Oral-History:James Jefferies
About James Jefferies
James Allen Jefferies (M’72-SM’06-LS’12), the 2018 IEEE President, was born in Cleveland, Ohio in November 1946, and spent much of his youth in Nebraska, graduating from Creighton Prep, where he captained the cross country team. In November 1963, while still a high school student, he joined the United States Navy Reserves and continued naval training during his undergraduate education. Jefferies received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Nebraska (1968); an M.S. in Engineering Science from Clarkson University (1975); and an M.S. in Management from Stanford University, Graduate School of Business (1988), attending the latter as a Sloan Fellow.
After graduating from the University of Nebraska and serving two years, in the United States Navy, Jefferies began his career in engineering and management. He is a retired AT&T and Lucent Technologies executive who in thirty-three years (1986-2000) rose from manufacturing engineer to Vice President. He worked directly with the Bell Labs teams that developed fiber optic cables, and he served as logistics Vice President responsible for worldwide supply chains, quality assurance, and export planning. More recently, Jefferies teamed with fellow Stanford Business School graduates in an entrepreneurial venture, USBuild.com, in San Francisco from 2000-2002.
Jefferies is an active member of both IEEE and IEEE – Eta Kappa Nu, and he has been elected to many offices, including 2018 IEEE President, 2015 IEEE-USA President, 2012-2013 Region 5 Director, and 2008 Denver Section Chair. In addition, he has served on the IEEE Board of Director and the IEEE-HKN Board of Governors, and he is an active volunteer and supporter within all areas of interest for IEEE including professional activities, technology policy, public policy, innovation, and entrepreneurship.
About the Interview
JAMES (JIM) JEFFERIES: An Interview conducted by Mary Ann Hellrigel, Center for the History of Electrical Engineering, 18 & 24 June 2024
Interview #917 for the Center for the History of Electrical Engineering, The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
Copyright Statement
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Request for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the IEEE History Center Oral History Program, IEEE History Center, 445 Hoes Lane, Piscataway, NJ 08854 USA or ieee-history@ieee.org. It should include identification of the specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the passages, and identification of the user.
It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows:
James (Jim) Jefferies, an oral history conducted in 2024 by Mary Ann Hellrigel, IEEE History Center, Piscataway, NJ, USA.
Interview
INTERVIEWEE: Jim Jefferies
INTERVIEWER: Mary Ann Hellrigel
DATE: 18 and 24 June 2024
PLACE: Virtual
Early life and education
Hellrigel:
[0:00:00] Today is June 18, 2024. I'm Mary Ann Hellrigel from the IEEE History Center. I'm the Institutional Historian and Archivist and Oral History Program Manager. Today I am [0:00:20] with James Jefferies. We’re recording Part One of his oral history via Webex. He’s the 2018 IEEE President, the 2015 IEEE-USA President, the 2012-2013 Region 5 Director, the [0:00:40] 2008 Denver Section Chair, U.S. Navy veteran, former employee of Western Electric, and retired from AT&T Lucent Technologies. Oh, and an Eta Kappa Nu member.
Jefferies:
Right.
Hellrigel:
Thank you for agreeing to record this. This [0:01:00] oral history is part of our initiative to record the oral histories of IEEE Past Presidents as part of the 140th anniversary of IEEE. Welcome, Sir.
Jefferies:
Thank you.
Hellrigel:
I’d like to start with if you could state your full name and the date and [0:01:20] place you were born. The birth year is fine if you don’t want to give too many details.
Jefferies:
[Laughing] Well, James Allen Jefferies. I was born in Cleveland, Ohio in November of 1946.
Hellrigel:
Cleveland, November in 1946, so [0:01:40] just after the end of the war [World War II].
Jefferies:
It was.
Hellrigel:
Could you tell me a bit about your parents, your mother, her name where she was born, education?
Jefferies:
Sure, my dad was from Cleveland, Ohio. He was [0:02:00] Donald William Jefferies. He was known as Jeff. My mother was Margaret Elizabeth Parsons, and she was from Fessenden, North Dakota. She was always known as Peg. It was Jeff and Peg when we were growing up as the parents. They met in Virginia. [0:02:20] My mother and her older sister had moved to Washington, D.C. during World War II and she had worked at IBM and some other places as a secretary. My dad was in the Navy. He had returned from Pacific Theater and was teaching electricity classes in Williamsburg [0:02:40] and they met at a USO dance. They were married in Williamsburg, Virginia. We moved back to Cleveland, Ohio where I was the firstborn.
Hellrigel:
Your mother, what was her level of education?
Jefferies:
She had gone to Wahpeton Business School, [Laughing], in North Dakota [0:03:00] and she used those secretarial skills to start with. That was as far as she went.
Hellrigel:
The name of that school again, Sir?
Jefferies:
It’s the Wahpeton Business School.
Hellrigel:
W-A-P-T-O-N?
Jefferies:
That’s a good guess. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
Okay, I'll look it up. That’s in North Dakota.
Jefferies:
[0:03:20] Correct.
Hellrigel:
What made her decide to become involved working, I guess indirectly, for the government during World War II?
Jefferies:
Yes, I'm not sure exactly. [0:03:40] Interesting story. She and her older sister had moved to Washington. They’d interviewed at IBM. The first time that Mary, her older sister, tried to take the shorthand test she failed it, but my mother passed it. My mother was hired. Then she talked them into giving her older [0:04:00] sister another try and she got in. Ultimately, Mary worked at IBM as an executive secretary for almost forty years and she stayed with the Typewriter Division. She said she wasn’t going with those computer things. She stayed with the IBM electric typewriter business for that whole [0:04:20] career. She only lived to be 105 in Washington, D.C.
Hellrigel:
Wow. That’s amazing. IBM, she also made the jump with IBM from manual to electric typewriters.
Jefferies:
Right. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
So that was a big change.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
From the pounding to the [0:04:40] tap, tap, tap.
