Oral-History:Howard Michel
About Howard Michel
Born and raised in New Jersey in 1953, IEEE Life Member, Howard E. Michel, served as the 2015 IEEE President. He earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), 1975; an M.S. in Systems Management, University of Southern California, 1981; an M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 1988; and a Ph.D. in Computer Science & Engineering, Wright State University, 1999.
After completing an undergraduate engineering degree at NJIT (at the time, Newark College of Engineering), Michel had an eighteen-year career with the United States Air Force, as a pilot, satellite launch director, research engineer, and engineering manager. His military service included a tour in the People’s Republic of China, where he served as a senior U.S. Government technical representative enforcing technology-transfer control plans and procedures during two satellite launch operations.
After leaving the military, Michel worked in both academia and industry. He was on the faculty of the University of Dayton in Ohio and the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth (September 2005 – May 2016), where he taught electrical and computer engineering. Then Michel worked in Shenzhen City, Guangdong, China as the founding Chief Technology Officer, UBTECH Education (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd., (November 2016 - October 2018), and with UBETECH Robotics as a Senior Vice President and later Senior Advisor, (January 2018 – April 2021). Consultant with HEM Consulting for the U.S. Department of Defense and private industry in the areas of embedded systems, avionics, instrumentation, and systems engineering (January 2004 – November 2016). In addition, he was Chief Executive Officer of the National Association for Amateur Radio (ARRL), from October 2018 to January 2020.
An active IEEE volunteer for more than fifty years, Michel has held many posts, including Providence Section chair; Central New England Council chair; 2011-2012 Vice President of Member and Geographic Activities (MGA); Chair, Public Visibility Committee, 2009-2020; Director, Region 1, 2008-2009; Vice Chair of the Life Members Committee, 2023; and Director, IEEE Foundation (January 2022-2025).
When Michel became the 2015 IEEE President, he focused on four key initiatives, which include providing tools and educational resources that will facilitate career security for all IEEE members worldwide, boosting local and global membership, delivering a high-quality user experience for IEEE publishing and conference businesses, and increasing prestige, recruitment and employer support for IEEE across the globe.
In addition to publishing a textbook, Michel has published many articles and authored many papers in the fields of intelligent systems, artificial neural networks, and optical computing. He also holds patents for a distributed seismic and acoustic sensor system for detecting low flying aircraft, and an advanced artificial neural network based on high frequency analog signals.
About the Interview
HOWARD MICHEL: An Interview Conducted by Mary Ann Hellrigel for the IEEE History Center, 12 January 2022.
Interview #867 for the IEEE History Center, The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, Inc.
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Howard Michel, #867, an oral history conducted on 12 January 2022 by Mary Ann Hellrigel, IEEE History Center, Piscataway, NJ, USA.
Interview
INTERVIEWEE: Howard Michel
INTERVIEWER: Mary Ann Hellrigel
DATE: 12 January 2022
PLACE: Virtual via WebEx
Early life and education
Hellrigel:
[00:00:00] Today is January 12, 2022. This is Mary Ann Hellrigel, Archivist and Institutional Historian at the IEEE History Center [00:00:20]. I'm recording via WebEx, the oral history of Dr. Howard Michel, Ph.D. He's the 2015 IEEE President and CEO. He was the 2011-2012 VP of MGA [00:00:40]. You were also Region 1 Director.
Michel:
That's correct.
Hellrigel:
You've made a career in academia, the Air Force, and more recently, industry.
Michel:
Yes, that probably sums it up. I had four careers.
Hellrigel:
Four careers and still young, so there's more to do. [00:01:00] I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me as we try to chronicle your history as well as the history of IEEE. We start back a few decades ago. I understand you were born in New Jersey?
Michel:
I was born in New Jersey, [00:01:20] Holy Name Hospital, Teaneck.
Hellrigel:
That's Bergen County, near my neck of the woods.
Michel:
It is.
Hellrigel:
Then you grew up in New Jersey, in Teaneck?
Michel:
I grew up in New Jersey in Dumont.
Hellrigel:
Dumont. Another Bergen County town.
Michel:
Bergen County also, yes.
Hellrigel:
[00:01:40] You were born circa 1953?
Michel:
January 3rd.
Hellrigel:
You spent your youth in New Jersey. If you don't mind, tell us about your parents. What was your mom's name?
Michel:
My mother was Christine [00:02:00]. My father was Howard August. I am Howard Edgar, so I go by Howard E. Michel. Not to be confused with my father. My father worked in a bank and my mother [00:02:20] was a homemaker.
Hellrigel:
Did your dad go to college?
Michel:
None of my parents went to college.
Hellrigel:
Do you have siblings?
Michel:
I have two sisters and a brother. I am the oldest, then two sisters, and my brother was the baby [00:02:40].
Hellrigel:
So, there are four of you then?
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
Any other engineers, scientists in the mix?
Michel:
My brother is an engineer. The elder of the two sisters was pretty much a homemaker [00:03:00] and the younger one worked as an accountant.
Hellrigel:
While you were growing up was there an emphasis that your parents wanted their children to attend college?
Michel:
I think the mindset was that my brother and I would go to college. [00:03:20] I don't think the same mindset existed for my sisters. It was kind of a reflection of the times, I think.
Hellrigel:
I understand that you grew up in New Jersey. As a child, did you have any hobbies?
Michel:
Yes, probably foretold my engineering career. I was a geek. [00:03:40] I had a chemistry set. I had a microscope. I had a telescope. When I got a little bit older, I started shortwave radio listening which turned to ham radio, which ultimately turned to electrical engineering. I was always drawn to technology. Did well in math [00:04:00] and science in school, so it was, you do what you enjoy, and you enjoy what you do, I guess; that way.
Hellrigel:
And you went to public schools for K through 12?
Michel:
I went through primary school at St. Mary’s, public high school, and then Newark College of Engineering [00:04:20] later NJIT. It changed from NCE to NJIT in my senior year, so I have I guess, three-and-a-half years of NCE and half a year of NJIT, but my diploma says NJIT.
Hellrigel:
Oh, okay. Growing up you had some technical hobbies, and you did well in math and science. [00:04:40] Did you have any subject you disliked?
Michel:
I've never really been fond of languages. English is a foreign language to me, I think.
Hellrigel:
How did you decide to go to Newark College of Engineering, NJIT [00:05:00]?
Michel:
That was kind of a financial thing. I could live at home. It was cheaper than having a dorm room at a college, [even] a public university. I think back then tuition might have been $200 or $300 a semester, not taking into account all the quarters [00:05:20] I threw on the Garden State Parkway commuting down to Newark every day.
Hellrigel:
That's what I was going to ask, if you took the train or if you drove?
Michel:
I drove. I had a carpool, with four of us from Dumont that went to NCE, and we took turns driving. It helped out that way.
Hellrigel:
[00:05:40] What was your major?
Michel:
Major at college was electrical engineering.
Hellrigel:
How did you narrow down that field?
Michel:
It's kind of funny. Neither one of my parents went to college, so I didn't have really an exposure to professional jobs. [00:06:00] But at one point when I was young, I'd say ten years old, plus or minus a couple of years, my father finished the basement and then one of his friends did the electrical wiring and I was fascinated by electric wiring. Not high tech, but it was just fascinating. [00:06:20] And that started me on shortwave radio listening and ham radio. So electrical engineering was a natural extension of that, how to design the equipment I was using as opposed to just building somebody else's design.
Hellrigel:
When you had your ham radio and that, you were playing around with that before NJIT [00:06:40], so were you one of those kids in the late night listening in for voices from around the globe?
Michel:
Yes. When you listen depends on, I guess, the frequencies you want to work.
Hellrigel:
Okay.
Michel:
So lower frequencies, AM radio band, propagates best at night. [00:07:00] Ham radio will be 80 meters, 40 meters, the lower frequency is best at night; 20 meters or higher–10 meters was hot then during the daytime because it depends on the sun and the layers in the atmosphere, ionizing the layers in the atmosphere [00:07:20] and it depends on who you want to talk to, where they were and what time of day and which frequency you try and use.
Hellrigel:
And were you also interested in fixing your car and those mechanical things?
Michel:
I was. My first car, [00:07:40] I got from my neighbor. I bought it from him for one dollar and we pushed it from his yard to my yard.
Hellrigel:
What was it?
Michel:
It was a Chevy station wagon.
Hellrigel:
Cool.
Michel:
It was the biggest car I think Chevrolet made at that time; with the smallest engine they could get in. [00:08:00] It was a clunker. But I worked on it. My second car was a Ford Galaxy, also a secondhand car I worked on. I left that one to my brother and he and I rebuilt the engine at one point. When I had moved up to my first new car, it was a Chevy Vega. [00:08:20]
Hellrigel:
Oh, wow. So that was mid-1970s?
Michel:
That was–yes. I think it was a 1974 Chevy Vega.
Hellrigel:
Yes, I remember those.
Michel:
The station wagon was 1961. Yes.
Hellrigel:
Did your brother also go to Newark and attend NJIT? [00:08:40]
Michel:
He did. He did. He's a mechanical engineer. Then his son went to NJIT, so I guess it is.
Hellrigel:
Legacy. That's cool. I saw on YouTube, your short commentary about how much NJIT [00:09:00], or Newark College of Engineering, changed from that point up to the point where you were going to be the president of IEEE.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
Do you get back there much?
Michel:
I don't. I live in Massachusetts now. My family is still in New Jersey, but I'm not going to go down to visit them and then spend a day [00:09:20] going to the old college. But you're right, when I was elected IEEE president, the university reached out to me and said, could you come and visit, maybe do a short video. Yes, I got a tour, and we did a video. [00:09:40] I met with the IEEE student branch, so it was a good day.
Hellrigel:
And that's a good point too because you were very involved with the student branch of IEEE when you were at NJIT.
Michel:
[00:10:00] I was. I was trying to remember, I think I was vice chair, but I might have been chair. There was Omicron Delta Kappa. Then I received the chair or vice chair of it, and it was one of the other. I can't remember, I have to go find my yearbook and figure out which one I was chair of and which one I was vice chair of.
Hellrigel:
What kind of activities did you do with the IEEE?
Michel:
I'm sorry, it wasn't Omicron Nu. It was Eta Kappa Nu.
Hellrigel:
[00:10:20] Oh, yes.
Michel:
So, there is also an Omicron Delta Kappa which is a national leadership honor society that I was a member of by virtue of being an officer either at Eta Kappa Nu or IEEE, or both.
Hellrigel:
Did Eta Kappa Nu and IEEE [00:10:40] student branches have joint events, or did you do them separately?
Michel:
They were separate. A lot of people were in both. We did different kinds of things, though. In the honor society we did some tutoring and those kinds of things. [00:11:00] The IEEE student branch tended to be more social. I think we even had a ski trip.
Hellrigel:
To the jersey slopes.
Michel:
I think it was up to Vermont.
Hellrigel:
Okay, yes. Our mountain slopes aren't known for skiing.
Michel:
No, they're not.
Hellrigel:
But we do have some icy patches [00:11:20].
Michel:
I do. Yes. In Sussex County, I guess.
Hellrigel:
Yes, yes.
Michel:
I forget what they were called, but I probably skied there once or twice. I prefer skiing in Vermont.
Hellrigel:
Yes. When you're in the student branch or an undergraduate at [00:11:40] NJIT, did you have summer jobs or jobs during the academic year?
Michel:
One job that I remember most was making plastic teeth for dental schools.
Hellrigel:
Wow.
Michel:
It was a [00:12:00] small company, the owner, his wife, and then a couple of students. I started working there when I was in high school, and I think I continued to work there even through college. I also had a part time job working at a gas station, [00:12:20] mostly pumping gas, but doing minor mechanical repairs.
Hellrigel:
And that'd be throughout college?
Michel:
Yes. I think at some point, I had a job working for a paging service company, fixing their radios, and that was down in Union City [00:12:40]. I think my cousin worked for the company. I had these and I'm trying to remember which ones were when I got an Air Force scholarship in my last two years. I don't remember if I [00:13:00] was still working summer jobs. I don't think so because there was an Air Force ROTC summer camp and those kinds of things. So, to say I was working those jobs through college may not be entirely true, but I was working, at least when I started college.
Hellrigel:
[00:13:20] How did you get involved with the scholarship? Did they look for you? Did you apply to the Air Force?
Michel:
Back in that timeframe, we're still in Vietnam. So, this was 1973, 1972 timeframe, I think. [00:13:40] I was in college. I'm forgetting when exactly it was, but the last draft that I got Number 42. And so, they were drafting up to the year before I think 125. Then I said, okay, [00:14:00] this is not good. I investigated ROTC. I went into ROTC, I think my sophomore year, so I must have got the draft number my freshman year.
Hellrigel:
Wow.
ROTC, Air Force service
Michel:
They had done away with college deferments, [00:14:20] so I went into ROTC. I think I took a class in aerospace studies or something like that, whatever they call it, and joined the Cadet Corps. [00:14:40] Go ahead with your question.
Hellrigel:
Were there other options? You picked the Air Force, but could you have gone Navy or Army, or?
Michel:
No, NCE (Newark College of Engineering) only had Air Force ROTC at the time. At that point, I was thinking if I'm going to go into the Air Force, I'd go in as an engineer. [00:15:00] I went to what they call summer camp, which was not summer camp. At that point, I kind of got a flavor for other things. They try and recruit people to be pilots and navigators and those kinds of things. You get rides in airplanes, [00:15:20] and it was cool. I didn't get drafted, and I said, well, okay, I don't think I really want to go to the Air Force anymore. Then my junior [year] was coming up, and I said, yes, maybe I really do want to be in the Air Force again. [00:15:40] So, I joined the Cadet Corps again, for my junior year, as a pilot candidate. I decided if I was going to be in the Air Force, it would be best to be a pilot. If you're in the Navy, you want to be a ship's captain; in the Air Force, you want to be a pilot, so that's how I went back in. Then [00:16:00] they offered me a scholarship for the last two years. I did that starting in the middle of my junior year as opposed to the fall of the junior year. My two years would have been a year and a half undergraduate then I would have had to have six months of [00:16:20] graduate education still in ROTC before I went to active duty. This is a little confusing, but I wound up with a scholarship and I went up in the Air Force.
Hellrigel:
Then you spent a career in the Air Force.
Michel:
[00:16:40] What happened is, because I had to have another six months in the cadet corps as a graduate student, I applied to graduate schools. I applied and I wound up at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (UMass Amherst). While I was there [00:17:00], the Air Force decided the Vietnam War had wound down, and they decided they really didn't need all these pilots that were in the pipeline anymore. So, they said, okay, well, we want you to come on active duty now and come as an engineer. [00:17:20] Okay, at that point I talked to the Navy, and I asked if they had a Navy ROTC program. They said, well, we'll take you, and we'll bring you in as a pilot. We can transfer your obligation from the Air Force. [00:17:40] In the meantime, the Air Force rethought [the situation]. They had, I guess, about 1000 of these pilots that they had basically told, we don't need any more. [Then they] said, well, maybe some of them we really want to keep, so they had an application process. They took what I understood to be about forty or fifty of the 1000 back into the [00:18:00] pilot training program.
Hellrigel:
Wow.
Michel:
I was one of those that they selected for pilot training. At that point they said, but we don't want you to wait a year and a half. Basically, at this point they wanted you to come in the next six months. It's sometime in the spring of 1976, so [00:18:20] they wanted everybody on active duty by the fall of 1976. I wound up going into the Air Force in October of 1976, stationed at Del Rio, Texas, Laughlin Air Force Base pilot training base. When I got there [00:18:40], there were no slots for pilot trainees at the time because the law was that all the [Air Force] Academy graduates had to be brought on active duty within a certain number of months, and they were all taken.
Hellrigel:
They took the slots.
Michel:
So, I wound up sitting in civil engineering for three months, instead of finishing my degree at the University of Massachusetts (UMass Amherst). [00:19:00] It's a little annoying, but I started pilot training in January of 1977, and then started my career.
Hellrigel:
This is fighter pilot training?
Michel:
No, the Air Force has what they call undergraduate pilot training, UPT. [00:19:20] It's a yearlong program. All the Air Force pilots go through this. The first six months are in a T37, which is sitting side by side. It's a jet aircraft, but it's not a very high performance one. It's somewhat safe, I guess. [00:19:40] The second six months of the year, we're in a T38, which is a supersonic aircraft. They used to sell a fighter version of it called an F5. It wasn't super high performance, but it was a supersonic aircraft. [00:20:00] You finish your one year of UPT. Then you take on whatever aircraft you've been assigned to and there's more training in that. Therefore, I finished UPT in Texas, and I had B52 [00:20:20] training in Merced, California. That was probably four to five months, I think. Then you get assigned to your base, where you're going to be stationed.
Hellrigel:
This got you out of New Jersey [00:20:40] and out of the east coast. What was that like? You're still very young. You're told, like every other person in the military, to ship out to Texas or wherever you are assigned.
Michel:
Exactly. I grew up in Bergen County, [New Jersey] [00:21:00] not too many miles from Times Square [in New York City]. My first assignment in the military was Del Rio, Texas, and I figured I had died and got the hell.
Hellrigel:
It was the first time you were ever on an airplane?
Michel:
Actually, no. [00:21:20] At some point in college, I took a trip down to Washington, D.C. with a friend.
Hellrigel:
The shuttle.
Michel:
The shuttle was I think Eastern Airlines. [Eastern Airlines] maybe had a shuttle from probably LaGuardia to D.C., [00:21:40] so, to Washington National [Airport], now Reagan National [Airport]. Yes, that was my first time on a plane.
Hellrigel:
Your father and your family members had military service with the Army or the Navy?
Michel:
My father was in the Navy in World War II. [00:22:00] He was on a landing ship tank. His ship was sunk twice. My brother found a video on YouTube a couple years ago, in Navy archives, of my father's ship sinking, burning. So, yes [00:22:20].
Hellrigel:
What did they think about you? Their baby boy is going off to the military. Especially if your dad has a ship sunk twice?
Michel:
Yes. my [00:22:40] mother was not happy about me going into ROTC. But she also recognized that I was old enough to make up my own mind. Once I was in the military, it was fine. I think her concern clearly was the Vietnam War, as opposed to just being in the military [00:23:00].
Hellrigel:
[00:23:00] Yes.
Michel:
My father, I think, was proud that I was in the Air Force. It was generally in the Cold War, so not a hot act of war. So, a little bit different. Yes.
Hellrigel:
Did your brother go [00:23:20] to ROTC also or– He is a little younger.
Michel:
No. He’s seven years younger than me, so a little bit younger. Yes.
Hellrigel:
I know his cohort. Yes, yes. He had to register, but the draft was just ending [00:23:40]–
Michel:
Yes. It really ended. nobody was drafted the year that I had gotten the, the low draft numbers. So, I'm thinking that would have been 1973 maybe, when they stopped to draft?
Hellrigel:
[00:24:00] Yes. Around then. Yes. Then I know that the registration came around 1978, 1979, 1980, but not later than that.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
When you were going to go off to Newark College of Engineering, the Vietnam War is in the background. What did you think you would do for your career? [00:24:20] You majored in engineering. What were your hopes and dreams as a young college student and then graduate?
Michel:
Yes, like I said, neither one of my parents had gone to college, I had no real vision of what it was like to have a professional career. My father worked [00:24:40] in the bank, but he wasn't a banker. I didn't really know what engineers were or did. I think probably my mindset was more towards a stable career, as opposed to, [00:25:00] I don't think startups at the time, but they must have had startups.
Hellrigel:
At MIT, maybe that was a Route 128 corridor, or that high tech era out that way.
Michel:
Yes. There were big companies like AT&T and stuff in the New Jersey area that I probably [00:25:20] would have gone to,
Hellrigel:
Singer-Kearfott in New Jersey that just moved.
Michel:
Exactly, exactly. Yes. Yes. My cousin worked for Singer-Kearfott; I think.
Hellrigel:
They just knocked their building down in Woodland Park, New Jersey.
Michel:
Oh, really.
