Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine Vol. 76, No. 03 2000

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2000 Alvin Toffler on Change Wayne Clough Forecasts Engineering Education Greatest Achievements Did the Future Get Mugged?

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IllCe U p o n a t i m e , in a raniLW wreck rrom Georgia Tech, dressed i n w h i t e a n d gfold, a krigkt student (tkats you) studied hard to establish a brilliant career. T h e n one day, as ii by magic, this line institute (that's Georgia Teen) endorsed a credit card program tnat helped support the school. Soon the land was abuzz with t h e e x t r a o r d i n a r y news or a credit c a r d t h a t was beautifully engineered.

Students, you see, would use their credit cards, as anyone would, w i t h o n e magnificent difference. F o r every t i m e these gems were used, c o n t r i b u t i o n s were m a d e t o Georgia T e c h — a t n o additional cost to t h e cardholders or the school. T h e s t u d e n t t h o u g h t it t o o good to he true. B u t , as t i m e w o i d d tell, t h e credit c a r d p r o g r a m was just as it a p p e a r e d , a n d beautifully simple t o o . A n d eventually, a l u m n i r e q u e s t e d the card, and support for Georgia Teen grew and grew. A n d everyone lived happily ever after.

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Winter 2000

21/21 Welcome to Tomorrow Somewhere between vision and reality, the future took a detour.

By Gary Goettling

Deans' List Georgia Tech's deans pick the technological breakthroughs of the past century.

By Gary Goettling

The Future of Engineering Education Georgia Tech's president describes major trends that will influence the Institute's future.

Building the Future Research under way at Tech holds important implications for life in the next century.

By Gary Goettling

By Wayne Clough

Economic Revolution

Did the Future Get Mugged?

Futurist Alvin Toffler forecasts conflict in an upcoming era of "civilization-shaking" change.

Some predictions came true.

But for many, those Utopian visions ran head-on into the "bomb," and the '60s and 70s.

By John Dunn

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GEORGIA TECH • Winter 2000

By Karen Hill

I (lumni Magazine

Joseph P. Irwin, IM '80, Publisher

The Most Charismatic Creatures Giant panda cubs steal scenes and hearts upon their arrival at Zoo Atlanta.

John C. Dunn, Editor Hoyt Coffee, CIs '99, Associate Editor Maria M. Lameiras, Assistant Editor Everett Hullum Design Robb Stanek, AE '90, Advertising

By John Dunn

Editorial Advisory Board

Back to 'Nam Virtual reality helping treat soldiers with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

By Hoyt Coffee

Departments 6 Feedback 10 Tech Notes Highest Recognition; 'Net Watcher; Only a Click Away; Ahhh ... Jackets over Dogs; Up with 25; Lights On; Portrait of an Engineer as a Young Man; Individual of the Decade; Christmas at the Roosevelt House; Mission: Yamacraw

L. Thomas "Tom" Gay Jr., IM '66, Chairman Vice Pres id en tjCom m u n ications Georgia Tech Alumni Association Board of Trustees President, Gay Construction Co. John "Jack" S. Markwalter Jr., IM '81 Alumni Association Board of Trustees Managing Director, Southeast Private Wealth Management Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Robert T. "Bob" Harty Executive Director Institute Communications & Public Affairs David J. McGill Director Emeritus, Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning Georgia Tech Adam Toner Editor, Technique John D. Toon Manager Georgia Tech Research News and Publications Office

77 Pacesetters Jim Richards: Fortune Formula Bob Gibson: Rule Breaker Randy Swartz: Personal Credibility

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine

86 Profile Amy Bruckman: Online Innovator

^% 88 Photo Finish Classic Goodbye

Cover: Two panda cubs arrive at Zoo Atlanta where Georgia Tech's Terry Maple is working to ensure survival of an endangered species, photo by Caroline Joe

(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 303320175. 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. Š 2000 Georgia Tech Alumni Association POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine, Alumni/Faculty House, 225 North Avenue NW, Atlanta, GA 30332-0175. Editorial: (404) 894-0750/0761, Advertising: (404) 894-9270.

Fax:(404)894-5113.

E-mail: editor@alumni.gatech.edu Web address: gtalumni.org

Winter 2000 • GEORGIA TECH

3

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A great big world is out there waiting for you, eager to share new experiences and opportunities. When you're ready to go, we're ready to go to the ends of the earth for you.

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Bud Foote Was Inspiring I congratulate you and the Institute for your coverage of the creation of The Bud Foote Center for Science Fiction. Certainly a worthy recipient of this honor, Professor Foote was a talented lecturer and inspiring teacher.

Georgia Tech is very fortunate not only to have received his donation, but also to share in such a long and prosperous association with him. As a student in his science fiction in literature class, I never got to know Professor Foote personally. I do recall vividly, however, the zeal and enthusiasm with which he taught his class.

Though it posed a significant weekly challenge of reading a novel and digesting enough to succeed on a quiz, the class remains one of my favorite learning experiences ever. From Shelley to Heinlein, Twain to Asimov, Professor Foote never failed to bring to life stories considered by many to be out of the mainstream.

Thanks, Professor Foote, and congratulations!

Jason Byars, ME '96 Chicago, 111.

P.S. I still cringe when I hear the term "sci fi."

players, not only as a group, but by name. The young athletes playing for Tech are doing the best they can, or I can assure you that George O'Leary will have them out of the game in a hurry. These players need only our cheers, not jeers.

Remember, we are sitting comfortably in our seats, and the players are getting smashed on every play. If you can't do better, please only cheer (and loudly)!

Beirne M. Prager, IM '58, MS IM '62 Memphis, Tenn.

Participative Management I have an interest in the SEI article (Fall 1999, ALUMNI MAGAZINE). In 1988, the Alumni Magazine reprinted an article that was the AMA magazine cover story for August 1987. It was about the Rohm and Haas Bayport Plant, of which I was the first employee and plant manager. The article was titled "Taking Participative Management to the Limit," and the details are remarkably similar to the SEI article. I'm sending a copy to Al West.

I think he might get a kick out of reading it.

Bob Gilbert, ChE '52 Houston

Football Etiquette Coach Bobby Dodd regularly addressed the incoming freshman classes at Tech. In the fall of 1954,1 remember sitting in the basketball gym with all the other freshman listening as he told us that he and the other coaches were paid to coach the football team. And if we, as students, did not like what was happening on the field, to yell at the coaches and not at the players. He said that the players were doing their best, and unless we could do better, don't criticize the players. I have always followed that dictum.

I have excellent seats in the east stands. Unfortunately, there are many young alumni (i.e. graduates from the 80"s) who do not follow Coach Dodd's advice and often yell invectives at the

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GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Winter 2000

Good 01' Days Two items in the Fall '99 GEORGIA brought back the "Good OP Days" for me. On page 13 was the 50 years ago graduating class that included 1,050 former GIs. I returned in 1947 as an instructor in the school of physics. I well remember the classes of 100 each I had at 7 and 8 a.m., five days a week, at that time.

I did get to know a lot of students.

The former GIs in the dorms formed an Independent Students Organization, ISO, and asked me to be faculty adviser. They really didn't need an adviser as they were self-motivated, but sometimes needed someone to help fight the battles with "The Hill."

In intramural sports, we really

TECH ALUMNI MAGAZINE

cleaned out the fraternities, which usually dominated these events. It wasn't quite fair as these were a group of men who had been all over the world doing all sorts of things, although they were just boys. However, it was fun.

The other item was a letter by Billy Wallace, EE '46, about Professor Stalnaker that indicated he had changed some of his methods since I had him in '42. Then, he would wander around the room with a piece of chalk stuck in his ear, grab it out and send it around the room by slapping it with a yardstick, not a slide rule. He was somewhat of a character, but a darn good professor on AC and DC motors.

LeRoy A. Woodward, Phys '43 Atlanta

Wonderful Weekend Parents Weekend was extremely enjoyable. Not only was everything planned so well, but you were able to arrange for absolutely perfect weather â&#x20AC;&#x201D;and a tremendous win in the football game. The pre-game barbecue was outstanding and whoever did the food should be hired forever! The barbecue and all the fixin's sho' nuf tasted real Southern and were perfect for a meal before a football game.

Everyone was extremely friendly, courteous, cordial and professional. I want to extend an extra special "Thank You" to the Alumni Association staff for arranging for the parking. Keep up the good work.

Steven Berkman M.D. Closter, N.J. Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine welcomes your letters. Please address all correspondence to Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine, 190 North Avenue, NW, Atlanta, GA 303313, Fax (404) 894-5113 E-mail, editor@alumni.gatech. edu (please include full name, city and telephone number).

Move Animated on Web Thanks for the article on moving the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.

I am the risk specialist who arranged for the environmental and professional liability insurance for the engineering team that designed the move of the lighthouse for the general contractor, International Chimney Corp. of Buffalo, N.Y. I sent a copy of the magazine to the underwiter that I worked with in placing the insurance for the engineering team, and I also sent a copy to the general contractor.

There is a Website that has the animated illustration of the move: www.widomaker.com/~litehous/ movie.html This is cleverly done, and I think it would be of interest to your readers.

Tom McCurdy, IM '60 Atlanta Keepsake Issue The article on the relocation of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse is excellent (Fall 1999). We are very proud of the successful project. We would like to receive a couple of extra copies. Bob Reynolds, pictured on the cover, recently retired. We would like to give him a copy as a keepsake. We would also like to provide a copy to the local library.

Steve Harrison National Park Service Manteo, N.C.

We're pleased to provide a keepsake to Bob Reynolds and a copy for the library.

Great Job, But...

Thank you for the terrific article "Saving the Light," by Karen Hill along with the photos by Mike Booher (Fall 1999 GEORGIA TECH ALUMNI MAGAZINE).

My wife and I toured the outer banks in August BF (before Floyd) and visited the Cape Hatteras lighthouse at its new location. They were busy laying up the masonry foundations at that time. We will treasure the article and the photographs.

One little complaint: Why was it necessary to cut the plan of the operations in half—with one part on page 47 and the rest on page 48?

Heath Laughlin, Arch '49 Big Canoe, Ga. We work our award-winning designer so hard that at times he comes up with half-baked ideas—or half-divided operations plans.

We were so impressed with his overall design of the lighthouse feature, however, that we winked at this eccentricity. Here's how the plans look when the halves are whole:

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Mike Booher

Winter 2000 • GEORGIA TECH

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Highest Recognition Stovall receives Alumni Distinguished Service Award

J

ames "Frank" Stovall Jr., a past president of the Georgia Tech Alumni Association and emeritus member of the Georgia Tech Foundation, is the 1999 recipient of the Joseph Mayo Pettit Alumni Distinguished Service Award. It is the highest award bestowed by the Alumni Association.

Stovall, who retired as co-chairman of the United Cotton Goods Co. in Griffin, Ga., in 1985, is a 1941 textile engineering graduate. He received the award during Georgia Tech commencement Dec. 18, in a presentation made by Alumni Association President N. Allen Robertson.

"This award is more than a 'Man of the Year' honor," Robertson said. "It recognizes a lifetime of achieve-

ment and commitment to Georgia Tech and to the community. We have all benefited from your leadership, service and generosity."

A native of Madison, Ga., Frank Stovall entered Tech in 1937. A student leader, he was president of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity, senior class secretary, vice president of the student council and a member of ANAK. After graduation, Stovall worked for a Columbus, Ga., textile mill, soon joining U.S. Rubber Co. in New York as a textile buyer. He found he enjoyed both his new job and the "Big Apple."

"It was just terrific," Stovall says. "I was living in New York and having a wonderful time."

During World War II, Stovall served in the Army Air Force, earning the rank

You Can Get There from Here As part of the Campus Master Plan, a "wayfinding" program is being developed to make it easier for people to find their way around campus. The Capital Planning and Space Management department is managing this project, and Georgia Tech has hired Moore lacofano Goltsman Inc. (MIG) to develop the plan.

Signage is a key source of wayfinding information, but the consultants are also exploring written directions, kiosks and Web-based graphics and maps.

MIG has been on campus several times, analyzing existing conditions and talking to various stakeholder groups.

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Frank Stovall is recognized for a lifetime of achievement.

of sergeant. He was sent to China as the war ended, but was transferred home when his father died.

Stovall remained in Madison for a few years, working and caring for his mother. It was during that time that he met his wife, Betty, a school teacher.

The couple moved to Atlanta, where Stovall worked for a small company before joining Charlie Yates, GS '35, and his firm, Joshua L. Baily & Co. Several years later, Stovall became co-owner of the United Cotton Goods Co. in Griffin, which manufactured uniforms and linens for linen suppliers and hotels and motels.

"We took that little business and grew it every year," Stovall recalls. In 1980, the company was bought by a German concern. Stovall continued to work for the company until his retirement five years later.

He and his wife have

four grown children—James F. Ill, IM '70; Ginny Kendall; Betty; and John, Cls '81— and six grandchildren, including James Frank IV, who is a student at Tech.

Throughout his business career, Stovall has provided leadership and service to Georgia Tech. He twice served on the Alumni Association board of trustees and was its president for the year 1972-73. An emeritus member of the Georgia Tech Foundation, Stovall served his first term on that organization in 1977. He also is an emeritus member of the former Tech-Georgia Development Fund, serving as both a director and treasurer. He was co-chairman of the Class of 1941 50th Reunion Committee, cochairman of the Endowment Council for 1984-85 and was a member of the Legislative Network. In 1998, Stovall was inducted into the College of Engineering Hall of Fame.

North Avenue Almanac

'Net Watcher Clough tapped for Internet Advisory Panel

G

eorgia Tech President Wayne Clough has been appointed co-chairman of the Governing Board of the new Internet Policy Institute in Washington D.C. Also selected as co-chairman is Netscape founder Jim Barksdale.

"The Internet Policy Institute will address a range of issues of growing importance related to the use of the Internet and its rapidly expanding role in our lives," said Clough, CE '64, MS CE '65. "I am pleased to have been asked to co-chair the Board with Jim Barksdale. This is of great interest to me and is a major opportunity area for Georgia Tech."

The Internet Policy Institute is the nation's first independent, nonprofit research and educational institute cre-

ated to provide objective, high-quality analysis, research, education and outreach on economic, social and policy issues concerning the global development and use of the Internet.

"This Institute will generate interest from many circles since it fills a vacuum on matters related to how the Internet should work, now and in the future," Clough said. "It will tackle issues like information security, privacy, educational use, taxation, national security, etc. When I was in Washington, D.C, I was surprised by the number of people who were aware of this development. It fills a need."

The institute will also advise the president of the United States on important policy issues regarding the Internet.

75 YEARS AGO ... Two buildings referred to in the Georgia Tech catalog as "frame dormitories," but known on campus as "the shacks," were razed for construction of a new chemistry building. Because the shacks were isolated from the main campus dorms, residents enjoyed a certain "laxity and freedom." Some freshmen protested the razing, wearing shirts dyed to a pinkish tint—originally intended as red—in token disapproval. "It was all the more appropriate because the mildness of the color was in keeping with the strength of their objections—they were glad to have the shacks give way to progress," observed the February 1925 Alumni Magazine.