Jefferies:
Exactly.
Hellrigel:
Did they come from a farm family in North Dakota?
Jefferies:
No, my grandfather was postmaster of Fessenden, North Dakota actually.
Hellrigel:
What was the name of the town again?
Jefferies:
Fessenden. [0:05:00] Actually one of her brothers, James, also worked on the mail trains when they used to sort the mail on the train and have overnight delivery across the country with the mail bags hanging on the hooks picked up by the trains going by, so they were very much into the postal side [0:05:20] of things.
Hellrigel:
That’s a true skill, having to hook them and unhook them.
Jefferies:
[Laughing] Absolutely.
Hellrigel:
How many children are in the family of your mother? She had a sister Mary.
Jefferies:
There were four children. There was an older sister. She was the youngest. Her older sister was Mary, a brother James. They worked on the mail trains. [0:05:40] Her other brother, Chet, actually lived ultimately in the Washington, D.C. area. He worked for the Agriculture Department, and he had gone to, I think, Kansas State University and had worked on basically agriculture and preservation of foods and things like that.
Hellrigel:
[0:06:00] After you mom and dad married, did she continue to work?
Jefferies:
No. She never worked again. She just raised the family. Ultimately, we were six kids [Laughing].
Hellrigel:
Six kids.
Jefferies:
Ultimately, yes.
Hellrigel:
We’ll jump to that in one moment. You’re the eldest. But to backtrack a little bit [0:06:20] about your dad, your dad Donald William, Jeff is what he went by, what was his education?
Jefferies:
It was just basically high school education at the time that he joined the Navy. His parents had actually moved [0:06:40] inside the Cleveland Metro Area. They’d moved to Shaker Heights so that he could have a good high school education. That was important. But beyond that, yes, he’d worked odd jobs. I knew he played in a band for a while. Then I'm not sure exactly when he joined the Navy relative to World War II but that was kind of [0:07:00] his lead up [phonetic] but he had not gone to college.
Hellrigel:
What’d your dad do in the Navy?
Jefferies:
He was an electrician. Electrician mate. I think, he served on the USS Cleveland, so back in those days, I guess you could request your hometown namesake ship. [0:07:20] [Laughing].
Hellrigel:
Oh, wow.
Jefferies:
He worked on some other ships, too. He used to tell a story about coming back to the United States to take on the teaching assignment on a badly damaged ship. He did a lot of repairs on the way back in the interior communication systems. Those were the classes that he taught at Norfolk.
Hellrigel:
Okay, [0:07:40] then he’ll be discharged from the Navy? They moved back to Cleveland?
Jefferies:
[They] moved back to Cleveland and my mother encouraged him to take the GI Bill and go to college, but he didn’t want to do that. He had worked for Western Electric before the war as an installer. He was, [0:08:00] I think, good at what he did, and he was a little bit of an expert. There was a big boom in telecommunications expansion in the country. In particular, the toll switching: the first time the ability to direct dial. It was being down with 4-A crossbar systems and that was one of his specialties. He liked what he was doing, and he said I'm not going to go to college [0:08:20] right now. But I will come to some more about that later. That’s where he started. We were in Cleveland but moving around became the norm. Because you would install an office and then they would do another office in a different place, another office in a different place and once you were in that kind of a cycle, [0:08:40] that’s what was happening. We lived in Indianapolis; we lived in Minneapolis temporarily. Ultimately ended up in Omaha and when I was a four-year-old.
Hellrigel:
Yes, I think that was a big switching center for the phone companies.
Jefferies:
It was.
Hellrigel:
Okay, yes, I could be wrong [0:09:00] there’s six of you and you’re the eldest. Then five more.
Jefferies:
Yes, we’re in Omaha. I said I'm a four-year-old. It’s time to start school. My next oldest sibling had just been born eleven months after me, [0:09:20] so we’re only eleven months apart and it came time to start kindergarten. Under the rules of the time, we would have been in the same class because we were November and October birthdays. My parents didn’t think that was a good idea. I don’t know what criteria they went through, but they determined that [0:09:40] I must be mature enough to start kindergarten at four. I started kindergarten. I was always the young one in the class. Everybody else had their driver’s license before me and things like that [Laughing] because I started school when I was four. I went to a one-room school just a few blocks away. That following summer [0:10:00] we did have kind of a crisis actually. We were on vacation back in Cleveland in the middle of the summer when I was five. I got up one morning and I started to eat breakfast and I couldn't swallow anything because my throat was paralyzed, and I had polio. [0:10:20]
Hellrigel:
What? Oh, my God.
Jefferies:
I was diagnosed with polio. It was part of the polio epidemic. It happened in the early 1950s. The way I remember the story, they kind of told my parents that they didn’t have to worry about me being paralyzed for life or in an iron lung, I was going to have a strain of polio that I was going to recover, or I wasn’t, [0:10:40] but I did. Laughing] It all worked out. It was a pretty traumatic summer though.
Hellrigel:
Did you get isolated in a sanitarium or anything?
Jefferies:
No, it was just a giant ward in the hospital at the Cleveland Clinic. Actually, just a bed separated by curtains kind of a thing [0:11:00] in a big children’s ward. There wasn’t a whole lot they could do. I’d say it really was, are you going to recover or you’re not.
Hellrigel:
Wow. Did any of your siblings also contract polio?
Jefferies:
No, it was just me. I think we got it at a swimming hole that we’d been at the week before we went on vacation, but [0:11:00] we’ll never know.
Hellrigel:
Yes, that was common. They closed down swimming holes and swimming pools across the country.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
Wow.
Jefferies:
It was going on. But it all worked out and no long-lasting effects or anything, it it’s just one of those things.
Hellrigel:
Well, you and your folks must have been very [0:11:40] thrilled. It was a frightening time.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
After you were born, eleven months later you have a brother.
