Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine Vol. 78, No. 04 2002

SPRING 2002

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"The surest way to protect our homeland is to run down terrorists one by one and bring them to justice."

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Spring 2002

Major League Georgia Tech is consistently being ranked among the top 10 universities, an important recognition that places it in "big league" competition. "For us to establish ourselves in that league we have to think a different way," says President Wayne Clough. "To be a real player, we have to compete with schools that not only have great engineering but also superior science and business programs."

Electric Encounter

Page 20

General Electric's new boss, Jeffrey R. Immelt, who replaces GE's legendary chairman and CEO Jack Welch, spoke on the Georgia Tech campus. He told Tech students that GE is a survivor because it is committed to change. Go out and claim your future, he says. "Don't fear what's out there. Don't fear the economy. Don't fear accounting scandals. Don't fear the impact of 9/11."

Rescuing Kids A call for help from a juvenile court judge led lawyer John Meredith to found Aspiring Youth, a nonprofit organization that works to give at-risk middle school kids a helping hand.

Pfaltzg raff's President

Homeland Defense Georgia Tech researchers say the technological savvy exists to vaporize massive piles of rubble at a disaster site in order to reach victims and to establish an immediate communications network at the scene that connects police, firefighters and rescue workers.

In January, Marsha Everton was named president and CEO of The PfaltzgraffCo., America's oldest continuously operating pottery.

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Once a month she goes to the customer call center and listens to what customers say. "1 want to make sure I have a finger on the pulse."

2 GEORGIA TECH • Spring 2002

Page 42

GeorgiaTech Joseph P. Irwin, IM 80, Publisher

John C. Dunn, Editor Neil B. McGahee, Associate Editor Maria M. Lameiras, Assistant Editor Kimberly Link-Wills, Assistant Editor Missy Newby, Design

Departments 5 Feedback

Editorial Advisory Board

8 Tech Notes Guldens Named Dean Architecture Program Ranks Fifth Space Walk Slam Dunk Robot Pre-Law Program Tops Davidson Is 'Powerful' Carter Gets Ivan Allen Prize Think Different Kuchar's First PGA Win Mars Invasion Best Book

Page 13

14 Still Life in Steel 18 Timely Warning 47 Pacesetters ]oe Cooper: Metal Crafter Chukwumaobi Adiele Bucks Odds Ron Pair: Free Spirit

J. William Goodhew III, IM 61, Chairman Vice President/Communications Georgia Tech Alumni Association Board of Trustees Vice President Intelligent Systems Corp.

Gary Bottoms^ IM 75 Alumni Association Board of Trustees President Isenberg, Bottoms & Hyman 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 John D. Toon Manager Georgia Tech Research News and Publications Office

Advertising

55 Research

Jeff Colburn (404) 894-9279 E-mail: Jeffrey. colburn@alumni.gatech. edu

Internet Voting Atomic Storage Ring Dentistry by Design Understanding DNA Damage

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine

62 Profile Lionel Lemardiand: Cultural Exchange

64 Photo Finish Serene Scene Page 50

Cover: President George W. Bush visited the Georgia Tech campus March 27 to view a "first responder" demonstration by police, firefighters and emergency rescue teams to a mock terrorist attack.

Photo by Gary Meek.

(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 2002 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. Fax: (404) 894-5113.

E-mail: editor@alumni.gatech.edu gtalumni.org Advertising: (404) 894-9270.

Spring 2002 • GEORGIA TECH 3

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"Georgia is poised to be as

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as Silicon Valley or Boston. My job

here in Atlanta is just as exciting as any I've had anywhere in the country if not more so. Georgia's not only been good for my resume, it's also been good for my life."

- James Berry, Senior Staff Engineer, RF Solutions

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•radiates** *mmmm Don't Arm Pilots In the Winter 2002 GEORGIA TECH ALUMNI MAGAZINE, you

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quote a couple of Georgia Tech V ~ A ^ 1 designed 1_ TTjl to make graduates who are airline pilots. Both of them say they 1 •- '^JaikM tlm life as are in favor of arming pilots in \h^tfJj00tM^^ miser^^^^ able as possiairline cockpits. ble for the honest passengers 1 am also a pilot for Delta and employees, but don't do one Air Lines and 1 am strongly thing to enhance security. In my opposed to arming pilots. 1 opinion the FAA, in its effort to believe that providing firearms to airline crews is an invitation create a "show" for the public, has made the level of security to disaster. 1 am there to fly worse — and in some cases the airplane safely, and not much worse. to become a substitute law The security measures are enforcement officer. simply knee-jerk reactions from 1 want you to know that a bureaucracy that doesn't have there are other views on this a clue. The most recent, but issue. certainly not the only example, W. C. Mims, EE 69 is the "X-raying of passengers Arlington, Va. shoes" even though it is impossible for an X-ray to see what Arm Airline Pilots they're supposedly looking for.

1 read your article, "An Pure eyewash.

Industry Disrupted: Airlines 1 can certainly understand struggle with security measwhy people are avoiding air ures," in the Winter 2002 travel. 1 myself am avoiding ALUMNI MAGAZINE, and 1 am one nonessential travel and 1 can fly American Airlines pilot who for free. 1 can't imagine paying considers the new security money to put up with this harassmeasures to be a sick joke. ment. 1 hope that this improves soon, but given the FAAs track tvsfc^ record, 1 doubt it. i Jf ™ xXggp 1 am absolutely in favor of I—im fmT arming pilots who can qualiWe Want to CT^mf^ JcS' fy- That is arming them with Hear From VK^&& M JXkP'O /fT/ firearms, not stun guns.

You jJililfcaHM> Nothing would increase the The ALUMNI m£ pSjP margin of safety as much as MAGAZINE ^T^f^ this one thing. welcomes As a 767 captain, 1 am the letters. Address all one who is ultimately responsible correspondence to: for the safety of the passengers, Georgia Tech Alumni crew, airplane and cargo.

Publications Government bureaucrats play 190 North Ave., NW Atlanta, GA 30313, absolutely no role in that responFax (404) 894-5113. sibility. Why not let me decide E-mail: editor@alumni. what tools 1 need to do my job gatech.edu safely?

(Please Include full name, Tom Snelling, IM 81 city and telephone number.)

Key Biscayne, Fla. Continued on page 6

Climate for Change

S

pring in the South.

Dogwoods, azaleas, and warm sunshine. At Tech, the shorts and T-shirts prevail again. About 1,800 students are thinking about graduating and — perhaps even more fervently — about finding a job. Especially in the midst of our economic malaise.

As an alumnus of Georgia Tech, please make it your business to extend a helping hand to our newest class. A man named Scott Howell, TE 51, did so for me and it led to a very successful career in the apparel industry. There's no doubt that it happened for many of you as well — so let's continue this great tradition of support. It's one of the most important elements of being an alumnus of this great institution.

There's a lot happening on campus. We've recently featured many of the campus construction projects. Frankly, it's astonishing. The new baseball stadium is complete — and beautiful — a fitting new home for Danny Hall's baseball Jackets. Technology Square is rising from the dirt on Fifth Street. I was sitting on the 1-75/1-85 connector southbound last month and counted 14 cranes on the project. The Engineering, Science and Technology building is targeted for a summertime completion. The Student Athletic Complex is on track for a completion date of summer 2004. The design phase of the new Biomedical Engineering building, which rounds out the BEM (biotechnical, environmental and molecular) complex, begins in April.

The north and lower east stands of Bobby Dodd at historic Grant Field are gone and will be replaced. The once-green playing field is now churned up red clay crawling with heavy equipment. The field is being shifted north and new south stands are going up. Everything is on schedule for football to be played this fall on Grant Field.

Come back to campus this spring. It's a great time of year to visit the old (and new) alma mater.

Joseph P. Irwin Executive Director Georgia Tech Alumni Association

Spring 2002 • GEORGIA TECH 5

FeedBack

Exotic Slaughter 1 was horrified to read the article in the Winter 2002 ALUMNI MAGAZINE

regarding the works of Lloyd Johnson. Instead of glorifying the slaughter of

would call a taxidermist a "wildlife artist" — the title should belong to someone who photographs or otherwise depicts animals in their native settings, not someone who works with dead

destroyed would be much more appropriate.

Heather Simon Payne, ChE99 Durham, N.C.

Abbreviating Degrees I'm reading the excellent

degrees and degree codes, which can be confusing.

The Institute code lists AP as applied physics and HP as health physics. We'll adopt a more reader-friendly style — APhy and HPhy which should be clearer. We

"exotic animals" — including

skins of animals shot purely

"a young male lion shot in

for sport. These animals are

Winter 2002 ALUMNI

will continue to use the well-

Tanzania," "black bears,"

beautiful alive; when they are killed for no reason, it

MAGAZINE and realize that

known degrees as IE, ME ChE, Mgt, but try to make

and "baboons, pumas, leopards," Tech graduates

certainly is not in the name

I'm behind the times in terms of current degree

of "art," but of egotism and

abbreviations. For example,

ambiguous abbreviations such as IDT (information

should be working to maintain the habitats for these

destruction.

what is AP or HP? I may not

design and technology) more obvious (InfoDTech)

animals and keeping them

ALUMNI MAGAZINE for encour-

be the only one confused.

Could you publish a list of

alive, even if their native

aging this destructive, beast-like behavior, which shows no sustainable stew-

past and current degree abbreviations? Or perhaps

Here are a few others that could be confusing; ACo

ardship of the planet, and I

name the degree as well as give its abbreviation in

(algorithms combinatorics), AdvE (advanced engineer-

think this article shows an

future articles — or both.

William A. "Bill" Wilde,

ing), HCI (human-computer interaction), MT (motor

rot, I would hope that they

incredible lack of editorial judgment. Running a story

ME 63

transport), NRE (nuclear

would leave these animals in peace.

on how these animals are being shot to extinction

Denver, Colo.

and radiological engineer-

You make a good point.

ing) and PTCh (polymer

and their native habitats

There are a number of new

and textile chemistry).

a "14-foot Nile crocodile"

countries are outside the United States.

If the hunters of these animals could do nothing with their kill but leave it to

I am appalled that you

I deplore the TECH

or simply spell them out.

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Spring 2002 • GEORGIA TECH 7

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Notes

Don Giddens Tapped Engineering Dean

A

lumnus Don P. Giddens, a pioneer in biomedical engineering and a longtime faculty member and administrator, has been named dean of Georgia Tech's College of Engineering.

The first alumnus to hold that post, Giddens will assume the office July 1.

Giddens, AE 63, MS AE 65, PhD 67, is chair of Biomedical Engineering and helped develop Tech's bioengineering program, which last year was ranked sixth in the nation by U.S. News and World Report. He holds the Lawrence L. Gellerstedt Jr. Chair in Bioengineering.

"1 am confident that Don Giddens is the right person to continue the remarkable progress that the College of Engineering has made in the past decade," President Wayne Clough says. "Everything he does, he does well."

Giddens, 61, joined Tech's faculty in 1968. He was director of the School of Aerospace Engineering when he was named dean of the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns

Hopkins University in 1992.

In 1997, Giddens returned to Tech to establish a joint partnership in bioengineering between the Institute and Emory University that has become the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. This unique partnership between a public university with a top engineering program and a private university with a highly regarded medica school is the first of its kind in the nation.

Giddens is a past member of the Georgia Tech Alumni Association Board of Trustees.

Don

Giddens assumes dean's post July 1.

College of Architecture Ranks Fifth in United States

G

eorgia Tech's College of Architecture ranks fifth in the nation among programs that produce the best graduates, according to a survey of design professionals.

The ranking will appear this year in Almanac of Architecture and Design and is the result of an annual study commissioned by the Design Futures Council and the editors of DesignIntelligence to determine the best schools and colleges for architecture in the United States.

"This ranking reflects the opinion of practitioners who have identified those schools that have the best prepared students for the architecture profession," says Thomas Galloway, dean of the College of

GEORGIA TECH • Spring 2002

Architecture. "This research is the only customer-satisfaction-oriented study of leading firms — including industry giants, top sector leaders and award-winning professionals."

In July 2001, principals of more than 800 leading architecture firms were asked, "From which schools have you had the best experience hiring employees?" Respondents chose from programs accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board.

The survey garnered a list of the nation's top 15 architecture schools and colleges. Tech's College of Architecture tied with the University of Michigan for fifth place, ahead of the Massachusetts Institute of

Technology, Yale University and Texas A&M University.

The four higher-ranked programs were Cornell and Harvard universities, the University of Cincinnati and Syracuse University.

The survey is part of the "Top Design Colleges and Universities" series, conducted for the past three years by Counsel House Research/Green way for Designlntelligence, the Design Futures Council and the Almanac of Architecture and Design.

Tech's architecture program began in 1908 with 20 students. In 2000, the college enrolled 585 undergraduates and 274 graduate students. The college offers bachelor's degree programs in architecture, building construction and industrial

design and master's degree programs including architecture, city planning and science, as well as a PhD program that covers architecture, urban and regional planning and building construction.

Tech's music program is housed in the college, offering classes in music theory and history and music technology. A certificate in fine arts-music is available to students who complete 15 hours of related courses.

Research groups within the college include the Advanced Wood Products Lab, Center for Assistive Technology and Environmental Access, Construction Resources Center for Geographic Information Systems and the Interactive Media Group.

TechNotes

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I

Space Walk For

F

ormer Georgia Tech professor Michael Massimino has gone where few engineering teachers have gone before. Crew member Massimino lifted off in the shuttle Columbia on Feb. 28 for an 11-day mission to upgrade the Hubble telescope.

Massimino came to Tech in 1995 to teach human-machine systems engineering classes and conduct research on human-machine interfaces for space and aircraft systems.

He left the Institute a year later when NASA selected him

as an astronaut candidate.

He performed two of five space walks to service the telescope, work that included installation of an advanced camera for surveys, a device to mechanically cool science instruments and high-power solar arrays.

"I feel like the luckiest rookie astronaut since Alan Bean," Massimino said during flight training. "Al Bean got to walk on the moon on his first flight, and I get to space walk on the Hubble."

Spring 2002 • GEORGIA TECH 9

Tech Notes

Slam Dunk Robot

Georgia Tech, Roswell High School students design robo-athlete

W

ith a contraption that looks a bit like a self-propelled extension ladder, a team made up of Roswell High School and Georgia Tech engineering students competed against robo-athletes from around the Southeast in a slam-dunk contest at the regional phase of the 2002 FIRST Robotics Competition in Florida.

The Georgia Tech/Roswell High team — the only entry from Georgia to compete in the games — took six weeks in January and February to design and build the remote-controlled robot. The regional competition took place at NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida in early March. The Tech/Roswell team did not place in this year's contest.

The competitions are sponsored by FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), a nonprofit organization devoted to increasing interest in science and technology among youth. Ninth- through 12th-graders pair up with college engineering students or engineering com-

10 GEORGIA TECH • Spring 2002

panies to design and build robots to compete in the games. Engineering students from the Robojackets Robotics Club at Georgia Tech mentored the Roswell High School youngsters.

The high-tech competition is the result of months of focused brainstorming, teamwork, mentoring, project timelines and deadlines. The objective was to build a robot that could pick up soccer balls and place them into a hoop. Some robots scoop up the ball, some suck it up with a vacuum device, and others pick the ball up using a gripping mechanism.

In the competitions, two-robot teams compete against each other in two-minute matches. The team with the most balls shot into the hoop wins.

This year's competitions attracted more than 20,000 students on some 600 teams in 17 regional contests, with teams from Canada, Brazil, the United Kingdom and nearly every state in the United States taking part.