50 YEARS AGO ... Robert T. "Bobby" Jones Jr., ME '22, was

Only a Click Away

named the greatest golfer of the

H

igh school students in Georgia now have an easier way to apply for admission to public colleges like Georgia Tech—just point and click.

The new Georgia Applications and Electronic Advisor System, or GA EASY, is a Webbased system that allows high schoolers to apply to as many public colleges as they like, as long as they pay the traditional application fee.

Students can also get the latest information on colleges they're interested in at the new site. The new University System site can be found on the World Wide Web at www.usg.edu/ga-easy.

half-century in a 1950 Associated Press poll. In 1930, Jones did what had never been done before—and has never been repeated: he grand-slammed golf, winning the British Amateur and Open and the American Amateur and Open.

25 YEARS AGO ... Georgia Tech's engineering program was rated eighth in the country in a Change magazine ranking that polled 159 deans of engineering schools. A tally of the 132 responding deans gave Tech a star ranking as one of the top engineering programs. In 1975, Georgia Tech's College of Engineering consisted of 10 engineering schools, plus the School of Architecture and the Program in Health Systems.

Winter 2000 • GEORGIA TECH

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Sting...

Jackets cellar Dogs in overtime

12

GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Winter 2000

S

enior Joe Hamilton gilded his record-setting career with a four-touchdown finale to ease Georgia Tech past Georgia in a classic 51-48 shootout Thanksgiving weekend. With two minutes to play, Hamilton tied the game at 48-all with a touchdown toss. The Bulldogs marched to the Tech two-yard line, but a controversial fumble gave Tech the ball and sent the match into overtime, Georgia took its OT possession to the Tech 14, but the Jackets picked off a pass. Tech then marched to the Georgia 19, where head coach George O'Leary opted for a game-winning field goal on third down. Luke Manget's attempt was blocked but Tech holder George Godsey recovered the ball, giving Manget a second chance. The freshman punched it through from 38 yards, and the uprights camegjown as Jackets fans stormed Grant Field to celebrate Tech's second Dogs di?ÂŤt in two years. "What can you say?" an exhausted but ecstatic O'Leary asked. "It was an exciting game, a good game for Tech. We kept it down to the wire." w Victory in the 106-year-old series meant an 8 ^ ^ regular-season finish and a trip to the Gator Bowl. The Jackets ended the regular season No. 17 in the Associated Press poll. Five players made the all-ACC team, including Hamilton.

Up with 25 Cleveland retires Price jersey

Price's trophy: a section of hardwood floor from Cleveland's Gund Arena.

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obby Cremins was one of only a very few who recruited the shy six-footer from Oklahoma back in '83. But Mark Price went on to make a name, and a legacy, for himself as the little engineer who could.

In his career as a Yellow Jacket, Price set the standard for Tech point guards, earning all-America honors for three years and leading the Jackets to their first Atlantic Coast Conference championship.

His jersey now hangs in the rafters of Alexander Memorial Coliseum.

Price went on to prove himself in the National Basketball Association, too. Although picked in the second round because of his height, he went on to become the third-leading scorer in Cleveland Cavaliers history. He also holds the franchise record for steals and assists, as well as the NBA record for career free-throw percentage.

Now an assistant coach for Cremins, Price's No. 25 jersey was raised to the rafters of Gund Arena in Cleveland in November.

Joined by family and his former Tech coach for the honor, Price called the spectacle "overwhelming. I really have not let this sink in," he said.

Winter 2000 â&#x20AC;˘ GEORGIA TECH

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Like Georgia Tech, Georgia Natural Gas is a local institution. We share a commitment to serving the community. And our employees have years of experience providing dependable gas service to Georgians. In that spirit, we're making this special opportunity available to Georgia Tech alumni, faculty, staff and students. So don't miss out. Choosing a reliable natural gas provider doesn't have to be confusing. In fact, the answer is right in your hands.

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Lights On! •he lights are on again at North Carolina's historic Cape Hatteras lighthouse, following a Nov. 13 ceremony less than nine months after it was shut down and moved to escape an eroding coastline.

The 129-year-old, 5,000-ton lighthouse was moved more than a half-mile inland by engineers, including Randy Knott, CE '69, chief engineer with Law Engineering and Environmental Services, and a project manager on the lighthouse relocation. An animated rendering of the relocation is on the World Wide Web at: www.widomaker.com/~litehous/movie.1iAnl. National Park Service Ranger Rob Boiling threw a switch that turned on the rotating beacon of two 1,000-watt spotlights. The dusk ceremony marking completion of the $12 million, 23-day move had been scheduled for the Labor Day weekend. But it was delayed by hurricanes Dennis and Floyd.

Gary Meek

Portrait of an engineer as a young man

W

hen Henry L. Smith was among the first students attending Georgia Tech at the end of the 1880s, his sister, Dolly, painted his portrait. Smith went on to become Georgia Tech's first graduate. He and George C. Crawford earned their mechanical engineering degrees in 1890.

Being Tech's first graduate, Smith said in an interview many years later, was "the greatest honor I ever received, and I received it through chance. George Crawford and 1 got together before graduation and agreed that this decision

16

GEORGIA TECH • Winter 2000

was too important to make on an alphabetical basis, so out came a coin—it was a 50-cent piece—and 1 won the toss." After remaining in the family for many years, the picture was presented to Georgia Tech in the 1970s and displayed in the College of Management.

When Tech became the "Home of the Olympic Village" in 1996, the portrait was misplaced, and later reclaimed by Charles Walker, the great-great-nephew of Smith and the great-grandson of Dolly, the artist. Walker restored the painting and presented it to Georgia Tech in a ceremony at the President's Luncheon during Homecoming. The picture of Tech's first alumnus will now be displayed on exhibit at the Alumni/Faculty House.

Individual of the Decade Jimmy Carter recognized for global leadership

I

t's been two decades since he served as president of the United States, and throughout that time, he's served as a citizen of the world.

From fighting disease in Africa to monitoring elections in Venezuela, Jimmy Carter, Cls '46, has worked tirelessly to improve the human condition, earning him the Individual of the Year 1999 Atlanta International Business Award.

"What distinguishes President Carter is that he is truly a citizen of the world, and he has brought the world to Atlanta and Georgia," said Professor Jeffrey A. Rosenweig, associate dean of the Goizueta Business School.

President Bill Clinton presented the award at a ceremony last summer, saying, "the work that President Carter has done through the Carter Center to improve our nation and our world is truly unparalleled in our nation's history."

The Carter Center has worked this year to cure and prevent five major diseases in Africa by securing donations from pharmaceutical companies. Last

year, the center monitored elections in Venezuela, and this year, Carter personally became involved in fostering democracy in Nigeria and East Timor, according to John Hardman, executive director of the Carter Center.

"The way our programs are set up reflects President Carter's commitment to make a difference and not just study a global issue and write a paper about it," Hardman says. "There is a great deal of follow-through and focus on results."

Even at 75, Carter's colleagues are in awe of the Plains, Ga., farmer's energy and wide-ranging interests.

"He is a person of extraordinary depth —intellectually, emotionally and spiritually," Rosenweig says, Carrie Harmon, director of public information at the Carter Center, says she is impressed with the former president's zeal for life. "The range of his interests is tremendous—from monitoring elections to writing books and building furniture— and he goes after each with absolute focus and determination."

Christmas at the Roosevelt House

T

he Georgia Tech Alumni Association staff treated residents of the Roosevelt House to its 17th annual Christmas party on Dec. 1, including gifts supplied by Atlanta merchants and a visit from Santa. This year's event was a brunch. The Waffle House supplied the makings for a hearty breakfast, and Sodexho Marriott Management prepared the meal.

Winter 2000 • GEORGIA TECH

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Mission: Yamacraw Foley named to head initiative to spur high-tech growth in Georgia

G

ov. Roy Barnes named James D. Foley, formerly head of Georgia Tech's Graphics, Visualization and Usability lab, as executive director of the Yamacraw Mission, an initiative to establish Georgia as a high-tech leader.

Foley, currently chairman and CEO of ITA-Mitsubishi Electric Information Technology Center America in Cambridge, Mass., will also serve as a professor of computer science and electrical and computer engineering at Georgia Tech.

"Jim is a highly respected teacher and researcher with a keen understanding of industry-oriented research and development," says President Wayne Clough. "It's wonderful to welcome Jim back to Georgia Tech, and I have every confidence that he will make this important statewide initiative a success. Georgia Tech is playing a key role in Yamacraw, and Jim is the ideal person to lead that effort."

In addition to Georgia Tech, Foley served on the faculties of the University of North Carolina and George Washington University. He received his bachelor's degree from Lehigh University, and his master's in electrical engineering and doctorate in computer information and control engineering from the University of Michigan.

In addition to Foley, other key staff members have recently been added to the Yamacraw Mission team. The University System of Georgia has named Daniel S. Papp, professor in

18

GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Winter 2000

Thank you to the official sponsors of the

GeorgiaTech Alumni Magazine

the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs in the Ivan Allen College, as director of Yamacraw Educational Programs. And the Department of Industry, Trade and Tourism has hired Stan Holm as director of Marketing for Yamacraw.

The Yamacraw Mission is a strategic economic development initiative combining the efforts of academia, industry and state government to promote and brand the state of Georgia as the center for semiconductor chip design in the areas of embedded software, high bandwidth telecommunications, system prototyping and content processing.

Yamacraw has allocated $4 million to this effort with the goal of attracting a major share of electronic design job growth. The research agenda of Yamacraw extends from basic systemon-a-chip electronics through the design of wireless and broadband communications systems. Three major research areas are under way, including embedded software, led by Professor Vijay Madisetti; broadband access hardware, led by Professor Joy Laskar; and system prototyping, led

by Professor Nikil Jayant.

Five institutions are involved in Phase I of the University System of Georgia's Yamacraw Mission project, and jointly they have hired 21 new faculty. These include 15 new faculty in Tech's College of Computing and the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, as well as faculty at Georgia State University, Georgia Southern University, Southern Polytechnic State University and the University of Georgia. OT

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Welcome to

Tomorrow Somewhere between vision and reality—it seems—the future took a detour. Or did it?

By Gary Goettling he future isn't what it used to be. Through much of the 20th century, the popular image of life in the "future"—variously defined—was shaped by unbridled faith in the ability of technology to make everyday life easier. The 1939 World's Fair, and General Motors' EPCOT-like Futurama exhibit in particular, portrayed a destiny marked by automation and streamlined, high-tech efficiency. Those impressions endured through countless movies and television shows from "Flash Gordon" to "Star Trek."

"The 1939 World's Fair is a good beacon because that Winter 2000 • GEORGIA TECH

21

fair was oriented toward envisioning the future rather than celebrating what had already occurred, which was typically the case with fairs," says Dr. Steve Usselman, an associate professor in the School of History, Technology and Society.

Today those images of the future seem humorous, quaint and even naive in their optimism. We don't live in domed cities or scoot around town in personal hovercraft. But in fact, according to Usselman, a number of those futuristic predictions have come true.

On a basic level, he says, the vision begotten by the fair supported a premise that life can be relieved of both hard physical labor and unruliness.

"It's important to remember how far we've come in 60 years," he explains. "Most of us no longer have jobs that require backbreaking

physical work, whereas huge numbers of people used to do that in 1939."

robots, home air conditioning and a model of an interstate highway system.

On the other hand, we're still tired at the end of the day. "We no longer have this optimism that technology is going to relieve us of the need to work, and we don't expect to stop doing the sort of work that most of us do now. To assert otherwise would seem quite naive today."

The fair certainly had its share of misses, too. A cure for cancer still eludes science, and automobiles are not remotely controlled by radio to eliminate congestion and accidents.

And while people tend to focus on predictions that didn't come true, many of the technological marvels presented at the fair did become reality in one form or another, he adds. Commercial television made its debut at the fair and would in years to come fulfill— indeed surpass—its technological expectations, if not its artistic ones. Fair visitors, many sporting metal pins reading "I Have Seen The Future," were introduced to

A Century of Progress, Part I

22

GEORGIA TECH • Winter 2000

Where 1939's "World of Tomorrow" faltered most was in its notion that technology could tame unruliness and bring a sense of order to the world—that everyday life could be made as streamlined, clean and well-organized as a modern kitchen.

When the acquisition of modern conveniences spread and life didn't reach a corresponding higher level of order, people began to question some of their assumptions. The collision between reality and the Utopian promise of 1939 foreshadowed our scaledback expectations of the

future today.

Usselman says the present public's expectation of the 21st century and the future generally has most profoundly been shaped by one of the landmark technical achievements of the past century: the nuclear bomb.

"The bomb changed the perception of scientists as controlling forces to scientists unleashing forces that would be difficult to control," Usselman explains.

"That's an extraordinary change."

While we still embrace new technology for the most part, we no longer expect it to change the essence of our existence. In part, it's because we live in a more skeptical age—and maybe that awakening to the limits of technology created the skepticism. Or perhaps the sheer pace of innovation has made us harder to impress.

In any case, Usselman notes, we've also discovered that

many accomplishments are not without a cost.

He believes that while the fascination with new tech-

"The automobile was

nologies has not dimmed,

portrayed as something that

people are generally more

would actually make life

realistic about the future,

cleaner by allowing you to

and understand that a lot of

escape the city for the un-

the world's problems are not

spoiled countryside/' he

going to yield to technologi-

says. "For years, TV was

cal solutions.

surrounded by an expecta-

"The predictions often

tion that it would uplift and

come true, but they take

engage the population and

longer than anyone thinks

allow us to experience things

and make less of a difference

together. We've come to

than anyone thought," he

realize that yes, TV can do

says. "People who lived

certain things, but it also

before the invention of the

does things that none of us

automobile, for instance, had

are very comfortable with,

the same basic problems and

too."

concerns as people who have grown up with automobiles. Human nature

But grand expectations of the future persist, if on a narrower scale.

doesn't change like technology changes. A lot of the world, and a lot of what we really care about

ot too many

in life, persists." QT

years ago, computer companies held forth the promise of the "paperless office." Today, the Internet is often portrayed as the harbinger of a new era in communications, commerce and personal interaction in virtually every way imaginable.

"In the '30s, you could advance an image in which we could create a world that seemed to improve for everyone," Usselman says.

"You don't hear that sort of prediction today, except maybe in the realm of health."

Steve Usselman: "The predictions often come true, but they take longer than anyone thinks and make I less of a difference than anyone thought."

Quantum Theory Dean Gary B. Schuster of the College of Sciences points to development of the quantum theory as among the most significant achievements of the century.

"It changed the way we view the

physical universe from one of an infinite com tinuum to a universe of discrete states," he says.

Physicist Max Planck's work provided a new foundation in physics and mathematics that ultimately was responsible for the "invention of the transistor, our understanding of spectroscopy, and led to creation of most of the things we think of as technological breakthroughs of

By Gary Goettling Photography by Gary Meek

icking the most significant technological breakthroughs of the past 100 years is tricky business. The nature of technology is such that one discovery often leads to another like falling dominoes, with the ultimate impact on society seemingly far removed from the original invention.

In other cases—nuclear fission is a good example—a single achievement is so extraordinary that it stands alone without a defining context. Undaunted by the task, the deans of Georgia Tech's six colleges offer some perspectives on the discoveries and innovations that shaped the 20th century.