Hellrigel:
It's going to be housing and a mixed mall or some [00:25:40] sort of warehouse, but yes, that's the end of an era. Then ITT had a big compound along Route 3 (New Jersey Route 3).
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
I know a number of people who had engineering jobs at those companies. I think ITT’s their little tower that looks like an airport control tower. It sort of was [00:26:00] in the middle of nowhere at the end of this road coming at the intersection of Kingsland Street and Franklin Avenue by the Clifton and Nutley border.
Michel:
Yes, yes.
Hellrigel:
Back to your career. You were looking for steady employment and then you get to be a pilot in the Air Force. At this point, when you're going to become a pilot, that's really cool for a young person.
Michel:
Well, it is. [00:26:20] It is both physically and mentally challenging which is something that appeals to me.
Hellrigel:
In what way?
Michel:
If you're flying a supersonic plane, you have split seconds to make decisions. and you're physically making those decisions. [00:26:40] It is not just sitting at a desk with time in the world to think about deep thoughts. And it is not just being a jock. There used to be a thing we talked about; a superior pilot is the one who uses a superior intellect to avoid [00:27:00] a situation that required superior hands. And that's about the truth of it, right?
Hellrigel:
To avoid a problem by avoiding a problem?
Michel:
Exactly, exactly. You don't want to put yourself in a situation that you'd be lucky to get out of.
Hellrigel:
Yes. [00:27:20] This might be off topic, but you're going through all this training and the general public, we see in the movies, you just hit the ejector button, and you get ejected. You probably would be riding a desk if you did that because you've just lost an airplane.
Michel:
I guess the reasons [00:27:40] why you lost the airplane would factor into that. I had some incidents in airplanes. I didn't have to eject, but they were pretty sporty. An engine blows up just as the landing gear was coming up, [00:28:00] so it was a maintenance problem. You are not responsible for maintenance problems.
Hellrigel:
Right. Or birds.
Michel:
Birds, yes. You know, lots of different things can happen. Maybe you're thinking about the one where they landed [00:28:20] the plane in the Hudson River because of birds.
Hellrigel:
Yes, that was the landing in the Hudson River. Sometimes you hit a bird or a flock of birds.
Michel:
Yes, yes. Yes, you have something the size of a chicken go through jet engine. It does a lot of damage.
Hellrigel:
Yes, it is when the weight of a feather has a lot of power.
Michel:
Yes. [00:28:40] The engine that I had blow up wasn’t a bird strike. What had happened is every so many hours, the plane does a large maintenance. So, you bring your car in every 3000 miles or 60,000 miles. They charge you $600 to change everything else in the car. [00:29:00] So, this plane does come out on what they call phase maintenance, and one of the engines had five fuel jets that injected the fuel, and then some of them were plugged.
Hellrigel:
Oh.
Michel:
I think they said two of them were plugged or three of them were plugged, so [00:29:20]to get the same amount of fuel into the engine, the other two were under higher pressure, you need to bring the throttle further up. As a result of the burning inside the engine burning in front of the burn-can as opposed to in the burn-can, it destroyed one of the rotors [00:29:40] which then broke off and went back through the engine and destroyed the rest of the engine. So, it was a couple of big explosions and smoke. You can shut the engine down and you’ve got seven more [engines] and you're okay.
Hellrigel:
Well, yes. So, [00:30:00] you have to be mentally fit to get up the courage to get back in the saddle the next time you're on the schedule?
Michel:
I guess. When you're twenty-something, you don't really think you're ever going to die. So, it's okay.
Hellrigel:
You're having some fun [00:30:20] as a pilot, and your engineering education is a little bit on hold because now you're focusing on being a pilot in the Air Force?
Michel:
Yes, yes.
Hellrigel:
At this point, did you think you'd stay active duty or what were your game plans?
Michel:
[00:30:40] I probably never really planned on an Air Force career, particularly since the way they had kind of jerked me around getting into the service. But okay, I finished pilot training, you have a six-year commitment, and [00:31:00] then we’ll see.
Hellrigel:
Six years active duty?
Michel:
Six years active duty after your UPT. So really, it's about a seven-year commitment. I was flying for a couple of years and then I got asthma.
Hellrigel:
Oh, gosh.
Michel:
[00:31:20] I had asthma as a child that had gone away, but it came back. So, I got medically disqualified from flying. At that point, then I had a career at the Air Force Geophysics Laboratory or for a couple years at the Air Force Geophysics Lab, research engineering. That was [00:31:40] a really plum job in the Air Force for engineers. At that point, I'm thinking I'm going to finish my six years and I'm going to get a job. The Air Force Geophysics Lab (AFGL) was on [Massachusetts Route] 128 in the Boston area. So, I'm just going to get a job someplace, but [00:32:00] the way it works in the Air Force, when your tour is up at a certain place, you kind of ask for another job where you want to go. I said, well, I think I want to go to California, Vandenberg Air Force Base, and launch rockets. They gave me that job and I said, well, okay, [00:32:20] I can't turn this down. So, I'll go to California for a couple years and then I'll get out of the service, but as it turned out, I never got out of the service until I retired.
Hellrigel:
Did you stay on active or is that when you go on reserve because–
Michel:
No, I was active the whole time.
Hellrigel:
[00:32:40] Wow. They would station you where you were needed?
Michel:
Yes, the needs of the service. They would move you around where they needed you for whatever job they needed you in. You requested where you'd like to go and what kind of jobs you wanted. They called it Form 90, and you sent it in with your wish list. [00:33:00] I wanted to go to California, so that was my first choice. I don't remember exactly what I had for second choices. It might have been Florida for the same kind of thing at the Kennedy Space Center, or it might have been another engineering facility. I don't remember. But my first choice clearly was the [00:33:20] complex out of Vandenberg. It's a beautiful part of the country and it's really exciting to work.
Hellrigel:
Go ahead, sir.
Michel:
The reason I wanted to go there is when I was sent to Geophysics Lab, we were working on projects for the Air Force. One of the projects was [00:33:40] understanding the launch environment from the Space Shuttle. At that point, they were building a special complex out of California. This is before the Challenger blew up, and they were going to have an Air Force shuttle stationed out in California. [00:34:00] The Shuttle when it launches out of Florida. People don't realize this, but the first time it launched out of Florida, the back pressure from the fumes and stuff like that damaged some of the Shuttle tiles. They put in a suppression system [00:34:20], a sound suppression system, to kind of reduce that. And kind of fast forward and you're thinking they're going to launch out of California? Well, in California, the launch pad was in what I would describe as an amphitheater, mountains that kind of surrounded it.
Hellrigel:
Oh, so that impacts it?
Michel:
[00:34:40] Yes. What we did was we built some equipment, we took it to Florida, and we measured the launch environment of Florida on a flat field. Then we said that's the source, we went out to California and on the buildings, we instrumented it. Then [00:35:00] we launched some weather balloons with some dynamite below them and we set off an explosion. We measured the response of the buildings. If you understand engineering, what we actually then had was a point source, an impulse. We had impulse [00:35:20] response of the system. We had a source model. We can convolve the two and we can actually make predictions of what the Shuttle would do in that environment to those buildings. What we did–we told the Air Force is going to have serious damage to the buildings, the backpressure [00:35:40] was much higher. Some of the buildings–when there was a mobile building, mobile building being 380 feet tall. When they prepare the payloads, and bring it out to the pad, when they–when they're going to launch, they bring it back and park it next to the building. [00:36:00] Those buildings would actually bang together and possibly damaged the satellites in the pipeline. They had an orbital, orbital flight simulator building, where they can mimic the Shuttle in orbit. And we told them you could have more than 1G vertical acceleration on the floors, so equipment is going to get [00:36:20] damaged.
Hellrigel:
Rattled a little bit?
Michel:
Yes. This was kind of fun. But this also got me really in tune to the Shuttle launch that was going to be going on out of California, and that's really what I wanted to go do. I think probably because I had experience working with them [00:36:40] the Air Force honored that request that my assignment was to go to Vandenberg to be in the Shuttle launch program at Vandenberg. In between when I got that assignment, and when I got to Vandenberg, the Challenger disaster happened. They wound down the Air Force shuttle [00:37:00] in California and I wound up in the Atlas program, so Atlas rockets, missiles, and launching satellites, which was just as rewarding.
Hellrigel:
While you're doing that, you got your master’s [degree] in systems management at USC in 1981. [00:37:20] Is that while you're there at Vandenberg?
Michel:
No, I got that while I was at Loring Air Force Base flying.
Hellrigel:
Oh, okay.
Michel:
Timewise, I was at Loring Air Force Base from 1978 to 1981. [00:37:40] That's in Maine Flying B52. I was at the Air Force Geophysics Lab from 1981 to 1986 in Massachusetts. Then I was in Vandenberg from 1986 to 1990 or [00:38:00] 1991, I think. Then I went to Headquarters Systems Command out at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. From there, I went to Headquarters Material Command at Wright Patterson, in Ohio, and that's where–
Hellrigel:
[00:38:20] At this point you're re-upping every two, six years, or?
Michel:
An officer doesn't really in that sense re-up. As you do different things, you do incur different commitments. Every time you move, you get a commitment. [00:38:40] If you do any schooling or training, you get a commitment. I had my master's degree from USC paid for by the Air Force, so while I was doing that, I had a commitment, but it runs concurrently with [00:39:00] the pilot training commitments. I finished my master's degree from UMass while I was at Hanscom, and they were paying for that. I think the VA (U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs) was also paying for that if I'm correct. Maybe [00:39:20] not, maybe it was just the Air Force. I think, I used the VA for my Ph.D.
Hellrigel:
While you're doing this, you still have education in your background, and you are figuring out what you are going to do when you leave the Air Force. Do you think, so I'll get these other degrees, or?
Michel:
I don't think I ever really had a plan what I was going to do when I left the Air Force, [00:39:40] was a series of jobs that I liked doing. When I stopped liking it, I moved on.
Hellrigel:
Could you have stayed in the Air Force after Wright Patterson?
Michel:
I could not, because I was not promoted to lieutenant colonel.
Hellrigel:
Okay. So, you left [00:40:00] at colonel?
Michel:
I was a major at that point.
Hellrigel:
Major.
Michel:
Yes. This was the early 1990s. I guess the exact year was maybe 1990. [00:40:20] I retired in 1994. When I was at the Headquarters Systems Command, that was 1991, 1992, the Air Force was downsizing.
Michel:
They were letting people out early, so [00:40:40] that's what I did. When I left the Air Force as a major at Wright Patterson, I retired at eighteen-and-a-half-years, instead of staying for twenty. I got my full pension minus whatever it is. I guess it's twenty years, [00:41:00] minus two and a half percent a year. I retired a year and a half short of that, so it was like 47, 45 percent something like that. It's in the 50 percent of my pay that I was getting for that year and a half. I ended up ahead financially in the long run. [00:41:20] It was also the fun had gone out of the job because what we were doing was managing downsizing the force.
I remember that when I was at Andrews, I had a captain that worked for me who had prior enlistment time, and [00:41:40] he didn't know if he was going to be able to make twenty years or not.
Hellrigel:
And not by choice?
Michel:
Not by choice. When I went in at Vandenberg and Hanscom, DOD (U.S. Department of Defense) budgets were big, and we were doing all kinds of great R&D and science and engineering, and it was fun. [00:42:00] You can touch the equipment, so it wasn't just academic stuff. Then at the Headquarters, it's sort of getting more policy and away from the equipment. Then like I said, managing downsizing and stuff was not fun. [00:42:20]
When I retired, I went to Wright State University in Dayton, [Ohio] and they offered me a teaching assistantship. I took my VA benefits, their teaching assistantship, and I was doing just as well as [00:42:40] a full time Ph.D. student as I was as an Air Force officer. At that point, when I got out of the Air Force, I looked at working in the Dayton area. One of the companies [00:43:00] I looked at, basically, they're all big defense contractors. After they started talking to me, they said, oh, sorry, we're laying off people instead of hiring people, and that was pretty much the environment. I said, well, when I was at UMass [00:43:20] I liked being a teaching assistant, so maybe I'd like to teach. So, I said, well, to be a professor you need to have a Ph.D.
Hellrigel:
Right.
Michel:
Excuse me.
Hellrigel:
Yes, sir.
Personal life, family
Michel:
My cat's talking to me.
Hellrigel:
Okay. No, you can introduce your cat if you want. We can [take a break].
Michel:
Do you want to come up here Paddy? [00:43:40] Hold on a second.
Hellrigel:
Yes, sir.
Michel:
Can you see him? [Holds up cat.]
Hellrigel:
Oh, cool. Yes.
Michel:
It is a Siamese Lilac Point. He's a little vocal sometimes if he starts talking.
Hellrigel:
I had to give an oral history [00:44:00] tutorial [a training webinar] and it was unexpected; however, I had committed to watch my sister's Chihuahua.
Michel:
Okay.
Hellrigel:
I said, she's going to go off [bark]. It was 6 o'clock in the morning. It was for Region 10 [IEEE members]. I said, Scooby-Doo is going to go off when the garbage guys come past. Lo and behold, [00:44:20] [she started barking], and I held Ms. Scooby-Doo for the rest of the two hours, so she made her debut.
Michel:
Did you get credit for that?
Hellrigel:
Yes, yes. I'm flexible.
Michel:
My wife, [Linnea Michel] is a lawyer, she just closed her business. She does nonprofit [00:44:40] law, but UMass asked her to teach a business law class, so she's doing that online. We have two cats, and the other cat was part of the lecture last night.
Hellrigel:
I've had pets, children, and other family members appear during a class or webinar. With the exception of Scooby-Doo, there are no other folks in my house. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when I was teaching a university history course online, sometimes a student was minding a baby or child. I said, fine, just remember to mute your audio. [00:45:00] Fine, it was a trying time for everyone.
Michel:
Yes, yes.
Hellrigel:
Life is life.
Michel:
Life is life.
Hellrigel:
That's a cute cat.
Michel:
Yes. He is a boy. He’s getting a little old. I think he's probably about twelve years old now. [00:45:20]
Hellrigel:
He's still young for a cat?
Michel:
Yes. He's still healthy and plays with his toys.
Hellrigel:
Oh, that's cool.
Michel:
He doesn't like the cold.
Hellrigel:
Oh, I can't imagine cats and the cold.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
Especially Siamese.
Michel:
Yes, yes.
Hellrigel:
But you are right. [00:45:40] You are right. That must have been shocking that you're a Ph.D. student, and with your teaching assistantship, and now your VA funding, you're almost on the same economic scale as an Air Force Major.
Michel:
Yes, so it was. [00:46:00] Military pay is not great, but not bad. Officers do well. But it's like the VA picked up a lot of, if not all, of the costs, and then the stipend they were giving me. [00:46:20] I was getting my pension too. I didn't want to forget that, right, so I only make up half my salary. I guess that's probably the truth of the story there.
Hellrigel:
At this point or at some point along the line, you started a family. [00:46:40]
Michel:
Yes. My elder daughter was born when I was stationed at Hanscom, so she was born in1983. That's Kristin. My younger daughter, I have two daughters, is Megan and she was born [00:47:00] about a month after we moved to California. My wife, eight months pregnant, flew across the country. We bought a first-class ticket, so she and Kristen flew first class from Boston to Los Angeles. [00:47:20] I drove the car across the country and met them in Los Angeles. Then we drove up to Vandenberg which is north of Santa Barbara
Hellrigel:
That part of the USA is a nice part of the country.
Michel:
It's beautiful there.
Hellrigel:
At this point, is your wife in law school or had she graduated?
Michel:
[00:47:40] My wife, like me, decided to get her doctorate later in her life. When we lived in Massachusetts, she worked for McLean Hospital as a public relations communications person. [00:48:00] When we moved to California, she did some volunteer work. Then she wound up getting a job as the Executive Director for the United Way. She has [00:48:20] kind of done nonprofit management, on and off, as we moved around the country. When my younger daughter went off to college, my wife went off to law school. I used to tell her, I got two daughters, but I’ve got three in college.
Hellrigel:
[00:48:40] Three in college at the same time; that is a hefty bill.
Michel:
It is. One of them was in law school. It was a law school right here at Dartmouth, which was not part of the University of Massachusetts. They acquired the law school [00:49:00] after my wife got her degree, but her degree I think still says UMass School of Law
Hellrigel:
Wow.
Michel:
Like I said, she did nonprofit law. She set up the Legal Center for Nonprofits, Inc. It's a nonprofit law firm [00:49:20] that she would help small nonprofits get incorporated, get tax exempt status, and deal with all the kinds of issues that you need, but you really can't afford to do. If you're a small nonprofit trying to set up an animal shelter or something like that, you can't afford thousands of dollars [00:49:40] of legal bills.
Hellrigel:
No, especially if someplace objects to your site or whatever. Wouldn't it?
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
You spent a lot of your career in nonprofits, too, teaching and–
Michel:
Yes, yes. I guess, I worked for the Department of Defense, which is probably the biggest [00:50:00] nonprofit there is. Then UMass and the government again, also nonprofits.
Hellrigel:
Did your daughter study engineering, or?
Michel:
No, no, no. No engineers in the family. Kristin studied graphic design, [00:50:20] but she decided she really didn't like sitting behind a desk, so she's now a design consultant at RH, Restoration Hardware. It is a high-end furniture store where they do, I guess, [00:50:40] even have interior designers on the staff. She does not have a degree in interior design, but that is the kind of stuff they do. So, from selling a chair and a couch to redesigning the whole house. Megan is [00:51:00] trying to do editorial work for academic publishing and is currently working remotely for Princeton University Press.
Hellrigel:
Well, academic presses are on hard times.
Michel:
I guess some of them are, but [00:51:20] I guess, Princeton University really is not.
Hellrigel:
No, no. [Princeton University seems to be financially sound, but I do not know about Princeton University Press.] They are all trying to pivot with open access. Oh, well, there are other challenges for them, but I do not really know about Princeton University Press.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
A couple of friends have just left publishing. They had [00:51:40] good successful decades-long careers.
Michel:
Yes. Well, Megan is hoping to make a career at it. She's in her thirties, so.
Hellrigel:
Good luck to her.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
Princeton [University Press] does some neat history of science, technology, engineering, and architecture books.
Michel:
Yes. I don't know exactly where she is within the [00:52:00] PUP (Princeton University Press). I think it might be something to do with art or architecture.
Hellrigel:
Yes, they have a good press in those fields, too. My personal library has books about medieval architecture and things like that which I started collection during graduate school.
Michel:
Okay.
Hellrigel:
Now that might be outside of their wheelhouse [main scope of publication]. [00:52:20]
Michel:
Yes.
Shift to computer science, master's at UMass, Ph.D.
Hellrigel:
When you start a second career then you're in graduate school and you are going to be in computer science and engineering, as opposed to electrical engineering?
Michel:
Yes. I kind of describe it as I have kind of gone from electrical engineering and turned to the dark side, [00:52:40] or maybe turned from the dark side. My undergraduate degree was electrical engineering, electronic engineering. My master's from UMass was electrical and computer engineering. And my Ph.D. is in computer science and engineering, so computer science and computer engineering. [00:53:00] In my coursework at NCE, I had an elective course in my senior year in computing, but I couldn't get into the computer engineering tract. They had a two-course sequence that seniors would take. I took communication, which was natural, being a ham operator [00:53:20] and stuff, and understanding how radios work was fascinating. At a very detailed level, different modulation techniques and stuff like that, but I really was drawn towards the computers more. At UMass, I got more involved in the hardware aspects of it. Then as I went for my Ph.D. [00:53:40] I wouldn’t say I’m a software engineer, but it was more towards software. I like the interplay between the hardware and the software. It's amazing to be able to write a program that changes zeros and ones that changes voltages on a device driver, which makes it run [00:54:00] or something like that. You have to understand both the hardware and the software at a very fundamental level. I find that much more interesting than the application programs. The equations.
Hellrigel:
The equations?
Michel:
Yes, I have really no desire to write big software programs. [00:54:20] It just doesn't have the draw to me as understanding maybe [how] changing one voltage level or one device.
