IEEE North Jersey Section History

From ETHW

IEEE North Jersey Section History
Established date 1954/05/05
IEEE Region 1
IEEE Council Metro Sec. Act.
Geographic region North Jersey
Region area Includes the following seven counties: Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Morris, Passaic, and Union.
Principal cities Newark, Paterson, and Elizabeth
Home page http://sites.ieee.org/northjersey/
List of Subsections in this Section

Section Founding

By Howard Leach, Section historian, January 2017

Institute of Radio Engineers(IRE) Sub-Section and Section evolved into the IEEE North Jersey Section

The chronological order of the IRE organizations that eventually evolved into the IEEE North Jersey Section are as follows:

  • IRE Northern New Jersey Sub-Section of the New York Section, from 1947 to 1954,
  • IRE Northern New Jersey Section, from May 1954 to February 1963,
  • IEEE North Jersey Section from March 1963 to date.

The IRE Northern New Jersey Sub-Section of the New York Section was co-founded in October 1947 by Jerry B. Minter and other IRE NY Section members including  Alanson W. Parkes, Jr. , J. F. Morrison of Bell Labs, Whippany, and George D. Hulst of ITT. They held  meetings at the Bell Labs, Arnold Auditorium in Murray Hill with help from  James W. McRae as well at the ITT Auditorium in Nutley and at the Westinghouse Auditorium in Bloomfield.  They had up to 100 attending the meetings.

Jerry B. Minter as our first Chairman of the I.R.E. Sub-Section for Northern New Jersey was well documented on p. 113 of the 1948 Proceedings of the I.R.E. – Waves and Electrons Section. This page has been scanned into our extensive history section on Jerry B. Minter. He served as chairman for two years.  He was the co-founder of the Measurements Corporation which had one of its radar signal generators at Pearl Harbor when attacked on Dec 7th, 1941, and it supplied 10% of the test equipment used during WWII.  Measurements Corporation was sold to the Edison Corporation in 1953.

See his Oral History, the first to be videotaped, at: http://ethw.org/Oral-History:Jerry_B._Minter

Also, see Video on IEEE TV at: https: //ieeetv.ieee.org/mobile/video/oral-history-jerry-minter

The second Chairman, Alanson W. Parkes, Jr., , according to an awards article in the February, 1965, IEEE Newsletter, The Magazine of the North Jersey Section, p.14, was a co-organizer of the IRE Northern New Jersey Sub-Section in 1947 and served in all of its offices  including Chairman in 1950/51. In 1961 and 1962 he again served  as the Vice- Chairman and Chairman respectively.  Of historical note, he received a B.A. in Physics at Clark University, Worcester, Mass, under Dr. Robert H. Goddard of rocket fame.  Also, of historical note, he served in WWI in the USN and was one of the few to observe the famous Billy Mitchell bombing of the captured German Battleship Ostfriesland in the summer of 1921.

Also,  he was the Vice president of Aircraft Radio Corp. from 1948 until he became President of Ballantine Laboratories in 1959. Ballantine Laboratories advertised in the Section newsletters.

A Brief History of the North Jersey Section

The following is by Al Stolpen, Section Historian, in September, 2007. He was Section Historian until his passing on March 6th, 2011.

The IEEE anniversary date for the North Jersey Section was May 1954. This does not tell the whole story. When the IRE and AIEE merged in 1963, the anniversary date was determined by whichever society had the oldest established Section. Since North Jersey never had a separate AIEE Section, the anniversary date of the Section was determined to be our Section entry into the IRE, which was 1954. Again, this is not the whole story, since North Jersey supplied executives to the IRE New York Section since its formation and was a New York Subsection by 1947. New York and its Subsections covered Area B of the IEEE, with the exception of Connecticut.  North Jersey was very active in NY Section activities prior to becoming a Section, providing four Section Chairs, and three Section Secretaries over the decade before we formed our own Section. North Jersey was also very active in IRE Professional Groups by providing Group Chairs. As an example in 1955, we provided Chairs for the following IRE Professional Groups: Audio; Information Theory; Instrumentation; Telemetry and Remote Control; and Ultrasonics. Many of the original IRE Professional Groups have since become IEEE Technical Societies.

