplishment, he'll tell you it was his refusal to "just sit on the front porch and talk about yesterday" after retiring from the Marines in 1980.

After 26 years in the Corps, Col. Woodrow decided to launch a new career by employing the industrial management skills he learned at Georgia Tech in the late 1960s.

"1 could have taken my little old pension and gone into retirement," he says. "But you know what? I wouldn't be having all this fun!

"My philosophy is simple. Each morning, I tell myself, 'You gotta take that next hill.' "

For Woodrow, the "next hill" was a doctorate in business management of higher education, which he earned at George Washington University in 1983. He launched his own international brokerage and consulting company in 1984.

Since 1990, Woodrow's brokerage firm and its subsidiaries have nailed down more than $165 million in global sales. In recent years, Woodrow has orchestrated blockbuster deals for arms and heavy equipment around the world.

"What 1 try to do," says Woodrow, who conducted classes on entrepreneurship at Georgia Tech in the fall of 1994, "is to make sure I have good contacts.

"The key to success is maintaining a good network of people who can tell me what a country wants to buy. That network makes things happen. You've got to know someone to get in the door, and then you've got to have the proper price and the proper product."

In the Arlington, Va., offices of Woodrow International Ltd., the lean, silver-haired colonel laughs when asked the secret of sucesses.

"You've got to have luck. Me, I'd rather have luck than skill any day.

Because if you don't get the breaks,

Winter 1997 • GEORGIA TECH

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things can get rough.

"Example: Pakistan. We were right in the middle of a big deal, and what happens? Our government says, 'We think you're probably playing with nuclear stuff.' So overnight, they knocked off their foreign aid to Pakistan.

"We're talking about $640 million a year. And once [the Pakistanis] lost that money—goodbye, deal. It's great when you win—but if you don't get the contracts, you're dead in the water. That's why you've got to hang tough.

"You gotta take that next hill!"

The son of a South Carolina attorney who spent most of his career with the federal government, Woodrow was born and raised in the nation's capital. As a second cousin and close friend of

President Woodrow Wilson, his father often visited the famed advocate of the League of Nations.

"They were great pals," Woodrow recalls. "And my father had an enormous admiration for the man. Wilson, of course, was in the tradition of 'public service'— and this was in the days before professional politicians settled down in Washington permanently.

"I can remember my father telling me how he would walk down the street with the president, and how they would talk about the nation's problems."

That same "deeply ingrained sense of public service" motivated Woodrow to attend the Naval Academy.

In January 1966, Woodrow was wounded in Vietnam when he

stepped out of a Huey helicopter into a rice paddy—to find mortar shells landing all around him.

"We were about 25 miles southwest of Danang," says Woodrow, then a major in a Marine Corps infantry battalion. "The pilot set the helicopter down, and they were waiting for us.

"All of a sudden these mortars were coming in. The mud was flying, and there was shrapnel all around.

"I was lucky; I just got a bunch of pellets and fragments in my back and legs. I didn't lose any limbs.

"But I couldn't kick it off. I couldn't move, and I was just lucky that our last helicopter was able to come into our zone and get me out of there. I was real lucky."

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Soon after recovering from his wounds, Woodrow arrived at Georgia Tech to begin four years of study while serving as the Marine officer instructor at the NROTC unit, setting the stage for his post-military career as an international broker.

"One of the best things that happened to me in the Marine Corps," he says, "was they sent me to Georgia Tech. Until then, 1 never knew much about business —economics, systems theory, finance. 1 didn't know much about how the 'real world' worked.

"But at Tech 1 got turned on to management. And after I left Tech in 1970,1 was so turned on about management that 1 started using techniques I'd learned on the job.

"I went on to run Human Resources and Finance Operations for the Marine Corps MWR Branch, and I made the Corps millions of dollars simply by applying those business techniques to running our officers' clubs and our enlisted men's clubs and Special Services, and so on.

"I found that the U.S. military was living in the Dark Ages when it came to business management. I was able to use this good stuff I'd learned at Tech to help run the Marine Corps in a much more efficient and economical manner."