A Century of Progress, Part II

24

GEORGIA TECH » Winter 2000

the 20th century," he explains. "Without that fundamental understanding, none of those technological developments would have occurred."

flf^*1*'

The Stored-Program Computer Among those developments is the stored-program computer, which Dr. Peter A. Freeman rates as one of the great technological advances of the century. The device, the first

practical models of which appeared in the 1940s, was the direct ancestor of the modern computer, explains the dean of the College of Computing. The distinction between it and its

computing-type predecessors is that the operating program resides within the computer and can be modified by the device itself.

"That's the key operational difference," Freeman explains. "It allows a computer to do the things it does. Without the computer being able to modify its own program, and without having that program explicitly stored in the computer so you can replace it with another, you would not have the modern computer."

He adds that the miniaturization of electronics

is a related noteworthy advance, though it's more a process than a single invention.

"Miniaturization is a way of implementing technology," he says. "It has made electronics useful in a wider variety of situations. In theory, without miniaturization you could still have all the computers we have today.

But you couldn't have them sitting on every desktop."

Electronics Revolution Engineering Dean Jean-Lou Chameau notes the importance of the iransisior transistor in in making me maKing ei eiec-, trc nic devices! moW practical) and available. Its Cousin, the microchip, has enabled an electronics revolution in computers, communications and other applications that is still in its infancy, he adds.

Winter 2000 â&#x20AC;˘ GEORGIA TECH

Medical Advances

Bioengineering Dr. Sue V. Rosser, dean of the Ivan Allen College, says the tremendous social gains that followed contraceptive and reproductive technologies rate as important achievements of the past century for both men and women in the United States.

"These technologies have permitted women to limit the number of children they have and decide when they want to have them," she explains. The effect has been to free women from traditional roles to enter the work force in huge numbers. "It has also freed men, in that the responsibility for breadwinning is shared. Also, with smaller families, men don't feel as constrained with just having to earn money to provide for their families."

Looking ahead, the 20th century may one day be best remembered for the development of bioengineering, which owes some of its roots to the contraceptive and reproductive research of the J50s, Rosser says.

"Along with its traditional engineering disciplines, Georgia Tech is moving into biomedical engineering and other kinds of biotechnologies," she says. "The idea of engineering life—gene splicing and sequencing DNA and so forth—represents a fusion of the mechanical with the biological. Many people see this new type of engineering as the technology of the 21st century."

-sr

«•#. '

•

26

GEORGIA TECH • Winter 2000

^

New, transformational technologies related to health and communication—the transistor and silicon chip in particular—have been hallmarks of the past century, and set the stage for the Information Age and the emerging Biotechnology Age, according to Dean Terry C. Blum of the DuPree College of Management.

"These technologies include recombinant DNA—and the implications it has for technology transfer from universities because of the combination of social policy through the Bayh-Dole Bill—penicillin, polio vaccine, oral contraceptives, insulin and Prozac, along with the heart-lung machine: a personal choice since my daughter is alive because of this invention." She also adds public-health measures contributing to clean air and water to the list.

Computers & Glass Curtain Walls From an architectural point of view, Dean Thomas D. Galloway of the College of Architecture points out several key 20th century innovations: computers, which

as design tools allow greater productivity and the ability to handle largescale projects that would be virtually impossible under the manual system, and development of the glasscurtain wall, an innovation that has "facilitated the modern movement in architecture and significantly changed the skylines of American cities."

On a larger scale, Galloway notes that the automobile, though technically a 19th century invention, didn't come into its own until the 20th.

With it came fundamental changes in the built environment, including

m

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the rise of suburbia and the decentralization of the population, highway construction and diminished air quality.

Air conditioning had a tremendous effect not only on buildings, but on re-

gional development patterns in the United States, according to Galloway.

"The growth of the Sunbelt could not have happened at the speed and magnitude it did without air-conditioning systems," he says.

Wide World Photo/Eric Draper

28

GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Winter

2000

Economic Revolution

Winter 2000 â&#x20AC;˘ GEORGIA TECH

29

Alvin Toffler forecasts conflict on rough seas of economic change

Toffler foretells, a state of

the face of the global

upset. It's part of the pack-

emergency was declared by

economy."

age."

Seattle's mayor and hun-

That's the volatile kind of

Everyone is curious about

dreds of unarmed National

economics preached by

the future of the economy,

Guard troops were ordered

Toffler, who speaks of waves

he adds. "I would suggest

into the city. On the second

of social change. And if he's

we pay less attention to the

day of a four-day meeting,

right, grab tight onto your

future of the economy and

uturist Alvin

the city reeled as if under

surfboard, we're riding a

more attention to the

Toffler doesn't

siege while President Bill

new, and dangerous, eco-

economy of the future," he

give a fuzzy

Clinton spoke to the WTO.

nomic wave.

says, wryly twisting the

By John Dunn

forecast about

Critics of the World

First was the agricultural

phrase. "The reason I make

Trade Organization, an

wave, a historical turning

that distinction is that when

economic future: "civiliza-

international tribunal that

point that occurred about

you say the future of the

tion-shaking" change is

sets and enforces the rules of

10,000 years ago. The second

economy, it presupposes

coming.

the global marketplace,

revolutionary economic

that this economy has a

bemoan its broad enforce-

wave, the industrial age,

future." On the other hand,

smoothly," says Toffler,

ment powers that enable it

came between 1650 and

"the economy of the future"

perhaps the most renowned

to supersede national laws,

1750. A new third wave

anticipates preparing for

futurist of the 20th century,

raising issues of sovereignty

began to swell in the mid-

whatever economy the

author of Future Shock, The

and control of a nation's

1950s, when white-collar

future may hold.

Third Wave and Pozvershift.

economy.

and service workers out-

the world's

"It ain't gonna happen

Although his unsettling

The giant AFL-CIO labor

observations are well-

coalition—a confederation of

known, the projection was

labor unions representing 14

restated on Nov. 16,1999,

million organized workers—

Media coverage is "full

numbered blue-collar work-

of international power

ers for the first time.

struggles," Toffler observes.

The world is still trying to operate on a second-wave

"However, shifts of power are also taking place in the

when Toffler spoke at the

vowed to block future trade

industrial age economy,

intimate, everyday world in

"Leadership Forum" at the

agreements that lack protec-

Toffler says, and the shift

which we live—the world of

Carter Center in a program

tions for workers and the

from a second-wave to a

supermarkets, hospitals,

co-sponsored by the DuPree

environment. Organized

third-wave economy will be

banks, offices, television and

College of Management and

labor has come under heavy

"civilization-shaking."

telephones. These power

The Leadership Center.

wage and job pressures from

Just as the agricultural

shifts—largely unnoticed,

low-cost imports produced

era with its feudal system

but equally significant—are

waning days of 1999, one of

in countries where pay is

could not function in the

creating a radically different

the nation's worst urban

well below U.S. levels.

industrial age, Toffler says

society."

Two weeks later, in the

riots erupted in Seattle,

"What we're doing here

the present society operating

In today's market econ-

where tens of thousands of

in Seattle is the beginning—

under the industrial age

omy, products are being

protesters—some hurling

the beginning of a fight we

system will be unable to

created, sold and dropped at

stones, firebombs and fire-

must carry to every level of

function in the new techno-

"turbo-charged speed,"

crackers—clashed with

government in every coun-

logical era.

Toffler says. It's not just the

police. The cause: angry

try in the world," AFL-CIO

opposition to the economic

President John Sweeney

made on a vast scale without

reach the market that is

policies of the World Trade

vowed to a crowd of 35,000

disturbing world order,

dizzying, it's also the kinds

Organization.

at a labor rally in Seattle.

Toffler says. "You do not get

of salable commodities.

"You arc helping us change

these kinds of changes with-

In a national drama that fit the kind of scenario 30

GEORGIA TECH • Winter 2000

Historic change cannot be

out conflict, without social

speed at which products

"We are seeing things

Isold 1 we never saw before, including human organs and genes," Toffler says. The future must resolve major ethical issues, calling for answers that will be controversial and potentially explosive.

The economies of technologically advanced countries and thirdworld countries alike will feel the impact. merica is suffering simultaneous crises in education, health care, families, justice, politics and many other areas," Toffler says. "These systems were designed to work in a mass industrial society. America is leaving those systems behind and is moving into a radically different world."

Information technology and the pervasive influences of the World Wide Web and the Internet are changing every aspect of economics and business, stimulating an innovation of online trading, the vast expansion of production management, mergers of banks, an explosion of new products, risk management, and an arena of constantly changing world politics and trade that grow in complexity.

"We're going to see fundamental change in the very institutions that govern the global financial system," Toffler says. It is a future that could see central banks replaced with a global electronic system that operates instantaneously in real time.

"If even central banks are threatened by today's technological advances, how long do you think other key

institutions can survive?" he wonders.

"What's going to happen, not just to capital, but to money?" he asks. Instead of hard currency, the future may offer special purpose money.

"We don't need actual money," Toffler says. He foresees the use of financial cards that could be spent only for specific purposes.

For example, a student may have a card that can be spent to buy lunch, school supplies or for transportation, but will not purchase tobacco or alcohol.

People are again becoming what Toffler calls "prosumers." In the agricultural age, people produced their own crops, sewed their own clothes, built their own homes. They produced for their own consumption. The industrial age created an era of consumers. Products were

mass produced at economies of scale for public consumption.

In the new emerging economy, people are again becoming prosumers, Toffler says.

"How many have bought an airline ticket on the 'Net?" Toffler asks. Hands are raised across the room.

"We buy our own airline tickets; we track our own packages; we do our own financial research. Many functions that we used to pay somebody to do, we now do ourselves. We can do it ourselves because our technology makes its possible. The consumer has been turned again into the prosumer. We are producing our own services."

In some cases, companies are eliminating employees and putting customers to work, he says. Companies, in effect, are transferring labor costs to the customers.

A Century of Progress, Part III

Winter 2000 â&#x20AC;˘ GEORGIA TECH

31

There are advantages to being able to go online at 3 a.m. to buy tickets or track a package anytime, anyplace, and customers may be willing to "make that trade."

"It means that many of us, in addition to our jobs and in addition to our home responsibilities, which really amounts to a second job, are now doing additional work that others previously did for us," Toffler says. "No wonder many of us feel stressed, harassed, hurried and future-shocked."

Toffler wonders: If the work done by customers eliminates jobs, shouldn't customers share in the return? The payback may come in the form of better quality, better service and lower prices.

But Toffler foresees a day of reckoning. "When customers wake up to what is happening, they'll see the role in a different light," he says. "1 would not be surprised to see them organize and demand price cuts."

Today's technology is de-massifying mass production. consumer can a purchase a item onlineâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;effectively becoming prosumer by participating in the production process. The 32

GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Winter 2000

specs of the order activate the production line, and simultaneously inform all parts of the supply chain.

Survival in the emerging economic era demands a business strategy, he says.

"Some management gurus say that what is needed today is not strategy, but agility. That you can substitute agility for strategy. If a company is quick enough, adaptive enough, flexible enough, it won't need a strategy.

"You certainly need to be agile. You certainly need to able to adapt quickly to today's accelerated economy, but agility is not a substitute for strategy. Agility without strategy is reaction.

It merely subordinates your organization to someone else's."

In the fast-paced economy, any strategy must be agile and flexible, he says.

"The real key to success tomorrow is a business strategy that brings other programs, partners, competitors, cooperators, suppliers and customers into your orbit. So that their fate depends on your success."

In a question and answer session, Toffler addressed the crises in education.

"What is the model" school systems should follow?

"The easy thing is to say what not to do," he answered. "We did that in

Winter 2000 • GEORGIA TECH

33

Future Shock. We said that basically what we have is schools that operate like a factory. They take kids, measure them going in, subject them to routine processing. You ask the kids to go through rote and repetitive work, like they would do in a factory. And you measure them coming out and dump them into the economy. That made perfectly good sense during the industrial age. But now we're preparing kids to be good factory workers in an economy that is not going to have any factory jobs."

The school system simulated a future in which those students were going to participate. "We are, by continuing this system, simulating a future they will not have. We are preparing them to be good factory workers for an economy that is not going to have any

factory jobs. We are cheating them. We're spending a quarter-to-half-a-trillion dollars to do it."

The root of the problem is that it cannot be solved in the classroom, Toffler says.

"Kids do not learn in school alone. They learn from the street; they learn from television; they learn from other students; they learn from computers; they learn from all kinds of places, not just the classrooms."

In Brazil, a television network had its stars and celebrities travel around the country, meeting students and encouraging them to study and learn. The purpose was to motivate students, Toffler saysâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;"that's terrific."

Every community has knowledgeable, educated people representing every conceivable occupation, who

A Century of Progress, Part IV

34

GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Winter 2000

can both motivate and teach, he says. But because they may not have a degree in education, "The teacher's union doesn't want them.

We are going to have to overcome this and develop a system of adjunct teachers, with whom we can tap into the community's available distributed knowledge.

"The entire society is becoming more diverse and the schools need to reflect that, anticipate that and prepare for that."

I

'm not just talking about diversity ethnically, but diversity occupationallyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;every way. People say, 'Are you in favor of vouchers?' Well, I'm not a product of the public school system. I waited 30 years for the public system

to diversify. It hasn't. I'm in favor of anything that breaks up the uniformity."

Toffler is concerned that vouchers could harden lines between income classes in schools, "so the vouchers have to be big enough to matter, not just a trivial amount."

If someone makes a proposal to reform the school system, Toffler asks, will the reform "further the factory system or take it out? We have to be much more revolutionary in our thinking.

"As the economy of the future takes form, all of us face the wildest, fastest ride into the future of any generation in the past," Toffler says. "We face countless new challenges and struggles as the new economy of the future, a new civilization arrives." QT

Futurist ^avid

What does social futurist Alvin Toffler see, looking back at the past millennium? Would, for example, any one person qualify as the most outstanding "Individual of the Millennium?"

T

here's a gang of them/' says the author of Powershift, Future Shock and The Third Wave.

"The kinds of changes that we are witnessing now, and the kinds of changes that have taken place during the last thousand years that have been truly civilization-shaking, were not the products of one person anywhere," Toffler said in an interview at the Carter Center following a talk to the "Leadership Forum," an event co-sponsored by Georgia Tech's DuPree College of Management and the Leadership Center.

"Probably the most important event of the last thousand years was the rise of an industrial society—something previously unknown on the planet after 10,000 years of peasant-based societies. That was not the doing of any one person."

The "gang" includes such giants as Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton, and the idealism of the French enlightenment—Toffler stops the list and adopts another strategy.

"I can tell you a story that illustrates what I'm saying."

He tells the story of the Lunar Society, which met monthly in Birmingham, England, on the night of the full moon from 1765 to 1805. Although their neighbors called them lunatics, Toffler explains their rationale: "It was dangerous to walk the streets, but on the night of the full moon, you had better light. It was safer.

"They never in all those 40 years passed a resolution and never made a common decision. But they just talked and wrote each other letters. They smelled the future.

They had a sense that something—they didn't call it the industrial revolution—something gigantic was coming.