Although North Jersey never had an AIEE Section, we were very active in the New York Section and in District 3 of AIEE. District 3 covered the current IEEE Region 1, Area B with the exception of Connecticut, but including the Mid-Hudson Section, which is a part of Region 1 Area D.  North Jersey also had an AIEE student Branch at Newark College of Engineering, which was formed in 1927.  As you probably know, Newark College of Engineering, my Alma Mater, is now a school within the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

North Jersey joined the New York Section as a Subsection in 1947. North Jersey members were active at the Institute and District levels: three members served two terms as Vice-President of AIEE; three members served as District 3 Secretary; and four members served as Chairs of the District 3 Student Activities Committee. Also, North Jersey members included eight who served as Chair of the New York Section and nine as the New York Section Secretary.

North Jersey has continued to have an active involvement in Region 1 Committee/Board of Governors activities. They have the enviable record of winning the prestigious Alex Grunewald Pace Award for five consecutive years starting in 1991.

The North Jersey Section has held five Region 1 Board of Governors Annual meetings since 1978. The first one in Newark in 1978, the second one in Totowa on February 7, 1998, the third in New Brunswick/IEEE Headquarters on August 7, 1999, and the fourth and fifth in Newark, on February 2, 2002 and February 7, 2004. Also, the Region 1 Director for 2004 and 2005, Roger Sullivan, although a member of the New York Section, due to employment, lives within the North Jersey Section.

Tables on the IRE/IEEE Chairman

In 2016, Kai T. Chen, Secretary, did Optical Character Recognition (OCR) scanning of our non-electronic newsletters from 1962-2001 so that the newsletters  can be keyword scanned.  Most of the old newsletters where handed down by Al Stolpen, our Historian, who collected them. This was a very time consuming contribution by Kai T. Chen given that each newsletter could be from eight  to twenty pages with up to ten newsletters per year.

Chairpersons of the IRE Northern NJ Subsection(IRE NNJ Sub) of NY, from 1947 to 1954, and of the IRE Northern New Jersey Section(IRE NNJS), from 1954 to 1963, and of the IEEE North Jersey Section(IEEE NJS) from 1963