Hellrigel:
The devices throughout your career have changed so drastically. I know that more recently you are involved [00:54:40] more directly in robotics.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
You are a member of IEEE, and have you been a member of specific IEEE Societies?
Michel:
I was, and some of those changed over time. [00:55:00] I know I was initially more involved in maybe Systems and Cybernetics [IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society], the IEEE Information Theory Society, and those kinds of things because that was where my education was. At some point, [00:55:20] maybe even early on, I was a member of the [IEEE] Computer Society. Then I became a member of the [IEEE] Computational Intelligence Society, and more recently, as you said, Robotics [IEEE Robotics and Automation Society]. My job in China was about robotics, so I joined the Robotics Society and dropped [00:55:40] Information Theory which is highly mathematical and no longer interesting. That was the Society my advisor at UMass was in, and you kind of go where your advisor points you.
Hellrigel:
Who was your advisor at UMass?
Michel:
It was Jack Wolf. [00:56:00] I think he might have been the president of the Society [IEEE Information Theory Society] or editor in chief of the Transactions, I forget exactly. Now, we're going back forty years.
Hellrigel:
Right. He made sure that you got involved in IEEE.
Michel:
[00:56:20] Right. But the one I was drawn to most at UMass was Michael Arbib. He was in the Computer Science Department. I think he's now at UCSD (University of California, Davis) or USC (University of Southern California), or maybe he's retired. [00:56:40] His thing was brain theory and artificial intelligence, and that was the course that really appealed to me when I was at UMass.
Hellrigel:
That is a long way from where you started at Newark College [of Engineering].
Michel:
It is. [00:57:00] That's also part of the fun of it, right? You are not static. You're always learning something.
Hellrigel:
During your career, you did a lot of different things. I guess that that's part of the fun that you didn't pick one [00:57:20] niche and then stay there for fifty years.
Michel:
Yes. I guess maybe it is high level ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder).
Hellrigel:
Or you have the flexibility that if you see another thing, you could drift a little?
Michel:
Well, it isn't. I don't know if it was a goal [00:57:40] or if then I understood it about myself. In the Air Force, if you are an officer, the theory is that everybody is being trained to be the Chief of Staff, so you have to understand everything, you move around a lot, and you do different things. I got comfortable with doing that, [00:58:00] and decided, maybe I really did like that but not entirely. I was in the Air Force, like I said for eighteen years. I was at UMass; it might have been eighteen years. I retired from there. They were pretty stable [years] within the ability to change [00:58:20] within them, but it wasn't drastic change.
When I went to China that was a drastic change. At that time, I was fortunate enough to have made connections as IEEE President. I was collecting two pensions, the military pension and the state pension, so I could try something different. If [00:58:40] it didn't work, it didn't matter. That's how I decided to go to China, and that was totally different. That really opened up a totally different view of the world from a startup company. When the news lately has been the Theranos [00:59:00] Silicon Valley, fake it till you make it kind of thing, that was a little disconcerting because I think we are doing some of that.
Hellrigel:
Oh, yes, that has been in the news.
Michel:
Obviously, UBTECH has made it at this point, but not everybody does.
Hellrigel:
True. Before we get to UBTECH would [00:59:20] you like to add anything about your Wright State and grad school experience? Then we'll jump to UMass and then to UBTECH.
Teaching
Michel:
Yes, I guess we can do that. I started at Wright State, in 1994, I guess, [00:59:40] in the Ph.D. program, but I really had to take some undergraduate courses because at that point, I hadn't been doing any kind of engineering education for twenty years. So, in 1994, I was taking [01:00:00] some undergraduate courses. I took five years to get my Ph.D., which considering I already had a master's degree might have been long, but my master's degree was almost twenty years old at that point, too.
Hellrigel:
And in a slightly different field to field, too.
Michel:
Different field it was. [01:00:20] It was different from the engineering I was doing, especially at the Geophysics Lab, or even launching satellites. It was totally different, right? It took me a while to get back into the swing of it, [01:00:40] but once I did, I realized it was what I wanted to do.
Hellrigel:
You're teaching what type of classes at this point?
Michel:
I was teaching at Wright State. They had me doing, [01:01:00] it was like a microprocessor lab class. I was not doing the teaching so much as running the lab, and that really appealed to me. Again, it was understanding the hardware and the software at a very fundamental level. [01:01:20] Then in my last two years, at my program at Wright State, I had a full-time lecturer position at the University of Dayton.
Hellrigel:
Oh.
Michel:
It was AFIT, Air Force Institute of Technology. The University of Dayton and Wright State were in this consortium where [01:01:40] students could take courses at any one of the campuses, and it would count towards their degree in their home campus. So, I had some connections to the University of Dayton and the computer science department was looking for a full-time lecturer. They hired me and other Ph.D. students out of Wright State to teach [01:02:00] their Engineering 101 course. Their Engineering 101 course was an interesting course. It consists of four components, and the University of Dayton was on a semester system. [courses were fifteen weeks long] [01:02:20] I think it [engineering 101] was five weeks, five weeks and five weeks, so five weeks of electrical engineering, five weeks of civic engineering, and five weeks of mechanical engineering. The freshmen would meet with one of the senior professors in those departments and they'd work on a project. They would do that two days a week. Then one day a week [01:02:40] for the whole fifteen weeks, they would get computer science, visual basic programming. I was teaching the visual basic programming. I had three full sessions of that, so I guess, three classes of that. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, [01:03:00], twice a day. They would run their freshmen through that, so they're running like six sections of that every semester.
Hellrigel:
Wow.
Michel:
I was also teaching communications software, senior level graduate courses in the [01:03:20] computer science department. I think I also taught operating systems there, which I also taught at UMass [Dartmouth]. So similar kind of interest, where I was doing it, University of Dayton teaching, as the courses I found most interesting at Wright State, which is also the ones I wound up teaching when I went to UMass. [UMass Dartmouth]
Hellrigel:
Now you really got your feet wet teaching, and you find that it's palatable?
Michel:
Yes, I did. When I got my degree, I looked around. I wasn't really interested at that point, starting a really [01:04:00] big active research career. I wanted to do teaching and research. So, the universities, if you look at the Carnegie classification, you have baccalaureate degrees, you have master’s universities, you have doctorate universities, research universities. I was looking more for doctoral university or [01:04:20] comprehensive masters. I wound up at UMass Dartmouth, which at the time was a comprehensive master’s university, but they had one Ph.D. program in the electrical and computer engineering department, which is where I was hired. I could do some research and [01:04:40] some teaching. Then, I taught, like I said, operating systems, basic hardware courses, microprocessor labs, and I put together graduate/undergraduate sequence in microprocessor design. I would give the students a bag of chips [01:05:00] and a prototype board, and then at the end of the semester, they give me back a working computer. It was built around the Motorola 68000 microprocessor which even at the time was older, but there is a lot of teaching material for it. [01:05:20] They would get the microprocessor and the first thing you do is [figure out] how to power it up. You know what a microprocessor like that does. It goes off to memory and a memory address pulls up a boot program, so you've got to put the boot program there. But the problem is that [01:05:40] that needs to be ROM memory. It needs to be there if the power is off. But if it boots up that also winds up being a part of RAM memory where the vectors are to the- - interrupts. They have to build a sort of circuit that will map [01:06:00] what chip [maps] to the microprocessor address; it's going to be different depending on where in the cycle you are. So, the first eight cycles would be sitting on the ROM memory and the next. After that, it goes to RAM memory. So, it's a little bit tricky to see when they get the thing to turn on. But all the computers are doing something like this. Here [01:06:20] they were doing this on a board with the chips that they're controlling, and they're working with the hardware and the software. Then we added a serial port, the parallel ports, and they could then run a program that would take something in the parallel port and do some processing - - and send it back out and communicate with it through the serial port. [01:06:40] So, they really understood all the hardware and the - - level in the hierarchy of the software to make it work.
Hellrigel:
In addition–
Michel:
Go ahead.
Hellrigel:
You’re hands-on teaching them, you're not just the big professor up at the lectern.
Michel:
Right. I don't really [01:07:00] like standing in front of the class lecturing. I like working in the projects' classes. In the hands-on, they work in groups. I created a design sequence at UMass [Dartmouth] where I'd go find real-world customers at [01:07:20] different companies in the area. They'd come with a project that they needed done. We'd get teams put together. I'd partnered with the mechanical engineering professor doing the mechanical engineering design courses and we had joint teams. Every team had to be a combination of mechanical, electrical, and [01:07:40] computer engineering students.
Hellrigel:
How many undergraduates would you put through this sequence a year? I think, you had three Ph.Ds. and forty-five or so master’s students, but it must have been hundreds and hundreds of undergrads.
Michel:
[01:08:00] Not that many. I'd say on average maybe thirty to forty. I think one year, I had closer to fifty, and one year I think I had twelve, so they bunch up. I guess nobody graduates in four straight years anymore.
Hellrigel:
[01:08:20] Yes, taking more than four years is increasingly common.
Michel:
Yes. It was better with a good-sized class. We had a classroom that was set up with twenty-four computers, so we could put four student teams around those [01:08:40] and we had a dozen of those. One year though, I had people sitting along the back of the room which is a little bit difficult when you plan teamwork projects and stuff. But a lot of the work that they would do on those things would be outside of the classroom. I would just use maybe a [01:09:00] Socratic method. So, they'd come and say, "Well, we're going to build a box." And I'd say, "How Are you going to use the box?" Well, we didn’t ask. I think that's important to know. That's right. It's going to be battery powered. Why? Because he wants a battery, he says. Why? [01:09:20] How's he going to use it? Maybe he doesn't want a battery, maybe he wants a solar cell, right? So, teach them to understand what the real requirements are and work with customers and then actually create something. This is what engineering really is. It's to take a problem and create a solution to solve the problem where nothing exists before
Hellrigel:
[01:09:40] Then were you involved in trying to find jobs for them or direct their careers and give them advice? Things like that.
Michel:
I would do some of that, but not directly. The university had a placement department, but we would [01:10:00] work with the student chapter of IEEE [University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Student Branch] in the local Providence Section. During this time, I'm actually, volunteering maybe for the first half of my teaching career in the Providence Section. Then, as you said earlier, Region and Section and the IEEE. [01:10:20] I still had connections in the Providence Section, so the Providence Section would come, and they'd do a resume workshop, or they [the students] can actually talk to the engineers. Some of those engineers actually are [from] companies that were hiring, so they'd make connections.
Hellrigel:
Right. I imagine many of your students were also first [01:10:40] generation college students, so they might need a bit more guidance?
Michel:
A lot of them were. The chancellor would always come in and ask how many people were the first generation going to college, and it was typically half of them. The Dartmouth campus is in southeast Massachusetts. There's still a large, active [01:11:00] immigrant, Portuguese group coming in. Fisherman.
Hellrigel:
I think my cousin graduated U Mass Dartmouth or was it maybe U Mass Lowell.
Michel:
Really? When did he graduate?
Hellrigel:
Oh gosh. He's quite a bit younger, so I want to say [01:11:20] around 2003. We have recently reconnected because the New Jersey and the Boston branches of the family kind of separated a little bit, but we've hooked up again. He is about twenty years younger than me. He works for Boston Children’s Hospital. [01:11:40]
Michel:
Okay. Yes
Hellrigel:
He is first generation as I am. My Mama was the oldest in the family and his father was the youngest in the family, so that's the wide gap.
Michel:
Yes. Okay. Well, I was at UMass in 2003. [01:12:00]
Hellrigel:
We have a family reunion coming up. He's a good guy. I have to ask which UMass he attended.
Michel:
He was there.
Hellrigel:
You seem to have fun, though teaching and working with the students in hands-on activities. [01:12:20] Did you have much pressure to publish, get funding such as NSF grants, and things like that?
Michel:
Yes, there was, and this is part of the problem, right? The university was one of five campuses in the UMass system, I think Romney was the [01:12:40] governor at the time. There was the push to maybe consolidate all things that UMass Amherst, which is the flagship campus and then maybe change some of the other campuses to make them colleges as opposed to maybe universities. The university is all UMass [01:13:0] and Boston and Dartmouth, particularly Dartmouth, started chasing research dollars and growing Ph.D. programs along with that was publishing and research. What upset me about that is when I went there, they had a very good co-op program. [01:13:20] They could run all courses, all required courses twice a year, so the co-op students could co-op. Half the students would co-op in the fall, and half would co-op in the spring, as opposed to forcing everybody to do co-op in the summer.
Hellrigel:
[01:13:40] Exactly.
Michel:
If you co-oped in the fall, you could co-op in the fall and the summer and you take courses in the spring. Then the following–. Otherwise, you could co-op in the spring, and you'd take courses in the summer. This meant that [01:14:00] we had to have courses run in the fall, the spring, and the summer depending on enrollment.
Hellrigel:
Right, staff all three.
Michel:
That became expensive, so they eliminated that co-op program which basically killed the co-op program. They also used to have all courses taught [01:14:20] by the faculty. But when they started getting more Ph.D. students, we wanted the faculty doing research, so we had the Ph.D. students teaching courses which didn't last long. It didn't go well. My concern was that the university had [01:14:40] changed from the university that I decided to go to. So, my sense was that you're right, they were pushing research. They were pushing it mostly for the new hires, but when I came up for promotion to professor, [01:15:00] they decided to impose those new standards on me, so I didn't make professor and stuff. I'm going to leave. At this point, I was [2015] IEEE President, too.
Hellrigel:
Wow. Wow.
Michel:
[01:15:20] I wound up [2015 IEEE] President and I was on sabbatical for that year. I needed to have a commitment. I was a faculty member in 2016, then [on] the commitment from my sabbatical for 2015 [01:15:40], and then I retired. I said, I don't need this. The university is not really where I want to be anymore. At that point, I took advantage of my connections in China, but I'm not going to China. After that point, it was, I [01:16:00] enjoy the hands-on small group interaction teaching. What I used to tell the faculty, and they would agree with me is, you're all teaching analysis, none of you know how to do engineering design.
Hellrigel:
Oh.
Michel:
And everybody is teaching analysis like all the students are going to be [01:16:20] graduate students when they really need to just be working engineers for the most part. What I saw in the UMass system was that you could get that kind of education that you must start with. When I went there, the era when your cousin may have been there, it was a practical working degree. [01:16:40] This university degree focuses on getting somebody who could contribute to society afterwards. Now, they seem to think that if you're not higher up on the Carnegie classification, that’s somehow a failure at university. I don't know who in the UMass system is doing [01:17:00] this anymore.
Hellrigel:
Right, but then you pointed out you're hired under one thing, and you had different expectations and different teaching loads.
Michel:
Right.
Hellrigel:
In many ways, I was in what I still called “the industry” (academia/teaching, and the same thing happened. You're hired at a teaching university and then they change the requirements and their expectations of you. [01:17:20] Then lo and behold, it's totally something different. At my university, the teaching load did not decrease, [but the research expectations tremendously increased]. Yes, it's frustrating, too, when you're teaching a heavy load and then all of a sudden, they want to say, oh well, you didn't do this, and you didn't do that. But on the other hand, not everybody's going to [01:17:40] go to graduate school.
Michel:
Right. Exactly.
Hellrigel:
Then companies don't want to do the mentoring, like decades earlier when they did more in-house training.
Michel:
Right.
Hellrigel:
When I was on the faculty at Stevens Institute of Technology, they had a co-op program. The students could also apply to a mentorship/apprenticeship type program at PSE&G in New Jersey. [01:18:00] After earning a mechanical engineering degree, PSE&G Stevens had a special five-year program in which they taught you all aspects of the company. One of my students, [Ryan Paley] a double major in mechanical engineering and history entered that program and still works at the company. I do not know if the company still offers that program. Usually, the university would hear from a company about the students not being prepared for the real world because they lack practical skills. However, companies no longer offer many apprenticeships and on-the-job training programs. anymore. They expect the students to arrive trained.
Michel:
[01:18:20] Yes. Yes.
Hellrigel:
It is similar for people graduating with history degrees and perhaps looking to teach. So much of that mentoring and training has changed. Employers want these skills, but no one wants to invest in the training, [and internships do not suffice]. [01:18:40].
Michel:
Well, you're right. What we've talked about both at the university and IEEE is, back in the 1950s and 1960s and 1970s, an engineer was an asset. And now, they're commodities. [01:19:00] They change jobs every couple of years, so why should I invest in trainees so you can take and go to my competitor and do something. It is a shortsighted mindset, but this is the mindset.
Hellrigel:
Industries and manufacturing changed, too. When I tried to explain historically an uncle discharged from the Army after World War II got a job and then stayed [01:19:20] with PSE&G in New Jersey. He started as a bus driver and worked up the ranks to a service mechanic. He spent nearly his entire working life with one company [and he received a company pension].
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
By the early 1980s, companies are flipping and changing with that corporate consolidation and diversification trend. In addition, pension programs are gone, and you may have a portable retirement plan. So, you stay three, four years and move on. The whole workforce experience they used to have for people has changed.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
[01:19:40] Today, many of the manufacturing jobs are gone, and most are in service, especially retail at places like Staples, Target. or Kohl’s or whatever. Each company might be slightly different. When it comes to making that human investment, especially long term, most corporations don't want to do that. It seems like your undergraduate program was ideal [01:20:00] in that it provided that.
Michel:
It was expensive to do. I mean, running trailer courses for low level undergraduate required courses required that you teach around the clock [01:20:20] all three semesters. You'd have to run the required courses in two of the three instead of just one, so you're essentially doubling the load. Having professors teach all the courses is more expensive than having graduate students teach them. When I was at [01:20:40] UMass Amherst, as a graduate student, I was teaching a sophomore recitation section, so there's probably a whole generation of sophomores out there that do not understand circuits, because I didn't know what I was doing. But maybe facetiously, but you don't have a Ph.D. student [01:21:00] who doesn't have the experience, the insights, and the skills to do teaching that a professor does. The professor doesn't get that out of grad school either. You pick it up with experience.
Hellrigel:
Right. After leaving UMass, Amherst, do you [01:21:20] have any affiliation with them anymore?
Michel:
I was in residence there for a year, 1975-1976. I met my wife there, so I have some affiliation with some alumni from UMass. My younger daughter went there [01:21:40] for a stint, but she wound up going to University of Wisconsin, Madison to get a degree. She didn't really like UMass. She said it was too much of a party school.
Hellrigel:
It had that reputation.
Michel:
It may have had that rep when I was there, but I didn't notice. [01:22:00]
Hellrigel:
Oh yes, the undergraduates.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
When I was an undergraduate, it had the rep.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
I'm a Jersey kid, so I went to Rutgers College, the premier liberal arts college at Rutgers University in New Brunswick.
Michel:
Yes. Okay. I think that has a rep too, right?
Hellrigel:
No. It is not a party school, especially not at the time I attended. Besides, I studied and avoided the big campus events. [01:22:20] It went big time sports after I left.
Michel:
Okay. Okay. I must say the Cook's campus.
Hellrigel:
There was Cook College and the Cook Campus and then the women’s college, Douglass Collage had its campus. Rutgers College’s College Ave. campus was considered “the main campus.” Then there was Livingston College, and the Busch Campus had the College of Engineering, the School of Pharmacy, and the science and math departments of Rutgers College. Collectively, it was Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Now all the formerly individual colleges are unified, and they are residential centers.
Michel:
Okay.
Hellrigel:
My brother was at Rutgers College, too. [01:22:40] It was not known at that point for partying, but it had its faction. Since many students went home on weekends, parties and events were on Thursday night, and maybe Friday.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
I was a geek, so I didn't attend many parties.
Michel:
That's the way it was at the University of Dayton. They would start [01:23:00] partying on Thursday nights and by Friday morning, 8 o'clock class, half of them would be hung over, if they came at all.
Hellrigel:
Yes. My brother was in a fraternity, and I think I went to his frat house twice. [01:23:20] Some of the brothers used to borrow my notebooks and complain that they were too detailed. Rutgers is a large university, but it was made up of separate colleges. [01:23:40] Since I graduated, the university has changed so much.