Last year, Tech students worked with students from George Washington Carver High School to build a

robot named "The Prowler." The robot placed in the top half of its division during the national competition and won a Judge's Award at the regional competition.

Caroline Joe

Engineering students prepare the robo-athlete for the regional slam-dunk competition.

re-Law Program Tops

I

n its first year, Phi Alpha Delta, Georgia Tech's pre-law chapter, has been recognized for presenting the "Best Professional Program" in the nation.

Chad Slieper, chapter president, says two professional programs presented at Georgia Tech in Spring 2001 were submitted in national competition: Lunch with Janet Reno, co-hosted with the Ivan Allen College, and a Spring Speaker Series on biotechnology, ethics and policy, co-hosted with the School of Public Policy and the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience.

"We did receive kudos for the Janet Reno event," says Slieper, who attended the awards banquet for the national conference of pre-law chapters in Washington, D.C. But the speaker series on biotechnology, ethics and policy was the one that captured the prize for best professional program, he says.

"With our chapter receiving such great success in our first year since being chartered, our future is definitely bright," Slieper says.

TGCII Notes

Davidson rates among 'powerful' lumna Janet Davidson has been named to Fortune magazine's list of the "50 Most Powerful Women in Business."

Davidson, MS EE 79, is group president of Lucent Technologies' Integrated Network Solutions. Based in Murray Hill, N.J., Davidson's group provides long-distance carriers and regional Bell operating companies with networks and services they pass along to business and residential customers.

She began her career at Bell Laboratories, the precursor to Lucent Technologies, in 1978.

Fortune said many of the women on the top 50 list rose to power slowly.

"They stayed with a company, steadily building influence there, and rose to power through determination and insider knowledge, not promises and selfpromotion."

Davidson is indeed included in powerful company. The list is topped by Carly Fiorina, chairman and CEO of Hewlett-Packard, and also includes household names like Oprah Winfrey and Martha Stewart.

A

Carter receives Ivan Allen Prize

F

ormer President Jimmy Carter received the 2002 Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Progress and Service from the Ivan Allen College in a presentation at the Student Center Ballroom March 22. Carter, 78, also gave an address, "An Open Society in an Age of Terrorism."

The 39th president, Carter served in office from Jan. 20,1977, to Jan. 20,1981. He attended Georgia Tech in 1942-43 before transferring to the Naval Academy at Annapolis.

Time magazine says Carter has been "a superb ex-president," and his efforts to promote world peace, feed the hungry, fight disease and house the homeless have gained national and international respect. Carter is the author of 16 books.

North Avenue Almaridc 7 5 Years Ago It was a very good year for Georgia Tech athletes in 1927.

Bobby Jones, ME 22, captured the national amateur championship for the third time in four years and was co-author of a book, "Down the Fairway," with O.B. Keeler. Student Watts Gunn reigned as the intercollegiate and Southern Conference golf champion, Ed Hamm was the intercollegiate broad jump champion and Dave Young was the intercollegiate backstroke champion.

5 0 Years Ago "Georgia Tech is now a coed institution," W. Roane Beard, former executive director of the Alumni Association, wrote in a magazine column in the spring of 1952.

The Board of Regents voted 7-5 to allow women to attend Tech beginning in the fall quarter. Beard noted in another column that Georgia Tech "has always been a sort of male sanctuary; however, not by choice of the students, I feel sure."

2 5 Years Ago Who lives there? Former Dean of Students George Griffin ran a notice in TECH TOPICS, the

alumni newspaper, in an effort to determine the identity of a mystery writer. Who lived at "29 Dover Road?" Griffin wanted to know. While the street was clear, Griffin said, the name of the alumnus, the city and state were illegible.

Spring 2002 • GEORGIA TECH 1 1

TechNotŠs

Think Different

By Maria M. Lameiras

B

rainstorming is a brain drain. Most people who think they're not creative really are. Write down those ideas that come to you in the shower.

These are a few of the ways alumna Lara O'Connor Hodgson encouraged participants in the 2002 Women's Leadership Conference to "Think Different."

Hodgson, AE 93, the keynote speaker for the fifth annual event, holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and is co-founder of Thought Capital, an idea management company in Atlanta.

"When I talk about creativity, I'm not talking about creativity in the sense of art," says Hodgson, who asserts that most people reach the peak of their creativity at age 5.

"At age 5, most kids are at 98 percent on the creativity scale. By age 8, that's down to 32 percent. By age 44 it's at 2 percent," she says. "Most companies are run by people who are around 44 years old and we wonder why we can't innovate.

"If you correlate that with the Brenda Gullatt Joseph number of questions we ask per day and what kinds of questions we ask, we go from asking 'Why?' to asking 'What, When and Where?' We go from how we think being most important to putting more emphasis on what we know than how we think," Hodgson says. "We need to get back to how we think."

Hodgson says to get back to that natural creativity, people don't have to think more, they just have to think different.

"Creativity is not a talent. We all have it. It atrophies over time and we have to bring it back," she says. "We have to find the second right answers, create vision statements, form teams and pass notes, challenge assumptions. In other words, we have to do all of the things we are trained not to do."

The two-day conference also included the presentation of the 2002 Women of Distinction Awards and a day of workshops and networking opportunities.

Six women were honored as Women of Distinction.

Brenda Gullatt Joseph, EES 76, is the 2002 Outstanding Alumna. She is president of KBM Group, a high-tech research services and management firm in Maryland and one of Tech's first African-American female graduates.

Other award winners were Mahera "Mimi" Philobos, director of Tech's Women in Engineering Program, Outstanding Faculty Member; Danielle McDonald, coordinator of student organizations and adviser to the President's Council, Outstanding Staff Member; Monique Mcintosh, MatE 99, Outstanding Graduate Student; and Wendy Anderson and Anna Fincher, co-recipients of the Outstanding Undergraduate Student award.

1 2 GEORGIA TECH • Spring 2002

I

n only his 17th start since joining the PGA Tour last fall, Georgia Tech alumnus Matt Kuchar scored his first professional victory at the Honda Classic in Coral Springs, Fla., in March.

Kuchar, Mgt 00, holed a clutch 12-foot par putt on the 72nd hole to clinch the win with a final-round 66 at the tournament. His 19under-par 269 finish

earned him a $630,000 paycheck.

"To win a professional tournament on the PGA Tour has been a dream forever," Kuchar, 23, a former U.S. Amateur champion, told the Atlanta JournalConstitution.

Kuchar's win catapulted him from 149th on the circuit to 50th, earning him a last-minute spot in this year's Masters Tournament in Augusta.

TechNotes

Best Book Professor wins prize for urban history

G

Mars Invasion Georgia Tech researchers developing flapping-wing Entomopter

R

OBOT BUGS PLANNED FOR MARS INVASION!" The headline screams — all caps — above a subhead that proclaims, "They'll have chemical muscles too.

You can't make this stuff up."

"Amazing Stories?"

Wrong.

Try Popular Science. The national magazine with a circulation of 1.5 million clearly caught the sciencefiction thrill in its descrip- Researcher Rob Michelson holds a model Entomopter. tion of scientific fact, devotcollecting data." ing an entire page to the Mars The flapping-wing Entomopter could Entomopter under development for expand exploration of the planet, providNASA in the Georgia Tech Research ing more flexibility than existing rovers.

Institute.

Rob Michelson of Georgia Tech and The Popular Science article was accomTony Colozza of the Ohio Aerospace panied with a NASA illustration of a "Martian Buzz" and explained, "Engineers Institute have received funding from the hope the Entomopter ("ento" for insect, NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts to "mopter" for segmented wings) will one conduct research into the challenging day flap its way around the Red Planet project.

eorgia Tech professor Hanchao Lu's book on early 20th century life in Shanghai has been named the "Best Book in Non-North American Urban History Published in 1999 or 2000" by the Urban History Association.

The association presented Lu, a professor in the School of History, Technology and Society, a 2001 Award for Scholarly Distinction for "Beyond the Neon Lights: Everyday Life in the Early Twentieth Century."

The American Historical Review described Lu's book as a "detailed, enlightening and wonderfully readable account of daily life in early 20th century China's greatest city. [It] will be consulted and quoted for many years by those dealing with the realities of daily life in Chinese cities."

Lu specializes in the history of labor, industrialization and urbanization in China. He has served as president of the Chinese Historians in the United States and as an honorary research professor at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. He is the editor of a 10-volume series on "Culture and Customs of Asia" and has written a number of articles on modern Chinese socioeconomic history.

Spring 2002

GEORGIA TECH 13

14 GEORGIA TECH • Spring 2002

Artist-in-residence brings her love of structure to architecture students

By Kimberly Link-Wills khotographer Ruth Dusseault saw much more than a deserted factory when she looked at the battered buildings and broken windows on the Atlantic Steel property.

She saw beauty in the shades of rust. She saw memorials to the heyday of the steel industry. She saw cranes and bulldozers ready to demolish part of Atlanta's past in the name of urban renewal.

It is fitting that a photographer who has devoted much of her professional life to capturing urban forms on film now is teaching architecture students at Georgia Tech.

Her office in the basement of the old architecture building has itself enjoyed a rebirth. When Dusseault arrived last fall as the artist-in-residence and visiting assistant professor, her quarters were a storeroom illuminated by a single light bulb and a forgotten photo lab. A photography class hadn't been offered since the last instructor retired several years ago.

"It was uninhabitable," says Dusseault, who rolled up her sleeves and set to work.

"I thought it would be fun to teach architecture students. I think we have a lot in common," she says. "The Georgia Tech students themselves are the best part of this job.

F.

Spring 2002 • GEORGIA TECH 15

"The reason I wanted to do it was because [Atlantic Steel] was a piece of history. It was in the middle of town and it was invisible.

The public was not allowed in. No one had ever seen it."

"What surprised me is their aptitude for visual communication. I'm im-pressed by their ability to just jump in and take risks in self-expression. You would think someone analytical would not be so willing."

She brings her experience from teaching photography at the University of Maryland, Georgia State, Perimeter College and the Atlanta College of Arts — and her perspective.

After obtaining her graduate degree at Florida State, Dusseault became

interested in photographing downtown desertion and suburban sprawl.

"Downtown Tallahassee was becoming empty. All the businesses were leaving downtown and the historic buildings were being demolished. I was infuriated. It was such a cool place to be during the 10 years I lived there and then it was completely empty, a ghost town."

She was curator of a show titled "Sprawl" that started in Tallahassee and spread to Atlanta and Washington,

D.C. "Half the exhibitors were artists and half were architects and they all did work about urbanism," Dusseault says.

A job relocation for her husband brought her to Atlanta to live. She discovered Atlantic Steel while driving along 14th Street.

"1 remember seeing a giant duct and thinking how melancholy it was. I had no idea it was a 140-acre site. I read in the newspaper that it was going to be demolished, that it was a 100-year-old

Photographer Ruth Dusseault, a visiting professor and artistin-residence at the College of Architecture, captured the old Atlantic Steel administration building on film before its demolition to document a piece of Atlanta's history.

16 GEORGIA TECH • Spring 2002

"These buildings were no longer functional. They were almost free to become beautiful, sculptural objects," Ruth Dusseault says.

steel mill and that there was going to be this new development," she says.

Plans for Atlantic Station call for 12 million square feet of office, retail, residential and hotel space. The first phase of the 140-acre project is slated to open in the fall of 2003.

"Out of curiosity, I went to the Atlanta History Center to see what it looked like. They had some assembly line shots, aerial shots of the whole place, but there was no photographic documentation of the buildings."

Dusseault applied for and received a grant from the Atlanta Bureau of Cultural Affairs in 1999 to capture the buildings on film before they were gone forever. Cultural Affairs supported her again in 2001 as she continued to follow changes to the site.

"The reason I wanted to do it was because it was a piece of history. It was in the middle of town and it was invisible. The public was not allowed in

while it was a working mill so no one had ever seen it. That was the part that bothered me. I thought somebody should photograph it. We were about to lose it without anybody in town seeing it," she says.

At the time, Tech architecture professor Dominique Bonamour-Lloyd was studying the site with an international consortium of graduate students.

She invited Dusseault to stage her first show of the Atlantic Steel photographs at Tech. A collaboration with professor Chris Jarrett, who researches urban sustainability, has broadened into a multi-artist exhibition and symposium that will take place next year.

Dusseault returned to the Atlantic Steel site again and again, photographing the demolition, the environmental remediation and the infrastructure construction. Photos include one of an old sewer system jutting out of the ground like the ruins of an Irish castle.

"I think professor Harris Dimitropolos said it most poignantly," Dusseault says. "He commented that when things die, they are released from their function and they can be appreciated only for their beauty. These buildings were no longer functional. They were almost free to become beautiful, sculptural objects."

Watching them being torn down was an emotional experience. "They had these big machines and they would just bite into the faces of the buildings and rip them down."

But Dusseault still visits the Atlantic Steel property because she continues to find new experiences to photograph.

"Photographers like to capture things that are changing so that they can stop it. It is a time-based medium.

You can capture time."

A selection of Dusseault's Atlantic Steel photographs are being exhibited at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, 535 Means St., through June 1. GT Spring 2002 • GEORGIA TECH

17

Timely Warning

•A9h$- ^

By Maria M. Lameiras

THE FINANCIAL NUMBERS GAME 1 )ete< ring (Creative Accounting Prai CHARLES W. MULFORD EUGENE E, COMISKEY

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A L Eugene Comiskey, left, and Charles Mulford have written a book about abusive earnings management.

EORGIA TECH'S

Two professors' best-selling book on detecting creative accounting serves as guide to help identify companies that inflate financial performance

T

he three years of research and writing Georgia Tech professors Charles Mulford and Eugene Comiskey put into their most recent collaboration have nothing to do with the surge of media attention that has swept into their offices at the DuPree College of Management.

The duo's book, "The Financial Numbers Game: Detecting Creative Accounting Practices," came out in January, coinciding with the ongoing Enron scandal. Since then, both professors have been caught up in the media "tornado" whirling around Enron.

They have been featured by news outlets ranging from the Atlanta journalConstitution, the Wall Street journal and Investor's Business Daily to TheStreet.com, SmartMoney.com, Bloomberg TV and ABC news.

"Our first book, 'Financial Warnings,' had some of this information in there, but to say it didn't get near the attention this has is a huge understatement," says Comiskey, the Fuller E. Callaway professor at Tech for 21 years.

"The difference is it came out in 1996 when everything was booming. Everyone thought, 'This is going to last forever.' People weren't interested in signs that things might be deteriorating.

They weren't thinking about avoiding earnings surprises or indicators of possible deterioration in performance."

Still, the book sold well and is now in its sixth printing. Both "Financial Warnings" and a second book, "Guide to Financial Reporting and Analysis," which was published in 1998, have benefited from the success of "The Financial Numbers Game." In February, all three books were briefly on Amazon.com's top 200 best-seller list.

Mulford says the idea for the latest book was conceived in 1998 after a speech by the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission about abusive earnings management.

"Everyone was trying to meet their earnings forecast numbers. That was the time of the stock market bubble and the dot-com craze. The idea was to show some warning signs of a compa-

ny's earnings declining. Among those were creative accounting practices," Mulford says. "The book is strictly focused on creative accounting and what companies do to alter a reader's perception of their business performance based on financial statements."

The book is written based on Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement actions dating back to 1990, more than 1,000 cases involving companies that were disciplined for using creative accounting practices.

Enron wasn't one of them.

"Because we didn't know what was happening at Enron until this all came

ly paid off more in exposure than any academic paper I've ever written."

Comiskey says the book is designed as a guide to help identify companies that may be inflating their financial performance on paper.

"This is not the first time companies have done this but now, because of what happened with Enron, there is an appetite for this type of information."