Looking back, we now know who they were: Benjamin Franklin (when he was in England), Erasmus Darwin (Charles Darwin's grandfather), Matthew Boulton (who with James Watt built the steam engine). They were entrepreneurs; they were scientists (as they were known in those days); they were philosophers; they were business people, and they were regarded as hicks by the Royal Society in London. There were groups like that formed in many places, but they [members of the Lunar Society! were the memorable ones."

What about the milestones that shaped the past century?

.

|r

•

7

Toffler makes a point with Dea$ Terry Blum (right).

Toffler's answer comes readily.

"The shift from a traditional, smokestack, lunch-pail economy and culture," Toffler says tops his list. This "historical turning point" of human social development, which he calls the "Third Wave," occurred in the United States about 1955, during the decade in which whitecollar and service workers outnumbered blue-collar workers for the first time.

It was during the 1950s, he says, that a number of innovations started becoming widespread, including the computer, commercial air travel and birth-control pills.

In his book, The Third Wave, Toffler calls this dawn of a new age "the single most explosive fact of our lifetimes."

According to Toffler's social "wave-front" analysis, the first wave or turning point in human development was the rise of agriculture, which began about 10,000 years ago. The second wave was the industrial era, which began between 1650 and 1750.

The third wave is an era of technology that has been called the Space Age, Information Age, Electronic Era, Global Village and, by Toffler, a "super-industrial society." None of the labels, including his own, measure up, he says.

Milestones of the past century include "the development of tools to empower the intellect," Toffler says.

"Also, the biological discoveries of DNA and the human genome project are immense historical events. They dwarf the cold war.

"Certainly the world wars were enormous, powerful, world-shaking events, but when we look back from 100 years or 200 years or 300 years, they will not be remembered as well as [the biological breakthroughs]."

—John Dunn

Winter 2000 • GEORGIA TECH

35

The Future Of Enginee/in Educatk) The future of engineering education is of considerable importance to our nation, our educational institutions and, of consequence, to me. As an engineer, I am concerned about my profession.

As an engineering educator of some 30 years, have a vested interest in ensuring the opportunities that I experienced are available to future generations. As the president of a university that graduates the largest number of engineers in the nation, I feel a heavy responsibility for the more than 2,000 engineering graduates that leave Georgia Tech each year and the growing number of engineers who return to us for skills renewal.

By Wayne Clough

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t is always dangerous to talk about the future of anything. When computers were first created, T.J. Watson, the founder of IBM, predicted we might need about six of them. As recently as 1977, Ken Olsen, the founder of Digital Equipment Corp., believed that none of us would ever have a computer in our homes. These men were leaders and experts in their fields, and they still got it wrong. So I am a reluctant to make specific pronounce36

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ments about the future of engineering education.

But I believe we are at a critical moment in the life of engineering education, and I want to explore some of the forces at large in the world today that will shape the look of engineering education in the future.

To begin, we have to appreciate that many prestigious and thoughtful groups have studied and opined about the future of engineering education. They have correctly told us that the world of engineering work has changed, and we should focus more effort on teambased learning, problems with open-ended solutions, additional hands-on projects and communications. In the past decade we have made progress towards these objectives, but we have limited the potential of our efforts by working within the constraints of two tacit assumptions.

The first is that the university within which engineering is taught is a static entity that has its full focus on a pure educational mission.

In an ideal world, this would be true, but today's university is a complex organization whose attention span has been shortened by dealing with conflicting pressures from the political realm, financial issues, technological challenges and emerging new competition.

In The New York Times, John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems, recently predicted that education will overshadow e-mail as the next killer application for the Internet. So as we think about engineering education and what we might do about it, remember that the parent 38

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organization within which it fits is no longer a contemplative place with ivy-covered walls, but a moving target.

Providing a "fix" for engineering education in today's university is like trying to perform open heart surgery on a marathon runner during the race.

arguing about shifting a few credit hours here or there.

Look back to Washington Irving's famous story about Rip Van Winkle. If you remember, Rip inadvertently slept for 20 years, and when he awoke, things had changed so much that he did not recognize his hometown and had no idea how to fit into this new society.

The story of Rip Van Winkle was an allegory for the dramatic change brought about by the industrial revolution. Today, we are in the midst of a technology revolution that is even larger and more dramatic in its sweep than the industrial revolution. Its impact on the university and its component parts, engineering education among them, is substantial.

And the pace of change is so fast that you don't need to sleep for 20 years to feel like you don't know what's happening. By the time we feel like we are beginning to understand the present, it is already disappearing.

tween higher education and the workplace.

Both of higher education's traditional customers —its students and their prospective employers—are making new demands. The equation is being further changed by the growing need for hundreds of thousands of workers to update their skills. We have talked for some time about lifelong learning, but the subject is now staring us in the face.

Access to quality engineering education for both traditional and nontraditional students is an issue for all of us. If we don't do something about it, someone else will.

These students use technology to the max. And we are seeing our traditional market change as bright, young, technology-savvy students opt out of completing their college degrees, or in some cases even skip the whole college experience.

And employers are paying them handsomely for skills they have learned outside mainstream education.

dramatically.

Rapid change is particularly disorienting for higher education because we tend to be tradition bound. Yes, the chalkboard gradually gave way to the dry-marker board, and after 30 years in the bowling alley, the overhead projector finally made it into the classroom. But on the whole, professors have continued to function pretty much the same as professors have functioned for decades, even for centuries.

e must understand that we limit our horizons by hoping the university will pay attention to our particular professional problems and by

Like Rip Van Winkle, higher education is awaking today to find itself in a much different environment—an environment that is more market-driven and more competitive than in the past.

There is a disconnect be-

The second confining assumption is to view engineering education as the sum of its curricular parts.

We teach engineering theory, design and some elements of practice. We require students to study the essential math and sciences that form the knowledge base for our profession. And our students take the humanities and social science courses that constitute the core of any higher-education curriculum.

Past discussions of engineering education have largely focused on how to squeeze an adequate amount of each of these ingredients into the four-year framework of the conventional bachelor's degree program.

And the goal of the discussion is usually to negotiate an acceptable compromise among the champions of these various elements.

But when you step back and look at the larger picture, the perspective changes

Our traditional market has been the high school graduate. These young people have grown up playing computer and video games. They have learned computer programming in summer camps. They parallel process and play games in which they can change the ending based on how the game is played.

The talent war has become so fierce in the information-technology industry that they have even begun to recruit high school students.

The New York Times recently quoted an executive who said, "It doesn't matter if they have a high school diploma or a college degree.

It just depends on whether they have the skill sets and the experience."

This situation, among others, led management consultant Peter Drucker to predict the near-term demise of brick-and-mortar institutions. If we want his prediction to suffer the same fate as T.J. Watson's and Ken Olsen's, we cannot sit idly by and expect the world to continue to beat a path to our door.

The future of engineering education goes beyond the question of how to juggle disciplinary ingredients.

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t becomes a question of how teaching and learning will occur in an era of revolutionary new trmation technology and a fast-paced economy in which the university as an institution must think about its own survival strategy.

Fortunately, every time of challenge is also a time of opportunity. This new age of technology has created a tremendous demand for engineers, and most employers want someone who has a full-degree experience. It has the potential to be an exciting time for engineering education, with significant opportunities to make the teaching of engineering practice more interesting than ever before.

Our challenge is to make engineering education relevant, to reflect the new business world of venture capital and start-ups, to use technology to enhance learning and improve access and

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to engage our engineering faculties and programs.

To paraphrase that great philosopher Wayne Gretsky, if we skate to where the puck is now, we will be too late. We need to skate to where the puck will be.

7 would first stress the importance of building innovative interdisciplinary approaches to the issues the university needs to help society address.

Engineering faculty and our educational processes need to move outside traditional disciplinary restraints to engage colleagues in business, policy, science and architecture in creating the skill sets needed for the future. This means both in research and in curriculum.

An elegant example is what we need to do to help preserve the environment for future generations. No task is more important than this, and our universities need to be at the forefront of the effort. Yet even today, many universities have compartmentalized their environmental efforts into specialty areas within engineering or science, and the two are often at odds. We are often still wedded to the notion that environmental preservation and economic development are oppositesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;you have to choose one and do it at the expense of the other. And it is true that the global industrialization and new technologies of the 20th century have helped to stretch the capacities of our finite natural system to precarious levels.

But engineering and its technological derivatives can also help remedy the problem. The well-being of future generations depends on a

new breed of engineer who will develop and use the sustainable technology and the benign manufacturing processes that will simultaneously support a healthy economy and a healthy environment.

As we attempt to educate that new breed of engineers, our goal should not be to create a new academic major or degree, but rather to approach all of engineering education from a sustainability perspective, so that all the engineers we graduate are sensitive to the impact of their decisions on the natural environment.

A second major force injhe world at large that must permeate the mindset of engi-_ neering education is the entrepreneurism that is driving the new economy.

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he pace of technological innovation has become incredibly rapid, which creates openings for something or someone new to get a foot in the door. As a result, the economy has become entrepreneurial. It is exciting, and our students are gravitating toward it, but not much in the engineering education curriculum today reflects this development.

When I was an undergraduate at Georgia Tech three decades ago, my fellow students used to discuss which large corporation they would work for and what the pension plan looked like.

Today, we have to help our students envision themselves as entrepreneurs running successful start-up companies.

Further, all of today's industries, not just the new start-ups, must be nimble and creative to survive.

Hewlett Packard reports that 60 percent of its sales today come from products introduced in only the past two years. Innovation and time to market are crucial, so even the largest corporations are looking for engineers who think like entrepreneurs. In addition to being technically competent, engineers must also be creative in problem-solving, perceptive about the global economy, knowledgeable about management, and able to communicate their ideas effectively.

Engineers are naturals for this entrepreneurial culture, but to prepare them and to show engineering's link to it, we need to work with faculty in business management and related fields to help our graduates develop the broader range of skills they will need.

Information technology is a third agent of change in my

list, not only because of the new economic ventures it has generated, but also because it is influencing the way engineers do business and the future of the teaching and learning environment.

The Boeing 777 is a good case study of how information technology is revolutionizing engineering practice. This airplane is one of the world's largest and most complex machines. It has 132,500 uniquely engineered parts that were designed in

12 different nations. In the United States alone, 487 suppliers made parts for it.

Yet no full-scale mock-up of the plane was ever made to make sure all the parts would fit together. It was simply built and flown.

What made it work was a team process that brought together representatives from design, analysis, manufacturing, tooling, materials and customer serviceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;plus vendors and customers. The design of the parts was coordinated across company lines and national boundaries using compatible software on network computers.

Three-dimensional parts and systems were electronically assembled and tested on workstation display screens.

This kind of multidisciplinary collaboration through technology will soon characterize the world in which our students will work. And they need to know how to work with diverse partners on electronically connected teams that span a global economy.

The parallel to the use of technology for collaborative design in industry is its use in delivering education and assisting in learning.

Computer usage by individuals has been pervasive at universities for more than a decade, and many universities have begun to use telecommunications technology to deliver distancelearning courses. But it is the near revolutionary expansion of the Internet that is awakening us, specifically the development of virtual universities.

And if John Chambers is correct, the biggest jolt for education is yet to come.

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If you take Georgia Tech as an example, you can see the power of the changes, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

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n the past five years, we have installed 1,700 miles of fiber-optic wiring on our campus, and we are developing a pervasive wireless communications network as well.

We require all students to own computers that meet specified standards. Some 280 of our courses incorporate Web-based activities, and we have created Classroom 2000, where the notes the professor writes on the board appear like magic on the screens of the students' computers.

With the help of Hewlett Packard, Intel and Texas Instruments among others, our School of Electrical and Computer Engineering is remaking its undergraduate curriculum under the theme "Digital First," with the goal of having a fully computerand Internet-based delivery by the year 2001.

This year, we began to offer a master's degree in mechanical engineering over the Internet, a degree program that was developed with the help of the Sloan Foundation specifically for Internet delivery. We will bring two more Internet master's degrees online within the next year, or so.

Our objective is not to use technology for technology's sake, but to use its power to free faculty members for increased interaction with 42

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my connotation, engineering their students, and to create greater access to information practice involves the ability to compromise within time while improving the learnconstraints, to define the ing process. We also expect problem rather than having this technology will help us it handed to you, and to deal address the needs of our with political pressures. It nontraditional students who involves an appreciation of are seeking continuing eduethics and an understanding cation, by delivering it to of one's civic obligations. them at their jobs or in their homes.

The umbrella of engineering practice is also a powerAll of this development, ful incubator for success for which is in full support of the large number of our the institutional goals of graduates who leave the Georgia Tech and engineerprofession for other puring, is helping us prepare to suits. This dimension of avoid the dismal fate Peter engineering education is Drucker predicted for brickimportant as we recognize and-mortar universities.

There are of course many that the growing dependency of society on technolquestions about education ogy will inevitably result in technology. Are all of these measures going to be effective? many of our graduates being Will students learn more and called upon to be leaders of their businesses and commubetter? nities in the future.

These questions and others deserve careful study, and we will continue to put The teaching of the ourselves to the test, but we cannot just stand by, warmpractice of engineering ing up on the sidelines for a is not something race that is already underway. easily done, and not The trends towards all faculty are able to things interdisciplinary, entrepreneurial and infordo it, particularly mation technology-based at the beginning represent departures from what we have done before. of their careers.

However, the future of engineering education also has to recognize a fourth agent, one ndeed, it is unrealistic that is not so new, but which is to expect all faculty to needed more than ever before in come with recent, today's fast paced worldâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;one hands-on experience in that we have neglected in recentengineering. But it is our times. That is, the importance responsibility to have of instilling in our graduates an enough faculty with the understanding of what it means requisite experience to teach to practice engineering. well-designed capstone Many of the pieces I have courses that draw together the threads of a student's already mentioned relate to education and apply them to the practice of engineering practical projects. in our modern world, but the essence of engineering These projects should practice is more than this. In challenge our students in as

I

many aspects of engineering practice as possible and enable a rich discourse to occur with faculty as the solutions are worked out.

Over time, senior faculty must help mentor young faculty on the path toward learning what engineering practice is so they, in turn, can teach it. To ensure we have built the appropriate infrastructure, each engineering department should annually assess itself to see that it is working as a unit in such a way as to impart what it means to practice engineering to its graduates.

So I have made the case for four of the challenges facing engineering educators. Each is important, and it is my opinion we can best address them if we come from the view of the larger perspective and that of the universities within which we work.

There is no easy answer and no magic ingredient that will work the same for each institution.

The good news is that our future lies in our hands, and it is one of opportunityâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; opportunity to become involved with the entrepreneurial business world; opportunity to be more resourceful in our use of technology in the education process; opportunity to infuse our curriculum with concepts like sustainable technology; opportunity to prepare our students for the leadership responsibilities they will face; and the opportunity to help our universities renew their value to society, OT Dr. Wayne Clough, CE '64, MS CE '65, is president of Georgia Tech.

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Building the

Future corgia Tech has always been devoted to building the future. And while no one can predict with precision what the next century will bring, it's a sure bet that technology will continue to play a transformational role in the ways people will work, communicate and spend their leisure time. It's also safe to predict that many of these new technologies will owe their existence to research conducted at Georgia Tech. Here is a sampling of some of the many promising areas of research under way that may hold important implications for life in the 21st century.