One of Wood row's happiest "Tech Memories" was born in 1967, when his NROTC entry in the Ramblin' Wreck Parade won the $500 prize as the best-engineered auto-wreck.

"I told my students in NROTC that the fraternities were all entering the competition," he chortles.

"And I said, 'Why don't we enter?'

And some of my students got an old beat-up car, and they made it look like a ship. We won the Ramblin' Wreck Parade, and in

"It's a wide wonderful world. I enjoy getting up each morning, knowing that I gotta hustle if I'm gonna keep the family business going." those days $500 was a great thing."

Another warm memory was the "NROTC Marching Band" Woodrow created.

"Every Thursday, we'd march over to Rose Bowl Field to drill, and we'd march past all the fraternity houses. And they'd be out in the yard, drinking beer and having a good time—and we'd march past, banging away at the Marine Corps Hymn.

"We looked good, too. We were led by Will Ball, who later became Secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan. But I didn't want Ball out in front—he always looked like a bag of laundry when he marched."

For his part, the 48-year-old William L. Ball III, IM '69, remembers Woodrow as "the spiritual leader of the Tech Midshipmen" —and as a man of "boundless enthusiasm and energy."

"Fitz was a real spark plug," says Ball, now president of the Washington-based National Soft Drink Association. "He said I was too lazy to carry a rifle, so he let me play trombone in the ROTC band. That was okay with me, because if you played in the band, you didn't have to keep your shoes as shined as the rest of the guys in the ROTC unit."

But is it true that Woodrow wouldn't let Ball march out front because he "looked like a bag of laundry" when he performed the "left flank" maneuver?

"That's what he said, all right," Ball laughs. "And you know what?

That was the mildest thing he told me—I can't repeat the other stuff."

After earning his master's, Woodrow spent 10 years as an infantry battalion commander, deputy director of the Amphibious Warfare School, and a finance and management specialist at Marine Corps headquarters before leaving to earn a doctorate and then form his own brokerage house.

George Lehner, a veteran Washington attorney who knows the colonel well, says Woodrow is an international trader who is a lot smarter than he acts.

"Fitz has a great sense of humor," says Lehner. "And he's a gentleman in the best sense of the word. He's a diplomat when he needs to be a diplomat, and he's tough when he needs to be tough.

He can size up a situation and understand what people need to have done in order to make a deal happen."

According to Woodrow's 31year-old son, Fitz III, the "Old Man" refuses to take himself too seriously, though he's an enormously dedicated businessman.

"He was a good father," says the younger Woodrow, who has worked for his father for seven years. "He was there for all the soccer games. He didn't push the Marine Corps on us, either. Growing up with him wasn't like The Great Santini.

"He did teach us 'yes sir' and 'no sir.' Still, he's always had a great sense of humor. He loved one-liners. He'd tell us, 'If you wake up in the morning, you're ahead of the game.'"

Woodrow's philosophy?

"Hey, it's a wide, wide wonderful world out there. I got the best deal in the world. I enjoy getting up each morning, knowing that I gotta hustle to make the payroll if I'm gonna keep the family business going."

Winter 1997 • GEORGIA TECH

47

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The Best of What's Around Geary Tanner is busy and dreaming at RCA Records

By Michael Terrazas

L

ooking out from his office high above Manhattan's Times Square, Geary Tanner realizes he's a long way from Semmes, Ala. Tanner, vice president of national promotion for RCA Records, grew up in the tiny Alabama hamlet near Mobile, came to Georgia Tech and now works every day in a highrise in the middle of a city of 9 million people, promoting some of the biggest musical acts in the world.

Tanner, IM '71, has worked in the music industry ever since college, when he served as music director and deejay for WREK. After he began working there in 1969, the station switched from a Top 40 format to progressive; Tanner's jazz show, "Musical Eruptions," graced the Atlanta airwaves every Sunday night.

"I didn't know very much about jazz," Tanner explains, "but 1 really loved the music. So I pretended I was an expert."

As a senior, he got a job in the warehouse of Southland Records Distributors, and upon graduation was promoted to the mailroom— "That was big time," he deadpans—where he made enough connections to land a regional position at Polydor Records.