Comiskey is concerned, however, that the coverage of the Enron scandal has overly sensitized the public to companies' financial reporting systems.

"They were way over the edge at Enron and now it has been picked up and is being exploited for political reasons," he says. "I know there are firms out there that do things to their statements to portray them as doing better than they actually are, but in no ^JOJJJ-iJ SLZJ Sj.b U way are we suggesting that's what all / I - J C I r I I I tâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; r , r "i\ r~''r \ /T r J firms are doing. There is always going to be a residue of activity out there that bill 'ZJJbfb 'SSJ2ZS J S j / iisn't proper and this book is aimed at that residue.

"I'm not saying there isn't bad stuff out there, but we have to have a sense sjbbji lb bijjjjbzi of perspective on how our country JJ 1SS 'ZSJlSS fbblzlbb. ranks in financial reporting standards and regulations. This is just one company. Why are we talking like the whole system is broken?"

"The Financial Numbers Game" out in the Wall Street journal, we didn't doesn't engage a lot of larger public have anything in the book about Enron. policy issues and is technical in nature The only thing we were able to do at but written to be accessible to broad that late stage was add a mention of readership, Comiskey says. He hopes the Enron situation in a preface remark the book will offset the flurry of attenwe squeezed in at the last moment as tion surrounding the Enron situation the book went to press," Mulford says. and help prevent investors from makMulford is surprised that the book ing rash investment decisions. has reaped so much media attention.

"I look at financial statements every "The timing of this thing was amazday for research and that's why I never ing. We'd just been toiling away. We call certain indicators 'red flags.' People had an awareness of what needed to be want to call them that, but many times looked at, but we had no idea this was they are nothing more than a yellow coming," Mulford says. "We're just flag, something to look at, not to panic running with all of the noise now so over," he says. "Always, the first thing the book can have a longer life. You to do is take a look at it again and then don't get rich from writing books like ask a lot of questions. You are looking this. You do it for the visibility and the for all kinds of other potential indicaresearch and because that is what your tors, and if you put them together, it interests are. It is seldom that you get might be something different." GT an opportunity like this. It has definiteSpring 2002 â&#x20AC;˘ GEORGIA TECH 1 9

The Major Leagues Georgia Tech realizes longtime goals and steps up to hat in a new ballgame

By Gary Goettling

A

fter decades of determined effort, Georgia Tech has turned the corner and is competing in the "big league" of universities. But President Wayne Clough isn't ready to celebrate just yet.

"We've gone from the triple A into the major leagues," says Clough, CE 64, MS CE 65, pointing to rankings such as those conducted annually by U.S. News and World Report. The magazine's 2001 survey placed Georgia Tech among the nation's top 10 public universities for the third year in a row. Tech's top-10 consistency is an important recognition, especially coming on the heels of the most successful fund-raising effort in the Institute's 117-year history. But the real work is just beginning, cautions Georgia Tech's chief executive.

Ironically, Tech as an institution finds itself in an exhilarating — and challenging — position familiar to many of its freshmen. Numbered among the best and brightest in their hometown circles, many first-year Tech students are challenged by the prospects of the new environment on North Avenue, where academic excellence and ambition are the norm rather than the exception.

"We had become used to competing at one level, but the next one is a different story," Clough says. "Top-level institutions have very strong financial resources and most, or all, of their academic programs are ranked highly. They have contacts in places like Washington at the highest levels. And they have a 2 0 GEORGIA TECH • Spring 2002

"To be a real player, we have to compete with schools that not only have great engineering but also superior science and business programs.

Top institutions also have the capacity to surprise you with high quality in areas one might not normally associate with them."

— President Wayne Clou '

•

Spring 2002 • GEORGIA TECH 2 1

strong infrastructure to back up academic needs. While there is no question we are doing much for our infrastructure needs, a lot of this is catch-up compared to the 'major league' institutions.

For us to really establish ourselves in that league we have to think in a different way, and we have to generate resources that will allow us to compete with them."

A

n institution of merit and rank is understood to be one where innovation is the norm and one which is looked to for answers when questions arise," says Clough, who serves on President George W. Bush's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology. "To be a real player, we have to compete with schools that not only have great engineering but also superior science and business programs.

"Top institutions also have the capacity to surprise you with high quality in areas one might not normally associate with them. At Georgia Tech we are only now beginning to provide the resources to reach this goal. The good news is that we can see results that demonstrate we are on the right track and that help us attract top talent because they want to be associated with an institution on the way up," Clough says.

Reputations in higher education change at a glacial pace. While Georgia Tech has long been regarded as an exceptional regional engineering school, that perception also has had the effect of pigeonholing Tech. And it takes time to change this. After all, Stanford didn't get to be Stanford overnight.

"When you're steering a large ship, you do it one degree at a time," says Bob Harty, executive director of Institute Communications and Public Affairs. "Ultimately, that one degree makes a big difference in the direction the ship is going. That's essentially what's been happening at Georgia Tech."

Harty adds that Tech's present course is probably turning a bit more sharply than what's considered typical by academic standards.

"People will look back five, 10,15, maybe even 50 years from now and realize that this was the time Georgia 2 2 GEORGIA TECH • Spring 2002

Tech made a decision to go to the very top levels of leadership in higher education, and then planted the seeds in order to make that happen."

The long climb Tech's long climb to national prominence has been aided by many factors, not the least of which is its tradition of strong alumni support. In addition, each administration has left an indelible mark on the Institute's destiny by providing the incremental shifts in direction that aimed Tech toward its goal of achieving national and international stature.

Looking back on recent history, President Joseph Pettit's campaign in the 1970s to establish Tech as a research university was a wise and prescient decision. The academic restructuring under President John P. Crecine was another significant move. Building upon those accomplishments, the past eight years of the Clough administration have posted many impressive numbers: • The freshman SAT average has jumped from 1233 in 1994 to 1330 last year.

• Fifty-four new endowed chairs have been funded over the past seven years — compared to 22 chairs created during Tech's first 100 years.

• Research expenditures exceed $300 million annually, and have set record highs each of the past eight years.

• The Capital Campaign raised $712 million, the most successful fund-raising effort in Tech history.

Many of these gains were articulated as objectives in a strategic plan for achieving Tech's long-standing institutional ambition. Created in 1994 with input from all areas of the Tech community, the document identified the needs, steps and conditions necessary for Georgia Tech to move to the "next level," an objective that would later be expressed as leadership in "defining the technological university of the 21st century."

One measure of Tech's progress toward that goal over the past few years is reflected in its tremendous construction boom, the largest in the Institute's history. Representing an infrastructure investment of more than $500 million, major facilities under

design, construction or already built include a four-structure Life Sciences and Biotechnology Complex, the J. Erskine Love Jr. Manufacturing Building, a laboratory for research in aerospace combustion and another dedicated to advanced wood products, an Advanced Computing Technology Building, a Food Processing Technology Building, renovation and expansion of the Student Athletic Complex and an Undergraduate Learning Center.

Tech's most ambitious development project to date is Technology Square, rising along Fifth Street between West Peachtree Street and the Downtown Connector. When completed in 2003, the multibuilding complex will be home to the DuPree College of Management, Global Learning Center, a hotel and conference center, Economic Development Institute, Interdisciplinary Institute, Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development and retail space, including the Georgia Tech Bookstore.

In addition to its practical value as an education, business and scientific resource, Technology Square will make an architectural statement, according to Clough, by providing the campus with a formal entrance.

"It's a way of giving a dramatic physical presence to the intellectual substance and innovation going on here. When people arrive at an important institution, they need to know it by what they see. First impressions are important," he says.

A

dditions to the campus skyline can only hint at the profound changes transforming Tech.

What's not as obvious to the casual observer are the new approaches in the way technological education is conducted.

"Many of the world's big problems today aren't defined by narrow boundaries as in the past, they're solved through interdisciplinary activities," Clough explains. "Engineering, for instance, oftentimes needs to attack problems in collaboration with scientists and business people, and with computer science and architecture.

"Another example is advanced telecommunications — a very complex area ranging from public policy to

H. Hammond "Buck" Stith, chairman of the Georgia Tech Foundation, stands in front of Technology Square complex, the Institute's most ambitious project to date.

Spring 2002 â&#x20AC;˘ GEORGIA TECH 23

designing the next computer chip."

Don Giddens, AE 63, MS AE 65, PhD AE 67, who assumes the duties of dean of engineering on July 1, adds, "Georgia Tech has the great advantage of having a sharp focus on technology, yet also having a very strong history of interdisciplinary interactions in both research and education.

"In fact, I can think of no other institution that does both quite so well. This means that we can set our own model of a technological university where the College of Engineering is a partner with the other colleges to push the envelope," Giddens says.

Clough notes that for Georgia Tech to take its place at the next level, "it needs to be an institution that not only understands technology, but also how technology will be applied and how it will affect society. We can then help publicpolicy makers shape public policy.

That's the bigger picture Georgia Tech understands today that it didn't have before."

The 'bigger picture' The "bigger picture" doesn't come cheap. The state of Georgia has been supportive of Tech through the years, but annual allocations by the General Assembly cover only 34 percent of the Institute's budget at present. Tuition accounts for about one-fourth. The remainder comes from research contracts and donations. In terms of the latter, Georgia Tech alumni — along with faculty, students, corporations, foundations and friends — have maintained a strong tradition of support.

All those groups share a sense of what makes a useful investment, says Joe Irwin, IM 80, executive director of the Alumni Association. "If you want to invest in something that's going to be here 100 years from now and has a really profound, positive influence on the way life will be, then Georgia Tech is the place to look."

With more than $800 million in net assets, the Georgia Tech Foundation provides much of the financial muscle to achieve the Institute's vision. But that impression of wealth can be misleading because the under-performing economy of the past two years has drastically 2 4 GEORGIA TECH • Spring 2002

John B. Carter Jr. is president and COO of the Georgia Tech Foundation, which provides the financial muscle to achieve the Institute's vision.

trimmed one of the Foundation's primary sources of capital.

"Income through investment in the stock market is showing little or no growth, yet our expenses and obligations remain steady," says H. Hammond "Buck" Stith, CE 58, chairman of the Georgia Tech Foundation and retired president of Stith Equipment Co. "That puts the whole load on fund raising and makes those efforts more valuable now than in any other year."

Contributions to Georgia Tech are channeled through the Foundation and divided among four categories.

The restricted fund for current operations includes donations given on the condition that the money be used by a designated entity at Georgia Tech.

"Someone might offer to give $100,000 specifically to the chemical engineering department, and the director of that department can spend it on the department's most pressing need," explains John B. Carter Jr., IE 69, president and chief operating officer of the Foundation.

A second category is restricted endowment, where an annual allocation from the endowment is earmarked for a specified school, department, college or campus organization. The foundation

manages the investment to provide consistent and perpetual "buying power," Carter says.

"The investment rate has to exceed the payout rate plus any fee you charge to the endowment for managing it, plus cost-of-living increases," he notes.

The equation must also figure in the Higher Education Price Index, which is a university's version of the Consumer Price Index. The HEPI number reflects inflation or deflation for a national average university budget, and accounts for price changes in the goods and services purchased by colleges over time.

"HEPI was about 4.8 last year, and payout 5 percent — that's 9.8 percent already," Carter says. "And if you charge 100 basis points for managing the endowment, you're looking at a return of more than 10 percent to maintain the buying power."

Unrestricted endowment is the third segment of the Foundation's assets, and comes via estate bequests and special gifts.

"We set up an unrestricted endowment and, in terms of investing and payout, we treat it the same way we treat restricted endowments," he says.

The fourth category is the most important one for individuals who want to make a difference at Georgia Tech. It's discretionary income, what Carter calls the "opportunity fund" because it's unrestricted money available for current operations. Most of the funds in this till come from Roll Call, and provide Clough the flexibility to take advantage of new opportunities that can make a difference in the lives of the students and faculty at Georgia Tech, Carter says.

Since the discretionary funds of about $90 million are the only funds that are not otherwise designated, the Foundation has adopted a novel approach to providing support for two critical infrastructure projects at Tech.

Through the Development Authority of Fulton County, the Foundation has underwritten two bond issues totaling $231 million.

A bond offering closed this past January and provided $186 million toward construction of the Technology

Square complex. The other bond issue raised $45 million toward funding the new recreation center SAC 11 — new facilities primarily for non-varsity student athletic programs.

"If we waited until we raised all the money for these buildings, it might take 10 years," Stith says. "By leveraging the Foundation's assets we can build now and pay over time.

"It's very similar to a young couple buying a house," he adds. "They don't have enough money to pay for it up front, but they have a 40-year earning span ahead of them that allows them to pay off the debt over time with a mortgage."

While a relatively painless way to secure new facilities quickly, the $231 million counts as a liability for accounting purposes, which means, among other things, the Foundation pays debt service on the money twice a year, says Carter, noting that Moody's and S&P have given the Foundation an AA1 and AA-plus credit rating, respectively.

"Some private schools have been doing this for a number of years. Public schools are just now getting into this way of leveraging their assets."

The Foundation went this route once before in 1987, raising $12 million for

Joe Irwin, executive director of the Alumni Association, says an investment in Georgia Tech will have a "profound, positive influence."

the Wardlaw Center, Habersham Building and Success Center.

Profiting from Tech New buildings and programs, an interdisciplinary curriculum, innovative research, technological leadership — how do these translate into tangible, practical benefits?

For students, a "new and improved" Georgia Tech means they'll receive the high-quality education for which Tech is known, but with a tremendously enhanced capability for succeeding in a technologically changing, globally based economic and social environment. They'll learn from the best minds in academia — innovators in their own right — who have been attracted to Tech's pre-eminent position among technological institutions. Georgia Tech students will enter the working world with a broader range of experience, knowledge and understanding to help them define and solve problems.

The number of Georgia students choosing Tech has increased by about 10 percent over the past few years, to 65 percent of the total student body.

While much of the change can be attributed to the HOPE scholarship program, Tech's growing reputation must also share the credit.

"A lot of the young people who might have gone to a University of Virginia or Duke or MIT are staying right here," Clough observes.

Alumni benefit as well. Borrowing the notion that a rising tide lifts all ships, Irwin likes to point out that the Institute's progress adds to the value of every Georgia Tech degree, past and present.

"Alumni support is what makes Georgia Tech great," he adds, "and Georgia Tech is what makes alumni great. This is a tough place to get into and a tough place to get out of, but the lessons learned pay good dividends. It transforms smart kids into bright, motivated adults who add to society's value in a lot of positive ways."

From a larger perspective, the state of Georgia also has long profited from Tech's activity. To pick just one example: The Office of Economic Development and Technology Ventures was

Foundation treasurer Don Chapman says Tech fulfills "an important economic development role for the state, region and nation."

formed last year to bring together Georgia Tech's economic development efforts. Within the new structure are the Advanced Technology Development Center, a business incubator for earlystage technology companies; the Economic Development Institute, a statewide business and economic-development service group; and VentureLab, a new initiative aimed at expanding technology commercialization from Georgia Tech research.

"Georgia Tech has fulfilled an important economic development role for the state, region and nation," says Don Chapman, Foundation treasurer and chairman of Tug Investment Corp.

"While the economic development responsibility may not be specifically directed to Georgia Tech, the technical leadership Tech has assumed has created thousands of employment opportunities."

He adds, "The leadership by Georgia Tech's administration in both research and technology development has made the Atlanta region a magnet for technology companies that want to be close to the latest and newest."