Michel:
Yes.
China
Hellrigel:
Now, back to your career. It's a lifetime ago, you left [01:24:00] the teaching part and you end up in China. At that time, China was a place where universities were setting up satellite programs, and companies want to get into the market and expand their business there. [01:24:20] IEEE had its foot in the door, too with a few offices in China and other places in Asia.
Michel:
Yes. IEEE had their office in Beijing. I was, I think Director or Director-elect, so I am guessing 2007, plus or minus a couple of years, [01:24:40] or 2008 maybe. When I was IEEE President, I helped them establish an office in Shenzhen (IEEE Beijing Office Extension in Shenzhen). So, how did I wind up in China? This is a long story. When I was in the military, my [01:25:00] first trip to China was in 1989. This is shortly after the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
Hellrigel:
Wow.
Michel:
While I'm in the military launching satellites and President [Ronald] Reagan [01:25:20] at the time and then Bush 1[George H.W. Bush], following him decided it would be good idea to launch U.S. commercial satellites on Chinese rockets, and so we were doing that. The U.S. Department of State says this is a great idea. The U.S. Department of Commerce says this is a great idea. The DOD (U.S. Department of Defense) says [01:25:40] you got to be kidding me. And so, the president says, make it work. They put together a group of satellite launch experts from the military. We sat in on all the technical interchange meetings between the satellite people and the [01:26:00] rocket people, both in the U.S. and in China.
Hellrigel:
Just one question.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
At this point, these Chinese rocket companies aren't exactly investor-owned capitalist entities.
Michel:
Nothing in China is. The Chinese [01:26:20] rocket company that we're dealing with was, I remember the name, Great Wall Industry Corporation. They were building what were called the Long March rockets. They're the same rockets that they're building for the military. They are ICBM, just like ours, Atlas [01:26:40] and Titan, launch satellites. And the launches are taking place on military bases.
Hellrigel:
Wow.
Michel:
Not civilian bases, right? So, it was very much military. There was a real concern that we could be [01:27:00] transferring technology. But the problem is the politicians and the people who don't really understand rocket launching technology were afraid the Chinese are going to go in at night and take a circuit board out and copy it and put it back. I said they're not going to do that. [01:27:20] We are going to have guards there. The real technology we're going to transfer to them is forty years that we had of blowing up rockets by making mistakes. I would prefer they go make their own mistakes, as opposed to learning from our mistakes, particularly where these are our ICBMs. [01:27:40] So, less reliable is better.
Hellrigel:
You're not too nervous at this point about the project?
Michel:
Yes and no. The team that we put together, and I wound up leading the technical experts, [01:28:00] we felt we could control the technology transfer. The marching orders we had were to allow something that was safe, but also secure. In some sense, they kind of did this, they overlapped. And we're trying to do this and this at the same time (moving his hands on top of each other) and it's difficult. [01:28:20] Sometimes you have to stop the conversation and have a private conversation with the U.S. engineers, Hughes Aircraft Corporation and say you can't talk about that. Find a way of doing this without talking about it.
The Chinese had the same secrets. You know what I mean? I was walking around on their base, they gave us pretty much free access once, [01:28:40] taking pictures and stuff. The next day at the meeting, one of their photographers who's sitting–the room was square, and I'd sit in one corner, engineers on one side, Chinese engineers on the other two sides. Their photographer was sitting across from me with a telephoto lens and every time I moved, they took a picture of me. I kind of got the message that [01:29:00] they didn't like me taking pictures of their equipment.
At that point, the Chinese were really starved for hard currency. They were starved for world recognition. This is at the dawn of their space program. They've come a long way [01:29:20] in twenty-five, thirty years. I don't know that they're quite on par with the U.S. yet, but I think pretty soon. They're talking about having their own Space Station there. They talk about a mission to Mars.
[01:29:40] I got some sense of how to deal with the Chinese. I understood some of the culture. I picked up a few words, but I can't really speak it. I know how to get a cold beer if I need it, so it’s important things, [01:30:00] but I was not terribly concerned because I thought we were controlling things. I went over for the launch of AsiaSat 1. AsiaSat 1 was the Telstar satellite that [01:30:20] had been launched by the U.S. It failed to deploy. They went up in space [in the shuttle]. They brought it back down and they refurbished it, but Telstar no longer wants to use satellite, so they sold it to [Great Wall] Industry Corporation, and they got a ride on the Chinese rocket. [To be more precise, they sold it to AsiaSat Corporation. Great Wall was the rocket company “hired” by AsiaSat to launch their satellite.] They're processing this Telstar satellite in China [01:30:40] and they're processing the rocket in China. We're in Xichang, which is in the Sichuan Province, so the southwestern, south-central province. I spent six weeks there as they’re processing and it’s not like UPS where you just give them a box and they put it in orbit. [01:31:00] You kind of integrate this thing to the rocket. So, there's some discussion about weight and stuff like that; and forces in vibrations and telecommunications and how do we know when it deploys and those kinds of things. I got a tour of their satellite tracking facility in Xi’an [01:31:20] which surprised me. We wouldn't let the Chinese anywhere near our satellite control facilities, but this is 1990. They were at that point, I think, very accommodating because they wanted [01:31:40] to have a launch capability that was on par with the U.S. and China and airspace at the time. We successfully launched the first satellite, AsiaSat 1. A different team went over for the second satellite and that [01:32:00] launch was a failure. The rocket broke up. I went over and launched another satellite, so this is the third satellite. That was a success. There was another launch attempt for a fourth satellite, and that one was destroyed, [01:32:20] I think, fairly low to the ground. And so there was some concern about Chinese people to pick your–actually pick up pieces of the broken satellite.
Hellrigel:
Oh.
Michel:
These satellites that they were launching were state-of-the-art [01:32:40] communication satellites at the time. They had NSA crypto equipment on it, so there was a legitimate concern. Also, Hughes Aircraft was concerned because, what happens each time one of these failures [01:33:00] is their insurance rates would actually go up. When you're insuring a $350 million satellite, if it goes up 4 percent and all of a sudden, any savings you've got get wiped out.
Hellrigel:
I never thought of that.
Michel:
Right. It is a business. You know what I think? I didn't think of it in the military, but I'm looking at what's happening afterwards. [01:33:20] Yes, that's actually what killed the program. The insurance rates became too expensive to offset the cost of flying in a 747 cargo plane with all your equipment and deploying people for two months.
Hellrigel:
Wow.
Michel:
There was some concern that Hughes Aircraft at that time had hired [01:33:40] a retired Air Force general who had run Air Force space division, who lived in LA (Los Angeles), and [there was] some concern that he was doing things that would improve the reliability of the Chinese rockets. There was some concern in Congress. I think this might've come out under [Bill] Clinton [01:34:00] who I think was president at the time. You know what I mean? I'm thinking here, all the Republicans are slamming Clinton's satellite launch program, [but it] really was the Bush and Reagan launch program.
[01:34:20] I had spent two long trips and several short trips in China at the time and I got to understand the system, I got to understand the people as much as you can. I've always had an affinity for Asia. I'm not sure why. I liked Japan. You go to Japan, [01:34:40] they're very friendly, but you’re never really going to be a part of the system. You're always an outsider. But I think in China, I really felt like, okay, I'm working here [and] I'm getting respect. I think this is–the people are much more pushy though. So, it's different. [01:35:00] You know, sort of like the New York City subway at rush hour, but it's everywhere.
Hellrigel:
A different mentality than Japan?
UBTECH
Michel:
Yes. Then [01:35:20] fast forward now. I hadn't been in China since 1991, I guess, so the IEEE President or President-elect and we had several trips to China. I think when I was the IEEE President, we did an initiative [01:35:40] to visit tech companies around the world, so we took the [IEEE] Board of Directors to Germany, China, Silicon Valley, and Japan, I think maybe. I'd have to go back and look and see, but we took [01:36:00] the core of the Board. I went on all the trips. In China in 2015, we visited big companies like Tencent and DJI, BYD, and R Baker. [01:36:20]
In 2016, Barry Shoop was [IEEE] President. He liked what we had done. He did something similar. We had an [IEEE] Board retreat; I think it was in Singapore. Then from Singapore, the Board went out, I think to six places and one of them [01:36:40] was China again. I led the team that went to China. This time, we went to smaller companies. We went to UBTECH which is the company I actually wound up working with.
At this point, I had pretty much decided I was going to leave UMass. [01:37:00] This is in the summer of 2016 and the guy from UBTECH, who was the CEO of UBTECH Education, was giving a presentation on these educational robots that they were going to be developing. I had talked to DJI about doing something similar to that [01:37:20] because it was a vision that I had, that I thought some of these tech companies can actually do. I'm listening to this presentation, and this is exactly what I think people should be doing. This is great. He winds up the presentation, and says we're looking for a new, or a founding CTO (chief technical officer). Then we did a tour of the company, [01:37:40] and we got to the elevators, and I said to him, I might be interested in the CTO job. He said, really? I had a few more days in China. I met with him and some of the other people over lunch and they made me an offer to come and be the founding CTO of UBTECH Education, [01:38:00] which was a separate company from UBTECH Robotics at that time. Separate in that they were separate legal entities, but they shared some resources. They worked in the same high-rise buildings. [01:38:20] UBTECH Robotics was what they call the unicorn, so a privately owned company worth more than a billion dollars.
Hellrigel:
Wow.
Michel:
It was founded in 2012. I'm there in 2016 and it was already worth more than a billion dollars. [01:38:40] In 2018, they merged UBTECH Education into UBTECH Robotics. Then the combined companies, when they did round “C” of venture capital funding raised $870 million for 15 percent of the company stock which reached the evaluation [01:39:00] of $5 billion.
Hellrigel:
Oh gosh.
Michel:
Yes, it's unbelievable.
Hellrigel:
This is not Chinese government money at this time? This is private investors?
Michel:
Private money. Private money, yes.
Hellrigel:
And not just money from people in China, but global?
Michel:
Globally, but I think a lot of the money had come [01:39:20] from Chinese investors. I think the founding CEO of UBTECH Robot James [Zhou Jian]. I'm not sure what his Chinese name was. He had been a businessman. I think he had sold his business and invested [01:39:40] in UBTECH Robotics with Rick who was the chief technology officer and Gotti who was the political guy from the party. You don't do anything in China without some kind of connections. And John, who was in charge [01:40:00] of the Los Angeles office. They were the founders with the one name e-mail addresses [like james@ubtech.com].
There was a lot of money and a lot of excitement in China. When I went there in 2016, the president, Xi Jinping, was fairly new as president. [01:40:20] Up to that point, the Chinese country, government and party, I think, were more in the Deng Zhao Ping model of opening up. You know, the Western economy, capitalism, is not all bad, right? [01:40:40] There was a lot of excitement. There was a lot of growth, and a lot of these startup companies. China had a very strong middle class, looking to invest. A lot of growth in their tech companies; Alibaba, Tencent and DJI. [01:41:00] There was a good relationship with Hong Kong. Hong Kong was right across the border from Shenzhen. It's opened. Since then, Xi has clamped down; he's old school. The Chinese communist party controls everything. When you see it lately [01:41:20] on the recent upheaval in the tech market, you know, DiDi was forced to pull its IPO. They've changed now. I'm still waiting for my [01:41:40] Chinese company to go IPO. [I have] been waiting for a while, but I think they're navigating the political storm that's in China at this point, particularly with tech companies and foreign investment.
Hellrigel:
You were at UBTECH, and then UBTECH Robotics from 2016 to 2021.
Michel:
[01:42:00] 2018.
Hellrigel:
2016 to 2018.
Michel:
Yes, I was there for two years.
Hellrigel:
Now, you're talking about a different company that you're launching in China?
Michel:
No, no. It's the same company.
Hellrigel:
Oh, okay.
Michel:
I'm still connected with them. I left them [01:42:20] in 2018. I left on good terms. I left because, ARRL (American Radio Relay League) was looking for a CEO. ARRL is [01:42:40] a one-hundred-plus-year-old society and a membership organization. They have a store in Newington, Connecticut, and I belonged to them like forever, from when I was a teenager. My wife saw they were looking for a CEO. Their CEO [01:44:00] had left. I applied for that, and I got that job, so that's why I moved from UBTECH to become CEO at ARRL.
Hellrigel:
Did you have the opportunity to have both jobs?
Michel:
No. CEO was a full-time job, and China was a full-time job. [01:43:20] What I did keep with UBTECH was the title of senior advisor. They would keep me on a stipend, and I would work with them on issues as they came up. But really, ARRL was [01:43:40] like I said, a staff of eighty-seven and a $15 million budget. It was so much like IEEE with similar problems. Membership was declining, and publishing and advertising revenue is declining
Hellrigel:
[01:44:00] I listened to your talk. I think it was in 2019, when you were in Xenia, Ohio. Your talk is up on YouTube.
Michel:
Really.
Hellrigel:
Xenia, so you're in Ohio.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
It sounded similar [01:44:20] that everything was declining, taking a nosedive at the same time.
Michel:
Yes, it is, for similar reasons.
Hellrigel:
Xenia.
Michel:
Yes. I used to live near there. There's a big ham convention every year there. [01:44:40] I went maybe once when I lived in Ohio because it was there. People come from around the world to go there. I did talk to a CEO, and you're right, it was [01:45:00] a struggle trying to figure out how to attract new young hams. We developed an education program, which is now launched successfully. Their office software was–they were running Siebel.
Hellrigel:
Oh gosh.
Michel:
IEEE quickly got rid of that ten years ago, fifteen years ago. [01:45:20] We were trying to replace that with a new more, user-friendly capable system to manage members and product and those kinds of things. I instituted those kinds of changes. I restructured some of the senior staff at [01:45:40] the headquarters. So, it was a challenge. What I liked about both it and UBTECH was I was actually building a company. When I went to UBTECH, it was me and the CEO, basically, that were the only engineers. This was [01:46:00] October of 2016, and he says we're going to BETT which is the European education conference in London in January [2017] and we're going to bring a product to show them. And I go, “What?” We don't have engineers. We don't have any products. [01:46:20] But we did. We actually [did]. It was interesting.
UBTECH Robotics has a humanoid robot that's about maybe eighteen-inches-tall. It's a toy. We were going to make it into an education product. We can replace the processor and put a Raspberry Pi [01:46:40] in it, so it becomes an education platform. We managed to somehow integrate a Raspberry Pi into this thing. It was glued onto the back of the robot. If you can imagine, [what] this will be when this is built into the robot. [01:47:00] Runs Linux. We have a programming interface for it.
Then over 2017 and into 2018, I developed that product, and I developed some other Lego-like products that have servos, but they also have an arduino processor in them. [01:47:20] You have these layers of structure from something that's simple for a kindergarten kid all the way up through a university kid that's using our software platforms and hardware to teach STEM courses, STEM education.
The 01:47:40] Lego-like product, you can control it with what we call pause, record, playback. You move the servos, record. You move the servos, record. Then you do a bunch of those movements, and you could hit play, and it repeats those things at the very basic level. Then they have a graphical programming [01:48:00] language where you can slide blocks of code around. Then at the more senior levels, when you to the arduino, you can actually do the same kind of programming, but then you can see the code that it's generating for that. Or you can actually program it with the arduino programming environments. [01:48:20] Or if you go all the way up to the Yanshee level which is the humanoid robot, it's running Linux, Raspberry Pi Linux, so you can again pause, record, playback or program it with a graphic programming language, or you can actually program it in C, or Python or whatever you want to run on your Linux platform. [01:48:40] You can do all kinds of programming things. The concept is that you can teach, what is a robot, what is AI, from the very beginning levels all the way up through university.
This has become a very big product in China. [01:49:00] China is teaching AI to kindergarten kids. I think if we don't start doing the same kind of thing, we're going to be behind. They are comfortable with these kinds of concepts and logical thinking with programming and cause and effect. For the [01:49:20] Yanshee robot, you could ask it to stand on one leg. It kind of does this thing and it falls over. You ask the kid to stand on one leg and it does that and he throws his arm up. Why did you do? Why did you do that? Right? Can we do that with the robot? All of a sudden, you're teaching physics concepts and they’re having fun doing this. [01:49:40] What happens is you put a weight in the hand, does it have to go out as far? So, they've tied these products to the–
Hellrigel:
The STEM.
Michel:
STEM, yes. What is the–? I'm drawing a blank. The U.S. has science standards. Urgh [01:50:00] I'm thinking, not Common Core. Anyway, they've recommended science standards for teachers, and we've tied our curriculum to it. The ones that they're selling in the U.S., they're selling to U.S. schools and are selling them as much to individuals in the U.S. [01:50:20] tied to–What do they call this? I am trying to think what it is – [It is Next Generation Science Standards.]
Hellrigel:
I know what you're talking about.
Michel:
The science teacher can do a lesson and we have the lesson to support the learning objectives with the hardware. They're selling the robots and [01:50:40] the curriculum together to the science teachers and science programs.
Hellrigel:
Is this in any way being linked to IEEE Educational Activities and its educational activities like TryEngineering and things like that?
Michel:
It's not. It's strictly a commercial venture. I did have some meetings when I was at UBTECH [01:51:00] with Jamie Moesch and some of those folks in [IEEE Educational Activities]. We just never were able to fully connect as much as I would have liked, probably because, it's a startup company, and the plans you make in the morning are changed by the afternoon.
Hellrigel:
Yes, start-ups move quickly, and you have to roll with it.
Michel:
It is unbelievable [01:51:20] how fast it is. I learned to appreciate this as opposed to the steady environment of the military and the university.
Hellrigel:
Well, and I imagine U.S. and China, that whole socio-political synergy, was dynamic and that rules every day.
Michel:
It does. When I first went there [01:51:40] it was a much better environment. Like I said, China was more open. There was more working at becoming capitalistic. Xi [Jinping] has really clamped down and he's continuing to clamp down. He's got them to change [01:52:00] their constitution so he can essentially be president for life.
Hellrigel:
Wow. I hadn't realized that happened already. The IEEE History Center has its REACH program, Raising Engineering Awareness through the Conduit of History.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
We have been working through the labyrinth of common [01:52:20] core and all that in the U.S., but now, with the diplomatic issues, I don't even know how that's going to impact IEEE business going forward. In the 1970s, there were embargoes. You couldn't send publications to Iran.
Michel:
[01:52:40] Yes you still can't. Correct, yes.
Hellrigel:
I just don't know. Then when you're trying to roll out something like this and it's new. The other issue is that at IEEE much of the power structure [01:53:00] and officers change every year, so you have to get everyone up to speed again.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
What did you do and then some people don't like change. I can't even imagine China and U.S. relations and the challenges and instability.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
Not to get you off topic, but it's giving me a headache [01:53:20] just thinking about it and the complexities.
Michel:
It is. Can we take a five-minute break?
Hellrigel:
Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
Michel:
Okay. I'm going to be back in five minutes, so you can leave the recording.
Hellrigel:
Yes, yes. Thank you.
[Audio break 01:53:30-01:58:20]
Michel:
[01:58:20] I'm back.
Hellrigel:
I just got back, too. Sorry about that. I get long-winded.
Michel:
We're having a good conversation. I'm enjoying it.
Hellrigel:
Oh, good. Yes, it's fun. I've met so many interesting people through [01:58:40] IEEE, and my link with IEEE goes back many decades, because I used to work at the Edison Papers, which edited Thomas Edison’s manuscripts for microfilm and book editions. The book edition office was just down the road from the IEEE History Center on the Rutgers campus in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Michel:
Okay, yes. Yes, yes.
Hellrigel:
[01:59:00] Then I went back to graduate school, and the IEEE Life Members sponsored my Ph.D. dissertation for a year.
Michel:
Oh, nice.
Hellrigel:
In 1993, I had the IEEE Life Members Fellowship in Electrical History. It's sort of full circle, after teaching and living around the United States, I came back to New Jersey to teach at a university, [01:59:20] and then I moved to the IEEE History Center, and now I am a public historian.
Michel:
It is.