These days, Tanner's department at RCA is in charge of convincing people all around the country to play its music. Club deejays, program directors, miisic directors—all are targets for Tanner and his staff, who are responsible for handling the entire roster of RCA artists nationwide.

"It's just making impressions on people and convincing them that

the song you have or the group you have has credibility," Tanner says. And he loves it. "Taking new artists and building them into hit artists is very satisfying."

Indeed, the rooms and hallways of RCA's New York office are adorned with gold and platinum records. But these days, record promotion involves a lot more than in the past; as in so many other fields, science and technology have radically changed what used to be a much more subjective job of persuasion.

"In the old days, you'd fly into a program director's city, buy him and his wife a steak and potato, pat him on the back, and the guy would say, TT1 add your record,'" Tanner says. "But now he wants to know all the research; he wants to know what's happening at other stations around the country."

Technological advances like BDS—Broadcast Data Systems, which monitors everything that floats over the airwaves in the top 100 markets—and SoundScan,

which tracks retail purchases, give record companies and advertisers precise figures on the amount of play their products receive, whereas in the past they had to rely on the radio stations' own reports.

What that translates into is a business in which there is much less room for hype, but much more work keeping track of each individual market. "We can't look at the country as a whole anymore; we have to look at every market, and it takes a lot more time, a lot more man-hours for everybody in the company," Tanner says.

And sometimes it takes even more than numbers to convince people. Consider the Dave Matthews Band—one of RCA's recent success stories and also one of Tanner's personal favorites.

Dave Matthews formed his group while living in Charlottesville, Va., and built up a following through relentlessly touring the Southeast.

Often compared to having a Grateful Dead-like devotion in their

Backdropped by signatures of RCA artists, Geary Tanner pauses in his New York office.

Winter 1997 • GEORGIA TECH

49

DA^CCCTTCDC

fans, DMB blends rock, jazz, folk, African tribal music and other styles into a unique sound, one that is not always "radio-friendly."

"When Under the Table and

Dreaming [DMB's first release on RCA1 came out, grunge rock was the thing at modern rock radio, and Dave Matthews didn't sound like that," Tanner says. "Dave could sell out 20,000 seats and the radio station in that city had never played him. We've had programmers tell us, 'Well, all of those people who go to see Dave Matthews and buy his records, they aren't our audience.' That's how ridiculous it gets."

But DMB did catch on, and the band's second RCA release, Crash, has gone double-platinum and is still selling. It's these moments

Tanner finds particularly gratifying. After recently attending one of Matthews' two sold-out shows in Madison Square Garden, Tanner says the experience "took me back to the first time we all went to see Dave play."

"Seeing artists at different-sized venues over the past several years, from a small club like Wetlands, to a more medium-sized venue like the Roseland Ballroom, and then to shed shows like the Great Woods in Boston, and then to Madison Square Garden—that's really what the music business is all about. It's finding an artist who can do that."

In fact, Tanner spends many of his evenings attending the shows of RCA artists. That, combined with commuting each day into

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Manhattan, leaves him little time during the week for anything other than work. Weekends are reserved for his family; he, his wife, Anne, and their son, Jon, live in Connecticut. Melissa, their 21year-old daughter, is a junior at Notre Dame. And even though life in the Big Apple bears little resemblance to lower Alabama, Tanner finds his time allocated much the same way it was growing up.

"I've thought about that," he says. "I'm almost 48, and I'm in a totally different place than Semmes, Ala., or Atlanta. But really, my life then was school, family and church. Now, my life is work, family and church."

Gazing out his office window at Times Square, Geary Tanner seems just fine with that, GT

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World-Wide Model Technology-driven, scientific program to manage Nile River system

By Amanda Crowell

T

he ancient Nile River, the world's longest and most famous water system, is receiving assistance from a science-based, technology-driven program developed at Georgia Tech.

Dr. Aris Georgakakos, head of Georgia Tech's Environmental Hydraulics and Water Resources Group and associate chair for research in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, has developed a computer-based system to provide for equitable and sustainable water-resources management.