By Gary Goettling Photography by Gary Meek

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Weaving Technology into Shirts A seamless T-shirt woven with fiber optics and electrically conductive thread could portend a 21st century fashion that saves lives.

Called a sensate liner, the garment's circuitry collects vital-sign information from sensors woven in the fabric and attached to the body, and passes them to a pager-size processor that analyzes the data and transmits it via satellite to a central monitoring station.

In essence, the shirt acts as "a computer motherboard," says Dr. Sundaresan Jayaraman of Georgia Tech's School of Textile and Fiber Engineering and principal investigator for the project.

The shirt was originally developed for the military as a high-tech triage and locating tool.

"The sensate liner can help a physician determine the extent of a soldier's injuries based on the strength of his heartbeat and respiratory rate," says Jayaraman. "This information is vital for assessing who needs assistance first during emergency situations in which there are numerous casualties."

Jayaraman says the shirt can be modified for other health-monitoring situations. Hospital personnel could keep watch on the progress of surgery patients recovering at home, or on the health of vulnerable elderly individuals living alone. Incorporated into the design of pajamas, the sensate liner could monitor the respiratory rate of babies at risk for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. NASA could employ the lightweight garment to monitor vital signs of astronauts, and athletes could wear the garment to monitor and reach their optimal heart and respiratory rates during training.

Building Awareness in the Home

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With automation touching and transforming so many aspects of life, it's inevitable that technology will leave an indelible mark on home life as well.

Under the auspices of Georgia Tech's Broadband Institute and the Future Computing Environments Group, a "living laboratory" is being constructed near campus to develop computing applications in and around the home environment.

Dubbed "The Aware Home," the residence will have two identical and independent living spaces consisting of two bedrooms, two bathrooms, one office, kitchen, dining room, living room and laundry room. The home also will boast a shared basement with an entertainment area and control room for centralized computing services.

The Aware Home will qualify everyday activities with an eye toward identifying those who may benefit from computerized assistance, and provide a real-word testbed for new applications as they are developed.

The inaugural residents of the two-story home will probably be Tech students involved in the project. Researchers hope eventually to host a family and elderly occupants as representative of groups expected to benefit

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from the research.

While the home will include high-tech information and multimedia entertainment services, the project is more ambitious. The name—Aware Home—suggests an environment where a ubiquitous computer infrastructure provides seamless human-computer interaction. This interface may be accomplished through a combination of sensors in the house and a wearable computer device.

"By learning about users' habits and behavior, embedded systems in the home may perform complex, seemingly intelligent tasks automatically," says Assistant Professor Irfan Essa in the College of Computing. "Part of the technological and social challenge is determining where to put various interaction and sensor technologies for maximum benefit."

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Adds Dr. Thad Starner of the College of Computing, "The home can contain a large amount of computation and infrastructure for sensing at a distance, while a wearable has the advantage of immediate and intimate contact with the user. The data gathered on the wearable might be filtered and released to the environmental infrastructure as appropriate."

A key technology associated with tracking individuals as they move throughout the home is called "smart floor," a system that identifies and locates a person based solely on his or her footsteps.

"We will place strategically sized and located forcesensitive load tiles throughout the Aware Home to gather footstep data from occupants," says Dr. Gregory D. Abowd, an assistant professor in the College of Computing.

"The tiles are flush with the floor and consist of a metal plate supported by four industrial load cells; the data we gather from these tiles are known as ground reaction force (GRF) profiles. We have gathered sets of training data to create footstep models for each person; we then compare each new GRF profile against these models and search for the best match."

Georgia Tech researchers are also evaluating systems based on grids of piezoelectric wires, grids of deformationsensitive optical fibers and networks of vibration sensors attached to the underside of the flooring.

"In this tracking system, we will establish identity and a location landmark using the Smart Floor tiles, and track the movement of users with the finer-grained system," Abowd says.

Applications developed at Aware Home may one day help parents keep track of infants and toddlers easier, turn lights on and off when someone enters or leaves a room, and even find commonly misplaced items such as car keys and eyeglasses.

Aware Home technology could also allow the elderly to live more independently in their own homes for a longer period of time.

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Accommodating an Aging Population In the first half of the next century, unprecedented numbers of people will retire from the workforce. By 2030, 22 percent of the U.S. population—66 million people— will be over age 65. Their continued quality of life may depend in part upon Georgia Tech research.

"I'm interested in solving important, fundamental problems of cognition and aging, and skill acquisition and aging," says psychology Professor Arthur D. Fisk.

"It's also important to determine what aspects of system design, product design, training and the activities of daily living we really need to worry about from an age-

Engineering Better Health "In the future, to be a premier technical institute will require a strong commitment to biosciences and the engineering and technology that flow from it," says Dr. Robert Nerem, director of the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience.

Tech's presence in the rapidly growing field of biotechnology covers many fronts. Nerem's research is focused on understanding the effects of blood flow on the cells that line blood vessels, and the development of substitute blood vessels made from natural materials.

Artificial tissue is also the emphasis of Dr. Athanassios Sambanis, an associate professor in the School of Chemical Engineering. He is creating an implantable structure of insulin-secreting cells that would provide normal pancre46

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related perspective."

Fisk is associated with the Center for Applied Cognitive Research on Aging, a consortium of researchers.

Computer usage by older adults along with improvements in access, training and design are among the center's activities.

At Tech, researchers are testing new software to help older adults overcome decreased fine motor control that makes it difficult for them to use a computer mouse or joystick. They're also working with University of Georgia faculty to encourage older adults to use the Internet, which could be a primary source of social

interaction, entertainment, information, goods and services in the next century.

"The implication is that young people today are going to have no problem with technology in the future," says Fisk, who also serves as president of the

national Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. "Technology is advancing at a very, very rapid rate. We have to design technology appropriately from a human perspective, so that humans can interact properly, efficiently and safely with it."

atic function for diabetics.

Bioinformatics is an innovative way of managing the staggering amount of information in DNA—a prerequisite for the development of new genetically engineered medical applications and pharmaceuticals in the 21st century.

Dr. Mark Borodovsky, a professor of biology and mathematics, invented a technique that employs statistical pattern recognition to help scientists locate certain

genes and the resulting protein sequences in complex DNA molecules. A software program, GeneMark, has already been used to decipher the genome of certain bacteria species. A new version has been developed for locating genes in humans.

A partnership between Tech and the Medical College of Georgia could provide more convenient medical checkups. Telemedicine technology involves two-way

audio and visual connections between doctors and their patients in private or nursing homes.

"A client/server database structure has been developed to capture and store vitalsigns measurements performed by the patient," says Michael Burrow, a senior research engineer at Tech.

"This allows the care provider to access the patient's data from any location and to input additional data. Eventually, the system will be compatible with hospital database systems, which will create another avenue to input and access patient data."

Telemedicine technology has enabled Medical College of Georgia doctors to remotely monitor the health of patients.

In the future, the telecommunications link between physician and patient could include a wider range of inhome measurement and testing to allow for "electronic house calls," Burrow says.

Predicting Consequences of the Information Revolution Information technology will have a profound effect upon many—but by no means all—aspects of everyday life in the new millennium, according to participants in an informal project called "Information Revolution: Its Current and Future Consequences." It's also the title of a recently published book that grew out of the year-long series of meetings and research reports.

"In the 1980s, information technology (IT) took off," says Dr. Alan Porter, a professor of industrial and systems engineering and director of the Technology Policy and Assessment Center. Computing went from an occasional activity for specialists to routine in the lives of most technical professionals, he says, before spreading to embrace the lives of white-collar workers, students, bluecollar workers and, finally, to appear in homes.

"In the 1990s, we've become networked—first the technical community, then business and school, then home—via modems, Ethernet, some broadband and wireless. That's an IT Revolution.

"Now we're poised for the Information Revolution," Porter explains.

"Newly accessible digitally formatted information is woven into our daily lives.

Technical professionals first, then white-collar workers and students, then most of us will rebuild our work and home lives around this resource: ubiquitous electronic information."

Project participant Dr. Richard Barke of the School of Public Policy agrees with conventional wisdom that the evolution of information technology will increase the pace and volume of electronic human interaction.

But he also points out the

limits of technology.

"The devices of the Information Revolution will not eliminate the interpersonal aspects of commerce and education," Barke says.

"The important social aspects of commerce and education—gathering, sharing, learning about behavior, spontaneously connecting with others—that require face-to-face contact will not decrease significantly. People will continue to congregate in classrooms, offices, churches, bars and shopping malls."

Another member of the interdisciplinary group, Dr. Donghua Zhu, expects the information revolution to move beyond human-machine interface to more common machine-to-machine interaction. "Look for the coming of the automatic information finding, classi-

fying and processing machine," says the visiting professor in the Technology Policy and Assessment Center.

Gary S. Tjaden, director of the Center for Enterprise Systems, Information Technology and Telecommunications Laboratory at the Georgia Tech Research Institute, believes decentralization will be a key development in the wake of new information technology developed and deployed in the coming decades.

He predicts that "the network computer will not be a successful product; governments will lose control of their currencies and the ability to control interest rates; communications industries that developed as monopolies, oligopolies or because of sheer size will wither."

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"Science unleashes a tremendous new source of energy," trumpeted Collier's magazine in story and illustration in its July, 1940, edition. "Here are the things, fantastic only yesterday, that you'll probably live to see."

Future

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n illustration in the July 1940 issue of Collier's magazine shows people lounging in an underground bunker that looks a lot like the set of the 1960s sitcom, the "Dick Van Dyke Show." Above them, nuclear-powered cars glide along straight highways; airplanes take off like rockets straight into the air. One floor below, farmers tend corn and other vegetables growing strong and straight in rooms flooded with artificial light.

Welcome to The Future, scheduled to arrive somewhere around the year 2000. What happened?

By Karen Hill Illustrations by Mac Evans 48

GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Winter 2000

Some predictions did, of course, come true. Glow-in-the-dark medicine helps people beat cancer; central air conditioning cools windowless buildings. Submarines prowl the darkest depths of all the oceans while astronauts have lived, albeit uncomfortably, in orbit for months at a time. The "mimex machine" envisioned by scientist Vannevar Bush in 1945 now goes by the colloquial "desktop computer with graphics interface and a scanner."

But in other ways, The Future got mugged.

Was it in the '60s?

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In that decade, Vietnamese peasants trumped the U.S. military. Environmentalists forced us to confront the terrible price our bodies and our environment were paying for air and water pollution, and nuclear byproducts. Thalidomide babies gave a heartbreaking warning that new medicines came wrapped in unintended consequences. Hippies turned the corporate motto "better living through chemistry" into a joke DuPont executives never anticipated. The futuristic World's Fairs that energized and enthralled people got co-opted by television— announcements of one breakthrough at a time, on the nightly news—and Disney, whose

theme parks became a sort of permanent World's Fair.

Only in 20th century America did people so enthusiastically embrace the idea that tremendous change was always just around the corner, that Utopia was just one "Eureka!" away. It was a belief bolstered by incredible optimism and the hard-won realization that technology was a key factor in military and economic superiority. It was a belief also bolstered by gnawing fear—of another Depression, another world war, social chaos.

"The 20th century has seen an exponential growth in technology. Also, we have seen technology become institutionalized in national policy. The impact of World War I and World War II are key: Technology is the key to victory, to having a role in the world, to being a global economic power, to having influence and strength," says Gus Giebelhaus, Callaway

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Professor of the History of Technology at Tech.

It's also the century when the largest businesses created their own research and development arms: General Electric, DuPont, Standard Oil, Bell Labs, for a few names on the honor roll.

It's not that discoveries and inventions of previous centuries weren't of at least equal value, Giebelhaus says.

It's that in an unparalleled way, the full power of government and business was yoked to finding^ new things and new ways to use them.

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or example, the medieval invention of horse collars that allowed farmers to yoke two animals together revolutionized efficiency and output, notes Giebelhaus. But there was no Dark Ages version of Popular Mechanics to spread word of the invention, no Bell Labs to figure out other ways to use horsepower, no government grants to support the nimble thinkers who might have come up with more had they not had to go out and plow.

It wasn't until this century, Giebelhaus adds, that historians began to appreci-

ate the role of technology in human development.

"When we've thought about history, it's in terms of the ecclesiastical, the military, the dynasties," says Giebelhaus. "But, for example, the Protestant idea of 'every man his own priest' was only possible when every man could have his own Bible, after Gutenberg invented his printing press."

Americans' enthusiam for technological change seems to have begun with the novels of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells and George Orwell, even though the authors included dire warnings in many of their works. Wells, for example, predicted a return to the Dark Ages following a global war ended by a single horrible weapon of mass destruction—a premonition of the horror that struck Nagasaki and Hiroshima. But Wells did not anticipate that a nation caught in the devastating theater of a World War would come out of that brutal conflict capable of the Marshall Plan, or of rebuilding Japan.

At about the same time these authors were spinning their tales of globe-circling balloons and such, Albert Einstein introduced his theory of relativity. With e=mc2, the shy, slight physicist plunged into the mysterious connection between

collection of essays, Imagining Tomorrow.

The Year 2000 As Viewed in the 1950s matter and energy, the two building blocks of the universe. Fast-forward just two decades from Einstein's 1905 pronouncement: One year, 1927, saw Charles Lindbergh fly nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean, talking movies, the first television, the Model-A Ford. Just as scientists were unravelling the secrets of the cosmos, they were making life on Earth a lot more entertaining.

No wonder people thought the sky would soon be no limit.

But The Future we were all careening toward dived nose-first into the Great Depression. It was a mess that Herbert Hoover, one of the nation's foremost engineers and humanitarians before he became president, couldn't figure out how to fix. It led to deep doubts as to whether capitalism was really a workhorse that

could sustain long-term prosperity.

It took Big Government to pull the nation out of that hole, with lots of money paid for old-fashioned, backbreaking labor such as building trails through national parks and leveling roads. But once out, Americans embraced The Future again with fervor.

fhe~J939 New York ~ World's Fair topped any of its predecessors, with exhibits ranging from robots that smoked cigarettes to "full-scale models of futuristic homes

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ne model home was built of glass that, in addition to looking really neat, was supposed to turn the occupants' focus "outward instead of inward," according to Folke T. Kihlstedt in the

The Utopia envisioned at these world fairs was, for the first time, primarily urban.

America had pretty much run out of frontier, so visionaries waved bye-bye to Thomas Jefferson and his antiquated Utopia where everyone milked cows.

Why would The Future be so much better than the present? We'd have a lot more free time, be happier, and ultimately become a much nobler species. For example, people thought laying telegraphic cable across the Atlantic Ocean, accomplished just over a century ago, would signal the beginning of world peace. No misunderstood messages, no wars.

Moving ahead to 1927, one well-received design for mass-produced, aluminum houses included a "creative room." In a house with timesaving devices ranging from vacuum toothbrushes to selfactivating washers, humans would have plenty of time to do what they wanted.

We did, in fact, get a lot of labor-saving devices in this century. What no one predicted is that we'd let work grow exponentially to fill the void.

"Washers and electric irons didn't liberate women at all," as one example, says Giebelhaus. "It simply made

them more productive; everyone started wearing clean underwear every day.