Hellrigel:
Earlier, I was at the University of California for my master’s degree in history and public history, during the 1983-1984 [01:59:40] academic year.
Michel:
That's before I was there.
Hellrigel:
Yes, that's before you and during Ronald Reagan’s presidency. He'd been in office for a while they put in a new runway and expanded the Santa Barbara airport to land his jets.
Michel:
Okay.
Hellrigel:
[02:00:00] He had a ranch up in the mountains.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
And a friend in my graduate program was a bellman at the Biltmore Hotel, a swanky hotel, and he mentioned that some of Reagan’s staff, in particular, [Edwin] Meese used to have their own cabanas.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
I had never been on an airplane until I [02:00:20] moved to California. It was a unique experience coming from New Jersey to Southern California at that particular time. It was a cultural experience.
Michel:
Yes. [02:00:40] That's a part of the state I like.
Hellrigel:
Oh, it is. It never gets winter though. Well, the winter is very mild compared to New Jersey. My roommate had mittens and everything. She was from Vietnam and had moved to the United States with her family after the fall of Saigon. They were living in [02:01:00] Southern California for a while, and she was prepared for her winter. That's understandable.
IEEE has been a lot of fun.
Michel:
For me too.
Hellrigel:
I've traveled some in Europe, but I haven't been to either Region 10 or Region 9. [02:01:20] This type of work, recording oral histories, enables me to meet people, and sometimes travel to new locales. HISTELCON is the history conference that's run by Region 8. [02:01:40]
Michel:
Okay.
Hellrigel:
HISTELCON 2021was held in I think St. Petersburg, Russia, but IEEE History Center staff did not attend. [It was held in Moscow, Russia], but we didn't go. Next summer, HISTELCON 2023 will be held in [Florence], Italy, so that might be possible. [02:02:00] It's interesting, because Region 8 when I look at it as a historian and geographer, has colonialism slapped all over it.
Michel:
It does.
Hellrigel:
It's Europe, Africa, and southwest Asia or what people call the Middle East. [02:02:20]
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
The IEEE History Center’s REACH program [through the efforts of program manager] Kelly McKenna and Mike Geselowitz, [Senior Director, IEEE History Center] got a nice program up and running in Uganda to use our curriculum. It is free curriculum [and provides the history of STEM topics].
Michel:
Yes. Yes.
Hellrigel:
It's [02:02:40] with UNESCO, so working with the UN (United Nations). I have not been to that part of the world. Currently, it is a little unstable, so, you know, I don't know about traveling.
Michel:
Yes, it is. There's a whole lot of the world you can see that's [02:03:00] maybe better.
Hellrigel:
Yes, and a little safer and I know that the other thing a number of people at the [IEEE] Foundation, and we'll get to that in a minute. A member of the IEEE Foundation staff went to India a few years ago, and I heard about all the vaccines that one has to get. [02:03:20] So, when I do these oral history interviews with IEEE Past Presidents there's a whole cadre of questions that come up or topics that come up that change all the time. [02:03:40]
Michel:
Yes.
China (cont.)
Hellrigel:
When Martha Sloan was IEEE President, they just started opening up in China, [and Russia in the USSR, too]. There was a big push to expand IEEE activities, [02:04:00] and it ended up in Beijing. IEEE also opened an office in Japan. It seemed a lot of activity was getting up and going in China, and then as you pointed out, things have changed a little bit over the past couple of years.
You had mentioned that you were then working with the [02:04:20] Amateur Radio League, ARRL?
Michel:
Yes, ARRL, the American Radio Relay League.
Hellrigel:
It brings you back to the hobby you had when you were a youngster.
Michel:
It does.
Hellrigel:
And radios. [02:04:40] I know you were with them for a little under two years?
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
Then you left and that gives you the opportunity to get involved with China, again.
Michel:
It does. I left ARRL in January [02:05:00] of 2020. The world is kind of shut down. I haven't been to China. I haven't traveled at all as I think most people haven't in the last couple of years. I stay connected with them. [02:05:20] A plan for them to go IPO keeps slipping. I don't have any direct input into that, but I still have stock options. I have a vested interest in seeing them go IPO.
Hellrigel:
Right. With this [02:05:40] group, you got the robot and STEM education, but much of what's going on now is out of your hands in terms of the COVID pandemic, and politics, and business operations [02:06:00]. What's your next adventure then if UBTECH is a little bit on hold now. Are you looking at other options?
Michel:
Well, I'm not really looking to start working. I'm sixty-nine now. [02:06:20] My wife just closed up her law practice last month right at the end of the year. She did manage to create and teach a course at the UMass School of Law. The plan was that we're going to do some traveling. [02:06:40] We have a house up in Maine on the coast, so some of the plans are kind of oscillating between spending half a year up there and half a year here, but my wife would like to be in New York City. That was the plan after we get the money from the IPO, but [02:07:00] who knows when that's going to be? My daughters, we are trying to be some place near them. One lives in Pennsylvania now but is moving up to New Hampshire. We are also thinking about maybe [02:07:20] traveling, so if we're not in Maine, instead of keeping the house here in Massachusetts, we could travel and spend like a month in Italy, a month in London or something like that and go bother the kids for a month or something like that. I haven't really figured it out because the world keeps changing. [02:07:40]
Hellrigel:
But you've got your health and you could plan.
Michel:
Yes. I do have my health. My wife has her health. We like Maine. It's an old house right on the coast, but there's plenty of mountains and hills to go hiking and stuff like that. [02:08:00] Dartmouth has a nature preserve with ten miles of trails, so we can walk out of our backyard into the woods and walk around there. Those kinds of things I find pleasant.
Hellrigel:
New York City would be a big change.
Michel:
It would be. It would be. [02:08:20] It has a certain draw, with restaurants and museums and culture and stuff like that. It has mass transit, so you can go out to a restaurant, have a few glasses of wine, and not worry about getting home again. [02:08:40]
Hellrigel:
Exactly. And it brings you close to your siblings if they're still in New Jersey.
Michel:
Exactly. My siblings are. I'm the black sheep. I moved all the way up here to Massachusetts. I guess I moved around the world and then settled in Massachusetts.
Hellrigel:
Yes, but still close enough. [02:09:00]
Michel:
It is close enough. We can go down. It's a little rough to go down for a day. My elder daughter had been living in New York City, so we used to go down and visit her. We'd go at Christmas or something to New Jersey. She's moved to Pennsylvania. It's a little too far. [02:09:20]
Hellrigel:
Yes. But it seems that unbeknownst to you that one or so trip to China to work on the satellites budded into a career shift.
Michel:
It did. [02:09:40] I think about this often. When did I decide to go to China? Was it 2016 or was it actually 1989? Would I have gone to China in 2016 or even 2015 if I hadn't gone in the military [02:10:00] twenty years earlier? I don't know. But that one trip to China wound up being, I'd say almost six months I was in China and launching satellites over multiple trips. [02:10:20] I became, I guess, accustomed to it. I wouldn't say I was ever comfortable with it. There were too many people everywhere you go. You couldn't get away. When I was in Shenzhen, I had my apartment, so [02:10:40] I had my own private space that I could get away from everybody. I'm more of an introvert than a people person, so even when I was IEEE President, after a day of shaking people's hands and given speeches, I would head back to the hotel room and go, thank God. [02:11:00]
Hellrigel:
I understand. Yes. Then you have with the Three Ps (IEEE President-elect, President, and Past President). The Three Ps share the responsibilities, so it's not just you. Then with support staff, you can always bring a cadre of people with you [02:11:20] to help.
Michel:
It depends on the trip. When we were visiting all the companies and bringing the Board of Directors to visit all the companies, we often had staff working on that, coordinating and arranging the transportation, when and who we're going to meet, [02:11:40] and the whole schedule. When you're President and you're going to present an IEEE Milestone or you're going to a conference to give opening remarks, Kathy Burke would make the reservations, but then you're on your own.
Hellrigel:
Right. Right.
Michel:
Usually, they worked out well. Sometimes they didn't. [02:12:00] But you're also traveling, and though I wouldn't say “first class,” obviously, you can't fly first class, but you're treated well. So, it is first class in that sense you are an important person. [02:12:20] I remember going to some of the events in China, and they had, it might have been a student event, or it might have been a conference and the students were at the conference. After my talk, they all lined up and they wanted to have their picture taken with me. [02:12:40] It just made me feel nice. It's not me they're taking the picture of; it's the position, but it makes you feel good. Whereas, when I'm living in China and I want to buy some groceries, I'm pushing against the mob just like everybody else is just like any place else. [02:13:00]
Hellrigel:
In China, did you stick out? Did people seem to say, oh he's not a Chinese guy, or were there a lot of travelers in the area because of international business?
Michel:
I probably did, but I didn't feel that way when I was in Shenzhen, [02:13;20] what they call their Silicon Valley. [When China opened Shenzhen as their new experimental economic zone, it was a fishing village of 30,000.] It's now a city of 18 million.
Hellrigel:
Oh, my gosh.
Michel:
Everybody in Shenzhen is not from Shenzhen. It's interesting. [02:13:40], Shenzhen is literally right across the border from Hong Kong. When I would fly out of Hong Kong, I'd get a cross border taxi shuttle to take me to the airport. They drive on the right side of the road in China, and they drive on the left side of the road in Hong Kong. So, they cross the border and the bridge through this. [02:14:00] They speak Cantonese in Hong Kong, and in China they speak Mandarin, so the metro system in Shenzhen would be first Mandarin, second Cantonese, and then English. It is a cosmopolitan city with a lot of businesses, so [02:14:20] I think if I had been in some other places, I would have had more of a problem, I think, standing out. When I went to China in 1989, I did stand out.
Hellrigel:
Were you wearing a military uniform at the time? [02:14:40]
Michel:
No. We were all in civilian clothes. Even the Chinese military was in civilian clothes, but you knew who was a general because when he walked into the room everybody would stand up. I remember when I was there [02:15:00] for one six-week tour I lived on the military base, and you could see how their military lived in dormitories. They would go to lunch carrying their rice bowls, so literally what you'd call a stereotype. The second launch I think was in Xichange city- -. [02:15:20] They built a hotel for Westerners. It was still pretty primitive and isolated. I had to have an internal travel permit in Chinese that went in my passport that said where in China I could go. [02:15:40] We all wanted to go to where we called the foothills of the Himalayas. It wasn't really the Himalayas, but it was pretty close. It has a lot of ethnic minorities. There was an ethnic minority called Yi [02:16:00] kind of red skinned, not brown, so more Indian. They had a festival in one of the neighboring towns, and we wanted to go there, so we had to get permission to do that. They got us a bus and a bunch of us went and [02:16:20] that really was remote. Probably they hadn't seen any Westerners because even back then there were internal controls within the country on the roads and every once in a while, you'd run into not a tollbooth, but like a tollbooth thing.
Hellrigel:
Yes, the pike, the turnpike. [02:16:40]
Michel:
Yes. When I was living in Shenzhen, they had McDonalds, Pizza Hut.
Hellrigel:
Kentucky Fried Chicken?
Michel:
They had Kentucky Fried Chicken. When I was in Beijing in [02:17:00] it must have been 1990, I think. They had just opened up the KFC in Beijing, one of the first ones. The Chinese engineers, the host, went out and bought KFC for all of us as opposed to Chinese food. [02:17:20] I like Chinese food. Some of the recipes I'm not sure what was in the ingredients, but the style of eating I like. More grazing. A little of this, a little of that. Always sitting at a round table with a [02:17:40] big lazy Susan. When I was working in Shenzhen we were mostly eating in cafeterias. It was a high-tech industry park. I'm not sure how many buildings. I'd say a couple dozen buildings and they were probably [02:18:00] thirty floors each maybe. Everybody's walking around in this high-tech park with little cafeterias and restaurants and stuff like that.
Hellrigel:
When you were there working with the companies, did you do any activities with IEEE, like go to Section or Chapter [meetings or events]? [02:18:20]
Michel:
I didn't in Shenzhen. I did do some things with the China office, I think. It was some events that we had that we did. I got them to sponsor, IEEE and the company, sponsored a robot design competition. [02:18:40] I got a T-shirt from the IEEE UBTECH robot design competition in China. We gave the schools our robots. They had an IEEE student member, and they formed teams, and they would do something with the robots. Yes, it was cool. [02:19:00] It was good.
Hellrigel:
Was IEEE recognized there or did you have to explain to them what you were?
Michel:
IEEE to the engineers and the educated people was very high prestige. Very high prestige. [02:19:20] In some sense, the Chinese people are still looking for external approval. So, they want the academics to publish in world respected journals, and obviously in our field, IEEE is it. Yes, very high respect. [02:19:40] The average person on the street, probably not.
Hellrigel:
Right. Same around here.
Michel:
Probably yes. If you go to a university, they're going to have IEEE Xplore. They're going to have their faculty try to run international conferences and publish in international journals. [02:20:00]
Early IEEE activities, Region director
Hellrigel:
That brings us to some IEEE questions. You're involved in the student chapter of Newark College of Engineering, NCE, and now NJIT, and then you go off to the military career. You're still a member of IEEE [02:20:20] and does the Air Force pay for you to go to conferences? Had did you interact with IEEE?
Michel:
It depends on what you're doing in the Air Force. As a pilot, they're not going to pay for me to go to a conference, so my involvement with IEEE [02:20:40] was just Spectrum and Transactions from the various Societies. When I went to Hanscom to work as a research engineer, I did go to some IEEE conferences and other organizations. I did present research because [02:21:00] the Air Force lab is a lot like a university research lab or a company research lab where they expect you to publish. I didn't really get involved in the local activities. I lived in Tyngsboro, [02:21:20] which if you know the Boston area, is outside of 495, because a military officer couldn't afford to live any closer to the base. All the activities were more centered towards Boston. I'm not going to go to Boston after working all day and then have a long commute back to Tyngsboro, so I didn't really get involved. [02:21:40] I went from Hanscom to Vandenberg Air Force Base, and I got involved in a local Section there. I was either Section Chair or Vice Chair or both. I don't really remember in the late 1980s. You could probably look it up some place.
Hellrigel:
Yes. We'll put that in your bio. We have some of the paper records [02:22:00] in the IEEE Archives and some have been digitized. We also have the databases.
Michel:
Okay. The difference there was that the local Section, I don't know if it was a Section or Sub-section. We called it a Section. I called it a Section, but it might have been a Sub-section. The Vandenberg Section is what I called it in the late 1980s [02:22:20], early 1980s or no, late 1980s. A lot of the members worked on the Air Force base because they had the contractors for the Western Space and Missile Center of the range [02:22:40], and a lot of engineers. The meetings would be on the base. They were lunchtime meetings, and it was convenient to go. We'd bring speakers in, and we had an annual dinner meeting. It was something that was doable within the job.
Hellrigel:
Especially lunchtime.
Michel:
Yes. [02:23:00] That's why we did it. A lot of Sections can't do that because they have members in various companies. This was really a one employer section, so I got involved with the IEEE at that level [02:23:20]. I moved from there to Maryland and I was at Maryland for a year at headquarters Air Force Systems Command, Andrews Air Force base. I didn't really get involved. I wasn't doing engineering work. I went to Wright Patterson [Air Force Base] in Dayton, Ohio, and the [02:23:40] same kind of thing. Even as a student, I didn't really get involved in the student activities because I was quite a bit older than the students. I don't think I did much with the local Section there. I might have gone to a few technical talks, but [02:24:00] I don't remember doing much. When I came to the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, I got involved in the Student Chapter as a faculty advisor, and that brought me into contact with the Section. The Section recruited me for various positions in the Section. I did professional activities [02:24:20] and educational activities, Vice-chair to Chair. That's kind of what started me on my career as chair and going to the Region meeting. I'm interested in doing this. I think I can do this. I became Area Chair. Then I became Region Director. [02:24:40] Region Chair brought me into contact with the [IEEE] Board, and I said I think I'm in over my head was my first reaction.
Hellrigel:
Well, you become Region Director. What made you want to broaden your activities because this is an elective office [02:25:00] at this point.
Michel:
It is. It is. The Region was having two meetings a year with all the Region Section Chairs. Region 1 was bringing in more than Section Chairs. You're bringing in Section Chairs, Vice Chairs, [02:25:20] Treasurers and Secretaries, I think, plus all the Region office positions, committee chairs and stuff like that. They were doing training, motivating volunteers and stuff. I really got hooked on what it was all about. It was really my first exposure outside the Section, [02:25:40] but I also looked at the Region, the way they ran the meetings and said, I think I can do this. I think I can do this better because we're doing the same thing twice a year; people giving committee reports and nothing's changing. I wanted to see if I could make improvements to [02:26:00] the way the Region ran. In my mind, at that time, the Region was just a big Section, and the Region Director was just a bigger Section Chair. I didn't have the real understanding that the Region Director was a member of the Board of Directors of IEEE. Most Region Directors don't, I think, [02:26:20], until after you get the job. They tell you that, but they don't really [understand]. There's nothing equivalent to experiencing it.
Hellrigel:
You go to your first IEEE Board of Directors' [02:26:40] meeting. It's probably that January retreat?
Michel:
I don't think we had a January retreat back then.
Hellrigel:
So, you're at the February meeting.
Michel:
We're at the February meeting. I'm a Director-elect and I think Mike Lightner might have been the IEEE President if I remember correctly.
Hellrigel:
Sounds about right [02:27:00].
Michel:
They had this big formal meeting room set up and they're running it by Roberts Rules. I'm sitting in the back row.
Hellrigel:
Oh, yes.
Michel:
I'm in over my head. I don't know what I'm doing here. But I picked it up. I got a sense for what was going on. [02:27:20] I got a sense for what the important issues were. We started in that time frame, I think, Mike maybe started having retreats, brainstorming. We had a company come in [02:27:40] and talk to us, setting up strategic goals and those kinds of things. The retreats then I think were in the summer. I remember one we did in Colorado Springs. We called it the Moose Retreat. [02:28:00] We had T-shirts or polo shirts with IEEE Moose Retreat on it. The reason it was a Moose Retreat was the consultant we had would come in the room and talk about a big moose in the room that we can't talk about. Somebody says gorilla, but [02:28:20] she used a big moose in the room. So, we had a Moose Retreat. We tried to develop strategic visions, goals, and how we could change membership and those kinds of things. Somehow those retreats evolved into a regular January [02:28:40] retreat before the Board February meeting. I don't remember exactly when that transition occurred. I don't know if it was a formal decision or if it just happened.
Hellrigel:
It probably seemed like a good time of the year with all the shifting of the Chairs and to do it before the first IEEE Board of Directors meeting. [02:29:00]
Michel:
I think so. Some of the functions of the retreat probably changed. In the June retreat we were really wrestling with how to make changes to the functioning and structure of membership [02:29:20] and those kinds of things. It probably made sense that people had been experiencing the problem on the Board for a couple of months. When they became January retreats, I know when I did mine it was somewhat of a team building exercise and somewhat of a [02:29:40] let's set the tone for the year. What are we going to work on problems? So, some place between 2007 and 2015, a ten-year period, it evolved.
Hellrigel:
We will get to the IEEE Foundation in a little bit, but they just had an organizational meeting. [02:30:00] The IEEE History Committee will have an organizational meeting, where the new people are informed about what's going on with the Committee and at the IEEE History Center before throwing them into their first meeting. [02:30:20] The new members meet the staff, and they get familiar with the different programs, whether it's an Epic or it's this or it's that, and then bond a little bit.
Michel:
Yes. Yes. We just had that meeting on Monday. [02:30:40] It was my week for IEEE Zoom meetings. I had a Section Zoom meeting last night.
Hellrigel:
Yes, yes. That was on the calendar and then I also notices because I am working with the IEEE Foundation on their fiftieth anniversary history.
Michel:
Okay.
Hellrigel:
I might have to pester you again, for more information about the IEEE Foundation, if [02:31:00] we don't get everything in on them today. The plan is to record some oral histories to mark the fiftieth anniversary. The IEEE Foundation and the IEEE History Center work closely together on some projects and they help with our fundraising. They're a good crew.