During 2000, the latest year for which complete numbers are available, more than $691 million in revenues were generated and more than 4,600 Spring 2002 • GEORGIA TECH 2 5

Gary Meek

Technology Square will serve as a bold new entrance to Tech's campus.

high-tech jobs provided by 52 companies participating in the incubator program. As part of Georgia's economic development team for prospective or expanding businesses, Georgia Tech helped attract more than $41.8 million in new capital investment to the state. In addition, 87 community economic development projects were conducted in 45 counties.

These numbers, while impressive, don't begin to approach Georgia Tech's potential as a job generator and catalyst for economic development in the state.

"Tech doesn't just produce graduates," notes Irwin. "Tech has a great economic impact on the state. It has tremendous resources in terms of academic horsepower and research horsepower that make it capable of even greater things."

J

Tust because Georgia Tech is positioned to join the top ranks of America's technological universities is no cause | for complacency. Despite its progress in reaching this storic opportunity — or perhaps because of it — ongoing needs remain to be met.

"We're growing in all directions at once," Stith says.

"Where once we had 12,000 students, now we have 15,000.

And that means more classrooms, more faculty, more facilities and all the other things that go into providing an excellent Georgia Tech education."

Growth applies to the number of programs on campus as well, Stith adds. "A few years ago, no one had ever heard of nanotechnology. Now it's a very important field with tremendous possibilities. The boom in computing, environmental science and biotechnology is changing the world, and we have to keep up and get ahead of the curve on these technologies if we're to secure a leadership position."

Clough agrees. "If we want to sit back and not do it, if we want to just rely on state dollars, we'll be a fine regional school. But the edge of excellence is something that you cannot get to unless you have private funding.

"We're just getting started — and the competition is not standing still," he adds. "They're not easy to compete with.

We're talking about schools that have billion-dollar campaigns — they already have the resources. The only way we're going to keep up with them is to be competitive. We have to invest everything we can wisely, and realize that we're just at the beginning, not at the end, of the road." GT 2 6 GEORGIA TECH • Spring 2002

AOAC

STAYING IN TOUCH WITH'GEORGIA TECH **

IS JUST A FEW MOUSE CLICKS AWAY!

gtalumni.org Lost touch with a fellow classmate? Looking for a new job? Want to register for an upcoming Tech event? Tired of changing your email address every time you move or change jobs? Look no further than the Georgia Tech Alumni Association's new website.

At gtalumni.org you can do all of the above, plus much more. Our redesigned website offers new online features that will keep you connected to Tech!

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ASPIRING YOUTH PROGRAM

John Meredith answers call to help youngsters through 'crucial years'

By Karen Hill

S

eventh-grader Tony Jacobs Jr. enrolled in an after-school program so he could play basketball with his buddies. Five years later and now a high school senior, Jacobs may indeed have picked up some smoother moves on the court â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but he has also gained the contacts and financial support to get into college and the self-assurance to help other kids.

Jacobs, an 18-year-old who plans to double major in music and business at the University of Houston, is one of many students being helped through Aspiring Youth, a nonprofit organization led by John Meredith, a Tech graduate who chucked a law career to help kids in tough neighborhoods fight frustration, apathy and the lure of the streets.

The after-school volunteers Jacobs met at Ryan Middle School in Houston selected him as an intern in the Aspiring Youth office in that city, where he came in contact with an assortment of business leaders.

"John offered an opportunity for me to do an internship, working with computers, meeting different people, mentoring different kids at different Aspiring Youth places. It's pretty nice to give back 2 8 GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Spring 2002

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to the kids who are in the same situation that 1 was in. It's pretty fun," Jacobs says.

Aspiring Youth focuses on at-risk middle schoolers, using the Houston school system's definition of "at risk."

They're students living in an area where there is a high dropout rate, where a large percentage of kids need financial aid to buy breakfast or lunch at school, where there is a lot of illegal drug activity and where there are many single-parent households.

"To start, they need the belief that they can be successful someday and that they have the tools and abilities to reach that," Meredith says. "We try to connect them with examples of success, positive field trips, teach them about setting goals and doing well in class and looking long term. We take them to offices, colleges. This makes them more familiar with those environments so they can envision being there."

Middle schoolers are in an age

group that can slip through the cracks of social programs. These kids don't, however, get to slip out of the juvenile justice system â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and that's where Meredith's story begins.

After graduating from Tech in 1985 with a master's degree in management and earning a law degree from Baylor University, Meredith settled into work in Houston as a commercial litigator.

After a few years on the job, Meredith says, one night stands out: He and a colleague were sitting in his office at the end of the workday. It was "one of those conversations when you have

your feet up on the desk, talking about making the world a better place."

They wondered how they could do more for Houston, especially its innercity children. They wanted to help, but they didn't know how.

Two weeks later, Meredith got a phone call that changed his life.

A juvenile court judge had approached the leader of the city's Young Lawyers Association because he was seeing an alarming number of middle school children in his courtroom. The judge asked the lawyers group to find a way to give these kids a helping hand, to slap away the hands shoving them toward gangs and drugs.

The judge knew "the crucial years were those leading to ninth grade, that if a student can make it through ninth and 10th grades, they can see the finish line," Meredith says. "It's those middle school years, many times, when they choose their peer groups too. We wanted them to be with students after

John Meredith meets with Aspiring Youth members in Houston, from left, Rosalinda Mendoza, Melissa Banks, Chameka Harris, Tony Jacobs, Sigourney Harris and Billy Cabrero. Jacobs, with Meredith on opposite page, now mentors other Aspiring Youth, middle schoolers considered "at risk."

30 GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Spring 2002

school who want to get better, to do the things necessary to be successful."

The Young Lawyers Association turned to Meredith. He led a group of volunteers, all attorneys, who started programs at two Houston schools, then four. As the program spread to other Texas cities, Meredith set off to Harvard University, where he earned a master's degree in public administration and set up pilot projects in the Boston area based on Aspiring Youth.

When he returned to Texas in 1997, he became the group's full-time executive director. He hasn't had time to miss the income and prestige of his former career. Since he became executive director, Aspiring Youth has spread to 30 cities in 11 states. Although most of the work continues to be done by volunteers, Meredith now oversees a fulltime staff of 10 and 50 to 60 part-timers.

In addition to daily after-school programs that focus on tutoring, mentoring, field trips and visits from notables in various professions, the group has launched a television show, broadcast on public-access stations, that targets parents.

Meredith is running that expansion on a shoestring that's stretching tighter and tighter. He's dealing with the loss of hometown corporate giant Enron as a sponsor and the overall redirection of charity funds nationwide toward the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

It's the children like Jacobs that make it worthwhile.

Jacobs describes his world as "being an environment where kids constantly face peer pressure to do drugs, to hang out and go steal."

Aspiring Youth, he says, provides an alternative that "is something to do between after school and going home and going to bed. It's a really good opportunity to keep us in and show us some things."

Even for teen-agers like himself, with good grades and high aspirations already, Jacobs says Aspiring Youth has helped him stay focused.

"I had always thought about going to college, but after being in Aspiring

Youth, it really motivated me more," he says, adding that one-on-one tutoring, especially in math, was a big help.

Meredith says the time is right for the organization to spread beyond its association with lawyers â&#x20AC;&#x201D; for example, he muses, engineers at a certain university in Atlanta would be welcomed with open arms at an Aspiring Youth program that meets just on the other side of the downtown expressway.

Already, Meredith, who grew up in Atlanta, has his parents working four days a week with about 30 children who gather at Walton Middle School in downtown Atlanta.

Meredith's father, James C. "Cham" Meredith, who earned a chemical engineering degree from Tech in 1955 and a master's in public health engineering, says he is glad for the chance to spend time with middle school kids.

"They can be molded more at that age than later," Cham Meredith says. "Before that, they're not quite old enough to

work in a program like this. This is the ideal age to be influenced the most in sportsmanship, integrity, discipline and doing your homework."

Both father and son knew that to be true even before Aspiring Youth existed.

John Meredith says he often repeats this story to his young charges: "There was an eighth-grader in Atlanta, a boy not doing very well in school -â&#x20AC;&#x201D; failing math and doing very poorly in science. His parents were able to get together the funding for an afterschool tutor. He was able to squeak by in both those classes and eventually made it to college.

"The story of that eighthgrader is my story. I just know from my own experience that the eighthgrade year can really be when you decide who you are and where you are going." GT

3 2 GEORGIA TECH • Spring 2002

Falling Pfaltzgraff Marsha Everton is the new president and CEO of America's oldest continuously operating pottery

By Kimberly Link-Wills

M

arsha Everton fell in love with The Pfaltzgraff Co. in 1983. Everton had given some thought to leaving her job at Corning Glass Works and put out a few feelers. She saw a meeting with family-owned Pfaltzgraff, the oldest continuously operating pottery in the country, as an opportunity to hone her job interview skills, nothing more.

Yet Everton was impressed with the York, Pa., dinnerware manufacturer, so impressed in fact that she accepted a job as the director of market planning and administration.

In January, Everton, who graduated from Georgia Tech with an applied biology degree in 1973, became president and CEO of The Pfaltzgraff Co. "I fell in love with the company. I came in and worked with a fabulous group of people, the kind of people who expand your mind every day," Everton says. "We all work for people other than companies really. That is one of the most important aspects of management, to understand that people work for people. If you don't like your boss, you move on. If you can wake up in the morning and be really excited about working with someone, that motivates you."

Everton describes the history of parent company Susquehanna Pfaltzgraff as "a wonderful story of how an interesting business portfolio comes together." Company chairman Louis Appell Jr. is the great-great-grandson of Johann George Pfaltzgraff, who opened his pottery in York in 1811. Louis' mother, Helen Pfaltzgraff, married into the Appell family, a major force in theater management in the early 1900s through Nathan Appell Enterprises.

Appell's father expanded into radio and today the family business includes Susquehanna Radio Corp., one of the largest radio broadcasting companies in the country; Susquehanna Communications, which owns and operates cable television systems in five states; BlazeNet, an Internet service provider; and The Pfaltzgraff Co. Appell, now in his 70s, announced his retirement as president of Susquehanna Pfaltzgraff in December. He appointed William Simpson, then president and CEO of Pfaltzgraff, as the new president of the parent company. Everton, a Pfaltzgraff vice president for more than 10 years, replaced Simpson and took control of the dinnerware business on Jan. 2.

Spring 2002 â&#x20AC;˘ GEORGIA TECH 33

Laura Sikes

Marsha Everton admires Jamie Barnhart's handiwork as she tours Pfaltzgraff's oldest factory in York with production supervisor Ken Sechrist.

"There's a wonderful culture in the company. That's one of the aspects that attracted me to it. It's just been a marvelous place to call home," says Everton, a military kid who grew up in "lots of places," including a five-year stint in the Panama Canal Zone. Today, when asked where she's from, Everton answers, "York. This is home. I've lived here longer than anywhere, almost 20 years now."

Everton hasn't been home much since January as she's been on what she describes as her introductory tour.

"It's so important for people to have confidence in who this new president and CEO is. I've hit the road visiting major accounts, major vendors and our facilities outside of York with the objective of meeting people," she says.

Everton had been responsible for the operation of Pfaltzgraff's factory stores across the country and direct marketing.

She intends to work the retail floor at an outlet at least once a quarter. "There's nothing like actually trying to help at the register, deal with consumer questions, deal with a truck of goods when it arrives, see how they are really packed and deal with all the consumer and operational issues.

"Once a month I still go to our customer call center and spend a couple of hours tapped into the phone line just listening to what consumers are saying to make sure I have a finger on the pulse," Everton says. "And I make sure I'm out in the manufacturing facilities walking the floors periodically because I believe, in this kind of job, it's so important to think 3 4 GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Spring 2002

on two planes. You have to think big and small at the same time. You can have a grand vision, but the details are what make it happen."

Everton tries to make herself accessible to all employees, from the corporate offices to the factory floor. She thinks it's "wonderful" when workers approach her during her visits to the factories.

"Some of them are still getting to know me. When you carry a high-level title, people are often a little intimidated, but we're getting there. We do have a lot of long-term employees, and they don't care who you are. They'll tell you what they think, which I applaud," Everton says laughing.

Everton says she listens to all of her employees because she feels "a real sense of responsibility" for them.

"When you've got several thousand people depending on you to lead a company and lead it well, it makes you think more deliberately. The world is not black and white. Most of the leadership issues have a lot of gray. There are nuances to everything, and you really have to make sure that you listen to all sides and dig down underneath the first response that people give you," she says.

There are even more gray areas when the U.S. economy is ailing. "Everyone is facing challenging business conditions right now," Everton says. "Profits are pressured. That's probably the best way to describe it. Anyone who is dealing with retailing to consumers feels that."

Still, Everton describes Pfaltzgraff as a "privately held, good-size, nine-figure company" and says it consistently has been the dominant gift registry brand in the country since the mid-1980s.

"It's a very comfortable product. You have a lot of assurances as you're registering that you'll be able to get replacement pieces, that you can add to your collection over "The pottery really the years. We're very careful with that. Even when we started with this whole retire a pattern, we're very idea of listening to careful to make sure that we what your neighbor have replacement pieces available in the core dinner- wanted and staying in ware and accessories for at contact with them. least five years. If there's That spirit still exists ever important news about your pattern, we'll send you in this company a letter or e-mail you or call today." you and let you know what's going on."

Pfaltzgraff prides itself on its close connection with customers, who purchase everything from plates to place mats, casserole dishes to candlesticks in patterns like the popular Naturewood, perennial Yorktowne and relative youngster Jamberry. Even if a pattern is not selling well enough to warrant year-round production, Pfaltzgraff still produces it "by request."

"We have an innovative program that we started about two years ago. We have some patterns that we cannot keep in production all year long, but we can produce them once a year. We've created a special program that we call 'by request.' Once a year we mail out a catalog. We have not only the basic dinnerware pieces, but we keep bringing out new pieces so that people can keep their homes looking fresh and new. We take everybody's order and, based on what people have ordered, we go into the plants, we make it and we ship it. So we still can take care of those people for many years to come," Everton says.

"One of the things I love about this company is how much we reflect our history. When George Pfaltzgraff started his pottery in York County, he was one of many local potters. The trading area for a potter used to be defined by how far he could go out and back in a day with his horse.

Pottery really had a neighborly aspect to it.

"You'd go to Farmer Wilhelm and find out what he needed. If he needed something for storing apple cider, then that's what you'd go back and make for him. He might tell you what kind of decoration he wanted. He might want a special piece as a gift for his wife. The pottery really started with this whole idea of listening to what your neighbors wanted and staying in contact with them," Everton says.

"That spirit still exists in this company today. We really do try to listen to our consumers and stay in touch with them.

We've always listened and responded to changes in the market and kept moving and kept evolving. But it still has a neighborly feel."

She enjoys the neighborly feel of York County, where she met her husband, attorney Jack Stover, on a blind date.

Everton says she was at a point in her life where she figured she would never marry, but she agreed to being set up by friends. They married almost exactly a year later and now are rearing three children, 12-year-old Melanie and 11-yearold twins Emily and Mitchell. Everton admits that life as a company CEO, wife and mother of three is busy.

"Every weekend I literally type up the family schedule for the week. I have to so we all know who's going where and to make sure each child is where they need to be â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and picked up," she chuckles. "We describe our lives as living in intersecting circles. It's a little stressful some days, but everybody's life is so time-stressed. I don't feel my life is that unusual."

Everton says it helps that she has always been "high energy.

I was always just going for it. I graduated from Georgia Tech in two and a half years. I just zoomed through the place. The thing that drives me more than anything is curiosity."

She enrolled at Tech as an engineering science and management major, then switched to applied biology with the intent of working in the research and development of artificial limbs or organs. As an 18-year-old, she interned at a laboratory outside Washington, D.C., where an artificial heart was being developed. At Tech, she worked part time at the nuclear research laboratory and in Dean Jim Dull's office.