Jefferies:
Sister.
Hellrigel:
Sister.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
Then four more.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
It was a real baby boom.
Jefferies:
Yes. [0:12:00] It became kind of an interesting period. We were in Omaha, and I got started in kindergarten, but then it was time to make additional moves. We came back from Cleveland on vacation. Then I went to first grade in Omaha. Then in second grade, we moved to Rapid City, South Dakota. [0:12:20] We had rented a house in downtown Rapid City, not too far from the telephone office in the middle of Rapid City. I went to school there. But the surprising thing was their education system was really advanced from where I had been in Omaha. They were already doing cursive which we hadn’t even seen before. They were pretty well advanced in [0:12:41] math. I had an interesting period of time catching up with things. Fortunately, my grandparents were also staying with us in Rapid City. My grandfather and grandmother helped me a lot. I can remember doing crossword puzzles with my granddad and things like that. [0:13:00] It was very helpful. That’s when the third sibling was born. My sister, Barbara, was born, and was an infant in Rapid City. It was a very interesting place to be. Every weekend we could go to the Badlands and Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills and Deadwood. I remember it as [0:13:20] a very interesting time.
Hellrigel:
Well, I know that Dick Gowen lived in Rapid City because I visited him and his wife at their home.
Jefferies:
He did.
Hellrigel:
I visited him and recorded his oral history in his home.
Jefferies:
Oh, nice. Yes.
Hellrigel:
A lovely city. I went to those tourist sites, too.
Jefferies:
Yes. It’s something. We [0:13:40] lived in Rapid City. Then the next move was actually third grade. I was in Davenport, Iowa over the Mississippi River. I moved to Davenport but that was a little bit of a difficult year. There wasn’t a lot of housing availability in Davenport. We ended up in kind of a tract home [0:14:00] development that had been built on an open field with no trees and no garages and small houses. There was no school. The schools were actually five homes that had been converted and each one was a different class. They’d taken the homes and taken some of the walls out and they became the classrooms.
Hellrigel:
Wow.
Jefferies:
It was really an odd situation. [0:14:20] They were backwards. They wanted me to print again. This is when I became a bit of a belligerent student. [Laughing] I didn’t really want to do this. But I was back to printing. A complete setback and we’re kind of in the middle of nowhere and my dad was traveling a lot to [0:14:20] other places like Mason City, Iowa and small towns he wasn’t even home. It was really kind of a tough time. It was at that time that my dad wrote a letter and we found it in his papers actually when he passed away. He wrote a letter [0:15:00] saying that he couldn't continue to operate like this. He had to find a different kind of position within the Bell System. What happened was he did find another position working with Northwestern Bell in Omaha on a permanent basis. That ended the traveling around by fourth grade. [0:15:20] We had moved to a home in Omaha. We were much more settled in and getting back to normalcy, but Davenport kind of triggered some of that. It was not the best.
Hellrigel:
Oh. Did your grandparents move from Rapid City to Davenport?
Jefferies:
No, no, they went back [0:15:40] to Cleveland.
Hellrigel:
Okay.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
Was your grandfather retired at that time?
Jefferies:
They were both retired, yes. He had retired fairly early. He’d been a guard at a factory, but he had some very severe arthritis and he also [0:16:00] had a lot of gastro issues. Yes, he wasn’t in the best of health.
Hellrigel:
This must have been very good for your mother that now she had a steady space, and your dad would be home more regularly.
Jefferies:
Yes. Yes, it was good in that sense. Now my mother [0:16:20] never drove a car. It was interesting. The house that we bought in North Omaha where we’d lived, we lived there all the way through the time we got out of the Navy, was so conveniently located. At the bottom of the hill was the movie theater, the barber shop and the grocery store was a block away. [0:16:40] The hardware store was two blocks away. The school was two blocks away. The bus stop at the bottom of the hill took us anywhere we wanted to go in the city, so it was a very, very neighborhood kind of a thing. Lots of kids in the neighborhood and it was kind of like your little neighborhood enclave kind of a thing [0:17:00] and it worked out. It worked out really well.
Hellrigel:
She continued to have kids. She had Barbara in Rapid City. Then when she went back to Omaha, she would have three more?
Jefferies:
Yes. We had Judy, Jean, and Bob, so it was four sisters and [0:17:20] my youngest sibling was my brother, Bob. It’s interesting, we were I don't know, twelve, thirteen years apart, so it was like I was leaving for college before he started speaking. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
Wow.
Jefferies:
Our relationship has developed more later. It really wasn’t there [Laughing] at the time. [0:17:40] Things worked out well in that third, fourth, and fifth grade. It was just kind of an easygoing time. Everything was accessible. We just got along well in there. Then we moved on into junior high school. Omaha Public Schools had built a [0:18:00] brand new series of junior high schools; seventh, eighth, and ninth grade schools. They just finished it. It wasn’t even completely finished when I started going there. Again, it was walking and biking distance from the house. Things went along just fine with that. I got into ninth grade [0:18:20] and things were going very well for me. I was a four sport athlete. I was a Straight A student. Things were really just kind of clicking along. I was extremely active in the Boy Scouts, and I was probably approaching Eagle Scout at that time which I ultimately did complete. I had a lot of activities [0:18:40] going on, but my parents had another idea. That was maybe I should switch schools. Creighton University is in Omaha. Creighton Prep, a Jesuit school, had [0:19:00] always held their classes on the Creighton University campus in Omaha. They had built a brand new school, probably in I don’t know, 1960 maybe, out on the west side of town. That created some opportunities. I actually interviewed out there and switched to [0:19:20] Creighton Prep, the Jesuit School, as a sophomore I came in. I had done the right prep for the classes and things, so it was a move that we could make. It turned out to be very important to me, influential.
Hellrigel:
Why did they want you to switch?