Georgakakos is overseeing development of a $10 million water program for the Nile River, which uses his "integrated decision-support system."

The project is sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development through a contract with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.

It is a collaborative effort between Tech and the National Weather Service and is being conducted for the Egyptian government.

Although not complete, the Nile River project already is being used as a prototype for other river basins, including China's Yangtze River, Greece's Achelloos and Brazil's Iguacu.

In the United States, Tech researchers also have developed decision-support systems for the Upper Des Moines River and parts of the Southeastern reservoir system, including the Savannah, Appalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint and Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa rivers.

In the past, Georgakakos says,

52

GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Winter 1997

Chad

Central African Republic

Rwanda

water policies often were formed during crises and favored supply-side solutions.

Increasingly, policy makers and water-resources managers are faced with the need to manage existing sources better, to encourage more efficient use and to mitigate environmental damage.

"We begin to understand that whatever we do has consequences," Georgakakos says. "So in planning the development and operation of water resources projects, we must

Tanzania

not only consider traditional water uses like hydropower, flood control, water supply, navigation and recreation, but also look at the longterm sustainability of the resource."

Proper management of water resources depends on many complex factors, such as weather dynamics, watershed responses,

RESEARCH

National Resource environmental impacts and human demand.

The integrated decision-support system attempts to quantify these factors to produce accurate forecasting and efficient day-to-day management. It is built on hydrometeorological data such as rainfall observations, river-flow and stage hydrographs, soil moisture distribution and changes, and temperature and evapotranspiration.

Such data, gathered from satellites, radar and on-site sensors, is valuable in understanding how water-resources systems work, and it is much more accessible to management authorities today than in the past, Georgakakos said.

Once set up, a decision-support system can simulate the response of rivers and reservoirs to different climatic inputs, water and power demands, and decision policies.

The system is not intended to replace management authorities, but rather to quantify the tradeoffs among different water uses.

For the Nile River, several major issues demand basin-wide agreement on management use. Flowing 4,000 miles from the Equatorial Lakes to the Mediterranean Sea, the Nile affects the lives of roughly 250 million people in 10 countries.

Changes proposed in recent years include hydroelectric development in Ethiopia, which commands the source region of the Blue Nile; regulation and future development of the Equatorial Lakes (Victoria, Kyoga and Albert); implementation of several conservation projects for the White Nile, such as the Jonglei Canal in Southern Sudan; and the growing water needs of all nations (especially Egypt and Sudan) that

depend on the Nile.

In the past, countries usually established bilateral agreements.

Georgakakos's research, however, shows that focusing separately on development and conservation projects on the White or Blue Nile will benefit some areas and harm others. A cooperative approach would benefit the entire region.

Part of the system developed for the Nile is already in place at the Nile Forecast and Control Center at the Ministry of Public Works and Water Resources in Egypt. Several Egyptian engineers and senior officials have been trained to operate and maintain it. Egyptian engineers also have spent time at Georgia Tech and the National Weather Service, helping design the river forecasting and decision models.

Georgakakos hopes his decisionsupport system model will lead the way in changing ineffective management practices of the past.

In developing such systems, Tech works in partnership with the Hydrologic Research Center in San Diego and the Office of Hydrology of the National Weather Service in Washington. Collaborations with other universities and research laboratories are being pursued.

"Based on the research that Georgia Tech and other research organizations have done over the last 10 to 15 years, we have made great strides in many aspects of water management," Georgakakos says. "And, what is more, we have learned how to package it all into a nice system like the one we developed for the Nile."

Amanda Crowell is a writer in the Research Communications Office of the Georgia Tech Research Institute.

Georgia Tech's new test, evaluation center looks to future

G

eorgia Tech has established a Test and Evaluation Research and Education Center, a national resource committed to efficient testing of new technologies for commercial and defense organizations.

Tech has also initiated the country's only test and evaluation graduate program.

"Georgia Tech and the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTR1) have been working in this area for a long time," says Dr. Sam Blankenship, director of the new center.