"I had some wonderful opportunities as a student," says Everton. "But I found myself interested in the economics classes my roommate was taking. I had already decided by the time I left Georgia Tech that I did not want to pursue a career in engineering."

Her education at Tech did, however, help prepare her for her future, Everton says.

"A sciencedriven education really helps you

Spring 2002 â&#x20AC;˘ GEORGIA TECH 3 5

learn how to use your curiosity productively. It really teaches you a lot about how to take a situation, break it down, look at it from many angles and put it back together. There's this whole idea of looking underneath. Don't believe the first set of data as it comes in. Try to look at it from several angles, filter it a couple of ways. I think the basic scientific process teaches you a lot of that, so it really has prepared me for my whole career," Everton says.

Georgia Tech of the early 1970s also helped prepare Pfaltzgraff 's first female president in other ways. When Everton arrived on campus, the first women's dorm had only recently opened its doors and the freshman class consisted of about 120 women.

"The guys generally were fine. They didn't quite know what to do with us. It was rare for women to be in science and engineering in those days," says Everton. "Some of the professors weren't quite sure about this business of having girls or women or whatever they were supposed to call us in class. I don't think they were tougher on me, but they would address specific points to me. It would be 'gentlemen and Marsha.'"

Everton says she always has been treated at Pfaltzgraff as "just a person. One of the things that attracted me to the company to begin with, and what I've experienced for the almost 20 years that I've been here, is that this is the most gender-less company that I know. There are places you go and you walk into the room and you know you are a woman in the room. There are places you go and you sit down and you're just a person. I've always been just a person here."

Still, Pfaltzgraff employees have noticed that their new boss is a woman, Everton admits good-naturedly. "It does stick out. Actually, the women noticed more than the men.

For the women, it was a validation. It was nice to get that 'you go girl' kind of response from the women."

Everton is protective of all Pfaltzgraff's employees, both male and female. "We care about our employees the same way we care about consumers, so it's very personal. If business is not good and you have to eliminate a position, it's very personal.

"We're part of the community. You know these peo-

3 6 GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Spring 2002

ple. Your kids play with their kids. It's very real," she says.

Everton says Dean Dull took the same personal interest in her at Georgia Tech.

"He was a person who believed in me. When I decided that I didn't want to be an engineer and that I wanted to go to business school, he agreed to provide a reference for me.

I'm convinced to this day that his belief in me and his calls to Stanford were what resulted in me being accepted into the MBA program.

"He was a person who thought I could be what I wanted to be. He put the extra effort into making that possible for me. From the stories I've read over the years, he must have done this for thousands. You wonder how he could have taken the time with all of his responsibilities to do all of that," Everton says.

She takes her role to lead Pfaltzgraff's employees and serve its customers just as seriously.

"The best part of my job is having the philosophy of this company to work with. It keeps coming back to the culture.

This company is so committed to doing the right thing. That can sound so simplistic, but there's a firm commitment to conducting business on a moral and ethical basis, to respecting the dignity and worth of the individual and to viewing our business in the context of the greater community.

"That is just so rewarding. It just gives you a very comfortable framework to work in, knowing that within that framework you can make a difference in the world. In the end, I think that's what we all want out of life, to make that little bit of difference," she says.

Pfaltzgraff makes a difference at the dinner table.

"Dinnerware is not just dishes. It's about setting that table for your family. When you set that table for your family, the dinnerware is part of a whole set of rituals and traditions that have been passed down through the generations.

"The table is the place where families pass along their values and teach their children and so many of the great moments of life occur. And we're part of that. It's rewarding to be 'present' in that part of people's lives where so many of the things that really matter in life are happening. It's what bonds us, what helps define us as humans." GT

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Electric Encounter GE chief Jeff Immelt brings good things to light (it meeting with Tech students

By John Dunn

GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘Spring 2002

GE boss Jeff Immelt gets down to business and tells Georgia Tech students strategies for growing a company.

I

'effrey R. Immelt, General Electric's new boss, says he's no Bill Gates, but when it comes to growing companies, nobody does that better than the company he runs.

If I were a true entrepreneur, I probably would not have worked for GE," says Immelt, who took over as the company's chief executive officer and chairman on Sept. 7. "Bill Gates — someone who can't be bound — started his company in a garage. I did not do that.

"But if you want to get [a company] from $100 million to $1 billion or from $1 billion to $10 billion or from $10 billion to $100 billion — I can do that better than Bill Gates. I know how to get technology. I know how to get the customer. 1 know how to get to China. I know how to get people to grow."

Immelt, who spoke at Georgia Tech on Feb. 26, says he is not comparing the genius of an entrepreneur to the competence of the CEO of a big company, but at General Electric "we know how to grow businesses quickly. That is a skill set within GE." It's a skill set that has notable admirers.

Fortune magazine's March edition ranked GE atop its "Most Admired

r^

Spring 2002 • GEORGIA TECH 3 9

-

Caroline Joe

Companies" list for the fifth year in a row.

Two reasons are its long history of training great managers and its culture of entrepreneurship and achievement.

GE revenues for 2001 totaled $125.9 billion and its total assets $495 billion. The company employs 313,000 people in more than 100 countries and has a dozen subsidiaries, each the size of a Fortune 500 company.

Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough, who introduced Immelt, says GE has made some $4 million in philanGE CEO Jeff Immelt puts his people skills to work by answering students' questions at Georgia Tech. thropic gifts to the Institute and, during the past two Immelt is only the ninth chairman be daunted by the economic times. years, has sponsored more than in the history of the 124-year-old "This economy is going to rebound," $4 million worth of research at Tech. company, which tracks its beginnings Immelt says. "Regardless of what you to Thomas A. Edison, who founded see on TV, regardless of what you read At any given time, GE employs Edison Electric Light Co. in 1878. in the newspapers every day, you're about 20 Tech co-op students, Clough General Electric Co. resulted from a going to enter into a business world says. The company employs about 375 merger of Edison General Electric Co. where you are going to be able to alumni and another 125 alumni have and Thomson-Houston Electric Co. in aspire and grow and do all of the retired from the company. Tech also 1892. GE is the only company listed in things you want to do in your life partners with GE's Edison Engineering the Dow Jones Industrial Index today and in your careers. program, permitting GE employees to that was on the original index in 1896. matriculate to Tech to earn graduate "Don't fear what's out there. Don't degrees.

"This is a company that's got a fear the economy. Don't fear accounting history," Immelt says. "The way a scandals. Don't fear the impact of Tall and broad-shouldered, Immelt company like GE stays young â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the 9/11," he says. "Go out and grab it played offensive tackle for Dartmouth way we continue to grow and prosper [your future] because you're going College. After getting his MBA from regardless of the economic times â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to enter a work force that is going to Harvard, he began his career at GE, is we have a business model." be fun, it's going to be motivational, where his father worked in the it's going to be [driven by] new techWhile the company still makes light company's Aircraft Engines Division nology." bulbs, GE is a diversified services, for 38 years before retiring. technology and manufacturing compaImmelt began as a corporate marImmelt took over from GE's legny. The business model, Immelt says, keter at GE Plastics in 1982. He held endary chairman and CEO Jack Welch includes diversification, initiatives, several positions in sales, marketing at the age of 45, the same age Welch financial strength and culture. and global product management and was when he took over the company in 1989, he became vice president of GE's diversification includes 20 years earlier.

GE Appliances. Four years later, he businesses that range from medical Stepping before the invitation-only was named vice president and general services to aircraft engines to financial audience of mostly Tech students in manager of GE Plastics America and in services, Immelt says. A $25 billion the Student Center ballroom, Immelt 1997 he was tapped as president and power systems business headquartered doffed his coat and assumed a casual CEO of GE Medical Systems, which he in Atlanta is experiencing a "fabulous" manner as he discussed some of his built into a $7 billion subsidiary that year, he says. plans for GE's future and fielded became one of the company's most questions.

"We've got nine great industrial technologically sophisticated units. businesses, five big financial services Immelt encouraged students not to 4 0 GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Spring 2002

businesses and we believe this diversification allows us to grow through every economic cycle/' he says.

"We have common initiatives/' he says. "We don't run each business as an independent entity. We run them with a common set of cultures, a common set of initiatives, a common set of financial systems and human resource systems.

"We have financial strength. We generate an incredible amount of cash.

We are able to look to the future; we are able to look at recessionary times as times you can invest."

GE is a survivor because it is also committed to change, Immelt says.

"Now is the time to radically change our company and continue to evolve and grow," Immelt says. It is a theme he has promoted since taking over GE. "We want to take advantage of everything the Internet can bring," Immelt says. "Information technology and digitization are just really beginning to have a big prominence and a big impact in the business world. They are going to allow companies like GE to redeploy resources from what we call the back room to the front room."

Immelt says GE is adding engineers and salespeople and, at the same time, reducing administrative functions that can be digitized. "That allows us to be a leaner company."

Redeployment of resources "from the back room to the front room" means more people will be inventing products and more people will be selling products, he says.

"We're really reconstructing the company based on what the Web can do and what digitization can bring to a company like GE," Immelt says.

"I very much want GE to be a high-tech company," Immelt says.

"We're on the leading edge of molecular imaging, we're on the leading edge of alternative fuel technology, we're on the leading edge of propulsion, we're on the leading edge of domain information technology," Immelt says. "We have lots of technologies in the company and I believe that is one of the ways that we're going to distinguish ourselves in the future."

Immelt also sees GE becoming more global.

"In your lifetime, the most important region of the world other than the U.S., from an economic standpoint, is going to be China," Immelt told the students. "In your lifetime, you are either going to be selling in China, living in China for a part of your career, or you are going to be competing against Chinese companies. We look at China as the next big horizon."

GE's strategy for growth emphasizes acquisitions. "We do about 100 acquisitions a year. We do them in businesses we understand. We do them to help us grow and to add technology.

And we think that's an incredible lever.

We want to grow this company by almost 10 percent each year. That's creating a new $15 billion business each year.

"The only reason that we have been able to do what we've done is because we pick great people. We motivate them, we keep them, we give them new challenges.

We coach them and we keep moving forward.

This is a people company.

It is a people business."

"I'm in the people business. I make appliances and plastics and a bunch of stuff, but I think about people all the time," Immelt says. "My job is to pick people, to motivate people, to help them build dreams. GE is a company that exists because we have great people. The only reason that we have been able to do what we've done is because we pick great people. We motivate them, we keep them, we give them new challenges. We coach them and we keep moving forward. This is a people company. It is a people business."

Immelt devoted most of his presentation to answering questions from students.

One question referred to 1994, when Immelt had a bad year running the plastics division. Jack Welch confronted Immelt, "You just had the worst year in the company. Just the worst year. I love

you, and I know you can do better. But I'm going to take you out if you can't get it fixed." What was Immelt's strategy to turn the division around?

"Nobody's here today because they've had a perfect career," Immelt responded. "I'm not here today because I've done everything perfectly. I'm here today because I've made the same mistakes once.

"I knew the value of learning, I knew the value of changing and I knew the value of improving. I got stuck in a circumstance — I was running the plastics business and I wasn't able to get the pricing up as fast as I needed.

I didn't need Jack, by the way, to tell me that. I knew when I wasn't doing it. I never blamed anybody; I always worked on fixing the problems myself, kept the team motivated, changed out the people who needed to be changed out, kept everybody focused on the goal. By the time Jack chased me down, I already knew what was going to be fixed," Immelt said.

"I always wanted to be told where I stood, to be told what I need to do to fix it with no hidden agenda. I think companies work better when they are that way.

"It's always helpful when you know there are consequences; it is always motivating in that sense. So that wasn't all bad. And it gave me the confidence — being knocked around a few times in your life gives you the confidence to know that you know how to fix things.

"You never run a company for perfection. If you're running a company for perfection, you're not taking enough risks. What you want a company to be is a learning company, a striving company and a place of consequence," he says.

"There are some failures in GE that are not tolerated. They are failures of neglect, failures of integrity and failures that people aren't working hard. You don't get second chances from those failures.

"There are failures at GE that are tolerated. You've communicated the risk, you've explained what it is you are going to do, the management knows where you stand and if it still doesn't work — those are sometimes even rewarded." GT Spring 2002 • GEORGIA TECH

41

r\t Bush Speaks at Tech President George W. Bush, accompanied by Tom Ridge, director of homeland security, visited the Georgia Tech campus March 27 to view a "first responder" demonstration by police, firefighters and emergency rescue teams to a mock terrorist attack. Bush spoke in the O'Keefe gymnasium where he paid tribute to Georgia law enforcement officers, firefighters and emergency rescue personnel.

"The United States government is today determined and steadfast and patient and resolved to chase down any criminal, any international terrorist, and bring them to justice," Bush said. "The American people understand the cost, they understand the need and they understand the history that has called us into action. We must not blink. And we must not grow weary because we fight for freedom. We fight for values we hold dear an|jjprecious. I believe by being firm, and disciplined and determined, we can achieve peace throughout

4 2 GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘spring 21)02

Gary Meek

Homeland Defense

By Kimberly Link-Wills

I

magine being able to rapidly vaporize metal beams at the World Trade Center site so recovery workers could get to victims trapped beneath them.

Imagine a portable communications network that immediately linked police, firefighters and rescue teams working at the disaster scene.

Georgia Tech researchers say the technological savvy to see both scenar-

ios become reality exists. Lack of funding and lots of red tape, however, stand between researchers and the people who will benefit from their work.

"The technology is there," says Tom Bevan, assistant lab director at the Georgia Tech Research Institute and Tech's head of homeland defense.

Bevan wants to get these available technologies into the hands of first responders and airport personnel —

the people who need them most.

"We started focusing on the first responder — the firemen, the policemen — to get them affordable technologies about three years ago, when it wasn't popular to talk about weapons of mass destruction," Bevan says.

"On September 11, we had some good technologies to help first responders. We had a very good regional network in all kinds of disciplines, from public health to law enforcement to Sprin8 2002 • GEORGIA TECH 4 3

Gary Meek

fire to emergency management."

Bevan saw rescue efforts hampered by emergency workers who could not communicate with one another because of disrupted cellular phone service, incompatible radio frequencies and lack of handheld computers.

Georgia Tech even could have used one of its most powerful weapons to essentially disintegrate the debris to get at victims beneath it.

The plasma-arc torch, housed in Tech's Structural Engineering Lab, is so incredibly hot â&#x20AC;&#x201D; as hot as the surface of the sun â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that it can turn a mound of rubble into a boulder of black glass.

It can prevent radiation from spreading through soil, completely obliterate a disease-infected herd of animals and, as proven in one of researcher Lou Circeo's more popular demonstrations, vaporize a frozen chicken.

Circeo has been working on the plasma torch for 30 years and he loves showing off its incredible power to military brass, legislators and powerbrokers. He sends schoolkids home with a small encased sample of garbage transformed into a tiny chunk of pebble-like glass.

A plasma company has expressed interest in working with his team to develop a mobile torch system, Circeo says. "We could go to a place like the World Trade Center and this technology will immediately melt girders and concrete. If somebody's stuck under a concrete or steel beam, a mobile plasma torch could cut the beam in just a few minutes."

Bevan hopes to snare a multimillion-dollar Department of Energy grant to help fund Circeo's work.

"The plasma torch is of interest in terms of getting rid of biological waste and biological material that conceivably could be involved with weapons of mass destruction. If someone attacked the cattle population in the United States, it would be an ideal tool for disposing the remains of the herds.

Conventional incineration just won't break down molecules such as those that cause mad cow disease," he says.

In the cattle example, the carcasses would be cut into pieces and fed into a furnace the plasma torch provides that is 7,000 degrees Celsius, Bevan says.