Jefferies:
Well, of course my dad was [0:19:40] not a Catholic. My mother was. We, the children, were raised as Catholics that was the agreement. But the other side of the agreement was we were going to go to public schools and not parochial schools. We had always gone to public schools. I think it just was the quality of the academics and that turned out to be absolutely true. [0:20:00] The quality of the education. We would study Latin and what I was studying as a freshman -- I took Latin, but it was almost like made up stories. Then I go out to Creighton Prep and I'm reading Cicero and Virgil’s epic poem the Aeneid. [Laughing] This is two different [0:20:20] scales of things. Ultimately, the education that I got at Creighton Prep was outstanding. That was what was behind it.
Hellrigel:
Did you become an Eagle Scout?
Jefferies:
I did, [0:20:40] but I had a little problem at the end. I didn’t want to do the last couple of merit badges and my mother -- I think she locked me in my room until I finished the last two merit badges. You needed help sometimes to finish these things up.
Hellrigel:
She wanted you to focus.
Jefferies:
She did.
Hellrigel:
[0:21:00] Now, when you went to Creighton, did you continue to play sports?
Jefferies:
Yes, but coming in as a sophomore was a little bit different. I did go out for the cross country team. Ultimately, I was captain of the cross country team and did a lot in track. Those were my two [0:21:20] main sports. I did not go into the football and basketball thing. I didn't really have the teamwork experience to do those well. But I could run.
Hellrigel:
You’re in the sports and you’re into Boy Scouts, so any other activities?
Jefferies:
Those were the main things. Those were the main things. [0:21:40] I had a good group of friends, but we were all over the city. It’s different when you go to (1) an all boy’s school; and (2) everybody there is from all over the city. It’s not like a geographically centered north high school and south high school which the public schools were. I had friends from all over the city.
Hellrigel:
Did your brother, Bob, ultimately go to Creighton Prep?
Jefferies:
He did not. No. No. By 1969 or so my parents sold the house in North Omaha and moved out to West Omaha and there was a school district there. It was called District 66. [0:22:20] It was the best of the public schools. That’s where he went, yes.
Hellrigel:
Were your sisters encouraged to go to some kind of prep schools?
Jefferies:
Actually, the switch that happened is after I went to prep, my sister went to Notre Dame Academy which was a [0:22:40] Catholic school, a Catholic private school in North Omaha. But there was a switch over to going to parochial schools after I went to prep school. The agreement from the past kind of went away.
Hellrigel:
This is the other sister, not Barbara. What’s your other sister’s name?
Jefferies:
Kathy. [0:23:00]
Hellrigel:
Notre Dame is probably all girls.
Jefferies:
It was, which was good for me because I got to meet a lot of her friends. [Laughing].
Hellrigel:
Oh. Okay. [Laughing] They probably, yes, wanted you to pay.
Jefferies:
Exactly. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
[0:23:20] Did you have any part-time jobs?
Jefferies:
I did. Our next-door neighbor was a German immigrant who was a painter. He had a contract in a downtown office building. One summer I worked with him as a painter’s helper. [0:23:40] Learned to wallpaper, learned to do papering, do painting. In this office building anything that was to be done, any office updates, we did. That was kind of an interesting summer. The other thing that happened late in my [0:24:00] high school career, in November of 1963, I joined the Navy in my senior in high school just after my seventeenth birthday.
Hellrigel:
This is straight up right into the Navy Reserve or ?
Jefferies:
Yes. Yes. It’s interesting. A buddy and I [0:24:20] were talking about this. I didn’t even know how this came up between us, but we decided we were going to join the Navy Reserve. It’s interesting that Fort Omaha, and you would never expect this, happened to be the headquarters of the Naval Reserve Training Command. Now what that office was doing in the middle of the country, I have no idea. Fort Omaha had been there [0:24:40] since [1868 when it opened as a supply depot]. It’s in North Omaha, it had been there since the frontier days [Laughing] and different incarnations but it was there and that’s where it was. We could walk to the meetings. It was a difficult time back then because the draft was active. [0:25:00] There was no lottery thing. You were somewhat uncertain about possibilities if you didn’t take charge of the outcomes. We decided we were going to do this. We went down and signed up for the Navy Reserve. We got paid. Actually, all the time I was in college it helped pay for college. [0:25:20] We signed up in the Navy.
Hellrigel:
Did your friend make a career in the Navy?
Jefferies:
No, he didn’t go on to college, so he ended up going on active duty a lot sooner. The agreement was you’re deferred all the time you’re in college and then you have a maximal commitment of two years. [0:25:40] It was one of those things where you can get the least amount of active duty time [Laughing] and you can build up rank. We'll talk about that maybe a little bit later. It was just something that we did.
Hellrigel:
Wow. Well, your dad was Navy, so you’re going [0:26:00] Navy.
Jefferies:
Larry’s dad had been Navy, too. [Laughing] It was kind of all fit in.
Hellrigel:
Did the high school have a junior ROTC program?
Jefferies:
No, it was completely independent. You just went down and you signed up to the Naval Reserve. You took the oath, got your uniforms and [0:26:20] sea bag, and you had to go to boot camp. You had to go to two weeks of training every year. Then you were obligated to active duty once your deferments were gone.
Hellrigel:
Then college would be paid for, so you didn’t have to worry about burdening your folks.
Jefferies:
[0:26:40] Well, not quite. You were paid for going to the drills. They didn’t pay for college. It was just pay as a seaman.
Hellrigel:
So, it’s not like ROTC.
Jefferies:
No, no. It’s not. But then that’s how you get the lower commitment levels.
Hellrigel:
Oh, okay. Two years as opposed to… [0:27:00]
Jefferies:
I was busy. Those high school years were great. Just everything about that was a positive thing and got to graduation. But of course, the Navy thing is going to play a big role for the next six years of my life. As soon as I graduated from high school, [0:27:20] it was time to go to boot camp the summer of 1964. I had a month in San Diego; two weeks in boot camp and two weeks of training. The most exciting thing, you got to get a free trip and free entry to Disneyland [0:27:40] which was new at the time. [Laughing] Hop on a bus in San Diego and go to Disneyland. It was all a really good experience. We got paid for the month and that kind of took care of my first summer before I was ready to start college.