"We have a number of things we've been doing over the years that actually established our reputation. It makes sense for a center to be here and for it to be a national resource."

The concept arose in 1991 from discussions between GTRI researchers and the chief scientist of the Air Force Operational Testing and Evaluation Center in New Mexico.

Initial operations began in August 1995, with startup funding from the Air Force test center and subsequent support from test and evaluation organizations in the Defense Department and the private sector. Tech's center is managed by a board of advisers, sponsor representatives who review operations each year to ensure the needs of the test and evaluation community are being met.

The center encompasses work by faculty across Georgia Tech's 330-acre campus, as well as at other universities. A current

Winter 1997 â&#x20AC;˘ GEORGIA TECH

53

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RESEARCH In light of limited resources, the economic value of test and evaluation is growing increasingly vital. project involves joint work with New Mexico State University.

Part of the center's mission is to focus on broad topics that benefit the industry as a whole. Researchers look for new ways to test everything from cars and computer software to aircraft, spacecraft and weapons systems.

"The center is intended to provide an international focal point for test and evaluation research and education, and a catalyst for the invention of the future of our discipline," says Blankenship, also director of special projects for GTRI's Advanced Programs Office and a principal research scientist for the Electronics Systems Laboratory.

For a current commercial project on new Internet product development, Tech scientists are providing research, analysis and technical services in the areas of methodology, planning, humanfactors analysis and security.

Future projects may include looking for ways to quantify the economic value of test and evaluation in light of limited resources, an emerging topic of importance.

U.S. space and defense industry leaders, in particular, want to close redundant test facilities but need ways to determine which approach is most cost effective.

Other areas of interest include microelectronic mechanical systems that can gather data without disturbing operations; intelligent systems like fuzzy logic, neural networks and artificial intelligence; and fidelity and realism in computer modeling and simulation.

56

GEORGIA TECH • Winter 1997

Tech's graduate program in test and evaluation began in 1993.

Graduates earn a certificate either in conjunction with an undesignated master of science degree in systems analysis from the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, or a master of science from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Classes are taught on campus or by video. Participants include those looking to earn a master's degree and the certificate, and those who already have a master's and want the certificate to show "they have gone beyond the call of duty," says Dr. Jerry Banks, a professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering.

Banks oversees the graduate program with Dr. George Vachtsevanos, a professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Goals for Tech's test center include setting up a visiting professorship and producing the first scholarly journal in test and evaluation research.

"Test and evaluation as it's practiced now has only been around for three or four decades," Blankenship says.

"A lot of the people who founded what we do are still alive and working, but they won't be for long.

"What we would like to do with this visiting professor slot is have a place where people can come on sabbatical or early retirement and write a book, if they've been wanting to do that, or pursue some project that would capture their expertise."

—Amanda Crowell • More information on Tech's Test and Evaluation Research and Education Center is available on the World Wide Web at; <http:// www.terec.gatech.edu/terec/>.

Dr. Charles Ume (right) and former graduate student Michael Stiteler examine the moire fringes generated when a PCB is heated in the oven Ume developed. The technique, now available to the electronics industry, prevents warping of circuit board

RESEARCH

Curing Circuits Oven process warns of warping circuit boards

By Lea McLees

P

rinted circuit boards power everything from portable radios to refrigerator-sized supercomputers, but they remain vulnerable to simple, heat-induced warping. A warped board may cause a device to stop working, and boards that warp during manufacturing after expensive components are added can mean thousands of dollars in losses.

Dr. Charles Ume, associate professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering, has developed a process to give manufacturers advance warning about the problem, enabling them to correct design problems and save money.

"Electronic packaging companies can use the information to make changes in their printed circuit-board design early," Ume says. "That way, there's no mass production of a product that has a problem."

Simply turning on a computer, camcorder or other printed circuit board-run device can generate heat. Also, temperatures up to 230 degrees Celsius are an integral part of circuit-board processing.

The industry trend to make small, thin boards that are densely populated with components invites warping-related reliability problems, Ume says.