Women simply started taking on new tasks. Freed from the home, they started driving their kids around in station wagons.

"This is one way technology can be seen as exploitive."

Neither have our wireless phones and palm-pilots turned us into the happy, shiny people who lounge or play in all those illustrations about The Future. Why not?

"The simple answer is that people are never satisfied," says Steve Usselman, a technology history professor at Tech. "What was underestimated is the ability to maintain desire."

Right after World War I, The Future was radio and Xrays. Just before World War II, The Future was plastics.

Poor plastic—it went, in one decade, from being the "Next Big Thing" to a synonym for "cheap." This is a cautionary tale about how The Future can get knocked on its backside by even a handful of people—if they happen to be the people who command the world's armies.

Before World War II, plastic—the first all-synthetic material, originally a replacement for ivory billiard balls—was envisioned as the cradle-to-grave answer to everything, accordWinter 2000 • GEORGIA TECH

51

ing to Jeffrey Meikle in Imagining Tomorrow. In houses with all-plastic furnishing, there would be nothing for babies to break. Schoolkids couldn't scuff plastic walls.

Old folks outfitted first in plastic teeth, then plastic coffins, would be "Exhibit A" for the ultimate in hygiene.

World War 11 stopped that. Plastic was put to work in soldiers' gear. But, unfortunately, it also got put to work back home prematurely as a consumer-goods replacement for the steel, textiles and other durable goods that had gone off to war—many times in inappropriate ways. But when it broke or melted, people didn't think of the metal it was trying to mimic: they just saw "cheap plastic."

And once the war was over, a worn-out American populace returned to traditional products and architecture. That meant stone fireplaces in wooden houses, built with the straight edges and angles of the Colonial style—not the sleek curves of shiny plastic popped whole out of molds.

And, of course, by war's end, the world was both horrified and intrigued by yet another new thing: nuclear energy. It seemed imperative to take this power, which proved, finally, that humankind could 52

GEORGIA TECH • Winter 2000

exterminate itself, and make it benign, to gloss over its chilling capabilities in silly ways such as advertisements that compared the bomb's flash to the brilliance of a particular floor wax.

Predictions about helpful nuclear power came faster and faster, one more fantastic than the last. ach house would run on its own typewriter-sized nuclear reactor.

Nuclear generators would make so much electricity, so cheaply, it wouldn't be worthwhile to charge for it.

We'd drive Nuclear-8 sedans. Nuclear power would somehow eradicate world hunger. It would blast a new "Panatomic Canal" between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It would power desalination plants large enough to make the Sahara bloom. We'd go joy-riding through the planets.

Great, but the devil was hiding in one detail—what to do with nuclear waste.

There's been no real answer to that question; it pretty much stopped large-scale nuclear progress in its radioactive tracks.

Nuclear waste is also the uninvited guest at the whoop-it-up party known as

Silicon Valley. "Of the EPA's SuperFund sites, four of the top nine are in Silicon Valley, with waste coming from the processes used to make semiconductors," Usselman warns. "We don't hear about it; we don't want to think about it, because Silicon Valley is one of our successes."

And finally, the century has had its share of surprises. Few visionaries foresaw that computers would ever be used for much beyond mathematical processing, for example.

"People didn't anticipate the World Wide Web at all, the various uses of the Internet," Usselman says.

"There was no sense that people would use the Web like they do, the chat rooms, e-commerce."

In the early days, in fact, experts thought computers would never become part of the mainstream because there wouldn't be enough skilled mathematicians to program them. No one imagined that computers would someday be programmable via buttons, allowing even toddlers to work them.

notes Paul Ceruzzi in Imagining Tomorrow.

Now, however, visionaries see computers as the next great way to make life perfect, or at least a lot better.

The November 1999 issue of The Futurist magazine shows a face-off between a silver robot wearing yellow goggles, with a glowing red button where his heart should be, and a gorilla-ish creature, wearing a redstriped necktie and carrying a notebook. The cover story inside predicts that by 2009, we'll have computers embedded in our clothes. By 2019, they'll be embedded in our bodies. By 2099, there'll be no such thing as a plain old human. We'll be "spiritual machines," part human, part computer.

We'll see. GT

The Year 2099 As Viewed in the 1990s

Computers may also have gotten caught in a backlash against the way-too-wild claims made on behalf of nuclear energy. "A machine that could be programmed to do anything seemed absurd, like a toaster that could also sew buttons on a shirt," Winter 2000 â&#x20AC;˘ GEORGIA TECH

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The Most Charismatic C Giant panda cubs steal scenes and hearts

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t took a journey of 7,526 miles and 15 years to bring a pair of giant panda cubs from China to Zoo Atlanta. But as far as Terry Maple is concerned, it's the first step in a journey of many more miles.

The fanfare and scientific inquiry surrounding the rare pandas' arrival gives Zoo Atlanta new momentum going into the new millennium and is helping Maple build the zoo of the future—a "truly scientific zoo."

The new panda exhibit, combined with the crucial need for research on the gentle giants, will help make that happen, he says.

Effortless scene stealers, the pair— Lun Lun, the female, and Yang Yang, the male—charmed the media and public alike.

"Pandas are the most charismatic creatures in the world," says Maple, president and CEO of Zoo Atlanta, who gets to share some of the media spotlight with other researchers such as Rebecca Snyder, the Georgia Tech doctoral student who has been observing the cubs since their infancy.

The pandas arrived on Friday, Nov. 5. On Monday morning, "Good Morning, America," aired its show from the panda exhibit, followed by the "Today" show on Tuesday. While the cubs provided enough charm to hold their own with celebrities, Maple explained the pandas' predicament.

There are only about 1,000 pandas left in the Chinese wilderness, and the 120 in captivity find breeding difficult. Meanwhile, the giant panda's native habitat in central China's highlands has been reduced to dwindling bamboo forests.

"There is a lot of missing information

From the day they arrived, Lun Lun, the female, and Yang Yang, the male, have been in the center of a media storm. Effortless scene stealers, the pairin their short time in Atlanta—have charmed everyone who's seen them.

60

GEORGIA TECH • Winter

2000

on this species," Maple says. "We will never succeed in saving the pandas unless we understand them."

Zoo Atlanta's research, Maple believes, will answer important questions.

"Right now the panda population is not self-sustaining," Maple says. "It's losing more animals than it's gaining through breeding. We've got problems with these animals that I think are due to lack of socialization. We need to change some of the management programs, but we have to demonstrate first that we're right about this. And that's what our research is all about."

Snyder, who received her master's degree in psychology from Tech in 1996, has been researching the behavioral development of pandas at southwestern China's Chengdu Zoo and Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. She is continuing her study at Zoo Atlanta.

"We're trying to save animals, and only people can save animals," Maple says. "You're really working with peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;social systems, government and business. It's not different from other human activities. You have to work with people, and Rebecca has done a good job with that."

In addition to running the zoo, Maple is a psychology professor at Georgia Tech, where he holds the Elizabeth Smithgall Watts Chair in Behavioral and Animal Conservation.

He has nine graduate students working out of the Georgia Tech Laboratory for Animal Behavior.

"Rebecca was the first Georgia Tech graduate student to go to China," Maple says. "She was the pioneer;

"Right now the panda population is not selfsustaining. It's losing more animals than it's gaining through breeding. There is a lot of missing information on this species.

We will never succeed in saving the pandas unless we understand them."

"It is the finest panda exhibit in the world.

China and the breeding center has a larger enclosure, but it's not better. Zoo Atlanta's is packed with technology:

62

GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Winter 2000

she broke the ground. She laid the foundation. She did a great job."

During her two-year study, Snyder was joined by other researchers, including Megan Reinertsen, also a Tech graduate student.

"In Chinese zoos, the cubs are usually weaned by six months of age so that the mother can become pregnant and have another cub as soon as possible," Snyder says. "But, in the wild, cubs stay with their mothers for at least 18 months."

The cub-mother relationship is important to the cub's behavioral development and perhaps to its breeding successfully, Snyder says. "Possibly because captive pandas are separated from their mothers at an early age, they don't have the opportunity to learn important social behaviors."

Snyder has observed Lun Lun since she was three weeks old, and Yang Yang since birth. Both have distinct personalities, she says.

Lun Lun was more reserved, a shy beauty with the round face considered ideal by the Chinese. Born Aug. 25, 1997, she was taken from her mother at four-and-a-half months.

Yang Yang is playful, easygoing and self-confident. He was born Sept.

9,1997, and allowed to stay with his mother for 13 months.

"I was there about an hour after Yang Yang was born," Snyder says.

"His mother was my favorite panda in our study, and I was excited about her giving birth. She was seven, and he was her first cub. A cub normally starts vocalizing loudly, and she looked at him in a surprised way, but

she smelled him and picked him up almost immediately and started cradling him. She was a perfect mother."

When he was removed from his mother, Yang Yang was placed with Lun Lun. Pandas reach adulthood at about five years of age. | aple has worked since 1984â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the year he became zoo directorâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;to bring pandas to Zoo Atlanta. And in 1998, he reached an agreement with China to obtain the two panda cubs. The animals are on loan at Zoo Atlanta for 10 years, and perhaps indefinitely.

The panda exhibit includes an indoor habitat that is part of the Panda Research Station and Management Center. There is also an air-conditioned day room and three outdoor

habitats, one of which is private.

"It is the finest panda exhibit in the world," Maple says. "I don't know of anything better. The Chengdu breeding center has a larger enclosure, but it's not any better. Our facility cost $7 million.

"It's packed with technology," Maple says.

Zoo Atlanta board member William J. Todd, IM '70, president of the Georgia Research Alliance, helped the zoo tap into the technological revolution.

"We invested heavily in distance learning, in computers and in video technology," Maple says. "The state of Geor-

gia contributed more than $2 million worth of technology. We wanted our education building to be connected to

"There are lots of'ways for Zoo Atlanta to grow.

Well grow by acquiring property, by engendering partnerships... well grow in a variety of ways.

Even though we've only talked about the panda exhibit being the size it is now, I hope it turns into a full-blown scientific breeding center."

all of our exhibits through a series of cameras.

"The panda exhibit has 16 video cameras. We can follow the pandas no matter where they are. We can take that video image and we can play it over the internet; we can play it back on distance learning; we can play it through satellite. We've got all these ways of getting it into schools. Education was a big part—sharing the information with the public was something that we wanted to do. The zoo is an instrument of education for the state."

The technology and scientific research will take Zoo Atlanta to a new threshold, Maple says.

"We are building a zoo for the future," Maple says. "The whole approach we've taken is to create an institution that is ready for the challenge of a new century, a new millennium.

"We have completely rebuilt the zoo. Virtually everything we found here in 1984, we've changed," Maple says. Zoo Atlanta has partnerships with Georgia Tech, Emory University and the University of Georgia, particularly the veterinary school.

Tech's association with Zoo Atlanta is mutually beneficial, Maple says. "Its value to Georgia Tech is great because of Tech's worldwide reputation in problem solving—creative problem solving," Maple says. "That's what we do here. We solve a lot of complex problems—problems where science leads the way."

rF

rom the start, Maple says the idea was to develop an electronic classroom approach, "an Internet approach.

We want to keep pace with teleconferencing and being globally connected— that's why we've invested in the technology. That's the

kind of institution we want to be, where everything is close at hand, where everyone understands the vision, and they grasp the future."

One of the hats Maple wears is fund raising. He helped raise $12 million for the panda research project, of which $7 million was applied to the facility itself. "We're trying to raise a total of $28 million in order to endow the project and also keep it going for 10 years," Maple says. "But if we endow the project with a sufficient amount of money—between $5 million and $10 million—the zoo could announce that it's not a 10-year project—it's a forever project."

Maple said the corpus funds would finance conservation programs in China that would enable Zoo Atlanta's panda project to continue indefinitely.

As part of the agreement for the loan of pandas from Chengdu, Zoo Atlanta has agreed to provide $1 million per year to support specific panda conservation projects by Chengdu's scientists. Chinese research projects include field studies as well as studies of captive pandas, ranging from habitat surveys in the wild to genetics and reproduction issues in zoos.

In the future, the zoo will have to expand, Maple says.

"How we expand is not yet clear," he says. "We need to acquire some property. One idea is to move human functions to the primeter so the zoo can be more of a continuous island for animals. We could have fewer buildings and more gardens and pathways.

We might develop an aquarium someday. There are many ways to grow.

We'll grow by acquiring property, by engendering partnerships and essentially growing the zoo. But we'll grow in a variety of ways."

"Even though we've only talked about the panda exhibit being the size it is now, I hope it turns into a fullblown scientific breeding center," Maple says. "I think we could see that as a possibility. If our science is successful, it will surely evolve into something special." QT For a look at Terry Maple's work at Zoo Atlanta and Georgia Tech, turn the page.

Rebecca Snyder observes as pandas explore their new environments.

The Savior of Zoo Atlanta Under Terry Maples direction, the Atlanta facility has garnered scientific and public respect

F

irst, Terry Maple saved Zoo Atlanta. Then he saved Willie B., rescuing Atlanta's favorite gorilla from a sterile tile cage equipped with a television and a dangling tire swing, and crowning him king of a majestic African veldt.

Now, can he help save the panda?

Consider this.

Taking the reins of what was one of the nation's worst zoos was supposed to be a temporary job. At least that's what Georgia Tech psychology Professor Terry L. Maple says. But one suspects that he would no more have allowed Atlanta's zoo to slip through his fingers and into oblivion any more than he will allow pandas to perish.

Maple, who is president and CEO of Zoo Atlanta, is an innovator. He had a plan and a vision for a zoo even before he had a zoo. And he had a plan and vision for pandas long before he had pandas.

"I always imagined myself the director of a research lab that would have all kinds of exotic animals," Maple says.

"I envisioned that if I could create a connection to a zoo as my laboratory, that my students would really benefit from it. I had no idea that I would be asked to actually implement these ideas as an administrator."

Maple joined the faculty of Emory University in 1975 to study the great apes because Emory had the largest collection of great apes in the world. His first visit to the zoo narrowed his research focus to Orangutans.

"I saw some Orangutans living in a group, which was very unusual in those days," he says. "There were seven of them in two cages put together."

Maple wrote Orangutan Behavior, published in 1980, based largely on his studies at the zoo. It was the first book on Orangutans to integrate what was known about them in the wild with what was known about them in captivity—it is considered a classic.

Maple then joined the faculty at Georgia Tech, which he says embraced his approach to applied psychology at the zoo. He is a professor in psychology at Tech and holds the Elizabeth Smithgall Watts Chair in Behavioral and Animal Conservation.

Maple's research projects were well under way "when the zoo went in the tank." In 1983, the Atlanta zoo was in such a dilemma that its membership was revoked by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association.

Maple became zoo director in June 1984. "I told the city when they hired me that I would not stop being a scientist, that I would never leave my tenured chair at Georgia Tech," Maple said. "I didn't want to leave my research

66

GEORGIA TECH • Winter 2000

behind. They said, Tf you can do both, that's okay with us.

Georgia Tech gave its approval. "They believed that I could sustain a scientific program and direct the zoo— although no one that I know has ever done that. They had to really affirm this appointment."