Hellrigel:
Did this make your mother nervous?
Jefferies:
I don’t think it did. But you’ve got to remember, we joined [0:28:00] a peacetime Navy.
Hellrigel:
Right.
Jefferies:
That all changed. In fact, I remember the night it happened. Larry and I were on a camping trip and listening to the radio. They started talking about the Gulf of Tonkin and suddenly we realized we were no longer in a peacetime Navy. We were in a [0:28:20] wartime Navy.
Hellrigel:
Yes.
Jefferies:
That was a big shift. I finished boot camp and that was an interesting experience.
Hellrigel:
Why was it a big shift?
Jefferies:
It was just it’s not a very big commitment. A two-week boot camp is not a big commitment. [0:28:40] They ask you silly questions like does anybody know how to march. I put my hand up. That’s how I became Master at Arms of the boot camp company. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
[Laughing] They saw leadership in you.
Jefferies:
Exactly. [Laughing] It seems like I’ve always moved to leadership positions in organizations [0:29:00] I join, even boot camps. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
Volunteer.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
[Laughing].
Jefferies:
Exactly. This is just a funny experience. I think we’ve drove one drill instructor out of the Navy though. One weekend, I think the first weekend we were there, the officers [0:29:20] in the company were in his office on the weekend. He wasn’t there. We were playing bridge. They were teaching me how to play bridge. He came in on the weekend and surprised us in the office, so everybody jumps up, attention on deck kind of a thing. He says, now, poker is not allowed here, and I said, well, I was just about to bid two hearts. [Laughing] [0:29:40]
Hellrigel:
[Laughing]
Jefferies:
He just shook his head. He walked out. He may have resigned the next week. I don’t know. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
Yes, he probably expected to have you drinking Scotch and playing poker.
Jefferies:
Exactly. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
Making all sorts of big plans. [Laughing]
Jefferies:
Exactly. Exactly. It was [0:30:00] an interesting experience.
Then it was time to start college. I was always interested in electrical engineering. It’s one of those things that I’d been writing on my “what’s your career objective” since the fourth grade kind of a thing. The University of Nebraska was right there. It was the economic option. I did have a work [0:30:20] scholarship, so I worked sweeping floors in the dorms and a few other things to help pay for it. I had the money coming in from the Navy and my parents put in the rest to kind of get things started. I went down to the University of Nebraska and my roommate was a friend, a high school [0:30:40] friend that I had had for a long time. It was really easy to get started and settled into the university.
My education had been so strong that I think the first semester I didn’t see anything I didn’t already know whether it was in math or in chemistry. I mean it just… but my roommate, for example, [0:31:00] struggled a little bit and he would bring me his problems and I’d help him. I’d say I wouldn’t do it this way, this is too hard. Don’t look at that problem this way. This is easy [Laughing] if you look at it a different way. But that’s just kind of the way it was. It was a big help. I got off to a good start in college and really enjoyed everything [0:31:20] we were doing.
Hellrigel:
In college, did you look into running track or cross country?
Jefferies:
No, I wasn’t that good. I wasn’t that good. It’s fun to be captain, but there were people on the team that were faster than me in high school. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
But you were the leader.
Jefferies:
I was. In fact, there were several people who were on the team that ultimately did run track at the University [0:31:40] of Nebraska. I mean really good athletes.
Hellrigel:
Did you think of any other school, such as Creighton University?
Jefferies:
I really didn't. It was kind of a laser focus sort of thing. They had a good electrical engineering program and that’s what I wanted to do. It was affordable. It was [0:32:00] near home. Everything just lined up, so I didn’t even look at other schools.
Hellrigel:
I think then you would become a Cornhusker.
Jefferies:
Absolutely. [Laughing] If you’re in Omaha, you’re already a Cornhusker. [Laughing] We used to joke that every Sunday [0:32:20] the newspaper would have one section that was in color and that was the sports section. It would highlight the best plays of the previous weekend.
Hellrigel:
Your archrival was Iowa State?
Jefferies:
Not really. It was Oklahoma.
Hellrigel:
Oklahoma.
Jefferies:
[0:32:41] Oklahoma, oh yes. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
What did you do for fun during college?
Jefferies:
The first couple of years were kind of serious. That freshman year, I would say I was just sort of getting adapted and getting settled in. The second year was a funky year. [0:33:00] The second year in college basically my roommate had wanted to move to a new dormitory that they were building that was quite a way off campus. I didn’t want to go over there, so we didn’t stay together. He moved over to the new dorm. I had a new roommate that I didn’t even really know. I continued to work in the [0:33:20] cafeteria. I served the food every night. A few things like that. I had the best job ever. I was the milkman in the morning. My job was to go down to the cooler and get a couple of twenty-five-gallon cans of milk, bring them up on a platform, and put it in the machine. [0:33:40] Then I would sit there and wait for the machine to run out of milk and then put the other can in. [Laughing] I got paid to do this. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
[Laughing] They would get it with their glass.
Jefferies:
Everybody would put their glass in, and the little pump would pump the milk into the glass each time.
Hellrigel:
Did you volunteer for milkman? [0:34:00] Did you have a choice?
Jefferies:
I think they just gave me that job. I don’t recall choosing it. It was kind of an interesting one. The second year, it seemed like the academics weren’t exciting to me. I wasn’t doing that great in school. The academics weren’t that exciting to me. I was in a dormitory with a lot of football players. Interestingly enough, [0:34:20] I was the athletic intramural director for the dormitory floor. If we had a basketball game or something, I would just put a sign up on the bathroom door: an intramural basketball game, Thursday night, 7:00 o'clock. Then I’d see who’d show up. Who would show were all American football players. [0:34:40] This is like all-American running backs and all-American tight ends would come down and they were the basketball team. We won [Laughing] the trophy pretty easily. They let me play once in a while and they let me pick up the trophy at the end of the season. We had a pretty good basketball team.