4 4 GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Spring 2002

Georgia Tech Research Institute scientist Dan Campbell says his sensor can detect the presence of biological and chemical weapons.

"That is so hot that any molecules are broken down into their constituent elements. It will render any of those viruses, bacteria, whatever disease totally inert, which other forms of incineration can't always do."

The demonstration is impressive. A hole is bored into a barrel of dirt. The torch is lowered to the bottom of the hole and gradually raised up. "It turns the entire barrel full of dirt into glass essentially," Bevan says. "It fixes radioactive materials in place so they cannot migrate by wind or water."

Circeo says contaminated soil can be transformed into a molten stream that hardens into harmless rock.

"Everything is trapped in there. We've melted the worst rocks and the worst soils we could get. We've always been able to remediate any contaminants."

While matters of homeland security remain on the front burner, Bevan wants to strike while the iron is hot to get inexpensive tools into the hands of first responders.

"The Department of Defense and the Department of Energy tend to design to military requirements, which makes the developed tools more expensive. No one is looking at commercial, off-the-shelf, inexpensive technologies that can be useful for a mass market, which is what the first responders represent."

GTRI research scientist Dan

Campbell, PhD Chem 82, is working on a handheld sensor that could detect the presence of chemical and biological agents at a disaster scene and would only cost about $300. Bevan says the departments of Defense and Energy have built similar devices, but they cost anywhere from $20,000 to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"Firefighters at the local level couldn't afford anywhere near that amount," Bevan says. "While there is a lot of noise about helping the first responder, there is no research and development agency that has this as a primary responsibility.

"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to give them the tools they need. The tools are readily available. It just takes someone to relate to the first responders, to understand their requirements and give them the right tools that do not interfere with the way they operate," Bevan says. "By and large, the federal government has not looked to universities or not-for-profits for system solutions but only for piece parts for military equipment."

He envisions a scenario in which a fire chief arrives at the scene and opens the trunk of his car. "He would have a generator and a local wireless area network hub, which is basically a box with a couple of antennas on it. Anyone with a Palm Pilot or a laptop could instantly be on that local wireless area network and could send and receive information to and from the site, which they could not do in New York City.

"Also in his trunk is a dish that links his local area network to the Internet through relays in satellite or buildings so he can transmit and receive data to and from any location in the world to get help, get information, to inform people what's going on," he says.

"There would be instant communications from that scene, from that fire or police chief to medical, transportation, emergency management or decontamination experts anywhere in the world," Bevan says.

"Some of the communication devices are cheap enough you can throw them away if they become contaminated. If you plan to dispose of a

contaminated chem-bio suit that costs $800, you certainly can dispose of a contaminated Palm Pilot that costs $200."

Bevan also is interested in enabling airport and airline personnel, law enforcement and the federal government to share information in order to derail potential terrorist plots and quickly diffuse security breaches.

"Most of the apparatus at the airport has been mobilized to keep the amateurs out, but we still need to dissuade the professional terrorists."

He concedes that no amount of security will prevent all acts of airport and airplane terrorism. "Terrorists are always going to be able to get through with some weapon — always, no matter what. What they can't disguise so well, and what we'd like to work on, is trying to diagnose terrorists' intent from what we know about them and what they're doing. In other words, what we're trying to do is use information technology to identify and select potential terrorists based on projections of intent.

"There were databases that the FBI had that, based on foreign intelligence from the CIA and other people, identified some of the terrorists as potential terrorists. But the people who could have influenced things, like the security people at the airports, didn't have access to that data," Bevan says.

Communication problems at airports go to the most basic level. Bevan says airport security personnel and local police officers could be working at the same scene but not able to communicate on the same radio frequency.

"That's one of the major command control and technology problems. As responders arrive, they could hook right up to the network and be part of a team as rapidly as possible."

Such a wireless system also could be used to improve communications between airport security personnel.

"If someone runs on the escalator the wrong way or you're looking for a package, how do you get that information out to all these people instantaneously? We could have had that guy's picture on hundreds of palm computers simultaneously," Bevan says.

"The technology is there." GT

Cyber Liberties Republican Barr wages fight to protect Internet privacy

By Maria M. Lameiras

W

hat do conservative Republican Congressman Bob Barr and the American Civil Liberties Union have in common? U.S. Rep. Barr is concerned about protecting Americans' civil liberties threatened by far reaching government monitoring — Internet traffic and communications.

"This issue spans the ideological spectrum," the Georgia lawmaker said regarding civil liberties in cyberspace while speaking to members of the School of Public Policy at Georgia Tech's Georgia Center for Advanced Telecommunications Technology.

"There is an increasing concern over privacy issues that can bring together people who are in all positions on the political spectrum," Barr says. "You can no longer pigeonhole where Democrats and Republicans are going to be on privacy issues."

Barr is striving to bring attention to the government's push for greater access to Internet traffic, including keys to encrypted Web sites and access to e-mail transmissions, in the guise of national security.

"The problem with pervasive surveillance — whether it is physical surveillance or Internet surveillance — is that, in the words of noted writer Ayn Rand, 'If you take away a man's privacy, you give the government the power to control him absolutely,'" Barr says. "One of the fundamental underpinnings of government is that, when you talk about the Fourth Amendment, the Second Amendment, the First Amendment and the rights contained therein, all of those are based on a concept of privacy."

Legislating privacy is difficult because the issues are so complex, Barr says.

"Since September 11 there has been an overarching concern over security.

Issues that were difficult to deal with before September 11 are phenomenally difficult now," he says.

Using examples ranging from the increased security surrounding air travel to the "red light cameras" some cities are installing at intersections to catch traffic offenders, Barr says our basic Fourth Amendment rights are changing before our eyes.

"We are not sure how to contest this, how to draw parameters and common sense limits to government behavior," Barr says. "Each day the government is able to set the precedent that it is OK to monitor Internet traffic is like concrete as it hardens. Every day that goes by it becomes harder to undo it. The only way to undo it is if large numbers of citizens make it known to the Congress and Senate that we do not want to give up the last vestiges of privacy that we have. National security is a legitimate function of government — to secure our borders and classified information. But striking a balance is at the core. Power taken by the government is never returned."

Barr and some of his colleagues in Congress attempted to pass legislation that would take the same privacy laws that apply to telephone conversations and make them applicable to Internet communications, but the bill never made it past the floor.

"Until we do something to reign in the government, it will read its right to have access to the Internet in a much broader way than we do," he says.

Spring 2002 • GEORGIA TECH 4 5

The Wright Brothers are making history at Georgia Tech ... by giving to Roll Call And you can too! ason Wright (IE '01) and Bryan Wright (EE '03) believe in making a difference at Georgia Tech by giving to Roll Call. Through their annual participation they are increasing the value of every Tech degree.

Roll Call funds support many areas at Georgia Tech, including student scholarships and financial aid, new academic programs and faculty recruitment and retention. Each of these areas helps strengthen Tech's reputation, thus increasing the value of every Tech degree.

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PaceSetters Caroline Joe

1 enjoy the molten puddle9 Craftsman Joe Cooper infuses his passion into flame of the weld

By Karen Hill

I

t's not often that you hear about a college fraternity helping to mold a man into an artist. But Joe Cooper wants people to know that's what Sigma Chi at Georgia Tech did for him.

Cooper, IE 69, is a metal crafter in Brevard, N.C., who uses his welding torch to mold metals into sculptures, fountains and custom home fixtures.

It's a career that might not have happened, he says, had not friends at Tech shared and encouraged his artistic leanings.

"Mainstream Tech is so focused on turning out not just engineers, but engineers for corporate America," Cooper says. "I was not cut out for a mainstream industrial career, and I made friends with guys there who were interested in architecture, music and literature."

One friend, Frank Birdsong, encouraged Cooper to follow him on a summer job in Europe, after which Cooper traveled the continent and immersed himself in its history and culture. Another friend, Bob Woodhurst, introduced Cooper to architecture. Still another, Mike McManus, helped him solve design problems â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and introduced Cooper to his sister, Maureen McManus. She became Cooper's wife.

It was also at Tech that Cooper, the son of a Jackson, Miss., businessman learned to use a welding torch.

After graduating from Tech, Cooper took graduate archaeology courses at Tulane University in New Orleans and his life took some unusu-

Joe Cooper says his Sigma Chi fraternity brothers helped mold him into an artist.

al turns. He worked on an archaeological dig in France. He went to work as a welder on oil-rig platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.

From the archaeologists, he learned to appreciate the beauty of everyday crafts and what a bowl hidden in the earth for centuries can teach about a long-lost culture. With the oil-rig welders, he honed his welding skills.

"I met some really wonderful welders and fascinating characters on

the platforms," Cooper says. "Focus is so important if you're going to achieve a high level of accomplishment. These welders would bring that kind of focus to their work. The quality had to be exceptionally high because the expense of a mistake was great."

It was also a fun job for a young man, he says. "To enjoy one's work in the various turns life takes you is a great privilege."

Later, Cooper apprenticed with Spring 2002 â&#x20AC;˘ GEORGIA TECH 4 7

Pacesetters

two master craftsmen, coppersmith Lee Robertson in Missouri and Arthur Silverman, who sculpts with stainless steel and aluminum in New Orleans.

Now Cooper makes everything from cabinet pulls to chandeliers, typically from copper and bronze. Most are for homes or businesses in the Southeast, although he receives commissions from around the country.

He says it doesn't really matter what he's working on. He enjoys it all.

"I enjoy the molten puddle, the flame of the weld, the texture of the

metal, the quest for a form that has integrity and some kind of truth in it," Cooper says.

He finds inspiration in nature.

"Apples and pears use pentagons in their seeds. Flowers have wonderful geometries. We get hexagons from insects," Cooper says.

He does admit to a fondness for angles.

"There's a lot of surprise and beauty in triangles and tetrahedrons, which are clusters of triangles," Cooper says.

The work of craftsmen like himself is helping preserve America's culture

and spirit, he says. Someone far in the future might unearth one of his works and know that this particular artist liked to play with triangles, for example, or know that people valued more than just the utilitarian — that they liked candleholders with a reflective surface or porch lights with elegant curves.

"It's design — and it's something that's elusive — like spirit or soul," Cooper says. "In so many cultures throughout time, people were able to infuse their spirit into design. We're sometimes at risk of losing that in an affluent world."

Bucking the Odds Alumnus presents economic theory drawn from engineering experience Caroline Joe

By John Dunn

C

hukwumaobi Adiele says his economic theories may be unorthodox; he comes at them from an engineering background. But then, the route he took to become a Georgia Tech engineer is more than a little unorthodox.

Drawing from his engineering experience, Adiele challenges textbook economic theories about how wealth is created relative to technology, development and productivity.

Adiele came to Tech from his native Nigeria in 1971, largely through the efforts of William G. Christian, a Tech alumnus and A Georgia Tech alumnus helped bring Chukwumaobi Adiele from Nigeria to the Institute in 1971. former Peace Corps volunteer who had taught him in Nigeria.

Engineering. "He stood out right away. He was always After graduating with a physics degree in 1964, personable. A lot of the students were fairly shy, but Christian joined the Peace Corps and was sent to the rural village of Umuahia, Nigeria, where he taught high right away he wanted to talk to me and find out what school math and physics. Chukwumaobi Adiele — his America was like." first name means "God knows heart" — was an espeAdiele says Christian asked him if he would like to cially promising student. study in the United States. "I said, 'Of course, but I don't have the money.' He said, 'OK, let me think about it.'"

"He was very bright," says Christian, an Atlanta resident and a computer programmer with Venture After his Peace Corps service, Christian returned to

4 8 GEORGIA TECH'Spring 2002

Pacesetters

Tech, where he earned master's degrees in physics and math and a doctorate in math.

In Nigeria, civil strife erupted. Adiele and his family were on the losing side of the war, which lasted from 1967 to 1970. Afterwards, Adiele came across Christian's address at Georgia Tech and wrote him.

"Fortunately, his friend was still at that address and took the letter to him," Adiele says. Christian, who was a teaching assistant while earning his graduate degrees, wrote back and said he would help Adiele get admitted to Georgia Tech.

"Luckily, my SAT scores were all right," Adiele says.

Christian says, "I did everything 1 could to help get him here. I just knew he would do very well.

1 did cover his first quarter's expenses. He stayed with me the first quarter and somehow u., I worked it so he could get I c3n idGa in-state tuition. He went out and made contacts with a church and they agreed to cover his financial expenses from then on."

After the first quarter, Adiele was able to move into a dorm. During his junior and senior years, Adiele worked at the Georgia Tech Library.

To have done what he did, Christian must be "one in a hundred billion human beings," Adiele says.

After earning his mechanical engi•^••^••a neering degree from Tech in 1974, Adiele returned to Nigeria and went to work for Texaco. The company sent him to Cornell University, where he earned his master's degree, and, on his own, Adiele was pursuing an MBA at Georgia State when Texaco put him back on the job.

"The MBA program was not part of the course work under Texaco sponsorship," Adiele says. "That is why in 1980 they said, 'Look, my friend, you have completed what you were going to do. We want you back at work.'"

Adiele was eight hours shy of earning his MBA when he returned to Nigeria and his job. It was then, Adiele says, that he began to notice that textbook economic theories did not necessarily work when put into practice. He wondered, "Why is this theory not giving the kind of result that you expect? Something is wrong. Each time I was blaming the application. I was thinking those who are applying it are not applying it correctly."

In 1997, Adiele presented a paper at the World Productivity Congress in Santiago, Chile. "When I was

addressing these world experts, it dawned on me that they were looking at productivity in isolation of technology and development.

"It was then it hit me," Adiele says. "If an idea is wrong, it really doesn't matter who applies it, the results are not satisfactory. The problem is in the theory."

Textbook theories tend to fragment the various aspects relating to the creation of wealth — economics, trade, development, Adiele says. "They pick them apart."

Adiele uses a coin to illustrate his point. Instead of looking at the whole coin, it is as if the head, tail and edge were examined independently of each other, he says. In fact, he says, they are integral parts of the coin.

"A coin has two sides and an edge.

IS WrOng,

If you want to talk about a side of the

coin, you have to talk about the side relative to the coin," Adiele says.

When discussing a coin, a holistic approach must be used, Adiele says.

The same approach should be used when discussing the creation of wealth.

Technology should be studied relative to actual work conditions, Adiele says.

"If you talk about development or productivity — this is how it • • ^ ^ ^ ^ • • B is related to work conditions. You do not dismember them and talk as if technology is divorced from development and divorced from productivity.

"The theories are defective," he says.

Adiele said friends, associates and his brother — Moses Adiele, a 1976 Tech graduate who is medical director of the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services — encouraged him to publish his ideas.

The effort resulted in a self-published book, "Technology, Development and Productivity — A Holistic Approach." He is unabashed about presenting his own theory in a self-published effort. "It would have taken years" to go through the publishing process, he says.

The book is available at the Georgia Tech Bookstore.

Adiele, still a resident of Nigeria, presented a lecture on the book and its economic theory at the Student Center in February.

It's against the odds that Adiele's ideas will create a stir in the world of academia, but then, bucking the odds is something he does very well.

it really doesn't matter who applies it, the results are not satisfactory.

The problem is in the theory."

Spring 2002 • GEORGIA TECH 49

PiKA

Free Spirit Bumps on the road Ron Pair travels have bounced him into new opportunities Gary Meek

Ron Pair makes custom-cut metal pieces bearing the familiar McDonald's logo at his Casablanca Design in Marietta, Ga.

By Maria M. Lameiras

T

here have been times in Ron Pair's life when all was not as it seemed.

One time, more than 30 years ago, he was working as an operations manager for the Lenox Square Rich's in Atlanta during the Christmas shopping season.