On a visit to the Los Angeles zoo during the 1984 Olympic Games, Maple observed the enthusiastic public response to an exhibit of visiting pandas.

"No zoo was a greater underdog to acquire pandas than we were," Maple says, because Atlanta's zoo was both small and out of the good graces of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association.

Undaunted, Maple asked former President Jimmy Carter for help. Carter agreed to discuss pandas during his China visit with Deng Xiaoping in 1986, and overtures began at the top levels of government.

By coincidence, Maple was visiting Beijing in 1987 when Georgia Gov. Joe Frank Harris was there with an official trade delegation, and Maple was invited to attend the official functions of the Georgia delegation.

"I quickly learned that Zoo Atlanta, a tiny institution on the zoo world stage, was judged by the quality of its corporate and government friendships," Maple says. "By this criterion, we were perceived to be much bigger and a whole lot better."

Atlanta's selection as the host for the 1996 Olympic Games also bolstered Zoo Atlanta's profile. But negotiations were not easy.

"In China there were a lot of problems between the two ministries that actually make deals for pandas," Maple says. "There is forestry, the conservation arm, and there's construction, the entity that manages the zoos of China.

They were both brokering panda loans, and they were often in conflict. We had to work through all those internal politics. And we had politics on this side, too."

Maple and officials with the San Diego Zoo, who were also attempting to arrange a panda loan, worked with The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Department of Interior to create new regulations for importing giant pandas.

"We were trying to create an environment where pandas could be loaned responsibly, where the conservation benefits would be clear and where research would be the straw that stirred the drink," Maple says. "Fortunately, we managed to succeed.

"We had to qualify ourselves by virtue of the scientific work and the body of work we proposed to do. It challenged me in every way—every nerve and sinew

Science drives the vision, says zoo Director Terry Maple, whose research is now directed at saving pandas from extinction.

was challenged to get it done."

A new import permit for pandas was signed by the Interior Department on June 15,1999, which, coincidentally, was Maple's 15th anniversary as zoo director.

Since Maple was named director in 1984, Zoo Atlanta has been characterized by its vision, not its boundaries.

"We had big ideas," Maple says. "We didn't have a very big zoo. We're only on 40 acres. We had Willie B. when I started here, but the big idea was to convince Yerkes [Regional Primate Research Center at EmoryJ to give us a group of gorillas, and to build the best gorilla exhibit in the world."

Maple believed if he had enough gorillas, the zoo could build for a population rather than a group. "We designed multiple habitats—no one had ever done that

before. It was everything that we expected and more.

We've bred 12 gorillas in 10 years. Willie B. has been rejuvenated. He's sired five offspring now. It's unbelievable— way beyond our expectations. But it was because we took it down a scientific road, and from the very beginning science drove the new vision."

The approach with pandas will be the same, Maple says. "Science drives the vision."

"Research really dominates this place. I have this expectation that this little zoo can become the world's first truly scientific zoo. I've seen zoos that have knocked on the door of science. I've seen zoos that had a scientific unit within. But for a zoo to be infused with science from the top to the bottom the way we envision ourselves is truly unique."

—John Dunn

Winter 2000 • GEORGIA TECH

67

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Back to 'Nam ss

By Hoyt Coffee Photography by Gary Meek

t's been a quarter-century since America extracted itself from the mire that was Vietnam, but doctors are still treating soldiers who suffered wounds that time can't heal. • They are the thousands—some say the hundreds of thousands—for whom the 10,000-day war b» never ended, for whom daily life is still filled with the gore and terror of combat. • Doctors have given a name to the condition, if not much else. They call it Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, an illness they say is as old as the art of war, one that remains stubbornly resistant to the volley of drugs and counseling techniques used to fight it. • But that is changing as _ Jf

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eveloped by Georgia Tech Professor Larry Hodges and his colleagues at Emory University and Atlanta's Veterans Affairs Medical Center, "Virtual Vietnam" builds on the idea of treating phobias by repeatedly exposing phobics to what scares them, eventually desensitizing them to their fears. For example, a counselor might take someone with a fear of heights to ever-higher perches—until height no longer triggers a panic response.

Several years ago, Hodges wondered if virtual reality could replicate the actual experience of height adequately to achieve the same effect.

"We had no idea whether someone afraid of heights in the real world would be afraid in the virtual world," Hodges says. "And if they were afraid, would they get over it and habituate to it? In '93, it turned out that all these things were true— that the therapy was successful."

That success led to virtual worlds for treating a fear of flying, spiders or public speaking—all now successful commercial products. But creating the same tool to treat those Vietnam veterans with PTSD took Hodges' virtual concept to a challenging new level.

"We were interested in doing something that was more extreme than phobias because we knew we were successful there," Hodges says. "We were looking for how far we could carry this."

Hodges' team created several three-dimensional visual scenes instantly recognizable to Vietnam veterans, from the killing grounds of a "hot" landing zone to air rescue. To enhance the images patients see through a virtual-reality headset, they added another dimension, the chaotic din of battle. Patients in the virtual world are surrounded by the chatter of enemy weapons, the unmistakable whiz of an AK-47 round that just missed its mark, the welcome rumble of the ubiquitous Huey coming to take them out of harm's way—all thunderously amplified to remarkably reproduce the conditions of combat.

The effects on veterans whose buried memories are reawakened, Hodges relates, can be chilling: "There was one patient who was a tank commander.

Everybody in his tank was killed but him. I le was left for dead, but he survived. He relived that in the virtual environment. We thought he was going to take the platform apart. He was seeing the other tanks; he was giving commands to all his men and calling them by name. It was probably the most spine-tingling virtual environment scenario I've ever seen.

"Another one was a bulldozer operator who actually

72

GEORGIA TECH • Winter 2000

buried a village they wiped out. He was completely different; he never got excited; he just talked in a monotone the whole time. Real carefully he described digging the grave, putting the bodies in, throwing the lime on, knocking out their gold teeth. It was disturbing in a different way because he was so matter-of-fact going through all this."

Trapped in Combat The point, says VA psychologist Dr. David Ready, himself currently using Virtual Vietnam to treat patients, is that veterans with PTSD don't just ^xmt00 remember traumatic events— : Jf they relive them. And that goes on for as long as the victim •j continues to avoid horrific ••^ memories, as many as 70 years ^*"H^^|l in a case study of a World War I veteran.

Ready uses the analogy of a frightened movie-goer to help explain the phenomenon.

"If every time the movie comes up to the part where the guy gets out the knife, and you run out of the theater every time because it frightens you, then your fear will actually build up with time," he says. Eventually it can reach the point, as it does with PTSD, that an everyday stimulus can prompt sufferers to re-experience events. For instance, a victim hearing the sound of a helicopter going over may experience mortal fear and retreat from that reality however possible, over and over again.

"How do you interrupt that cycle? You have to help them not avoid working through it by going back and getting in touch with it again. It's like if you go back to that film you're running out of and make yourself sit through it, and sit through it. After a while it just doesn't scare you as much."

That's the goal of virtual exposure therapy: to make bad memories just bad memories.

"When your friend dies and blows up all over you, it's always going to be a bad and terrible thing. But whether or not it is traumatic, whether or not you re-experience it, whether or not you feel mortal danger when you think about it, that can change."

1

The Long Boat Ride Home PTSD is neither new nor specific to Vietnam veterans, although it has only recently been diagnosed and characterized scientifically. During the Civil War, it was called "Soldier's Heart," and in World War 1 "shell shock." According to scholarly works by those involved in developing Virtual Vietnam, symptoms of the condition can be found in ancient mythology or the works of Shakespeare. Ready says

Tech professor Larry Hodges and a team from Emory University and the Atlanta VA Medical Center have created a "virtual Vietnam" to help treat the lingering problems of soldiers who served in Vietnam. By viewing images reminiscent of actual combat experiencesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;complete with battle soundsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;soldiers may be able to conquer their illness.

even World War II's most-decorated hero, Audie Murphy, suffered from PTSD. But it is more prevalent among Vietnam veterans, Ready theorizes, because unlike World War II—when soldiers returned to a hero's welcome—Vietnam vets found themselves branded by the war's unpopularity.

"I went over there to do my duty," says PTSD patient Randy Kemerly. "I wasn't over there doing something wrong. When I came back, there wasn't no one to talk to about what 1 just went through. After a while you just learn to shut up and suck it up and hold it in. It gets to be heavy after a while."

Also unlike World War II, when veterans had a weeksor months-long boat ride home during which they could decompress, share their horror with others who experienced the same thing and readjust to civilian life, Vietnam veterans were abruptly plucked from combat and jetted back home.

"If you're in a combat zone, a lot of the symptoms of PTSD—being hyper-vigilant, watchful every minute or shspicious—are things you need to survive. But they are very destructive in civilian life," Ready says.

"These guys were put on jets, and they were back in the United States in 48 hours, sometimes less. They were given a pass as soon as they got back home. They were supposed to adjust from fighting for their lives to being an everyday guy in a short time. Many of them got stuck in combat mode and stayed there."

As a result, many PTSD victims are extreme perfectionists who become very upset when little things go wrong because they know that little things got people killed in Vietnam. Others become workaholics to avoid their memories, or become addicted to alcohol or drugs—all to deal with the traits they developed for survival in Vietnam but were unable to discard.

At one of Ready's group sessions, one man was very angry because someone else on the bus he had ridden to the hospital was listening to music through headphones—he felt he had to watch out for both of them. Another, in a wheelchair because pneumonia left him weak, spoke with great bravado to avoid feeling out of control.

Treating the Spectrum of Symptoms The wide variety of symptoms and the expectation that Vietnam veterans would simply get better with time made PTSD difficult to recognize, harder to treat. Only in the past decade has the affliction really been accepted as an illness, and treatment still is often a matter of trial and error.

Doctors are getting better at it, slowly, explaining their enthusiasm for virtual therapy.

74

GEORGIA TECH • Winter 2000

"Part of the therapy is just getting them to talk about their Vietnam experiences. A lot of these guys, when you see them outside the virtual environment, they're depressed. It's very hard to get them to talk about their experiences at all," Hodges says. Once inside the virtual environment, memories become more detailed and horrific events less fearsome.

"The more I got into the stories, and the more organized the stories became for me again, the more details that I started remembering again, the better I would feel after it was over. I would feel relaxed and kind of cleansed," Kemerly says.

Cleansing? Yes. Helpful? Yes. A cure? No, Ready says.

"This helps with certain symptoms. Those who experience it say it helps to reduce the nightmares. It doesn't cure PTSD. We don't know how to cure PTSD. No one does.

"But it's part of the management. It's part of them moving forward. Some are willing to tolerate the pain of dealing with this so that they may suffer less because of it. It's one more weapon in our arsenal. But is it a panacea? No."

A World Out of Control The truth is other new treatments such as virtual reality must be developed, and developed quickly. Like everyone else, as Vietnam veterans age, they become more vulnerable in the real world, worsening their conditions.

"The more vulnerable they feel, the more volatile they are," Ready says. "So I think for a lot of guys, PTSD is getting worse because they're no longer able to control the world around them. The guys with PTSD want to control everything because they have been in the world out of control."

To that, no end is in sight. Continuing world crises such as Somalia and Kosovo are creating a growing population of PTSD victims worldwide, and the real price of war is tallying upward at dizzying speed. From Vietnam alone, estimates of PTSD victims range from 425,000 to 830,000.

But the options are growing as well. In the 15 years he has worked with veterans, Ready says the number of programs to treat PTSD has grown from a mere dozen to 136. And he has high praise for those such as Tech's Hodges and Emory's Barbara Rothbaum, who are pioneering new treatments and technologies.

"They're to be commended," he says.

"They've really invented something new, and Georgia Tech is at the forefront of it. Georgia Tech is producing through Larry Hodges the best psychotherapy-related software in the world that I'm aware of, and in some areas, the only virtualreality based software in the world.

"If it weren't for them, we wouldn't be doing this. We're the first and only at this point in time, but a lot of other people are going to be doing this in the future.

"And these guys deserve it. They served their country when others ran away. They deserve honor for that." GT

"The more vulnerable they feel, the more volatile they are," says VA psychologist David Ready. "So for a lot of guys, PTSD is getting worse because they're no longer able to control the world around them." Tech researchers, he adds, are to be commended.

"They've really invented something newâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the best psychotherapyrelated software in the world."

^

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Fortune Formula Jim Richards rides the business frontier in search of 'Cowboy Capitalists' Gary Meek

Jim Richards is parlaying a "lifetime of experience" in business into a strategy of aggressive growth and increased profits.

By Russ Moore

G

reat fortunes are made through specialization, and kept through diversification," says Jim Richards, who is no stranger to helping build business fortunes.

When Southwire founder Roy Richards Sr., ME '35, died in 1985, two of his sonsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Roy Jr., 25, and Jim, 24, both Georgia Tech alumniâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; became CEO and president, respectively, of the Carrollton, Ga., company.

They carried on in the family tradition, taking a successful $450 million company and making it a

mega-successful $1.9 billion company in 10 years.

Five years ago, James C. Richards, Econ '81, started a new company to invest the family money through leveraged buyouts. That company, named simply Richards, is based in an Atlanta skyscraper overlooking Centennial Park.

"We buy a controlling interest in mature companies that already dominate their markets," Richards says.

"In many cases, the companies we buy have invented a product that gives them dominance. I always become the chairman of the board, and sometimes I plug in a new man as

CEO to enhance the company's management."

The goal is aggressive growth, and Richards' own experience in finance is the engine that drives the ship.

"We expect 45 percent per year in equity return," he says.

Richards does not blanche at the pressure of maintaining such success.

"It's really just a matter of financing growth rapidly. It's what we had to do at Southwire."

Richards, 40, has been performing on the financial stage for most of his adult life, competing and succeeding globally. He was starting his third year of mechanical engineering at

Winter 2000 â&#x20AC;˘ GEORGIA TECH

77

Tech when he saw the path he should take.

"My father was an engineer, and I was training to be one," he says. "I analyzed his typical day, and I realized that most of the skills he needed to run Southwire—negotiation, communications skills and finance—were not the things I would learn becoming an engineer. I saw that the next generation leading Southwire would need more training in business and finance, so I changed to economics."

After earning his degree, Richards went to work at Southwire and became company president in 1985. He lived in Atlanta and commuted to Carrollton for 14 years. In addition to his duties at Southwire, Richards served on the boards of the Copper Club, the Aluminum Association and several public companies. He was also the first American on the board of the prestigious London Metal Ex-

change (the equivalent of the New York Stock Exchange of the metals business). On his 35th birthday he opened the Atlanta office of Richards LLC. Not surprisingly, Richards sometimes hires Tech alumni to run his acquisitions. "I look for cowboy capitalists, people very successful in their fields but willing to exchange comfort for risk—to take a leap of faith—for the possibility of making a fortune."

One such "cowboy" is Ron Cook, a 1973 Tech graduate in behavioral management, hired this year as CEO of Exit Information Guides, a Gainesville, Fla., company that prints and distributes guides with coupons for discounted hotel rooms.

Under the combined vision of Richards and Cook, EIG has moved its industry leadership to the World Wide Web, allowing consumers to print coupons at home for hotels in 33

states from www.roomsaver.com.