Hellrigel:
[0:35:00] I guess they couldn't play flag football or anything, they were busy.
Jefferies:
Yes. Yes.
Hellrigel:
Did you go home on weekends or stay on campus?
Jefferies:
I used to sometimes. It was a mixed bag. It was easy. I think it was a couple of dollars to take the bus home. It was sixty miles from Lincoln, and sixty miles from [0:35:20] Omaha. In fact, the second year I think I went home more than I did in the first year. Kind of went through that. I finished off the second year in school and as I say, I didn’t have the best feelings about everything.
Then that summer [0:35:40] I worked at Western Electric. Obviously, my dad had some connections. He still had some connections, so I worked as a summer employee at Western Electric. We were working in Grand Island, Nebraska which is ninety miles west. They assigned us to this big project out in Grand Island. It was [0:36:00] such a big project that they were willing to work seven days a week, twelve hours a day if you wanted to. Oh, I made so much money to pay for the next couple of years of college, it was great. There were four of us living in a motel on the edge of town, a Holiday Inn. Four of us in one room. That went on for a little while, [0:36:20] but that got a little old. Eventually, I moved to a private home and rented closer to the office. That was a very busy summer. Plus, I didn’t have to meet up with anybody to get a ride to downtown and things like that, so it kind of worked out. Funny story.
Hellrigel:
[0:36:40] You’re doing wiring? What kind of work are you doing?
Jefferies:
This was mainly wiring and cabling and things like that. Actually, the big project, it was a project called Operation Turnkey. All of the long distance calls in the United States at that time were done by microwave. If you remember the telephone offices all had little towers on top of them. [0:37:00] Well, the signals weren’t strong enough. A lot of the repeating equipment was located at the top of the towers which created some problems. Turnkey was to move all the equipment back down into the building, so that’s what it was about. Some kind of a rewiring model and then the towers so that the equipment was located inside [0:37:20] and had better strength and better capacity. It was a big project. It’s what kept us busy. But it was funny, later at the university I ran into a girl from Grand Island who had been a maid at that motel. She’s telling me a story about these four guys that had lived in the motel and how she hated cleaning up [0:37:40] their room. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
[Laughing] Because you guys were slobs?
Jefferies:
She was talking to me. [Laughing] It was a great summer. Then I decided that I wanted to do something different. I started my junior year and I decided to go through a fraternity rush. As a junior, this is kind of [0:38:00] unusual. Most fraternities do not want to bring a junior into a class with a lot of freshmen as a pledge. Fortunately, in that process, I found the right fraternity.
I joined Theta Chi Social Fraternity which was very academically oriented. The most important trophy in our house was [0:38:20] the Pledge Son, Pledge Father Scholarship [Trophy] Award for the highest [combined] GPA. I fit right in and even as a pledge they’d already asked me if I’d be the treasurer and officer the following year. I was only there two years, but it was a great experience on the social side. [0:38:40]
I went through that and continued to go to the meetings, Navy meetings, although a big change had happened. The Vietnam War was heating up and they were running out of money, so they stopped paying us. They also said since we’re not paying you, you don’t have to come to the meetings. Okay. [0:39:00] There were a couple of years I didn’t really have to even go to the meetings.
Hellrigel:
But you got credit for being in the Reserves.
Jefferies:
Exactly. They continued to credit the time. Ultimately, when it came down to graduation, of course, the other important thing [0:39:20] that happened in my senior year is I met Gloria who would ultimately be my wife at an event and we started dating. She was a sophomore at the University of Nebraska. I was a senior and as soon as I graduated, I was going to have the military commitment. [0:39:40] As I said earlier that military thing was going to be carried through pretty strongly here. I had that commitment coming up. But it was a great opportunity to meet. I went on and graduated, four years with the E.E. (electrical engineering) degree. Then it was just a matter of time until the [0:40:00] orders came in to go out to Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay for assignment
Hellrigel:
Wow.
Jefferies:
It was a difficult time. Vietnam was peaking. A lot of people were getting orders to riverboats and things in Vietnam and there were serious questions in my mind about how this was [0:40:20] all going to play out. But it turned out and the way it works you go out there, they give you your physicals and all things and you do interviews and then you wait for your name to appear on the board. When your name shows up, you go up to the window and they tell you where you’re going. Well, my time came, I went to the window, and [0:40:40] they handed me a packet. The packet said you can spend two days in Omaha and then go to Norfolk because you’re flying to Guantanamo Bay. I said okay. It said your ship is in Guantanamo Bay. It just had its first overhaul. You’ll be an electronics technician on the guided [0:41:00] missile destroyer stationed in Charleston, South Carolina for the next couple of years. I ended up in the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean and not in the middle of the other conflict.
Hellrigel:
You are stationed out of Charleston, but you wouldn’t be in Charleston too [0:41:20] often.
Jefferies:
We were on deployment almost all the time. People who were on the ship that were married and things, it was terrible. We got back from Guantanamo Bay. We had a two-week notice to make a Mediterranean deployment. We were gone for seven months. We came back for a few weeks, got [0:41:40] another deployment and we were back in the Mediterranean almost the entire time our ship was underway. Yes.
Hellrigel:
Wow. Did you get to see any cool places?
Jefferies:
Lots of cool places actually. [Laughing] Yes, I always tell the story. The first major port that we ended up in was [0:42:00] Genoa, Italy. I took a tour to Florence and Pisa; the Uffizi Gallery and the Leaning Tower and it was amazing. Gloria, of course, was back at the University of Nebraska. She was an art major. She’s studying art, but I'm there [0:42:20] [Laughing] looking at the David and enjoying everything in Florence
Hellrigel:
Did you send postcards? Picture books?