A coin-operated shopping bag dispenser had run out of bags. With everyone so busy, Pair pulled off his jacket and tie and slung a 50-pound box of bags onto his shoulder. He restocked the machine, at the store's main entrance, on his knees. "Half of

50 GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Spring 2002

all the people I'd ever known in my life passed by and saw me," he says.

"They were all clearly embarrassed because they thought I hadn't made it.

They spoke, but no one asked me how I was doing," he says. "I loved it, I thought it was funny and I was too busy to explain it to them anyway."

Pair, president and founder of Casablanca Design, admits that, if things had gone differently, it may well have been true.

An Atlanta native who graduated from Druid Hills High School in 1957, Pair went straight to Tech.

"I never thought of going anywhere else but Georgia Tech. I was an

average student, but I was into automobiles and motorcycles and electrical things. I'd also thought about being an astronaut because of the Buck Rogers comics," Pair says. "I thought being an engineer would involve doing the things I wanted to do.

"Tn high school I thrived on chemistry and physics, but when I got to Tech I had a very rude awakening with Chemistry 101. Apparently I wasn't prepared for it the way they taught it," he says.

He managed to pass the class, as well as Chemistry 102, but his grade point average over his first three quarters was so low, Pair was dropped for

PaceSetters

his academic underperformance.

"I applied to get back in for my fourth quarter and I talked to Dean George Griffin. He told me he'd let me back in, but if I had poor grades and failed out again he'd make sure I never got into a school in the university system of Georgia again," Pair says.

"That motivated me."

Pair pulled his GPA up to around 2.5, but decided to transfer to Georgia State University to study business. He did well. "But I missed Tech."

Pair later began working full time as an insurance underwriter. It was a galvanizing experience.

"1 got a very good taste of what it was like working without a degree," Pair says. "I did well, they promoted me a couple of times and they wanted me to stay, but 1 didn't like it."

He found the corporate office environment stifling and the work unfulfilling.

"I learned good work habits and about being accountable, but I wanted to go back to Tech," Pair says. He reapplied once again and again had a meeting with Dean Griffin.

"He remembered me and said he was going to let me in because I'd done well. He told me, T think you've grown up some.'"

That was 1963 and Pair had indeed grown up.

"I went to school full time and I worked at JC Penney on Buford Highway 40 hours a week as a manager in the sporting goods department. I was pretty busy, but I was determined I was not going to work in the insurance industry as an underwriter," he says. "I remember I was so happy to be back at Tech that I didn't even walk on the grass. I was observing all the rules. I had determined that it was a privilege to be there and I wasn't going to make any mistakes."

Each of the next five quarters, Pair earned 3.5 or above in all of his major classes and a spot on the Dean's List.

But each quarter he also received an academic warning because the high grades he was earning still weren't

enough to pull his overall GPA out of jeopardy until his final quarter at Tech.

"I was a graduating senior and I didn't get a warning notice because I had a high enough GPA to graduate," Pair says. Before graduation, he paid a last visit to Dean Griffin.

"He got my records out and went over them and he told me he knew he'd made the right decision letting me come back. He shook my hand and gave me a little hug and said, 'Do well.' That was it."

Upon graduating in June 1965 with his industrial management degree, Pair went to work for Lockheed in Marietta, Ga., as lead programmer for the nose wheel maintenance assembly program on the C5A project. He stayed for about eight months, working 10-hour days Monday through Friday and an eight-hour day on Saturdays.

"I made enough money in six months to pay off my school loan," he says, but he decided he didn't like the confinement of project work. He contacted American Air Filter, which had offered him a job when he graduated, and was given a position as a sales engineer in Louisville, Ky. The training didn't move fast enough for Pair. He left to work for a friend's father as a project engineer building hydrogen gas plants in Atlanta and Gary, Ind. American Cryogenics, which purchased hydrogen gas plants from the company Pair worked for, offered him a job as the hydrogen expert for its Atlanta operations. A short time later the company was sold. Pair and the rest of the staff were laid off on Oct. 31,1969.

"It was near Christmas, so I went to work at Rich's in the operations department to have something to do while I looked for a permanent job," he says.

Shortly after the Rich's incident, Pair spied a classified ad. McDonald's was looking for operations managers.

"McDonald's wasn't that popular at the time and I found out that, for

them, operations managers or consultants were people who worked with the store managers to promote quality, service and cleanliness. They saw my background and said they needed someone in construction and I was it," he says. "They were starting to develop the stores with the mansard roof, with dining rooms and with the restrooms on the inside. It had only been a drive-in before."

Pair traveled throughout the Southeast making site checks, estimating development costs, attending zoning hearings, negotiating contracts to build restaurants, inspecting structures as they went up and working with franchisees to customize their stores.

Soon, Pair was traveling the globe â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Hawaii, Canada, the Caribbean, Central America, Guam, Japan â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to supervise the steadily growing company's special projects.

"I became specialized in dealing with the complex problems of stores being built in foreign countries or very large stores in shopping malls. I kept the McDonald's standards consistent," says Pair, who estimates he was involved in more than 150 projects.

Throughout his more than five years with McDonald's, Pair continued to live in Atlanta, despite offers of promotions to the corporate headquarters in Illinois.

"I steadfastly refused. I didn't want to live in the cold climate and I didn't think I'd thrive in the corporate headquarters environment," he says. "I determined I wasn't going to be able to continue unless I did transfer to the headquarters, so I went to work with one of the suppliers that made seating products for McDonald's. Then I opened my own consulting and interior design service focusing primarily on McDonald's."

Through his company, Pair also began selling Casablanca fans.

Casablanca Fan Co.'s owner, Burton A. Burton, took a liking to Pair.

"He encouraged me to start manufacturing some of the products I was having made by other companies,"

Spring 2002 â&#x20AC;˘ GEORGIA TECH 5 1

PaceSetters

Pair says. After looking into various methods of manufacturing, he chose to start with beveled glass, which he had used in Victorian-themed restaurants he'd designed. "The people who made the windows for me couldn't keep up with my orders."

So Pair and his wife, Jill, opened Casablanca Glass Ltd. in a 700-squarefoot office and shop on Buford Highway in Doraville, Ga., and started taking orders.

"Our first order was for $9,000 worth of windows for the Velvet Turtle chain in California," he says.

"At the time, we didn't know how to build beveled glass windows.

"I got into our small shop with a young woman I'd hired who did stained glass and we figured out how to make them."

Glass led to woodwork, cabinetry, seating, tables and decorative accents from custom framed prints to plasmacut, powder-coated metal accents.

Today, Casablanca Design occupies 50,000 square feet in Marietta and its shop boasts CNC routers, a CNC plasma cutter and other sophisticated manufacturing machines. Jill Pair still manages the office operations, sales proposals and finances for the company.

McDonald's is still Casablanca's primary customer and the shop is filled with familiar-looking elements being made for the global icon's stores, including elaborate, inlaid tabletops for theme restaurants and custom-cut metal pieces bearing the familiar logos.

Pair's personal interest in custom metalwork led to the acquisition of the plasma cutter for the shop.

While riding cross country on Harley Davidsons (purchased for the return to Atlanta from a trip to San Diego because he was "tired of looking at the Grand Canyon from the air"), Pair and his wife saw a display of cocktail tables with Native American designs cut into them. He decided he wanted to reproduce them.

At his wife's encouragement, he attended welding school in Cleveland

5 2 GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Spring 2002

'Hey, Pops' The secret life of a front line chef

A

passion for cooking and a motorcycle trip led Ron Pair to don a chef's coat and chop vegetables in an Atlanta eatery for a chance to go to culinary school.

Pair, president and founder of Casablanca Design, was on a motorcycle tour in San Francisco when he and his wife passed the Culinary Institute of America. The school had a restaurant and they stopped for lunch.

"I'd always liked to cook and I decided I wanted to go there," Pair says. True to his whims, Pair inquired about taking classes and was told that in order to qualify for admission, he had to have worked as a line cook.

When he returned to Atlanta, Pair contacted a friend, Greg Pyne, coowner of the Brooklyn Cafe in Sandy Springs, and told him he needed to work in his kitchen.

"He said, 'Sure.' Like everyone else who'd ever asked, he thought I was joking. But I showed up," says Pair, who worked eight to 15 hours a week in Pyne's kitchen for a stretch of three and a half months in 1999.

"I'd work in the morning until early afternoon or late in the afternoon until 10 p.m. I started out doing vegetable prep and making sauces and made it to third position on the hot line out front."

for eight weeks and learned to use the plasma cutter. He then bought one for his shop and now makes decorative pieces for his business as well as his home.

"The next thing is neon school," says Pair. "Neon sculpture can be used in restaurants and hospitality. It's something I'm interested in because it's not something you see every day, everywhere."

Pair has seen all the bumps on the road to success as opportunities.

"I don't like to operate in a very

One day, when he was out on the front line making pasta dishes and calamari in his chef's jacket and Georgia Tech baseball cap, several people Pair knew but hadn't seen in a few years came through the line.

"They were very embarrassed for me. They thought I'd gone broke and I never let on for a minute," Pair says with a broad smile.

After attaining the rank of kitchen captain, Pair applied to the Culinary Institute and was accepted. Since then he's taken about a half dozen one- to two-week courses on topics including Mediterranean cooking and soups and sauces.

"I've gone back to the Brooklyn Cafe a few times when someone's sick or on vacation. I'm still on the payroll â&#x20AC;&#x201D; at minimum wage," he says. "I enjoyed working there a great deal. It helped me in management a lot because there my only position was that of vegetable guy. You learn things about management when you work somewhere and you're not the manager. They all started calling me Pops at the cafe because I was the oldest one around. The people who work for me here wouldn't call me Pops. But there it's fine for me to be Pops because I know what I'm doing and I know where I'm going."

controlled set of parameters," says Pair, who in-line skates for exercise and uses a Razor scooter to zip around his plant.

"I don't plan for things, so everything is normal to me. For something to be abnormal, it's got to be really unusual. I take everything within reason as being OK. There's nothing wrong with riding a motorcycle or going to welding school or playing on a roller hockey team. Go ahead and try whatever it is you thought about doing." GT

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Join JT3, and you'll find out. We're not talking about individuals competing against each other. We mean the JT3 team versus some of the most daunting problems in high technology. Because with the magnitude and complexity of the challenges at JT3, strong teamwork is the only way to win.

JT3, a Joint Venture of EG&G and Raytheon invites you to explore the possibilities with them.This contract includes the Air Force FlightTest Center at Edwards AFB, the UtahTest andTraining Range, the NevadaTest and Training Range, and the Electronic Combat Range at China Lake. Some of our immediate needs supporting the F-22 program include:

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FLYING QUALITIES ENGINEERS You will work on the flying quality tests of the F-22 and provide experienced test planning in flight controls systems, aerodynamics and handling qualities. Requires specialized knowledge of flight test, flight control systems, stability and control, aerodynamics, modeling, and simulation use and development.

VMS ENGINEERS You will work on Vehicle Management Syslem IVMS) tests of the F-22 and conduct anomaly investigations on the VMS. Requires specialized knowledge of flight test, aircraft systems, flight control systems, hydraulic and electric actuators, and OFP development and computer systems, STRUCTURES ENGINEERS You will work on the structures tests of the F-22. Requires specialized knowledge of flight test, loads, flutter, and aeroservoelasticity.

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RADAR SYSTEM ENGINEER Maintains instrumentation radars and implements new radar systems. Instructs technicians in system diagnostic techniques and maintenance procedures. Provides engineering analysis and support of data collection on instrumentation radars. Evaluates the impact of RFI, clutter, range geometry, etc, on the operation of radar collection systems and the data collected by those systems.

We also have immediate opportunities for Electronic Engineers andTechnicians as well as others positions In many unique and challenging roles.

Sound interesting. For currently listed vacancies, to apply on-line, and other information about JT3, please visit us at www.jt3.com We are an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. Applicants selected will be subject to a government security investigation and must meet eligibility requirements for access to classified information. Preemployment alcohol and drug screening is required.

Spring 2002 â&#x20AC;˘ GEORGIA TECH 53

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Admission is free! (There will be a parking charge of $3.)

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www.ramblinwreck.com 54 GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Spring 2002

ResearchNews

Voting Via the Net Researchers explore issues for re-engineering elections

E

lections one day may be more convenient and more accurate — if researchers can improve the technology for voting via the Internet.

Georgia Tech Research Institute scientists recently hosted a workshop to share information with their colleagues in academia, government and industry. The group agreed that Internet voting will provide v some major benefits — conven" ience for voters and a more efficient and accurate elections process — but added that its widespread use is years away.

"People wonder why they can't vote over the Internet if they can buy things over the Internet," says Betty Whitaker, a principal research engineer at GTRI. "But then they consider the possibility of a security breach and its effects. We believe that over time, as the Internet evolves, and the research and the hardware and software evolve, researchers will be able to resolve some of the concerns about Internet voting."

The GTRI Internet Voting Research Team envisions that Internet voting will occur in phases during the next decade. Within the next few years, military personnel casting absentee ballots probably will be allowed to vote via the Internet.

The Federal Voting Assistance Program conducted a pilot project in November 2000 involving 84 overseas voters. The success of this project provided encouragement for researchers in Internet voting, yet pointed to some problems in the system, such as lost

passwords, researchers say.

By 2008, the researchers predict, Internet voting for absentee ballots will be adopted in at least a few states. Voters also may be able to cast their ballots at automated teller machines and at kiosks in post offices and malls. Then by 2012, some states — including Oregon, which already uses only mail-in ballots — will be the first to adopt Internet voting.

Another social science issue being researched at GTRI is how Internet voting will affect voter turnout. Will different segments of the population turn out differently? And legal issues abound. Internet voting would require judicial review for compliance with the Voting Rights Act and some laws would have to be changed to enable Internet voting.

GTRI researchers hope more stud-

GTRI Internet Voting Architecture & Infrastructure

GTRI researcher Bob Simpson and his colleagues are addressing the technical issue of a standard architecture — common hardware, software, networking, authentication procedures, training systems and support tools — for an online voting system.

One of the primary social science issues related to Internet voting is access, says GTRI researcher Marlit Hayslett-Kreck. "It is the 'Digital Divide,' which we define for now as those who have Internet access from home or work and those who don't.

In the future, it may be an issue of who has broadband and who uses dial-up access."

ies of Internet voting will get under way as government and private funding becomes available. Meanwhile, they keep in mind the many stakeholders associated with online voting.

"In addition to addressing the needs of the voter, we must also consider the needs of election officials, candidates, elected officials, poll workers and others," Whitaker says.

Hayslett-Keck adds, "From a political point of view, some stakeholders are concerned that a new voting technology could possibly change the composition of the voting population, significantly affecting the outcome of an election." GT

Spring 2002 • GEORGIA TECH 5 5

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Note Card Set $1395 Made of elegant, heavyweight creme stock. "Georgia Institute of Technology" appears under the illustration of the Tower. The inside is blank. Notecard size is 4" x 5".

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ResearchNews

Tech Ring May Open New Doors in Physics World's smallest atomic storage ring guides ultra-cold neutral atoms

I

n a development that could lead to dramatic improvements in aircraft guidance systems and open new areas of study in basic physics, Georgia Tech researchers have demonstrated the first storage ring able to confine and guide the flow of ultra-cold neutral atoms in a circular path.

Dubbed the "Nevatron," the storage ring â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a circular waveguide that uses magnetic fields from tiny electrical wires to direct low-energy atoms â&#x20AC;&#x201D; marks a step toward "atom fiber optics" that could ultimately do for ordinary uncharged atoms what optical fiber has done for light. Details of the project were reported in the journal Physical Review Letters.