Cook, a veteran with 27 years of hotel management experience, was intrigued by the pitch Richards used.

"Of all the offers I received, Jim was the only guy who asked me to write a check up front as I took the job. He wanted me to be at risk, too. It was a totally unique approach."

With plans to expand to 44 states in 2000, Cook is leading EIG aggressively forward. The company is averaging 3 million users per month since its online rollout in June.

And while Richards' work ethic is that of a high achiever, he also finds time to fly-fish and to hunt. He enjoys horticulture and gardening.

He and his wife, Janet, and their three sons live in Atlanta, and they have a strong interest in equestrian sports. QT Russ Moore is a freelance writer.

The perfect alumni gift for Graduation, Wedding, Retirement, Birthday or Christmas.

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GEORGIA TECH • Winter 2000

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Enroll today by returning this attached form and your check for $29.95 (+ $5.00 for shipping & handling) made payable to the Georgia Tech Alumni Association.

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Rule Breaker Bob Gibson hasn't followed a traditional path to find success

By Sherri Brown

B

ob Gibson met his wife, Vicki, I during fraternity rush at Georgia Tech. As a nursing student at Piedmont Hospital, she had volunteered to help "woo rushees to our fraternity," Gibson remembers. "We had the typical fraternity oath not to date rush girls, but 1 broke it."

It wouldn't be the last time Gibson broke rules to his advantage.

Today, as president and CEO of BOLT, he has led the Charlotte, N.C., company to integrate product development with brand development—a break-the-rules concept that led to a bevy of awards and a client list of Fortune 500 companies.

After graduation in 1974, Gibson went to work for the head of Georgia Tech's Industrial Design department, Jack Seay, who ran a consulting firm for product development. "I have always had a love for how things work, and I try to find ways to improve on products," Gibson says.

With that experience under his belt, Gibson joined Hummingbird USA, overseeing a team of 33 product-development specialists. The first thing his team developed was the first liquid crystal display fish finder.

"It was very innovative, very userfriendly, for the time," Gibson says.

"For that company it was a big success story."

The team continued to develop offshoots off the original product, eventually growing the company from $13 million in annual sales to more than $80 million.

Leaving Hummingbird, Gibson moved to Charlotte to help a start-up business that lasted about a year. "It didn't get off the ground," he admits.

80

GEORGIA TECH • Winter 2000

Gibson: Continually remaking the firm is easier when it's an "innovative business."

"It reinforced the idea that it takes more than just a good idea to bring a business to market."

Gibson then joined BOLT, returning to the consulting business again, "reconnecting with something 1 was in 20 years ago," he says. "I started having that old fun again."

It was at BOLT that Gibson led the group to integrate product and brand development. "It's unusual for the same firm to offer both product and brand development: product is industrial design; brand development is very market-oriented," he explains.

"The market that buys products looks for both brands and products that represent the company and communicate value to the consumer."

Also, because a lot of companies focus on brand and consumer experience, there's a need for technology and change at an increasing rate.

"The good news is the tools are available—like the Internet—to develop solutions at a faster pace," he says.

This concept has allowed his firm to broaden its client base to include companies like Lowe's. "A few years ago they wanted to get into the mechanics-tool business," he recalls.

"They came to us to find out how to position themselves and see what it would take to get into the market."

Because of BOLT's integrated services, they were able to help the company develop the product line, as well as developing the brand name, packaging and point of sale. The result was the Kobalt line of tools.

"We helped with the whole consumer experience," Gibson says.

Today, besides Lowe's, BOLT's client list includes Coca-Cola, GE Lighting, Herman Miller, Izod and Ingersoll Rand.

"I get a lot of satisfaction out of the business," Gibson says, "both the side that has to do with helping our clients succeed, and maybe even more importantly, helping everyone who is a part of this business achieve their personal professional goals."

Gibson's top rules for being a good leader are: "First, focus on customer service. Then, focus on meeting the needs of the staff and helping them with their growth plans. Do those two things and everything else falls in place."

As business copes with a rapidly changing environment, it must continually remake itself, Gibson admits.

"The good news for us is we're in the innovative business. It's natural for us to do it." GT Sherri Brown is a freelance writer who lives in LaGrange, Ga.

Without a Stolen Base, a Gold Medal or a Checkered Flag,

J

im Anderson moves at the speed of sound — the sound of your Internet connection. But that screeching, buzzing, and "gurgly bonk" noise you've come to expect from your modem will be a thing of the past if Jim has his way.

As the Director of Product Management for Fast Access, Jim is responsible for bringing high-speed access to MindSpring's customers. The next generation connections — transmitted beyond the range of human hearing — will bring you to the internet faster than ever before, and MindSpring's Jim Anderson helps makes that possible. Jim puts the pedal to the metal each day, getting you your sports scores, stock quotes and e-mail in record time.

Connecting and staying connected is something Jim knows about. Since graduating in 1988, he has stayed connected to Tech in many different ways, including Roll Call. "I am grateful for what my Tech degree has done for me. Contributing to Roll Call is a great way to connect to Tech and give something back. It's a connection that only gets stronger."

Connecting with Georgia Tech through Roll Call began in 1947. Today, Roll Call funds are used to support a variety of areas at Georgia Tech, including student scholarships and financial aid, faculty recruitment and retention, and new academic programs. Each of these areas helps to strengthen the academic reputation of Georgia Tech. For alumni, that means an even more valuable Georgia Tech degree.

Connecting through Roll Call can be summed up in a word: participation.

The 53 rd Roll Call is underway and alumni support is key, not just in the amount of the contributions, but also in the number of alumni that participate.

Speaking of connecting, you can now contribute on-line at: www.gtalumni.org (go to support tech)

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Personal Credibility Randy Swartz's philosophy applies 'Golden Rule' to customers, clients

By Toby Druin

I

n October, Randy Swartz was named president and chief executive officer of Day & Zimmermann International, bringing more than 26 years' experience to the job of running the engineering and construction division of one of the largest and most successful privately owned businesses in the world.

Swartz, who earned his master's degree in mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech in 1973, also carries along a personal philosophy that he says has guided his business career.

"One thing that stands out in the way I do things is personal credibility," Swartz says. "I believe in doing what you say you will do. That's the way it always has been with me: Treat your customers and your clients the way you want to be treated."

That work ethic has propelled Swartz steadily upward since he left Georgia Tech.

Before joining Day & Zimmermann in 1995, he

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Winter 2000 • GEORGIA TECH

83

CLASSIC

RESIDENCE

BY

HYATT

Benefit from Retirement Living with the Hyatt Touch® spent 21 years with DuPont, from 1979-89, in various positions in sporting goods. In 1989, he was named worldwide engineering manager for DuPont Lycra; then worldwide engineering director and president of the company's Precision Concepts Company in 1993, with responsibility for more than 2,500 employees on four continents and projects totaling more than $700 million.

Swartz joined Day & Zimmermann in 1994 as senior vice president, where he was responsible for engineering, procurement and construction in projects totaling $200 million and employing 550 people. He was elevated to president of Day & Zimmermann, South, in 1995.

Day & Zimmermann International is the engineering and construction division of Day & Zimmermann Inc., a $1.5 billion enterprise founded in 1901 as a two-person engineering partnership; it was ranked 175th in last year's Forbes magazine listing of the top 500 private companies.

The company provides engineering, procurement and construction, construction management, project and program management and maintenance services to the specialty chemical, microelectronics, food and beverage, pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.

"I travel so much, it is difficult to say where I will be on a given day," Swartz says.

The company is headquartered in Philadelphia, where during an ideal work-week, Swartz spends four days and works a fifth day in Charlotte, N.C., where he lives. But in most weeks, he shuttles between those locations and wherever the company is involved.

He was attracted to Day & Zimmermann, he says, "because it is privately owned, has good values and gives you a lot of freedom to do your job. That's very enjoyable."

Swartz's job is three-fold. "I make sure everyone follows corporate values; provide strategic direction; and help people succeed and grow in their responsibilities."

Away from his job, he and his wife, Grace, like to travel, especially to places where they can play tennis and Swartz can golf—he admits to a 6 handicap. He likes to read, often poring over business and consulting books, but he also enjoys mystery novels by such authors as Ann Rule. He came to Tech after earning an undergraduate degree at North Carolina State University.

Swartz has two children by a previous marriage. His daughter is a sophomore at New York University studying foreign languages, and his son is a high school student in New London, Pa., a suburb of Philadelphia.

"I guess my personal philosophy is to enjoy life," he says. "I work hard to be a person of integrity, not taking things too seriously and always trying to be able to laugh at myself. You have to have a little fun in this life." GT

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53rd Roll Call Matching Gift Companies

All You Have to Do Is

T

he 111 companies listed here represent only a small portion of all the companies that will match gifts made to Georgia Tech.

Each company has an alumnus who has volunteered to be the matching gift coordinator and rally support for Georgia Tech's 53rd Roll Call.

If you work for a matching gift company that matches an academic contribution to Georgia Tech, you can greatly increase the impact of your gift to Roll Call. Some companies match contributions dollar-for-dollar, while others will double, or even triple the amount of their employees' gifts.

The best part is that you will receive Roll Call credit for both your gift and the company's match amount.

Our particular challenge this year is to increase the number of alumni participating in matching gift programs. In past years, less than two-thirds of Tech's match-eligible donors submitted a matching gift form with their gift. This leaves more than onethird of our contribution potential untapped.

If your company is not listed here, you may still work for a company that will match your gift to the 53rd Roll Call. Please contact your company's human resources department to determine your company's matching gift policy. To locate your company coordinator, or to volunteer to become the matching gift coordinator at your company, please contact Brett Breen at the Georgia Tech Alumni Association.

Brett Breen, Matching Gift Program Coordinator Georgia Tech Alumni Association 190 North Avenue Atlanta, Georgia 30313 Telephone: (404) 894-0766 or1-800-GTALUMS e-mail: brett.breen@alumni.gatech.edu For information updates on the 53rd Roll Call, please visit www.alumni.gatech.edu/Roll Call

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Online Innovator Amy Bruckman taps Internet's educational potential to develop Web communities

By Maria M. Lameiras

W

hen Amy S. Bruckman first encountered the fledgling Internet in the early 1990s, she was fascinated by the educational potential of the World Wide Web. A physics graduate of Harvard University working on her doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bruckman had been doing research on video systems. The Internet changed that.

To Bruckman, the new technology fit in naturally with the educational theory of constructionism—the idea that people learn best when they are participating in something that is personally meaningful to them—the theory on which all of Bruckman's research was based.

"I did a class paper on the sociology of online communities and decided it was so much more interesting than video systems," says Bruckman, an assistant professor with the College of Computing. "Not that there's anything wrong with video—but there was clearly something exciting going on there."

That first class paper began the research that has earned Bruckman a place on the MIT Technology Review's

list of Top 100 innovators under age 35, a compilation of people voted most likely to be major technological innovators in the next century.

Now Bruckman has developed a number of online communities and is teaching others to tap the educational potential of Web communities through the Electronic Learning Communities Research Group (ELC) in the College of Computing. ELC focuses on the design of communities on the Internet.

The first community Bruckman founded was MediaMOO, a professional community for media researchers.

"The technology was so new at that point, that there was nowhere for people to discuss it, and people interested in the future of the Internet met there," Bruckman says.

Next came MOOSE Crossing, a text-based virtual learning world for kids 8 to 13 that focuses on helping kids learn reading, writing, creativity and computer-programming skills.

That community, which opened to the public in October 1995, now has about 400 members—from individual kids who participate from home to an entire class in an English boarding school whose pupils log-on to the

The Bruckman File Born: December 21, 1965, New York City Education: BS, physics, Harvard University, 1987; PhD, Media Arts & Sciences in Epistemology & Learning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1997.

Personal: Engaged to Peter Weimann, a materials science engineer with Lucent Technologies who designs codings for fiber optics.

Achievements and Honors: Named one of Technology Review magazine's list of Top 100 innovators under age 35.

Leisure Interests: Hiking, Snow Skiing, cruising Internet auction site ebay.com looking for kitschy, 1950s-era McCoy pottery for her mom.

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GEORGIA TECH • Winter 2000

community as their after-dinner creative activity. The class interacts with a class of kids from Los Angeles who participate during their regular school day and whose time in the community overlaps with their English friends because of the time difference.

The virtual world is entirely made up of text and encourages learning and interaction among the kids to help them learn from each other as well as from adults.

"We try to get kids asking questions of each other, not just of adults, and to get them excited about learning from each other—learning because they are engaged by what they are learning, not just to get a grade," Bruckman says. "These kids do fabulous things. A lot of adults are surprised that these kids are doing object-oriented programming, but it comes much more naturally to them.

And kids just don't get why adults find it hard."

S

ince Bruckman came to Tech in September 1997, the ELC and its members have developed a number of other research projects as well, including: • AquaMOOSE 3D, a multi-user, graphical game-construction kit designed to support mathematical, artistic and computational learning. It is being spearheaded by students Jason Elliott, Lizzie Edwards, Rodney Walker and Stuart Jeff.

• American Timewarp, where children interview senior citizens to contribute to a growing database of oral history, developed by doctoral student Jason Ellis.

• The Turing Game, a game that explores issues of identity online, which has currently has about 8,000 users in 70 countries and all seven continents, "including some guys at a research

Gary Meek

School systems need to give teachers time to learn to use computers and the Internet in innovative ways, says Amy Bruckman.

station in Antarctica who are totally hooked," said Bruckman. Doctoral student Josh Berman is heading the program research on The Turing Game.

• IRC Francais, a project looking at foreign language learning in a realtime, text-based environment, which is being developed by master's student Jim Hudson.

Bruckman feels the research she is doing and that is being done by the ELC will help address some of the stereotypes people hold about people who communicate via the Internet.

"There is as much diversity in

online environments as there is in people's reading preferences—there is something for everyone, and I think we will find ourselves involved in the Internet on some level in the future," she says.

In terms of future research, Bruckman says she would like to rigorously study "what it means to do education online."

"It needs to go beyond just giving 'Net connections to teachers. No one's done enough systematic research on how to use the Internet in education," Bruckman says. "School systems just throw the technology to teachers and

don't tell them a darn thing about it.

That's not going to work. There's more to innovation than just giving people equipment."

School systems need to develop a complete curriculum for the use of computers and the Internet that takes into account the workload and time constraints already besetting teachers.

"It's kind of putting the cart before the horse: paying to put equipment in the school before teachers learn to use it. And school systems need to give teachers the time to really learn how to use it in innovative ways and to pay them to learn it." GT

Winter 2000 • GEORGIA TECH

87

J

oe Hamilton said goodbye to Bobby Dodd Stadium in classy style, leading the Jackets to a heartthrobbing victory over archrival Georgia.The Georgia Tech quarterback racked up 438 yards of offense, making him No. 1 on the Atlantic Coast Conference all-time total offense list with 10,640 yards, as well as the holder of the singleseason mark of 3,794 yards.

And his four TDs made him the league's all-time leader in touchdown passes with 65.

Hamilton, a unanimous choice for all-ACC first-team quarterback, set single-season records for most yards of total offense (508.4 avg.), most yards of passing offense (283.4 avg.), most points in a season in the modern era (448) and most touchdowns (59).

GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Winter 2000

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