Jefferies:
We wrote almost every day. It was kind of weird because we would only get mail of course when we refueled or met up for replenishment things. It would always [0:42:40] come in bulk. The same for her. They would always come in bulk, and they would go out in bulk.
Hellrigel:
At this point, you’re the electronics tech on the ship. What’s your rank?
Jefferies:
I'm an E-5, Second Class Petty Officer. [0:43:00] I had more than four years of service the day I went on the ship. I guess it’s kind of an interesting story. I was the most senior electronics technician, but I’d never been on a ship.
Hellrigel:
[Laughing]
Jefferies:
I’d never been trained on any piece of equipment on a ship [0:43:20] specifically. I did have an E.E. degree, so I wasn’t unskilled. I really had nothing like that going forward. The first day we were back in Charleston, the Petty Officer that I replaced is discharged. He leaves the ship. The question is: who’s going to take over? [0:43:40] That first morning, the senior officer who would have taken over if I hadn’t showed up, handed me the muster chits and he said, well, I guess you got it. I just took over. It was interesting. A year later, I was meeting with the [0:44:00] Electronics Materiel Officer who is in charge of the Electronics Group and he said, I always wanted to ask you how you got in charge. I know the Chief didn’t ask you and I didn’t ask you. They came up that first morning and I just was in charge.
Hellrigel:
I'm not a Navy [0:44:20] person, E-5 that’s not an officer?
Jefferies:
That’s like a sergeant.
Hellrigel:
Okay.
Jefferies:
Yes. Yes, that kind of level, yes.
Hellrigel:
I guess to them you were pretty mature if you came out of college.
Jefferies:
Yes, I was totally comfortable with everything, but there was a lot of learning, too. You’ve never even seen the pieces of equipment, [0:44:40] but you’re supposed to maintain it. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
At this point, and this might be off topic, did the Navy give you a swimming test?
Jefferies:
Well, in a way.
Hellrigel:
[Laughing].
Jefferies:
When you were in boot camp, well, they had one test where you had to actually jump off like you [0:45:00] would jump off the side of a ship. So, they had a platform and you had to jump into the water and then you had to take off your bell bottom pants and use it as a flotation. It was a little bit of a training thing but there is a swimming test. I don’t think they’ll throw you out if you can’t swim but [Laughing].
Hellrigel:
Yes, I would [0:45:20] think that would be… well, the stress level might be minimized if you knew how to swim. [Laughing]
Jefferies:
Yes. Yes.
Hellrigel:
Did you enjoy being in the Navy?
Jefferies:
I enjoyed the places we went. It was interesting to me, a different set of people. I remember one time. [0:45:40] I talked to these guys, and they said we’re going to Daytona Beach this weekend, do you want to come from Charleston? I said, yes, that sounds like fun. I figured we were going to the beach. It turns out we weren’t going to the beach; we were going to the Speedway.
Hellrigel:
Oh.
Jefferies:
[Laughing] You learn different things. Different perspectives that people have. [Laughing] [0:46:00] I never saw the beach, but we got a good tour of the Speedway.
Hellrigel:
Yes, the car people.
Jefferies:
Exactly. I enjoyed it. It was a bit of a grind because of so much time at sea. I came back on leave a couple of times. Gloria and I [0:46:20] got engaged. This is kind of a funny story. We did a remote pinning ceremony. In fraternities and sororities there’s a pinning ceremony where you can give your fraternity pin to your girlfriend. It was kind of a pre-engagement sort of thing. [0:46:40] We did one remotely. My fraternity brothers went over to her sorority house. I called in. I don’t even remember from where. They sang the songs and did the thing [Laughing], and we did it remotely. We tried to keep in touch that way. We got married as soon as I got out. [0:47:00] I was discharged in early 1970. I got out of the Navy. It’s funny, you just walk off the ship and it’s over.
Hellrigel:
Did you have any interest in staying in the Reserve?
Jefferies:
No. Not at all. It was an experience for what [0:47:20] it was worth. The discussion I had with the captain that you have when you’re coming out: he talked about re-upping and they’d give me another higher rank and I said, no, I don’t think this wartime thing is for me.
Hellrigel:
What happened to your friend from high school?
Jefferies:
He didn’t go onto college. He went in on active duty. He ended [0:47:40] up stationed on a radar picket ship in New Zealand. He met a girl, and he married her, but it didn’t last very long. He just had a whole different experience.
Hellrigel:
When you’re in the Navy, are [0:48:00] you getting the New York Times or what? How do you plan your next step?
Jefferies:
It’s hard. You can listen to Armed Forces Radio when you’re in port. Usually, not when you’re at sea. If you are out thirty days and you haven’t pulled into port, you are kind of behind things. In fact, I always remember the funniest experience I had was when I was sitting on the mess decks one morning [0:48:20] and they said the astronauts will be landing on the moon tomorrow. That was a surprise to me.
Hellrigel:
[Laughing]
Jefferies:
[Laughing] I said what. Who’s going to the moon? You do get kind of disconnected in that sense.
Hellrigel:
They landed on the moon in 1969, and the year before, 1968, was a crazy time.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinated, and [0:48:40] student unrest. When you would get news intermittently it would be a big dump.
Jefferies:
Yes. Yes. But not a lot. Mainly it was just the Armed Forces Radio and music when you were in port. [Laughing] If you’re in a foreign port, [0:49:00] it’s not English.
Hellrigel:
Right, right. At any time, were they ever talking about shipping you to Vietnam or somewhere else?
Jefferies:
No. Once the assignment was made that was the assignment. I went through the deployment and [0:49:20] actually at the end, again, they were running out of money, and I got an early out. I only served one year and nine months because they just couldn't afford it.