Ume developed a special oven with a glass grating top, through which the circuit board placed inside is visible. A white light shines through the glass grating onto the circuit board, and a compact, charge-coupled-device camera captures warping digitally as it occurs.

The automated oven system can also reproduce any given soldering-temperature history used in producing a board, while measuring warping at any specified time interval or temperature. That means the system can pinpoint which processes or designs may cause the most damage.

Companies can use the results to make design or process changes before production, such as changing soldering-temperature profiles, reducing or extending processing times, relocating key components, and changing the types of materials used in the construction of the printed circuit boards.

Lea McLees is editor of Research Horizons, a publication of the Georgia Tech Research Institute.

Winter 1997 â&#x20AC;˘ GEORGIA TECH

57

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RESEARCH

Dr. Otto Rausch adjusts the Rotman lensâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;variations of it could be used for many military and civilian applications.

On the Right Wavelength Georgia Tech develops a practical Rotman lens

By John Toon

G

eorgia Tech researchers have built a prototype Rotman lens antenna.

The electronically scanned device operates at millimeter-wave frequencies that could be used in a range of civilian and military applications, including aircraft landing systems, communications equipment, automobile collisionavoidance systems, tank radars and missile seekers.

The device, which has no moving parts, no phase shifters,

60

GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Winter 1997

and can be implemented in plastic, offers an inexpensive, reliable and compact alternative to current millimeter-wave antenna technologies.

"We have taken a first step toward the goal of a really inexpensive millimeter-wave antenna that would be useful in a growing number of applications," says Dr. Ekkehart "Otto" Rausch, senior research scientist at GTR1.

"Radars and communications devices in the millimeter-wave region are becoming more widely used. There are many applications where you would like to have an antenna that is very low-cost, simple, rugged and reliable."

The device got its name because of its ability to focus microwave or millimeter-wave energy from a particular direction by passing the

electromagnetic energy through a pair of parallel plates shaped like lenses. Beam-forming or focal ports are located on one side of the plates, fed by a switch array. The array ports are on the opposite side, each connected to an antenna element.

Energy fed into a specific focal port will emerge from the antenna elements and produce a beam along a particular direction.

Switching the input from focal port to focal port steers the beam electronically in one direction across a 45-degree arc. The switching could be done with pin diode switches, which are also simple, reliable and inexpensive, GT John Toon is manager of the Research Communications Office of the Georgia Tech Research Institute.

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PROFILE

Sweet Rewards Professor Craig Tovey measures himself by the calories he serves

By Michael Terrazas

I

t's easy to tell when the grades have been handed out in Dr. Craig Tovey's class; just walk by, and if the aroma of homemade brownies is wafting through the hallway, the top students are enjoying their sweet rewards.

A professor with a joint appointment in the College of Computing and the College of Engineering's ISyE school, Tovey loves to cook, and he puts this passion to use in the classroom; "A" students are treated to his award-winning treats to applaud their efforts.

"I want them to see that I am happy when they do well," says Tovey, who in jeans and a flannel shirt looks more like a graduate student than a 41-year-old professor. "I am hoping they will perform at that level. I'm not going to change my standards as to what an A is, but I really want that."

Baking is just one example of Tovey's commitment. From childhood, he had been encouraged by his father to get a doctorate. So the

Ph.D. was never the question, but the desire to teach came later, inspired as much by examples of bad instructors as by good.

Tovey heeded the words of Dr. James McConnell, a psychology professor at University of Michigan. "Jim said if you're a really good teacher, all of your students will get A's—grades are a measure of how good a teacher you are," Tovey recalls. "And even if that isn't strictly true, it's true enough that it gives you a different attitude toward teaching.

"A lot of professors think, 'Oh, I'm really smart, so it's the students' tough luck if they don't understand what I'm explaining.' But if you're that smart, you should be better at teaching. The smarter you are, the more it's your responsibility to communicate effectively."

Communicating is something Tovey does well, not only with his students, but also with his fellow professors. One reason he came to Tech is the cooperative, congenial atmosphere that exists among the Institute's faculty. He calls his ISyE

The Tovey File Born: Oct. 1, 1955, in Washington, D.C. Education: AB in applied mathematics from Harvard College, 1977; MS in operations research from Stanford University, 1979; MS in computer science, Stanford, 1981; Ph.D. in operations research, Stanford, 1981.