"In contrast to high-energy particle storage rings in which the goal is to increase the energy of the confined particles up to and beyond the teraelectron volt scale, we are interested in the opposite regime, using ultra-cold atoms with nano-electron volt energies," says physics professor Michael Chapman. "In keeping with the theme of naming storage rings according to the energy scale, we call our device the Nevatron."

The 2-centimeter storage ring could serve as the foundation for a miniaturized atom interferometer that would improve the accuracy of inertial guidance systems used in commercial aircraft. Such systems now use optical interferometers in which a beam of light is split into two separate beams

The image shows clouds of atoms between guide wires of the Nevatron, a circular waveguide.

that travel in opposite directions through coils of optical fiber. By observing how changes in aircraft speed and direction differentially affect the two beams by recombining them with an interferometer, the instrument measures changes in aircraft motion.

Much heavier atoms traveling in rings would be affected more dramatically by aircraft directional changes, Chapman says. An atom interferometer would measure phase shifts in the deBroglie wave, a quantum effect associated with atoms.

Atomic interferometers now exist, but they are too large for aircraft use.

If Chapman's team can split an atom beam and make the beams travel in opposite directions around a circular ring, they could have the basis for an instrument small enough to fly.

"If our experiment were an interferometer, it would already have the potential to be a thousand times

more sensitive than the best optical interferometer," says Chapman. "This is really going to be a major direction in the field of ultra-cold atoms.

Making an atomic storage ring is the first step toward useful devices."

The Nevatron also provides new opportunities for creating continuous monochromatic atomic beams that could one day lead to the development of an atom laser with a continuous output. It also offers new opportunities for studying collisions between ultra-cold atoms.

Other researchers have produced straight-line waveguides for neutral atoms, but the Georgia Tech ring is the first to make neutral atoms move around a closed circle using magnetic confinement. Chapman believes the most significant accomplishment was a technique for loading atoms into the ring from a standard magnetooptical trap used to cool the atoms to micro-Kelvin temperatures, GT

Spring 2002 â&#x20AC;˘ GEORGIA TECH 57

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Dentistry

by Design Aerospace technologies create exact anatomic dental procedures

T

he marriage of dentistry and aerospace engineering will soon yield new "virtual mouth" technology to help orthodontists and dentists accurately calibrate movement of teeth, and help precisely design and speed manufacturing of restorations and replacement teeth.

Aerospace engineers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute collaborated with dentist Randy Muecke of Atlanta and orthodontist David Leever of Tampa, Fla., to enhance their patented DentAART Inc. technology.

Dentists have long needed an exact anatomic capture of their patients' tooth position and form. DentAART precisely captures that anatomic relationship and creates a unique prescription for use in restorative, orthodontic or surgical procedures.

Muecke and Leever contracted with GTRI to develop a digital version of DentAART, including individualized patient functional movement.

Jeffrey J. Sitterle, GTRI's chief scientist, led the research and development efforts. The GTRI team took the idea further and offered a way to computerize the method.

Measurements made from at least three high-resolution X-rays or a computerized tomography scan are fed into a computer. Specialized software generates a precise 3-D digital image of a patient's mouth. Based on this 360-degree image, dentists can design a complete treatment plan on how to move and restore teeth.

Then, improvements in materials processing and fabrication can rapidly produce a crown that dentists simply glue in place. Crowns can be precisely calibrated to the bite pattern.

The use of this enhanced technology will allow dentists, orthodontists, technicians and dental labs to design and test treatments virtually in a computer. This will result in treatments that are accurate, fit correctly the first time, and move patients in and out of the chair quickly, GT

Digital technology is bringing significant advances to the dental profession.

58 GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Spring 2002

Damage Sodium ions could control migration of electron holes

T

he environment surrounding DNA in living cells plays a surprisingly important role in regulating the movement of electronic charge through the life-coding molecule.

Georgia Tech scientists published their findings in the journal Science.

Their work could lead to a better understanding of how DNA is damaged by oxidative processes and offer clues to potential DNA applications in nanotechnology.

Based on experimental data, computer-based molecular dynamics simulations and complex electronic structure calculations, the paper is the first to describe how sodium ions could control the migration of electron holes through DNA. The electron holes, positively charged locations in the DNA structure, are created by normal cellular oxidation processes and everyday events such as exposure to sunlight.

Migrating through the DNA to distances up to 30 nanometers from their

site of origin, the electron holes ultimately reach certain locations where they may initiate reactions that can damage the genetic coding.

"Our paper presents a new way of thinking about what controls electrical charge transport in DNA," says Gary Schuster, dean of the College of Sciences and a professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. "It is the motions of the water molecules, the sodium ions, the backbone of the DNA and the bases of the DNA that altogether control the movement of charge in the DNA. It's clear that we must consider both the DNA and its environment."

Underlying the charge migration mechanism unveiled in this study are two physical principles: like electrical charges electrostatically repel one another, and thermal energy induces random motion — known as stochastic dynamic fluctuations — among the microscopic constituents of matter: ions, atoms and molecules.

In a 1999 paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Schuster and his colleagues suggested that electrical charge moves through DNA in a "Slinky-like" process in which the molecule distorts itself in an effort to locally stabilize the charge. The new work seeks to explain why the charge moves at all, and to elucidate the dynamical mechanism of long-range transport in DNA. In a nutshell, the paper's authors argue that the positively charged electron holes — created by the removal of an electron — move when approached by positively charged sodium ions hydrated in the aqueous medium surrounding the DNA. Circulated by thermal energy in a random way, the diffusing sodium ions are attracted to specific locations in the DNA, such as the negatively charged phosphates that are part of the DNA backbone and certain atoms of the nucleo-bases. GT

How can you double or even triple your contribution to Georgia Tech?

( , /• [

Just follow these 2 simple steps.

1. Contact your HR department to get a matching gift form.

2. Mail your matching gift form to the address below.

We'll take it from there, thank you for your support!

If you or your spouse works for a matching gift company that matches gifts, ask your HR department for a matching gifts form. (Some retired employees are eligible to have their gifts matched as well). Mail the completed form to the address below. If you have questions, please contact: Debra Thompson Assistant Director, Annual Giving 190 North Avenue, NW Atlanta, GA 30313-0175 404-894-0779 or 1-800-GTALUMS debra.thompson@alumni.gatech.edu Roll Call Matching Gifts Companies 3M Company Abbott Laboratories Accenture Agilent Technologies Air Products & Chemicals Albemarle Corporation Alcoa AlliedSignal American Electric Power American Express Amoco Corp.

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Spring 2002 • GEORGIA TECH 59

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TECHNICAL ASSOCIATES

T H E G E O R G I A T E C H B O O K S T O R E has recently expanded to offer more than ever before. By doubling the number of books we carry, we can now boast a world-class selection that includes everything from academic reference and scholarly titles to current bestsellers.

Our assortment of official Georgia Tech merchandise has grown too. You'll

Technical Associates is a consulting engineering firm with offices in Atlanta, Albany, Augusta, and Macon, Georgia and in Cleveland, Jackson and Memphis, Tennessee. We provide engineering services to clients in the pulp & paper, food & beverage, pharmaceutical, tobacco and other consumer-related products industries.

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find great clothing and gifts not only in the bookstore, but also at our website and in our catalog. Rediscover the Georgia Tech Bookstore for yourself.

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Spring 2002 • GEORGIA TECH 61

Facultv Profile

Cultural Exchange French native blends two cultures into his classroom, his Iife

By Maria M. Lameiras A product of French / \ secondary schools J. JLand American universities, Georgia Tech assistant professor Lionel Lemarchand has tried to bring the best of both worlds into his classroom.

Although the French system prepared him for the academic rigors of the American higher education system, the price for such an education was often harsh from a personal standpoint.

"I never liked my professors who would treat the students like they were dumb or, if someone gave a wrong answer, would really chastise them," says Lemarchand, recalling that in France, when tests were returned to students, they were given back in order according to grade, which

was read aloud. "You would have to walk to the front of the class and get your grade. In some subjects that was terrible for me, but I guess you develop some kind of resistance to humiliation."

When he came to the United States, he discovered an entirely different academic world.

"I was used to that system in France that was so rigid and most American professors I met were so open. If you said something wrong or gave the wrong answer, they would never chastise you. They might say, 'No, not really, but what about this?' I think it is a much better way," Lemarchand says, adding that he tries to keep the academic level challenging while incorporating a mellower personal style.

He sets high standards

The Lemarchand File • Born; Nov. 3, 1962, in Mulhouse, France.

• Education: Associate degree in Science, Enterprise State Junior College, 1982; BS in Mathematics and Computer Engineering, Auburn University, 1986 MA French Studies, Auburn University, 1988 PhD, French Literature and History, University of Georgia, 1998.

• Personal: Single.

• Achievements: 2000 E. Roe Stamps Excellence in Teaching Award; author of "Lettres censurees des tranchees — 1917 Une place dans la litterature et I'histoire," (Censored letters of the trenches — 1917 A place in literature and history), L'Harmattan: Paris, 2001; nominated for the CETL/AMOCO Junior Faculty Teaching Excellence Award, 1999, 2000.

• Leisure Interests: Skiing,travel.

62

GEORGIA TECH • Spring 2002

for his students, who he feels expect nothing less, but he tries to be available to them to help them meet the challenge.

"My students are always surprised that for the 24 hours before my tests they can call me at home, even at night. I get phone calls at 11,12,1 o'clock at night," Lemarchand says. "That way, at least, they have no excuse not to know what's going on in the test.

"One of the reasons 1 do that is because I always waited until the last minute to study myself. I remember being in the Krystal in Auburn at 3 a.m. thinking, 'Who am I going to ask this question?' It comes exactly from that, not knowing something at the last minute and wanting some help but not getting it."

Lemarchand was awarded the 2000 E. Roe Stamps Excellence in Teaching Award just two years after becoming a professor at Georgia Tech.

He learned his own lessons in an interesting variety of places, not just the classroom.

He first arrived in the United States at age 17 when his father, Claude, was stationed in Fort Rucker, Ala., to work as an information exchange officer between the French and U.S. armies.

"It was a culture shock.

Because my father was in the French army, we moved every two years in France,

so I lived a little bit of everywhere," Lemarchand says. "I was just finishing high school in France, so I went straight to junior college for a couple of years, then on to Auburn University."

In France, students are required to specialize at around age 15, choosing either the sciences or liberal arts. Lemarchand chose math and science and continued those studies in America. After earning an associate degree in science from Enterprise State Junior College and a bachelor's degree in math and computer engineering at Auburn, Lemarchand was offered an assistantship teaching French.

"I had to do that in order to stay in the United States, but in order to teach French I had to work on a master's in French studies," he says. "I switched from math and started teaching.

I decided that I liked it, so I kept on doing it."

After earning his master's degree in 1988, Lemarchand went to the University of Georgia to pursue his doctorate in French literature and history. He continued working as a teaching assistant while completing his course work, but also became involved in a business that would provide an interesting career aside.

"I became a bar and restaurant manager in Athens," Lemarchand says.

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The French flag remains near and dear to assistant professor Lionel Lemarchand's heart, but he's quite comfortable teaching at Tech.

"TAs aren't paid very well, but bartenders are. I actually gave up my studies for four years to do that full time."

It was behind the bar that he turned to human study.

"Bartending helped me a lot in dealing with students and with people in general.

When you work behind a bar, you need to adapt to all different levels because you have all kinds of people walking in there," Lemarchand says.

"From professors and students to workers, you have to be able to deal with them on a one-to-one level and adapt to each person.

Everybody's different, so

you develop your own kind of philosophy. It gives you a lot of patience and helps you appreciate different ways to explain things."

Although he describes the job as "really fun" and lucrative enough to help him purchase his first house, Lemarchand finally decided to return to his studies.

"Bartending is really bad for your health," he says with a laugh. "I decided to go back to finish my PhD." After finishing his exams and while still at work on his dissertation, Lemarchand took a job in New York City as a transla-

tor with a software and computer services company.

"1 had always wanted to live in New York for a while," he says. "I loved the city. I lived on Long Island and every morning as 1 was driving into work and seeing that whole skyline of New York it was like a dream come true for a French person."

The job was less of a dream.

"I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would.

I was faced with a typical American company where they give you 10 days of vacation after a year and maybe three weeks after five years, if you were lucky," Lemarchand says.

"I'm French, I need my four or five weeks a year.

In France, the government makes that mandatory."

The work schedule also did not allow him the time he needed to complete his dissertation, so he looked at re-entering academia.

He came to Tech in 1997 as an instructor in the French for business and technology program. He spent a year teaching four classes and finishing his dissertation at UGA before being made an assistant professor in fall 1998.

"Tech is perfect for me.

Because of my computer background and my math background, I think I can relate to the engineering students as well as to the international affairs and economics students," Lemarchand says.

Lemarchand team teaches with International Affairs professor Vicki Birchfield on classes such

as last fall semester's France in the European Union and spring semester's comparative study of French and American politics and civilization.

"The course is entirely in French and concentrates on Franco-American relations.

The students in this class are interested in globalization and the international aspect of Georgia Tech," he says. "It is really fascinating to the graduate students and we can teach at a really high level."

Each summer, Lemarchand also teaches a French for business and technology study abroad program during which he brings students from Tech and other American universities to Lyon, France, where they spend six and a half weeks studying and visiting French companies.

"It exposes the students to a different way of thinking and we are also developing internships now with the French companies. This summer I have a student going back to Lyon to work for one of the companies and last year one of my students found a job with a company we visited in France in the company's Atlanta branch."

His study abroad course, as well as personal travel, take him back to France at least three times a year, but he has come to love the United States and his place at Tech. "I love Atlanta. I am very comfortable here.

I couldn't stay in France and not come back here and I couldn't stay here and not go back to France. I'm 50/50 now," he says, GT

Spring 2002 • GEORGIA TECH 63

'

Serene Scene

Stanley Leary

^ -A/

pring semester started with a salutation from winter — an icy front that brought snow to the Atlanta area and closed the Georgia Tech campus on Jan. 3. And while the weather played havoc with registration, the president's home, above, and Tech Tower display the holiday tranquility of a campus landscape transformed by the blanket of snow.

Although forecasters saw it coming, they underestimated the 6-inch snowfall, the largest in the Atlanta area since the blizzard of 1993.

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6 4 GEORGIA TECH • Spring 2002

Tech

©®MLTQ©DD Jane W. and Carlton S. Wilder, CE 1959, MS 1961 of Vero Beach, Florida • Atlanta native, married to Jane Wilder (BS, nursing, Medical University of South Carolina).

• Served in the U.S. Public Health Service designing and constructing water and waste facilities for Native American communities.

• Retired as Senior Vice President of Camp Dresser & McKee, Inc., an international environmental consulting firm.

• National Society of Professional Engineers, registered in eleven states.

• Diplomat in the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and member of various professional and environmental organizations.

• Georgia Tech's Academy of Distinguished Engineering Alumni.

• Five children and six grandchildren.

Gifts to Georgia Tech: • Roll Call support for 40 consecutive years.

• Bequest for the Environmental program in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Notable Quotation: "Georgia Tech gave me a quality education. My professors went the extra mile to help me graduate and the Co-op Program made it financially possible for me to attend. I have always felt a personal debt to Tech. Estate tax considerations make my gift mutually beneficial."

Carlton Wilder is of Founders' Council's 770 members who have made bequests or life income gifts in support of Georgia Tech's future.

For more information on leaving a legacy at Georgia Tech through a bequest or life-income gift, please contact:

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Office of Development Planned Giving Atlanta GA 30332-0220 or call (404) 894-4678

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