Michel:
Good, good.
Hellrigel:
I went to the [02:31:20] IEEE Foundation meeting. Oh, I want to say Los Angeles, not LA, it was Phoenix in the summer of 2019. I recorded an oral history with Leah Jamieson focusing on her work with the IEEE Foundation.
Michel:
Okay [02:31:40].
Hellrigel:
In IEEE, I can see the need for the retreat. Given the changes every year, it's hard to build up the continuity, and the retreats seem to be helpful for people. [02:32:00], Now that you could do it via Zoom or WebEx, everyone could show up, sort of.
Michel:
They can, but I think, my own philosophy is that you really can't meet people over Zoom.
Hellrigel:
True.
Michel:
[02:32:20] You can conduct meetings through the year through Zoom once you have some kind of relationship, but you need to have that outside of the meeting.
Hellrigel:
Hang out and talk in person.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
Yes. It seems that at the Region level, Region 1, you're working with [02:32:40] and you had a group of people before you ran for Region 1 Director. I don’t know if you ran for Director unopposed. How did they get together select you?
Michel:
I mentioned, Region 1[02:33:00] like most of the Regions had an N&A Committee (Nomination and Appointment Committee) that screens people. The Region Director, who was director when I decided to run, was Roger Sullivan. The Region Director right before me [02:33:20] was Barry Shoop. It's funny, because, I remember, we were at a Region meeting in Boston in January and the night before, when most people would have been traveling to Boston, we got like 18 inches of snow. Most people couldn't get to Boston, [02:33:40] but for me it was an hour drive up in the morning and the roads were clear. In the meeting, we were discussing the candidates for Region Director, and Barry was one of them. I'd never met Barry at the time, but I thought this guy, he's got some pretty good ideas [02:34:00], so I think he'd make a good Region Director and ultimately, he did.
The Section Chairs, and I think maybe some of the Region officers with the voting members of the Region, would select from the recommended [02:34:20] candidates from the N&A who they wanted to put on the slate. I think the Region 1 bylaws required at least two or maybe only two, but it had to be a contested election.
Hellrigel:
Oh, yes. That seems to be the trend with IEEE after the uncontested elections for so long. [02:34:40]
Michel:
Yes, the problem they have in the Sections is that they [don’t have] two candidates, but the Regions are big enough for two. I don't remember who I ran against, I really don't, but I did win.
Hellrigel:
Was it your first try?
Michel:
My first try. [02:35:00]
Hellrigel:
How does that work? Are you there when they're counting the ballots or do they phone you up and say–
Michel:
No, no. Region Director is still on the IEEE election ballot same with the IEEE President.
Hellrigel:
That's right.
Michel:
Some of the vice presidents. You get notified. [02:35:20] No, I don't remember how I got notified. It might have been a phone call from Roger who would have been–because.
You end up being Director-elect for two years before you become Director and all that. I think all the Regions now are that way, but they weren't all that way at that time. [02:35:40]
Hellrigel:
That makes sense because you get that continuity.
Michel:
Yes. I think when I was Director-elect, the Director-elect from Region 8 was only Director-elect for like a year. Some of the Technical Directors I think are the Director-elect only for a year. All [02:36:00] the other Region Director-elects are for two years, and you get that continuity.
Hellrigel:
As you're getting more involved with IEEE, did your family have any reaction?
Michel:
I don't think so. It is Section level of just going to the Region meeting [02:36:20] every so often at the Region level. It was a couple of Region meetings a year. I didn't notice a difference when I was on the Board traveling. My wife is probably used to [me] traveling. But it was only a couple of times a year.
Hellrigel:
[02:36:20] This was a way for you to get more involved with the global nature of IEEE?
Michel:
Exactly, exactly. I'm sitting on the boards, Director-elect and Director, and getting interested in what's going on and appreciating the fact there's a lot of complexity [02:37:00] in running IEEE both as a membership organization and a professional business. I started developing theories about how this should work. I liked the people I was working with. [02:37:20] As a Region Director, I was a member of the MGA Board (Member and Geographic Activities Board). Region 1 through 6 Directors are also members of the IEEE-USA Board. I got exposure to IEEE staff for MGA and the attributes there for IEEE-USA. [02:37:40]
A lot of volunteers are from around the world, and I made some good friends among my Director-elect class. I got a good friend Enrique Alvarez [Region 9 Director] down in Peru, John Gabriel Remi [Region 8 Director] in France, Lawrence Wong [Region 10 Director], [02:38:00] of Singapore, and Toshi Fukuda [Region 10] from Japan. I got to know these people and I got more involved. As I got more involved, I said, “Well, I think I'd like to be vice president, because I think I can help the organization. I can move them in some directions that I have some ideas on. [02:38:20]. So, I decided to run for VP of MGA (Vice President of Member and Geographic Activities), and that was a close battle, I think. I don't remember. [02:38:40]
Hellrigel:
Right. I can look up the statistics and election results. This is 2011 or 2012, in that time frame. I don't know if it is the right phrase, but you're moving up.
Michel:
I'm moving up.
Hellrigel:
[02:39:00] You're moving up, though, in a logical way that other people have done. They either come from Technical Activities or Regional and MGA or IEEE Standards. This might reflect your interests. At this point, as we talked about earlier, [02:39:20] as a global institution, IEEE is grappling with similar problems as the ARRL. Regarding membership, how do you keep the younger members? How do you grow? You got publishing. IEEE is increasingly global and at this point Region 10 [02:39:40] is really starting to grow. You see even the demographic shift in that more and more members are from outside of Regions 1 through 6.
Michel:
Yes. Yes.
Hellrigel:
Then China comes up again, when you're looking at the growth [02:40:00] [in IEEE membership in Region 10] in Japan, India, and China.
Michel:
Yes, I think, in my tenure on the IEEE Board, I think membership had been U.S. first, maybe Canada second, Japan, India, China, [02:40:20] and China moved up, I think trying to make the second now I don't I'm not exactly sure.
Hellrigel:
I'm not sure, but it is growing.
Michel:
It is growing Region 10. I think, when I was President, they might have been 25 percent of the members of IEEE. [02:40:40] They got to be more than that now.
Hellrigel:
The student membership in India is really growing by leaps and bounds.
Michel:
Students in India, always. If you looked at higher grade members, only India falls down on the list below China, Japan. If you include the students, they may be higher. [02:41:00] There was some discussion about why that was at all. Well, that we know why that is.
Hellrigel:
I know that the IEEE Fellows process is being reviewed.
Perhaps the expansion of university enrollment is linked to the increase in student members. Then the student gets a job and membership fees increase after you graduate. [02:41:20] Even in the U.S., who's going to pay your membership fee. Then you drop off? Now IEEE is offering reduced membership fees for recent graduates. Membership must be impacted by the expansion of technical universities in India, and maybe as universities [02:41:40] and companies grow membership increases, and in time people become higher grade members and maybe IEEE Fellows. I don't know [02:42:00].
Michel:
I don't know, but what I do know is a lot of the volunteers in India are very passionate about working for IEEE. I think that generates interest and more passion. What I saw a lot in the U.S. while I was [02:42:20] student branch chair wasn't that passion. They would join IEEE, maybe in their senior year because they thought maybe it might help them get a job.
Hellrigel:
Put it on the resume, yes.
Michel:
Yes. Well, that's not the right reason. You get out of IEEE, what you put into it. [02:42:40] If you just want your name on a piece of paper, then that's what you're going to get, whereas if you volunteer, you make connections, you do things, you achieve things, you learn skills. This is what I try and tell the students. You know, it's much better for you to try and organize something and fail [02:43:00] as a volunteer for IEEE than when your boss tells you to organize something. Through the IEEE experiences, you will get constructive criticism.
Hellrigel:
Right. I'm working with Harish Mysore and a few people through the India office. They are involved with an oral history initiative. [02:43:20]
Michel:
Yes.
MGA
Hellrigel:
IEEE has offices around the world. When you become the VP of MGA, that gives you more direct access to all the global discussion.
Michel:
It does [02:43:40], it does, and some of it comes at you pretty quickly. You are not prepared for it. You mentioned earlier about not sending anything to Iran. So, I'll make my first Region 8 meeting as VP and the Section chair from Iran comes and says, “We're not getting our rebates [02:44:00]. Can you do something about that?” Well, I think I can look into that. I learned pretty quickly that you can't because we cannot give anything to Iran. I went to CJ [Cecelia Jankowski] [02:44:2 0] and she explained it to me. Then we had to sit down with the lawyers and talk about OFAC [office of foreign assets control] and everything else. You need to learn these things. The volunteers don't have the background on that. Maybe there should be a training program or learning program or something, telling you don’t say anything [02:44:40] until you talk to staff. Now MGA I think has a VP-elect and a VP, so there's a transition. When I was VP, there was no one though.
Hellrigel:
You're just sort of shoved in it. [02:45:00] Then you learn some things like where you can't send publications or carry out business. It might not be well known amongst members, but I heard from staff in Publications that journals couldn't be sent to Iran due to U.S. sanctions or restrictions. Members told me about sending something to a European country, [02:45:20] so sort of a backdoor. I don’t know if anyone did that or if it worked. When I was a university professor, I taught geography and learned a lot about politics around the globe. Otherwise, I do not know if people would think about it.
Michel:
Yes, you don't. I'm reminded [02:45:40] of a conversation I had with Joe Lillie (Joseph V. Lillie) when he was VP that year. Lillie used to say, I'm just a little old boy from a dirt road in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana.
Hellrigel:
With my hot sauce.
Michel:
Yes. Right. You know, [02:46:00] he's right. I grew up right outside Manhattan, and I felt that I was somewhat cosmopolitan because I would go into Manhattan, I wouldn't say fairly frequently, but enough. You walk around Manhattan; you hear all different kinds of voices and accents and languages. Even back then, [02:46:20] it was a global city, but it's not global, really compared to being VP MGA.
Hellrigel:
What were some of your challenges? What did you want to do as the VP of MGA?
Michel:
That was a time when MGA was in transition. [02:46:40] We had just created MGA. Member and Geographic Activities. It had been RAB, Regional Activities. I think Joe Lillie was [02:47:00] the first VP of MGA or Barry Shoop was the first VP MGA. We are still in the process of trying to grapple with what that means. How do we have this 360-degree view of the member? How do we incorporate that into making it systemic with everybody's thinking and logic and stuff like that. [02:47:20] The other part of it was, when they were talking about creating MGA, they were talking about creating just MA, no G. I was the one who pushed [02:47:40] and pushed and pushed and pushed and had them keep in G, the geographic aspects of that organization with an IEEE. I felt it was important because that was really where the members were interacting. We needed that structure in place. I wanted to kind of balance the [02:48:00] 360-degree view of the member with the geographic activities, not just make member-activities, but like a truly member and geographic activities, and try and move that into the future. Clearly, membership was declining and local activities–participation in local [02:48:20] activities was declining. How do we do something different?
Hellrigel:
Did they know why local activities were declining? Where people disinterested or just getting really stressed out at work and they did not have to time to hang out?
Michel:
No, we didn't. What we would do is say, well, all these organizations are having the same [02:48:40] problems. It's a generational change. Maybe it is. Maybe that's part of it. Maybe it's all of it. I think we still don't know. I think we're trying to paint a fine line picture with a broad brush. Maybe what [02:49:00] works for twenty-five-year-olds starting his career is totally different from somebody who's sixty-five-year-old and winding his career down. When they go to meetings and don't go to meetings, for different reasons, you can't really satisfy. But I think it gets to the member [02:49:20] activities, the 360 degree and what is the value of IEEE membership.
I had a chart that I had put together for me. It was a grid. I probably have it someplace in my presentations. The different [02:49:40] aspects of your career, that might have been the vertical columns, and then the different products and services that IEEE delivered, across those aspects of your career. Somebody could have a career, that say starts in column one as an undergraduate student, graduate student [02:50:00] in maybe column two, working engineer column three, an academic could be column four, and then retired could be column five or something.
Somebody could be 1, 2, 3, and 5, or 1, 2, and 4, and so they'd have their own path through this grid if you like. [02:50:20] What we have is in those different squares, everybody charts their own path through there. There is no one right path. It’s not a static path. People change as they progress through their careers. I had a vision that this is the kind of stuff we need to be delivering and selling this message. [02:50:40] I probably did that as President, but I started thinking about those kinds of things, I think, when I was vice president, and maybe even to some limited extent as Director because I was starting to see the problems. I didn't have the solutions then, and I probably don’t have the solutions now. You know, as you get [02:51:00] immersed in these things, you're sitting in a quiet spot someplace, you're thinking about these things. Well, then you start visualizing some of these solutions, and that's probably where this grid came from with several years of thinking.
Hellrigel:
Then maybe sometimes the solutions are more [02:51:20] Regional. You have these goals. We [IEEE staff] get these pronouncements and printed laminated copies of the IEEE Strategic Plan. I post them in my cubicle. However, maybe what works for Calcutta (Kolkata) might not work for Berkeley, might not work for [02:51:40] Santiago, Chile, and so on.
Michel:
It's sub-level. I think you have high level thing that would be in this block, whatever it is. So graduate students, [02:52:0] maybe technical competence, you have something about conferences, and conferences are going to mean something to everybody in that block. But the student in Calcutta isn't going to have a different conference experience than the student at Caltech. In their travel [02:52:20] opportunities, the ability to do quality research, the research funding, and so this is where I think you have to think globally but act locally. This, I think, is the benefit of geographic regions [02:52:40]. So funny, we went to Sections Congress, I think it was maybe in Quebec City, and I was the Region Director at the time. We all went out, the Region group went out to dinner, in a French restaurant. [02:53:00] In the same restaurant, was a group of Technical Activities Directors, and I knew the director. They had gotten there a little bit before us, and they finished before us, and as he's getting ready to leave, he comes and he says, "How'd you find this? I spent hours and hours and hours on the internet, [02:53:20] looking for the best French restaurant in Quebec.” I said, “I asked the concierge.” This is the difference between RAB and TAB.
Hellrigel:
Yes. Right. Right. Yes, it reminds me of the time, I had friends, and we were in Manchester, England, and they wanted to go for Chinese. [02:53:40] I'm like, okay, no don’t follow the tourists. I did the same thing in Dupont Circle [in Washington, D.C.] No, we're walking down the street, I'm going to look into restaurants, and I'll tell you where we're going to eat.
Michel:
Yes. Yes. [02:54:00] That's because you have the local expertise, the local experience. It matters.
Hellrigel:
Yes. And the other deal, I know the realist in me, it's like, okay, you're going to ask Google or whoever you're going to ask and are those reviews fake. [02:54:20]
Michel:
Right. You can't believe them, yes.
Hellrigel:
That. Yes. Yes, these are some of the challenges. When I am trying to write the history of IEEE, you got this big global entity and then you have to drill down for the [02:54:40] the local. The global and local perspectives are intriguing.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
During the COVID pandemic, we (IEEE) pivoted, and we've gone hybrid. Some of the conferences have found that they haven't lost money, they've actually made more money with the hybrid or the virtual, [02:55:00] because a lot more people can attend.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
When I first worked with the [IEEE Council on] Superconductivity, and started going to some of their conferences, I saw their registration fees, and I was like, what? Okay, you get the Proceedings or the publication of conference papers, but that is a lot of money. [02:55:20] The price scheme provides a break for students, but they are still expensive even if you give them a break at $300.
Michel:
A lot of money, particularly for somebody from India.
Hellrigel:
Yes. And maybe they will get access to the conference publication at their university. [02:55:40] They want to come to the conference [to present papers and network]. At ASC 2016 (Applied Superconductivity Conference) in Denver, Colorado, one of the cool things was we were on the roof of some bar at an event for graduate students and early career people. I went to talk to them about who they think are the leading figures in the field. The American college students or young professionals [02:56:00] were teaching the group from China how to play corn hole on the roof of this building. They were meeting people and hopefully they would stay in touch. It was a different vibe than when I went to other events at that conference with the big shots. This was a planned, yet informal event, for early career people. [02:56:20]. As a historian, I was curious to see who the early career people considered the leaders in their field. It was fun.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
I roamed around trying to get a feel for the IEEE culture at this conference. [02:56:40]
Michel:
Yes.
IEEE Presidency
Hellrigel:
You were active in MGA, so how do you decide that now you want to take on this mantle of [IEEE] President?
Michel:
Interesting. So, I'm sitting around in a world of Board meetings, [02:57:00] and I said to myself, I think I could do this. I think I could be a good president. Maybe arrogance, I don't know. Well, it was interesting because [02:57:20] when I was Director, I didn't really appreciate the difficulties of being the VP working with the staff and all the other issues. I said, okay, I think the president really needs to have experience working with some IEEE staff and managing organizational units. The fact [02:57:40] that I was VP at the time says, I think I can be president, whereas I think somebody who's just sitting on the Board of Directors needs more experience. I looked around and said, who else is on the Board and said, I think I could do as good a job as they can. So, I decided to try and run for [IEEE] President [02:58:00] and I did, and that was in [2012]
In 2012, the N&A committee picked [02:58:20] me and somebody else to be candidates for president. Then the Board of Directors rejected the slate from N&A. Then they picked Tariq [Durrani] and Roberto [de Marca], as the two candidates [02:58:40]. So, I didn’t get to run for president, the first time I was selected to run for president. That seems to have happened a lot now, because lately the Board is rejecting the candidates from N&A. But I think what happened was [02:59:00], the Board had looked and said, we haven't had a president from outside North America. And the reason is, every time we run a North American candidate and against a non-North America candidate, the North American candidate wins, so they, they were to have a slate to Tariq and Roberto who were both outside [02:59:20] North America, Tariq from Scotland and Roberto [de Marca] from Brazil.
Hellrigel:
Yes, what's the reaction? You could have been a petition candidate?
Michel:
I did try and become a petition candidate. My heart really [02:59:40] wasn't in it, collecting the signatures and stuff. I failed to get enough signatures to become a petition candidate [03:00:00], but then the next year, I was selected. I'm trying to think, was the N&A who selected me? I think maybe N& A hadn't selected me the next year, yet the Board put me on the ballot. I'm not totally sure. I have to go back and look.
Hellrigel:
[03:0:20] There was a big dust up about having more than one candidate on the ballot. Going twenty years there was talk about the need to have more than one candidate. Then petition candidates became an option. This is interesting, but I hadn't thought through the fact that Tariq and Roberto [03:0:40] were purposely selected to ensure a non-North America slate. I guess these decisions are made behind closed doors?
Michel:
Right, they are.
Hellrigel:
Before my time. [I started at IEEE in 2016.]
Michel:
Yes. I'm not even sure if the slate that N&A sends to the Board may not actually be public. [03:01:00] The fact that I wasn't on the slate that the Board rejected or not.
Hellrigel:
You'd have to look.
Michel:
Yes, so we may have to bleep this out of the history.
Hellrigel:
Well, yes, because even when it gets to the Board of Directors, and it goes on their official minutes, it really is not meant for public information.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
Very select. Yes. [03:01:20]
Michel:
Yes, I wouldn't say scrubbed, but select. I think scrub is probably the right word.
Hellrigel:
This is a situation, I want to say in the 1910s and 1920s, it came up about women becoming members. So, the Board of Directors is going to talk about this. Not a word in the minutes [03:01:40] about it. I know they talked about it, but they did not record anything in the minutes. Then we didn't have Edith Clarke until the 1920s. [She became an Associate Member of the AIEE in 1923, and in 1948, she became the first woman to become a Fellow of the AIEE.]
Michel:
Yes, yes.
Hellrigel:
You didn't get discouraged because your hat is back in the ring. You are nominated.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
Then you have to do all this campaigning [03:02:00]. How does that work?