Personal: Divorced, three children: Kendl, 11; David, 9; Leo, 7.

Achievements: Georgia Tech Institute Fellow, 1994; National Research Council Senior Research Associateship, 1990-91; Jacob Wolfowitz Prize, 1989; Sigma Xi; Omicron Delta Kappa; Presidential Young Investigator, 1985; honorary Phi Eta Sigma.

Leisure Interests: Cooking, Tai Chi, singing, dancing, listening to music. "Asking if I like teaching or research more is like asking if I like English or Scottish country dancing more; I would never give either one of them up."

62

GEORGIA TECH Winter 1997

school "remarkable," saying it combines on friendly terms three or four departments of his alma mater.

"I'm familiar with just Computing and the ISyE school, but we don't hire people for tenure-track positions when there isn't a slot available. Some schools will hire three assistant professors, only having room to tenure one of them," he explains. "So imagine you're hired along with two or three other people, and you know that five or six years from now only one of you is going to be there; is that going to foster cooperative behavior among you and your colleagues?"

Tovey works with many of his colleagues, most recently with ISyE professors Leon McGinnis and Jane Ammons on printed circuit-card assembly. Tovey's research is in optimization methods called "localsearch algorithms," which means using fairly limited, localized information to improve a system on a global level.

"It's like finding the top of a hill in the dark with a flashlight," he explains. "You have no idea where it is because you can't see more than two feet. But you can look around with your flashlight and see if there's a spot that's a little higher than where you are now. So you toddle over there and scan around with the flashlight again, and eventually you'll get to a peak."

Tovey cites a wide range of applications for the commonly used method of this type—the Simplex Method, invented by Tovey's advisor at Stanford, Dr. George Dantzig —such as blending gasoline, mixing livestock feed, making dog food. In 1988, he worked with AT&T in optimizing use of transmission

PROFILE

Professor Craig Tovey's students enjoy the sweet taste of success: Good grades mean brownies for Tovey's top performers.

frequencies for the company's cellular phone system in Los Angeles.

Tovey says by determining which frequency each individual eel site should use, the entire system's capacity was raised about 25 percentâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;at basically no cost.

He started out in his current line of research by examining nature to learn how to better manage humanmade systems. "Let's study a natural system," he says, "and see how it controls and regulates itself, and let's use the insights from that to help design and control, say, the Ford factory of the future, with lots of automated guided vehicles and robots running around."

Some natural systems he has examined are beehives, ant foraging, dominance relationships in fish, and the social hierarchy of the Mexican jay. He also looks at how glass catfish, a freshwater species that is actually translucent, form

and maintain the distinct shape of their schools.

"A fish doesn't see the whole shape of a school of anywhere from a few hundred to 100,000 fish," Tovey says. "So how do they get this nice, ellipsoidal shape? How do they do that?"

Turns out that, just like human bicyclists or race-car drivers, fish know how to "draft" each other.

Fish at the front or outside of a school periodically drop back inside the formation to let other fish fight the current. And Tovey's hillclimbing algorithm analysis, "with just a few tweaks," explains how the fish are able to form their ovalshaped schools using only local informationâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;looking at the handful of fish around them.

"It's the same kind of question," he says. "It's the connection between the local and the global.

What's amazing is the same set of

techniques from operations research gives you insight into all these different domains."

One domain Tovey might not have been prepared for was parenthood. But as the beaming father of three, he loves to talk about his kids. "Two of them are well on their way to being chocoholics like me," he chuckles. "I'm trying to get them all to become dancers and singers and musicians."

Having kids even helped him with teaching. "You know how people say men see women as sexual objects? Well, I used to see students as 'learning objects,'" Tovey says. "After I had kids, I became more attuned to all the rest of the stuff going on in their lives."

Whatever else is going on in the lives of Craig Tovey's students, they surely appreciate the occasional confection to get them through the day. GT

Winter 1997

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