Cañada College

Education

• B.S. Physics, Harvey Mudd College (1966)
• Secondary Teacher's Credential, CSULA (1967)
• NSF Physics Workshop, UCB (1970)
• NSF Physics Workshop, UWM (1973)
• M.S. Electrical and Computer Engineering, UCSB (1980)
• Chautauqua Physics Workshop, University of Oregon (1997)
• Chautauqua Physics Workshop, Dickinson University (1998)
• Vector Calculus Bridge Project, Oregon State University (2004)
• Teach Scheme - Reach Java Workshop, Cal Poly (SLO) (2008)

Biography

I grew up in Los Angeles and was active in athletics as a kid. By junior high school, I couldn't decide between becoming a professional athlete (baseball or basketball) or an astronaut. I always enjoyed learning new things and sharing ideas with others, and by high school I thought I might like teaching. The summer after high school graduation, I had a tryout with the Los Angeles Dodgers. They had no immediate use for my talents, so I went to college, instead, where I played intercollegiate basketball and baseball. During two summers while I was in college I participated in the international "People-to-People" program and traveled to the Netherlands with 25 other college baseball players to coach small-town baseball teams, live with local families, and play exhibition games. When I finished college with a major in physics, I combined my interests by teaching high school math, physics and chemistry and coaching school basketball and baseball teams for eight years. I became very interested in solar energy during the 70's energy crisis, and I wanted to promote alternative energy and work in the field, but I couldn't find a useful way to do that, so I returned to school to get an advanced degree in electrical and computer engineering. I worked for the Department of Energy for eleven years doing scientific research in fiber optics and high-speed measurements and lots of computer modeling. During the time I was engaged in this work, one of my colleagues flew aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger's last successful flight, growing nearly perfect mercuric-iodide crystals in the Challenger's zero-g environment, so I got to fulfill one of my childhood dreams vicariously. Working in industry paid well, but I found I missed the interaction with students that I had experienced previously, so I returned to teaching in 1990. I've been at Canada since 1994.