Michel:
It probably was easier since I was the VP MGA or had been the VP MGA. I was used to going to the Region meetings. [03:02:20] What I appreciated was all the differences in IEEE, at the regional level, and so somebody with a strict TA background, doesn't have that. What I didn't have was an appreciation for [03:02:40] the differences in the Societies in their viewpoint. You do some of the biggest Societies [adcom meetings] as a candidate, but most of the campaigning appears to be at the Region meeting level. But if you think about it, I mean, so if I [03:03:00] met every member at every Region meeting, and they all voted for me, you may have 1000 votes, yet the president election is, you know, 35,000, 40,000 or 45,000 votes [cast]. Where are they all coming from? They're [03:03:20] coming maybe from friends of the people who are at the Region meetings and stuff, but a lot of it has to do with I think, the message you put on paper. I spent a lot of time crafting the message. [03:03:40] I advised, Barry, when he ran for [IEEE] President after me, you don't need to tell the people what the problem is. They all know what the problem is. They have a different view of the problem. You need to tell them what your solution is and that's what I tried to do as a candidate. [03:04:00] I managed to succeed in doing that, I guess, to the point where I got elected.
Hellrigel:
What sticks out from your IEEE presidency? What were your goals for that one year of your presidency? You focus on education [03:04:20] and careers? What do you plan to do, and did you get a chance to do it?
Michel:
My presidency really started as [IEEE] President-elect. I think all presidents do that. [03:04:40] You spend the last half of your president-elect year starting to work on initiatives and putting things in place. One of the things I did then was work with Jim Prendergast. [03:05:00] We sat down, we did some brainstorming about what was important and what we needed to do, and I started creating, kind of a grid of what each Board meeting. So, the January retreat, and the February, [03:05:20] June, and November meetings, being the columns and then the rows being some of these initiatives. I started looking at what kind of committees I would need, what kind of goals we wanted to have, and what emphasis would be in each one of the meetings. The other thing I started doing was working with [03:05:40] a consulting group in Canada called Syntegrity. I had experienced them in, it might have been Educational Activities. I used them when I was sort of [03:06:00] VP. It could have been a Director, I forget exactly. They have a very good process for bringing groups of people together to come up with workable solution plans, items, and concrete things to do, and that process is [03:06:20] very rigid. We could have thirty-two people or forty-eight people at this thing [the retreat]
We built the retreat around this, forty-eight people. We brought in all the Board of Directors, all the IEEE senior staff, and a few other select volunteers. We did three days [03:06:40] of this brainstorming together through their process. We came up with a list of things to work on: one was IEEE governance, one was Educational Activities, and one was finances, I think. Then I kind of mapped these things into this grid [03:07:00] I had come up with. I sort of had a plan in the beginning of the year where I thought the year was going to go.
Then the first Board meeting came, and everything became what the heck. We had, I guess, the IEEE Standards Association changing [03:07:20] their rules for better technology, patents, or patents in their standards. [The issue was how were company patents to be incorporated into IEEE standards.] I guess [when we discussed] how the royalties are calculated that it became a really big issue. It divided the IEEE Board, and it divided the community, [03:07:40] so we spent a considerable amount of time in the February Board meeting working out the details of whether the Board was going to approve IEEE Standards Association policy or not. Well, we did it.
Hellrigel:
That's a big [03:08:00] proverbial monkey wrench disrupting your intended plan. You have a game plan, and then this really serious problem pops up.
Michel:
It is. The companies were taking sides on this. Qualcomm was on the side of not approving this, and they [03:08:20] went to the point of putting something under all the Directors doors in the hotel.
Hellrigel:
Wow.
Michel:
They got to know that that really upset people. But that gave you some kind of sense of the depth of the discussion that was going on.
Hellrigel:
Wow. [03:08:40] Yes. Yes. You wonder how the heck did they find out who was in what room or whatever?
Michel:
Exactly. Exactly. And, not that it's intimidating, but it is. That didn't have the desired effect, [03:09:00] because the Board voted to approve the policy, not unanimously, but sufficient that it passed.
Hellrigel:
Yes, imagine there's nothing or no details, at least that I recall in the minutes [the highlights in the annual report]. [03:09:20] That's just part of the deal. Recently, we've written the history of IEEE for the past forty years. Trying to come up with something that's just not a placid and bland story was a challenge [due to the lack of access to pertinent documents].
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
But that's the challenge of writing contemporary history. [03:09:40] I tried to explain to some people that sometimes the history right now is a little bit too prickly or sensitive or touchy.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
Yes, and that it's got rippling ramifications that could come back and tip the card again. So, sometimes [03:10:00] you don't write about something for twenty-five years [or more] for a reason.
Michel:
Yes. Somehow you need a record of the facts, right?
Hellrigel:
Yes. Yes, exactly.
Michel:
How do you separate the facts from opinions, though?
Hellrigel:
Oh, gosh.
Michel:
Yes [03:10:20].
Hellrigel:
Yes. Yes, that can be challenging. Especially, in today's climate.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
It was a major hurdle to get that settled. So, that was a major accomplishment.
Michel:
It was and it had [03:10:40] divided IEEE-USA and IEEE Standard Association, from the IEEE Board. There were factions, and it was very messy. We spent a lot of time debating it, which is the proper role for the Board to have in deliberative discussion. [03:11:00] I think it worked out well, but going into it, it was not anything that was on my radar. The other thing that I wanted to do was try to affect changing the structure of the Board of Directors, and we spent a lot of time working on [03:11:20] it through the year. We did create the constitutional amendment, which was the first step, and the Members failed to pass it, so that was a disappointment.
Hellrigel:
Yes, and people still talk about that, and there have been a couple [03:11:40] of items since then. When I'm out in the field talking to different people, some people feel it is too much power in and the Board of Directors. Others figure there are too many on the Board. Some say IEEE needs a stronger Board, and other say IEEE needs a smaller Board, so [03:12:00] a smaller group to get work done.
Michel:
Yes. Well, the problem is, that's part of it. The problem is you've got two governing structures. One is the IEEE Board, and one is the IEEE Assembly. The Assembly [03:12:20] is made up of the Directors minus the officers, plus the President. Sorry, so the Assembly is twenty-three people, a subset of the Board of thirty-one. The Assembly–so when you're elected a Director, you are [03:12:40] also elected as a delegate to the Assembly. When you're sitting in the Assembly, you're representing the members. When you're sitting on the Board, [you are the] fiduciary for the corporation. So, you're asking somebody to separate those two roles. [03:13:00] It's not just separating the two roles, but you're stuck with the structure of the IEEE. When you create the Board, you have a Region 10 Director representing 25 percent of the members, and you've got a Division Director representing [03:13:00] 7,000 members or something. Right? So, it's not right. We wanted to separate the role of the Assembly from the role of the Directors; separate the people. So, the Assembly could grow, [03:13:20] and you wouldn't have to [expand the Board of Directors].
Now they're talking about, I guess, restructuring of the Regions. The problem is, you want to just add in more Region directors, because then you’ve got to add more Technical Directors and the Board just becomes even bigger and less manageable. If you don't add more [Regions] then you’ve got to combine [03:14:00] something and somebody is going to lose a vote. They're not going to be happy about that because you are stuck with this structure. Whereas if you had the Board composed of people who represent the IEEE and the various business and publishing experts, and education experts, and membership organization experts, you [03:14:20] could have a manageable sized Board that can deliberate things and generate ideas. The Assembly would represent the members and that could grow as big as it wanted because it's more like the House of Representatives and the Board can be more like the Senate. I thought that was something that we developed with the ad hoc committee [03:14:40] over the year. It wasn't something we started with, but it’s that place we came to.
Hellrigel:
This has been talked about in the past, so it's not like this is the first time it ever came up?
Michel:
No, I think Pedro [Ray] tried to do something about restructuring the Board. The Board didn't approve Pedro's initiative. [03:15:00] The Board did approve my initiative, by supermajority. The problem was that we really couldn't defend it to the members when the constitutional amendment came up to separate the two [Board and Assembly]. A lot of the people speaking against it didn't really have the facts, [03:15:20] but they really just didn't want change. They didn't want to lose their perception of power. It failed the constitutional amendments and the whole initiative just died, but that was in Barry Shoop's year when that happened.
Hellrigel:
Yes, yes, that's when I first joined the staff at IEEE. I started on January 4, 2016. [03:15:40]
Michel:
Okay, yes.
Hellrigel:
There was a lot of discussion going on and I heard different things. Hearing this and trying to put it in context, I was like, ooh, boy.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
Then working on the history of those efforts led me to read about issues from decades ago and there was that Irwin Feerst issue from decades ago.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
In 2016, I started working on the history of [03:16:00] IEEE since 1984. Those issues are all percolating [03:16:20] and I was trying to get the heads or tails of it. This explains it more succinctly, so thank you.
Michel:
I'm trying to. I mean, the concept was, I could see a problem coming down the road. A member trying to defend this at a Region 3 meeting, [03:16:40] somebody says, what's going to happen, if we don't approve this? I said, in ten years, you're not going to have a Region 3. I'm looking at that around 2015, We are almost halfway there, right? We might not have a Region 3, when they get them organized in the Regions, I mean.
Hellrigel:
[03:17:00] Right.
Michel:
We haven't solved the Board of Directors issue. We have hidden it.
Hellrigel:
If they could restructure, you could have a Region 3, but maybe Region 3, itself wouldn't have a seat on the Board of Directors.
Michel:
Regions 3 would have a delegate in the Assembly, [03:17:20] not a member on the Board of Directors. The Assembly represents the members, so technically, we could say the Assembly could override anything the Board of Directors does, and we could make those changes. The members really [03:17:40] have the responsibility, the authority. Right? Directors have the fiduciary responsibility, but that's to the corporation. But who's the corporation? The corporation ultimately is the members, I think, right?
Hellrigel:
Some people [will agree]. Who knows? I mean, I think, but who knows?
Michel:
[03:18:00] Right, who knows? Right now, you have an Assembly that doesn't do anything. It accepts reports from the Board of Directors. They still do the same process: the vice presidents get up, walk away from the table; they have an Assembly meeting; the vice presidents walk back to the table; they have a Board meeting. The Assembly really [03:18:20] doesn't have any power.
It's a holdover from when the corporation needed to have a meeting of the members. Old New York.
Hellrigel:
Given budget cutting and having all these people travel [03:18:40] three, four times a year, was there any discussion that maybe we should have fewer people that have to go to these meetings?
Michel:
I don’t think that was a factor. When I was president, finances were still pretty strong. [03:19:00] I think the discussion was centered around two issues. One was the effectiveness of the Board of Directors to generate new ideas and to deliberate. The other was about the disconnect between the size of Regions [03:19:20] and representation on the Board of Directors.
Hellrigel:
Yes. Yes. That's something they're going to have to deal with. I don't know if there's anything to be learned by the merger in 1963, but I know that they had been talking for gosh, well over ten years [03:19:40] when they were trying to merge the two organizations, the AIEE and the IRE, and the two different structures and all that.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
I've been keeping you for a long time.
Michel:
Well, I'm good. Well, maybe we could take a two-minute break.
Hellrigel:
Yes, sir. Thank you. [ 03:20:00]
[Audio break 03:20:00-03:21:40]
Michel:
I'm back.
Hellrigel:
Thanks for putting up with me for so long. [ 03:22:00]
Michel:
I'll try and finish it today if we can.
Hellrigel:
Sure. Sure.
Michel:
If you are okay?
Hellrigel:
Yes. I am okay. I guess the restructuring issue continues.
Michel:
I guess it does. It's a problem. We haven't solved it. It's going to continue to be a problem. [03:22:20]
Hellrigel:
From your presidency, do you recall, any of your favorite trips or fun things you got to do?
Michel:
One thing, yes. Let's see, I think it might've been my first trip, as president. [03:22:40] My wife and I went to India. We showed up in Mumbai, I think. We were there for a night. I had to do some speech or opening [03:23:00] something at some conference they were having. Then from there we went Kathmandu.
Hellrigel:
Oh, wow.
Michel:
There was a Region 10 meeting, a Region 10 Ex-Com meeting, and that's the memorable part of the trip. [03:23:20] We took a tour, I guess, it was a plane service out of Kathmandu Airport. It was not chartered, but you could buy tickets and they would do a fly-by Mount Everest.
Hellrigel:
Wow.
Michel:
We did this with a bunch of the IEEE volunteers. [03:23:40] We basically filled the plane, and we did this fly-by around Mount Everest, taking pictures. Unlike in the U.S., the pilots let us into the cockpit one at a time. It was a really memorable trip, [03:24:00] and that was probably, I would say, one of the most fun things I did as [IEEE] President. The trips all kind of run together, but I guess, we had some other pretty good trips. I met some pretty good volunteers from all around the world. [03:24:20]
I liked that I got to go to a lot more conferences and stuff, presenting the Technical Field Awards, which is always a fun thing to do. I did work hard making those presentations, and I bought a teleprompter app for my iPad. [03:24:40] Dom DeMarco would write the speech, I'd tweak it a little bit, and then I'd put it on this teleprompter app. Then I could just let it scroll because I didn't have any teleprompter operator. I rehearsed it because I felt these were important awards. [03:25:00] People had really made some significant contributions and they deserved the recognition. You know, a few minute speech, I guess, five or ten minutes. I got to go to a lot of the conferences; the major conferences, society conferences where the awards were presented. [03:25:20]
There were [IEEE] Milestones, too. I like doing the Milestones. I did a couple of good Milestones in Japan. One was in Kyoto. If you ever get to travel to Japan, you should go to Kyoto. It's a beautiful old–old city. A lot of temples. [03:25:40] I got to dedicate this Milestone with the mayor of Kyoto. He was in his traditional Japanese garb and I'm in my business suit. I did another one in Japan. This one was kind of a funny trip. I was coming from I think I might've been in Seattle [03:26:00] at an IEEE Computer Society meeting. I flew from Seattle to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to Tokyo, and Tokyo to Osaka. Then I'm going to dedicate this Milestone in Osaka. [03:26:20] I had an extra day or two between those dedications. It didn't make sense to fly home and then fly back out again. So, I said, well, okay, I'd rather spend the time in Japan than Seattle. Good thing I did because my luggage didn't make the connection in Los Angeles. I'm in Osaka, [03:26:40] and I got to Tokyo, but my luggage is not here. The Japanese are very efficient. Very polite. They looked it up and it said, your luggage is in Los Angeles. It missed the connection. It'll be on the next flight to Tokyo. We'll keep you informed. Well, the next day, it showed up in Tokyo. [03:27:00] It didn't make the flight to Osaka. So now, I'm getting a little worried. I need to go find a suit. There's nothing in my size on the racks in Japan. But it did make it the next day, which was the day I needed it. [03:27:20] I got to make this presentation in Osaka on, I think it was, Sharp LCD screen. They had done a large LCD screen.
Hellrigel:
That sounds familiar. Yes.
Michel:
Milestones are a very big deal in Japan. [03:27:40] They had Japanese television there and stuff like that, and just imagine me there in a suit that's six sizes too small, high waters on my pants, or me in my jeans that I've been in for the last three days.
Hellrigel:
Yes, someone maybe could've given you IEEE swag, and IEEE [03:28:00] fleece top or something.
Michel:
Something. Everything was very, very formal. I mean, dark business suits. They had flowers on your lapels. Everything was scripted, move here, speak here. It would not have done if it was anything other than a dark business suit and a white shirt. [03:28:20]
Hellrigel:
Now, Robert Colburn, the IEEE Milestone program administrator, whenever something comes up in Japan and elsewhere, he works with the local Section people. In Japan, usually a company will underwrite the reception and it's a real big event.
Michel:
It’s a big thing. It is a very big event. It is the same [03:28:40] as we talked about, I think, we talked about China. In China, it is the same kind of thing. The [IEEE] technical societies have a lot of prestige, and engineering, I think, is a valued profession.
Hellrigel:
Do you find it is the same in India, now?
Michel:
India too. Yes.
Hellrigel:
[03:29:00] Of course, at the IEEE History Center we are thrilled when one of the Three Ps can attend an IEEE Milestone dedication. During the COVID pandemic, it is sort of anti-climactic because the dedications are virtual, and some dedications have been postponed. Toshi (Toshio) Fukuda went to one in between the outbreaks. [03:29:20] Recently, he went to one quite a few are planned. Let's see, in the past year, well, since the shutdown to the present, the Board of Directors approved maybe fifteen or sixteen IEEE Milestones
Michel:
Oh, wow. [03:29:40]
Hellrigel:
We're up to, I think, 215, 216 IEEE Milestones. The momentum is increasing, and we're thrilled that the Three Ps enjoy attending the dedications.
Michel:
We're in the process of trying to get one in the Providence Section for the Alvin underwater vehicle. [03:30:00] I think that they're talking about having it in October this year. The Providence Section was supposed to have a 100th anniversary event in 2020, so we're talking about combining the milestone and the 102-anniversary event, out on Woods Hole in the fall. [03:30:20] [IEEE Milestone #230, Alvin Deep-Sea Research Submersible, 1965-1984, was dedicated on 21 October 2022.]
Hellrigel:
Oh, that would be cool.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
Since that's sort of local, maybe someone from the IEEE History Center’s staff will be able to attend. If someone drives, it would not be too expensive.
Michel:
Yes. It's probably from Piscataway to Woods Hole, depending on the traffic, [03:30:40] four and a half, maybe five hours.
Hellrigel:
Yes. Yes. If I intended, I'd visit relatives, so no additional cost.
Michel:
Yes, that's right.
Hellrigel:
Yes, Burlington. My mother emigrated from Italy, arriving in East Boston in 1951, so [03:31:00] we have a little family node there.
Michel:
Nice.
Hellrigel:
Good luck to the Providence Section.
Michel:
[03:31:20] Yes. They had something organized. They had a couple speakers and stuff, but I guess two or three days before the event (the original dedication date) was going to happen, the whole state just shut down.
Hellrigel:
Right. People are learning or acknowledging that oral history is a great way to [03:31:40] commemorate anniversaries and events, so I recorded a few oral histories in conjunction with an IEEE Milestone dedication at Fermi Labs. Some prominent people attended the event. I'm also talking to people about having a round table, a historical session, and recording it. It is not an oral history, but it is an addition to the historical record. [03:32:00]
Michel:
Yes. That would be good.
Hellrigel:
We could talk about that. Maybe just a historical session.
Michel:
Yes. Yes.
Hellrigel:
The history intrigues you and you got to do a lot of traveling. Is there anything with your presidency that you didn't get to do? [03:32:20]
Michel:
Well, I would have been happier if the Board change had taken effect. Then, obviously, everybody had more dreams of accomplishing things than they can get accomplished in the year.
Hellrigel:
[03:32:40] Do you think they should have a two year rather than a one-year term?
Michel:
I don't know if that would've made a difference because like I said the February meeting, I sort of had plans, then it was thrown out in the weeds. You know, [03:33:00] highjacked by world events. The military has the same kind of saying, "No battle plans survives the first shot." But when you have a three year, president-elect, president, and past president, there's continuity. When I was president, the president-elect, was Barry Shoop. [03:33:20] Barry and I had very similar thinking on things. It's funny, I followed him as Region 1 Director, I followed him as VP MGA, and then he followed me as president. We have a similar background. [03:33:40] I think the military background, the logical thinking, the desire for more efficiency and stop wasting people's time for your reports when they can read them themselves, so we had a good continuity. Karen [Bartleson] followed Barry. [03:34:00] Karen was of the same mindset from industry. It is a three-year period. I think it probably also was shocking to the TA people that there were no TA (Technical Activities) directors [presidents] in those three years. They seem to have kind of gone back to the model where Technical Activities has got a lot of directors[presidents]. [[03:34:20] So we have, I guess Jim Jefferies following Karen, and he was IEEE-USA
Hellrigel:
Right.
Michel:
But then you had, was it José M. F. Moura maybe?
Hellrigel:
Yes.
Michel:
Ray Liu [K.J. Ray Liu] is president now.
Hellrigel:
Yes, after Toshi [Fukuda].
Michel:
Yes, Toshi.