Year Chairperson IRE NNJ Sub Year Chairperson IEEE NJS
1947-48 Jerry B. Minter IRE NNJ Sub 1987 John Van Savage IEEE NJS
1948-49 Jerry B. Minter IRE NNJ Sub 1988 Dr. Robert R. Sinusas IEEE NJS
1949-50 Alanson W. Parkes, Jr. IRE NNJ Sub 1989 Howard H. Leach, Jr. IEEE NJS
1950-51 J. F. Morrison IRE NNJ Sub 1990 Raymond W. Sears, Jr. IEEE NJS
1951-52 IRE NNJ Sub 1991 George D. Graul IEEE NJS
1953-54 Gordon P. McCouch IRE NNJ Sub 1992 Dr. Richard Snyder IEEE NJS
1954-55 Gordon P. McCouch IRE NNJS 1993 Dr. Michael I. Liechenstein IEEE NJS
1955-56 IRE NNJS 1994 R. Vittal Rebbapragada IEEE NJS
1956-57 IRE NNJS 1995 Thomas D. Denigris IEEE NJS
1958-59 Dr. Thomas T. Goldsmith IRE NNJS 1996 R. Vittal Rebbapragada IEEE NJS
1959-60 George D. Hulst IRE NNJS 1997 Arthur H. Greenberg IEEE NJS
1960-61 Dr. George M. Anderson IRE NNJS 1998 Melvin A. Lewis IEEE NJS
1961-62 Hugh S. Wertz IRE NNJS 1999 Dr. Frederick D. Chichester IEEE NJS
1962-63 Alanson W. Parkes, Jr. IRE NNJS 2000 Alan H. Stolpen IEEE NJS
1963-64 Charles W. Vadersen IEEE NJS 2001 Dr. Nirwan Ansari IEEE NJS
1964-65 John K. Redmon IEEE NJS 2002 Dr. Nirwan Ansari IEEE NJS
1965-66 Walter L. Glomb IEEE NJS 2003 Dr. Durga Misra IEEE NJS
1966-67 Stephen A. Mallard IEEE NJS 2004 Dr. Durga Misra IEEE NJS
1967-68 Bernard Meyer IEEE NJS 2005 Har Dayal IEEE NJS
1968-69 Joseph O’Grady IEEE NJS 2006 Har Dayal IEEE NJS
1969-70 Merle M. Irvine IEEE NJS 2007 Kirit Dixit IEEE NJS
1970-71 Herbert C. Blaicher, Jr. IEEE NJS 2008 Kirit Dixit IEEE NJS
1971-72 Robert Sokalski IEEE NJS 2009 Amit J. Patel IEEE NJS
1972-73 Carl Torell IEEE NJS 2010 Amit J. Patel IEEE NJS
1973-74 Harlan J. Perlis IEEE NJS 2011 Naresh Chand IEEE NJS
1974-75 Max J. Schindler IEEE NJS 2012 Naresh Chand IEEE NJS
1975-77 Dr. Robert E. McMillan IEEE NJS 2013 Russell Pepe IEEE NJS
1976-77 Frank Gialanella IEEE NJS 2014 Russell Pepe IEEE NJS
1977-78 Norman Bleshman IEEE NJS 2015 Dr.Adriaan J. de Lind van Wijngaarden IEEE NJS
1978-79 Donald G. Bathke IEEE NJS 2016 Dr. Adriaan J. de Lind van Wijngaarden IEEE NJS
1979-80 Kenneth J. Oexle IEEE NJS 2017 Kalyan Mondal IEEE NJS
1980-81 Alan H. Stolpen IEEE NJS 2018 Kalyan Mondal IEEE NJS
1981-82 Alex T. Brown IEEE NJS 2019 Dr. Yu-Dong Yao IEEE NJS
1982-83 Frank J. Relotto IEEE NJS 2020 Dr. Yu-Dong Yao IEEE NJS
1983-84 Anne M. Giedlinski IEEE NJS 2021 Dr. Ajay Poddar IEEE NJS
1984-85 Eugene W. Niemiec IEEE NJS 2022 Dr. Ajay Poddar IEEE NJS
1985-86 Richard F. Tax IEEE NJS 2023 Prof. Hong Zhao IEEE NJS
1986 Richard F. Tax IEEE NJS 2024 Prof. Hong Zhao IEEE NJS
IRE Northern New Jersey Section – IEEE North Jersey Section Newletters
Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
1960 X X (partial)
1961
1962 X X (partial) X X X (partial)
1963 X X X X X
1964 X X X X X X X X X X
1965 X X X X X X X X X X
1966 X X X X X X X X
1967 X X X X X X X X
1968 X X X X X X X X X X
1969 X X X X X X X X X X
1970 X X X X X X X X X X
1971 X X X X X X
1972 X X X X X X X
1973 X X X X X X X
1974 X X X X X X X X X
1975 X X X X X
1976 X X X X X X X
1977 X X X X X X X X X X X
1978 X X X X X X X X X X X
1979 X X X
1980 X X X X X X X X
1981 X
1982
1983 X X X X X X X X X
1984 X X X X X X X X X X
1985 X X X X X X X X X X
1986 X X X X X X
1987 X
1988 X X
1989 X X X X X X X X X X X
1990 X X X X X X X X
1991 X X
1992 X X X X
1993 X X X X X X X X X X X
1994 X X X X X X X
1995 X X X X X X X X X
1996 X X X X X X
1997 X X X X X X X X X
1998 X X X X X X X X X X
1999 X X X X X X X X X X
2000 X X X X X X X X X X
2001 X X X X X X X X X X
2002 X X X X X X X X X X
2003 X X X X X X X X X X
2004 X X X X X X X X X X
2005 X X X X X X X X X X
2006 X X X X X X X X X X
2007 X X X X X X X X X X
2008 X X X X X X X X X X
2009 X X X X X X X X X X X
2010 X X X X X X X X X X X
2011 X X X X X X X X X
2012 X X X X X X X X X X
2013 X X X X X X X X X X X
2014 X X X X X X X X X X X
2015 X X X X X X X X X X
2016 X
2017 X X X X X X X X
2018 X X X X X X X X X X X X
2019 X X X X X X X X X X X X
2020 X X X X X X X X X X X X
2021 X X X X X X X X X X X X
2022 X X X X X X X X X X X X
2023 X X X X X X X X X X X
2024 X X X X X X X X X

Link to old North Jersey Section Homepage (last updated 2010)

North Jersey Section IEEE Milestones

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Archival documents