Hellrigel:
Toshi is the first Region 10 member elected IEEE President. [03:34:40]
Michel:
Yes. Toshi is an interesting character. I like Toshi a lot. Funny thing about Toshi, is he was Region 10 Director-elect when I was VP MGA. The Director- elects could attend the MGA meetings, but the cost was [03:35:00] split between the Region and MGA. Toshi wanted to fly business class to this meeting, so he had to get my permission as VP MGA. I said, Toshi, we don't have it in the budget, you can't. I can't afford it, so use points or something like that. [03:35:20] Right? So, I heard after the fact Toshi's complaining to CJ. He's saying, this Michel guy, he's terrible, he doesn't understand anything. He's horrible. I never want to see him. I never want to talk to him. Then we're both flying to this meeting and the meeting might've been in Indonesia, I think it was. [03:35:40] I forget where it was. We were flying some place and we wound up in Singapore Airport together. I had just flown coach class from the U.S. He and I are talking, and he says, well, you didn't do anything to me that you didn't do to yourself, therefore I [03:36:00] respect you, and we became friends, good friends, ever since.
Hellrigel:
Yes, suck it up and fly coach to curtail expenses.
Michel:
MGA didn't have it in the budget to fly business class.
Hellrigel:
As staff, as soon as I know that I have to travel, I start looking for a ticket and I sometimes will book a ticket [03:36:20] six months in advance or whatever is cheapest. Sure, sometimes it might be a last-minute trip, but most of the time people know well in advance that they have to travel. You were looking out for the finances, so they should stop complaining and give you a break.
Michel:
Yes. They need to have a better handle on that, I think. [03:36:40] Not just the staff. Maybe there is no incentive in it or something.
Hellrigel:
Well, staff? They're always on us about money and not wasting money. Staff-wise, my coworkers try to cut expenses. Senior staff and other groups, I don’t know the way they do things. [03:37:00]
Michel:
Yes. Yes.
Hellrigel:
On behalf of the IEEE History Center and the IEEE Council on Superconductivity I am recorded oral histories at a superconductivity conference and then attend the HISTELCON conference in Glasgow, Scotland. [03:37:20] I had a week in between [the conferences] and I have friends in the UK, so I stayed with them. Then I only had to buy one airline ticket.
Michel:
Yes. That's good.
Hellrigel:
The week in between I got to see them, but I also worked from their home. [03:37:40] When you buy the ticket in advance it decreases travel costs. Travel is a big part of the budget for IEEE.
Michel:
Yes. guess when I was past president or maybe even the year after that. I know there was a lot of discussion about controlling costs [03:38:00] and travel–volunteer travel, I think, was a big part of that.
Hellrigel:
Yes, no first class.
Michel:
Yes, no. Never. No. But–
Hellrigel:
I'm short and I understand if my knees are hitting the seat in front of me–I'm 4'11", legroom is tight, and I sympathize. But on the other hand [03:38:20] when I look at the price of the tickets.
Michel:
Oh, it's crazy. It's crazy. When I was living in Shenzhen, I was flying back and forth, two to three months at a time, so three months there, a month or two back here. A couple of months there, back and forth. [03:38:40] It was a sixteen-hour flight from Hong Kong to Boston.
Hellrigel:
Wow.
Michel:
I usually didn't take it because I had points on American Airlines. I would take American Airlines. The flight from Boston to Hong Kong was on Cathay Pacific.
Hellrigel:
Okay. A little better.
Michel:
[03:39:00] A cheap enough airline but I would take the American flight usually from Hong Kong to L.A. and then get an L.A. flight to Boston. What would be twenty-four hours, wound up more like thirty or thirty hours. I could use my points and I had enough status [03:39:20] that I could book a business class ticket at the time I booked a coach flight and just paid for the coach flight. I had like eight upgrades to do that, and I had to do it on a Tuesday or a Thursday. I had to do it at least four or five months in advance, [03:39:40] so my schedule was solid. But it is what it is.
Hellrigel:
As a global businessperson and all that, and IEEE, I would think over time and who knows what airfares and costs are going to look like post-COVID. [03:40:00]
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
When you consider the conferences and all those expenses, I couldn't even imagine having to budget for that, except that you're given a block sum of money and like, MGA, you got to make it work. [03:40:20] At the IEEE History Center we the expenses for the IEEE History Committee’s meetings and our other commitments. [We do not have a big budget.]
Michel:
I think that's the way it really is. I had to tell Toshi we didn't have the money in the MGA budget. We didn't budget for it. I don't know that that's ever going to change. What you're going to find, I think, [03:40:40] is that people are going to get more comfortable with Zoom meetings, virtual meetings, and WebEx meetings because they've been forced to do it. We had the Providence Section Ex-Com meeting Tuesday night, last night. [03:41:00] I ran it from here. Some of the people were in the restaurant, but most of us were attending the Zoom meeting. Those that want to gather, can gather, and those that don't, don't.
Hellrigel:
I think, and do you think, that would be an advantage for some of the most senior people that that don't want to travel at nighttime because maybe they can't drive at night? [03:41:20] Do you think Zoom could be a benefit, or maybe a hybrid meeting?
Michel:
It could be. I think it gets to people's motivation. Why are some people, I'm pretty convinced, on my Ex-Com, they're there because they want to get out and have a meal with [03:41:40] their friends. Other people, like me, didn't want to go out last night and COVID is running ramped in Southeast Massachusetts and Rhode Island. I'm going to run it from my desk. Most people agreed with me, and they didn't go to the meeting. [03:42:00] They Zoomed in.
Hellrigel:
Then you had the IEEE Foundation meeting via Zoom also?
Michel:
We did. And I guess, they announced at that meeting that the February in-person IEEE Board meeting has been turned to virtual.
Hellrigel:
[03:42:20] I think that was supposed to be Orlando?
Michel:
San Antonio.
Hellrigel:
San Antonio. That's right, San Antonio, Texas.
Michel:
Yes. We were going to have the IEEE Foundation meeting there, but now it's virtual. They're scrambling to find times because I guess with the IEEE [Board of Directors] meeting and its committees [03:42:40] and some of the Foundation [Board] members being on the committees, they got to sync all these things up again, I guess.
Hellrigel:
Yes. I just gave a paper at the IEEE Rising Stars Conference. It was originally supposed to be at 9 in the morning, but it got shifted to 3 in the afternoon, and it was like, whatever. [03:43:00] I am flexible.
Michel:
Whatever.
Hellrigel:
They had to find ways in which to organize the schedule, hook up the technology, and also IEEE's IT had to sit in on different meetings. It's different if you just go and set up the Power Point projector and walk down the hallway to the lecture.
Michel:
Right, right. [03:43:20] Right, right. Some of these technologies need babysitting.
IEEE Foundation
Hellrigel:
Then I guess our last topic and then we let you go. You've done all of this. You've accomplished all this and now you're on the IEEE Foundation Board of Directors.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
How did you get onto that task now? [03:43:40]
Michel:
I got asked.
Hellrigel:
Oh, and so Karen Galuchie phoned you or?
Michel:
No, I think it was Ralph Ford.
Hellrigel:
Okay. Ralph Ford, is the new IEEE Foundation President.
Michel:
President, yes. Ralph and I have been friends for a long time. [03:44:00] I was telling people at the Foundation meeting on Monday where you had to introduce yourself and tell them something funny. I told the people how I met Ralph. I was Region 1 Director and Ralph was Region 2 Director-elect. [03:44:20] I probably was a year ahead of him. I think they're staggered, even and odd years. Maybe I was two years ahead of him. We’re at one of these social events, and making chit-chat, idle conversation. We're both professors [03:44:40] talking and I said I'm teaching a senior's course and I'm using a book by whatever Ralph Ford. He said, that's me.
Hellrigel:
There he is.
Michel:
I said, oh, you're that Ralph Ford, and we've been friends ever since. [03:45:00] He was on the IEEE Board as a Director, and I was Vice President and I think he might've been on the Board when I was IEEE President or maybe President-elect.
Hellrigel:
Now you'll be on the IEEE Foundation’s Board, is it two years?
Michel:
Three years.
Hellrigel:
Three years. [03:45:20] It's an appointed group, so you know some of the people there?
Michel:
I got to know most of the people. A lot of IEEE volunteers I know. Some of the people are new, and I don't know them, but [03:45:40] most of the Board, I do.
Hellrigel: I guess he asked you, but at this point, you're retiring. You maybe want to travel. You are involved with the IEEE Foundation now. Are you still active in the Providence Section? [03:46:00] Anything else going on with you and IEEE?
Michel:
No. Not at IEEE. No. I think that's enough.
Hellrigel:
Okay. Right.
Michel:
I kind of have the sense, I've said this even when I was IEEE President, a lot of the IEEE presidents, hang around. [03:46:20] How can you be an IEEE Past President, and on a committee, and not have outsized influence on the committee? Or how can you take up a spot that a new volunteer can have and work his way into the organization and up? So, I don't really want to be in that position. If the right position [03:46:40] did come along in the IEEE, maybe would consider it.
Hellrigel:
Maybe an ad hoc committee or something like that.
Michel:
Something like that, yes. Something where I could contribute to a cause and make a difference or something, but I'm not looking for that. I'm not looking [03:47:00] to get tied down. I want to be able to do what I want to do when I want to do it. I am not able to travel. I'm at home sitting here looking at five tickets to London that I bought in November of 2019 for Spring of 2020. It's interesting, you know?
Hellrigel:
Yes. [03:47:20]
Michel:
We're going to take the family to London. Are we still going to do that?
Hellrigel:
You're going to take the what to London?
Michel:
The family to London.
Hellrigel:
Oh, the family. I have a little hearing issue, so for a minute, I thought you said Bentley. I'm like, okay.
Michel:
Oh, no. My wife and daughter wanted to go to this concert, heavy metal. They're into heavy metal, the two of them. [03:47:40] It's at a big theater in London by the Excel Center, down by the Canary Wharf or the river. [03:48:00] We have a gazillion Marriot points and I booked the Marriott Hotel. There's a Marriot Hotel down there that had like 150 different kinds of gin.
Hellrigel:
Wow.
Michel:
I could sit there and sample all the different gins and they could go to their concert. [03:48:20] We're going to be there for a week. I will take my daughter, her husband, my other daughter, and my wife.
Hellrigel:
Cool.
Michel:
Then COVID came. I've got the tickets. They're paid for, part money and part points. I cancelled the hotel room, so I got the points back.
Hellrigel:
[03:48:40] Maybe this summer you can take the trip.
Michel:
I hope so. My wife is saying the concert is back on for April, but we'll see what London is going to be like in April.
Hellrigel:
Oh, okay. I've got an IEEE gin story and then I will let you go.
Michel:
Oh.
Hellrigel:
I attended the superconductivity conference in Glasgow, Scotland in 2019 [EUCAS 2019, the 14th European Conference on Applied Superconductivity]. [03:49:00] I'm attending to record oral histories for the IEEE Counsel on Superconductivity, and instead of relying on the conference people for space I rented a small suite. It had two rooms, with one sleeping room and one living room next to it. I set up the technology once, and I can record any time of the day. Since I rented the suite, for some reason [03:49:20] hotel management must have thought I was some bigwig in IEEE because I got invited to a gin tasting.
Michel:
Oh, nice.
Hellrigel:
The tasting was down in the lobby at the bar and restaurant area. It was pretty cool, but I felt obliged to explain to the people beforehand that, yes, I was [03:49:40] staying with them for an entire week, but I wasn't a big fish to bring them future conferences. They said that was fine. Since I was there with IEEE and I was there for a week in a suite, I got invited to the gin tasting. [03:50:00]
Michel:
Nice. I have another gin story to tell you, and not related to IEEE, but an ARRL conference. They have a big one in Friedrichshafen, Germany every year, [03:50:20] and it’s across the lake from Zurich, Switzerland.
Hellrigel:
Oh, okay.
Michel:
People fly into Zurich, and then take the train to the ferry, to Friedrichshafen- -, which is what I did. My wife and I took an extra week, and we stayed in Zurich. We stayed in this Marriott [03:50:40] in Zurich because I like Marriott, so we stayed in Marriotts. They have beehives on their roof, and they harvest the honey. They make their own honey flavored gin [Gin N° 42 Honey Flavored Gin] that we had in the bar.
Hellrigel:
Oh, wow.
Michel:
It was great stuff. We brought a bottle of it home. So, many kinds [03:51:00] of gin, so little time, right?
Hellrigel:
True. There were a lot of craft gins and gins popular in Glasgow, Scotland. The dozen or so gins included Eden Mill, Crossbill, Harris, Botanist, and maybe a gin called Beehive something or other at the Scotland tasting. I do not recall all of them. A lot were infused with flowers and whatever. It was my first, and only, gin tasting.
Michel:
Okay. I wonder if they export it.
Closing remarks
Hellrigel:
I don't know, I have not looked for the Scottish gins at home in New Jersey.
We are coming to the end, so is there anything we did not cover?
Michel:
Let's see. We talked about my career. [03:51:20] We talked about IEEE, MGA, and the Region. Right? I think we covered it all.
Hellrigel:
But are there any favorite conferences that you attended as an IEEE member?
Michel:
I would say no. [03:51:40] I mean, conferences even when I was presenting research, I was never really thrilled with conferences. They're all kind of a room full of professors, presenting their research, [03:52:00], and I'm more of a hands-on kind of person. So, I think that's why my [IEEE] career kind of grew up in MGA, or Regional Activities as opposed to Technical Activities.
Hellrigel: I find it fun when I go to the [03:52:40] Applied Superconductivity Conference (ASC), especially when I roam around the exhibit room where the companies are showing off the new tech.
Michel:
So, not all the conferences, in fact, most of them don't do that. Most of them are just papers. Some of the bigger ones, like the [03:53:00] PES, is it P and T, Power and Transmission, I think, they have a big exhibit floor.
Hellrigel:
Yes, this conference attracts a couple thousand people.
Michel:
Yes. There used to be, [03:53:20] back when I was a student, an undergraduate student, there used to be the, I forget what it was called, but they had it every other year in New York and Boston, the electronic components and stuff like that. They had them in Madison Square Garden and you would walk around.
Hellrigel:
Oh, I know the one that you're talking about.
Michel:
[03:53:40] Region 1 used to sponsor that, I guess. They no longer have it. Companies have gone away doing those kinds of things, you know. But I like that; to look at things, to touch things, to see things more practical. I guess, same with my research. My research, [03:54:00] I prefer to do things that have a direct impactable impact as opposed to some theoretical finding. I think that's what I really like about my time at UBTECH. I built the company, I hired the engineers, we designed the product from only an idea, and we made something that worked that people around the world are buying. And it's real. I can see the result of it. You know?
Hellrigel:
Hopefully that'll get up and running again for you soon.
Michel:
Well, the company's still doing well. They had a robotic gaming kind of electronic show. One of the people that rate the products rated ours [03:54:20] as one of the top ten innovations. They have a humanoid child-size robot they call Walker because it has legs. They have one they call Cruzr because it has wheels. The one that they actually turned [03:54:40] Cruzr into, I think they're called AI bots, or something, but it has an ultraviolet light on it. They are selling it to companies to disinfect and it will do virtual navigation on its own at night and disinfect [03:55:00] schools, or department stores, or whatever.
Hellrigel:
Really? Maybe cruise ships?
Michel:
Yes, cruise ships. Yes, I wouldn't get on a cruise ship now for all the money in the world.
Hellrigel:
No, not now.
Michel:
They're a petri dish.
Hellrigel:
Yes. [03:55:20] Yes, a friend from high school visited her mother in Florida and then went on a cruise. I was saying to myself, I hope she doesn't visit her mother on the way back because everybody is cooped up on the ship and it is a prime environment for spreading disease.
Michel:
Yes. Yes.
Hellrigel:
When [03:55:40] I go down to the IEEE Operations Center [in Piscataway, New Jersey] every now and then, it's like a ghost town. They have arrows, indicating walk this way, or walk that way. But my office is right there, and the stairs are right there, but you go around. [This is the COVID-19 protocol.]
Michel:
You have to go around because they don’t want you passing anyone on the stairs.
Hellrigel:
Yes, [03:56:00] you can't pass anyone on the stairs. You've got to take your temperature and register on an app on the phone. [Then you can enter the building as long as you are masked.]
Michel:
Geeze.
Hellrigel:
The big question will be when we get back to the office, are we going to be able to hold meetings? [03:56:20] I've put together lunchtime history talks, but can we have meetings or are we going to have to hold Zoom and WebEx meetings at our desks?
Michel:
Oh, yes. Yes.
Hellrigel:
[In a meeting room, you have to be distanced.] The IEEE History Center has a small staff, so I guess the meeting room can handle our staff meetings. However, when I taught at universities, some of the history departments had forty or fifty people, if they get them all together, [counting the adjuncts]. [03:56:40] If they get them all together, then we were just cheek to jowl. So, I don't know.
Michel:
Yes, I don't know. I know UMass is opening virtually again. I don't know what the faculty will do. I still have friends there, but we have never talk about it. [I bet you, it is quite a process though]. [03:57:00] Faculty meetings are never a topic of discussion even when you are on the faculty.
Hellrigel:
IEEE meetings bring people from around the world. When I record Toshi's [Toshio Fukuda] presidential oral history, [03:57:20] it's going to be a lot about what didn't he get to do [during the pandemic].
Michel:
Yes, yes. I feel bad for Toshi. I mean, first non-North American-Asian president, I guess, right?
Hellrigel:
Yes. The first IEEE president elected from Region 10.
Michel:
Yes. Then the world shuts down.
Hellrigel: I've met him a couple of times. [03:57:40] His oral history was recorded by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society a few years back. I edited it. Yes, you kind of get up to the mountain, and then the door is shut.
Michel:
Yes, yes, yes. And there's no do-overs.
Hellrigel:
Right. The only thing is that [03:58:00] there might be a lot more activity once we can start traveling again. Maybe they'll bring back the Three P's plus one, or something.
Michel:
Yes, maybe.
Hellrigel:
You know, I don't know.
Michel:
There's a big back log of IEEE Milestones that you said were approved, so I guess the [dedication ceremonies] haven't been held.
Hellrigel:
Right. During COVID, they have been having virtual events for the IEEE Milestone dedication ceremonies, [but it took some time to pivot to that option. In addition, people hoped the lock-down would end quickly, so they decided to wait for in-person events, but the lock-down continued.]
Michel:
Okay.
Hellrigel:
I know [03:58:20] there are a couple of dedications planned, and they would be in person. But yes, I don't know.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
Anyway. Robert Colburn, [the staff IEEE Milestone program administrator] got the word out that in-person IEEE events were again possible, so some IEEE Milestone plaques have been ordered. And for [03:58:40] them (the plaques) to get to India, or elsewhere outside the U.S. you have to add extra months to the shipping time. [The plaque needs to arrive in time for the dedication ceremony.]
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
But who knows. Ray Liu [K.J. Ray Liu] is now the 2022 IEEE President. Toshi [Toshio Fukuda], is IEEE Past President. When Toshi was the 2020 IEEE President, his traveling was curtailed as was the travel of the two other Ps. Then in 2021, he was IEEE Past President and there was some travel.
Michel:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
[03:59:00] In terms of oral history, best practices used to favor in-person recordings. During the pandemic, the oral history societies have been holding meetings virtually, and [best practices have pivoted to include] recording oral histories virtually. It looks like the latter is a viable option and here to [03:59:20] stay because it is user friendly, cost effective, [and permits flexible scheduling].
Michel:
Yes. This worked for me.
Hellrigel:
Yes. I will get the digital file to the transcription company and a human will create the Word document. There will be a delay due to the pandemic and other projects.
Michel:
Okay.
Hellrigel:
Once I edit it, then I'll send it to you.
Michel:
[03:50:40] Okay.
Hellrigel:
Then you get to review the transcript and make corrections to things such as names and dates; “light editing”. You can also make very minor edits, but a transcript is a record of our conversation and not an essay to be edited and rewritten.
Michel:
Okay. Sounds good.
Hellrigel:
Good. Thank you very much for your time.
Michel:
Enjoyed it. Bye-bye.
Hellrigel:
Take care. Bye-bye, sir. [04:00:00]