Hellrigel:
Wow.
University of Nebraska, Western Electric, AT&T and Lucent
Jefferies:
I finished that and came back. Gloria and I got married. [0:49:40] Then it was time to look for a job. I began to interview with some companies. Western Electric was a big factory in Omaha, and I did interview out there. A number of people that I talked to as hiring managers knew my dad because he was active in the Engineers Club. [0:50:00] My dad actually had advanced a little bit at Northwestern Bell. He was in the Engineering Department. He had become a Registered Professional Engineer even though he had never gone to college. He passed the test, and he became a registered engineer, so they knew him. I got a pretty good job offer to get started. I began working in a cable and [0:50:20] wire factory working on test set design and working on process control for producing copper wire cables.
Hellrigel:
Did they match you with that or is that what they needed?
Jefferies:
That’s just kind of what they needed. I had several different offers, and I chose the one in the Wire and Cable [0:50:40] Department instead of the Switching Department. That changed pretty quickly anyway because I was enjoying everything I was doing, and I was going to school again. I was back working on a master’s degree a couple of nights a week at the University of Nebraska in control theory. I was keeping up with the education [0:51:00] and then moved on. One day my boss asked a seemingly innocuous question. That was: do you plan to be an engineer all your career. I hadn’t really thought about that question, but I had taken business classes for my electives in undergraduate [0:51:20] school. I said, no, probably not. Within about three weeks I was out on the production floor supervising the building of relays [Laughing]. Not too long after that I had a chance to get my first promotion as a department head [0:51:40] for the same department that I had been supervising before. That kind of started me very early into a management kind of a cycle and exposed me to a lot of new things.
Hellrigel:
You got your B.S. from the University of Nebraska. Then you [0:52:00] are in the master’s program at University of Nebraska?
Jefferies:
Yes, I was. Actually, I finished all the credits, and I never finished the thesis. I never got the degree, but I did thirty hours of work. That’s because I moved to Atlanta which we’ll talk about in a minute.
Basically [0:52:20] at another program that I got into. Education was always important to me. There was a program for engineers that Western Electric had which was a summer on-campus program. You would go four summers in a row for five weeks. You would study. [0:52:40] I went to Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York and studied engineering. It was a lot of applied mathematics, design of experiments, and things like that. But it was a paid thing. I did finish that over four summers and transferred a couple of hours in and did get a master’s [0:53:00] degree from Clarkson in Engineering Science. Also, while pursuing a master’s degree at Nebraska, I had a lot of different job opportunities. Then once I got into being a department chief, a second level manager, and supervised the Design Group for a while, then I supervised a Product Engineering [0:53:20] Group and then I went back to the manufacturing side and supervised the production of miniature wire spring relays. Sometimes I tell the story, I worked on the small crossbar switch which was going to be the next generation mechanical switching, but never happened because electronic switching came in [0:53:40] and took over. Years later, I was at the Smithsonian Institution, and I saw that switch in a display. I thought they were a little premature in putting my product in the Smithsonian. But it was there.
Hellrigel:
Oh, cool. At that point, it probably wasn’t old enough to be an IEEE Milestone.
Jefferies:
No. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
[Laughing]
Jefferies:
It never will be. [0:54:00] It was not that good a product. Anyway, that was seven years, and we had our two children, and things were going really well there in Omaha. At that point, another opportunity came along. The manager of the factory talked to me [0:54:20] one day and he said would you be interested in moving to Atlanta. Our vice president for the Wire and Cable Division which was five factories around the country has an opening for an engineering manager to work on capital appropriations and engineering issues for the division. Gloria was always supportive of [0:54:40] us moving and trying new things. Okay, we moved to Atlanta. The kids were like, oh, three and one, I think. We moved down to Atlanta, and I went in the vice president’s office and that was a big change kind of [0:55:00] breaking away from a single factory experience and broadening out a little bit.
Hellrigel:
Then you would work for a VP that was in charge of products in all five factories.
Jefferies:
Correct, correct. Yes.
Hellrigel:
While this is going on, your family is still all back in [0:55:20] Nebraska?
Jefferies:
No, well, it was a relocation --
Hellrigel:
Oh, no, well, your siblings and your extended family.
Jefferies:
Oh, yes, yes. All the family is still in Nebraska. We moved away both from her parents and my parents. That was a little bit of a challenge. Yes, that’s a good point. That was a little bit of a challenge. We had built our first house, [0:55:40] a new house, in Omaha. Actually, we did it on the GI Bill, so it was no money down. Well, that whole thing kind of played in life in interesting (short audio mute)… So, we built that first house with basically no money down; just signed the paper and they started building. [Laughing] [0:56:00] It also paid for that education while I was going to the University of Nebraska and those classes. I was being paid and the tuition was paid by the GI Bill. I also bought our first color television, a Heathkit, and I became a Qualified Color TV Repairman while I was building my first color television [Laughing].
Hellrigel:
This was around what, 1972, 1973?
Jefferies:
Yes. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. We got to Atlanta and found a comfortable kind of country club living in Atlanta worked out well for us. We moved in down there and [0:56:40] within a year a new decision came down. All the vice presidents who had been located out at different cities around the country were going to be relocated to a common headquarters in New Jersey. They were closing all the offices. This opens up a challenge. [0:57:00] I don’t want to go to New Jersey. They said, well, maybe we have a job for you at the Atlanta factory which is actually the world’s largest copper cable factory at the time. They said you could work in this new area called fiber optics. I said, what’s fiber optics? [0:57:20] I had no idea. Really, they said, well, we’re just starting to develop the technology. So, thanks to the connection with that vice president I became the development engineering manager for fiber and fiber optic cables at the Atlanta factory. [0:57:40] We were just in the process of beginning to understand how you could mass produce it. Proof of capability had been established. You could make pure glass, but can you make it accurately enough and long enough and strong enough and can you package it and actually turn it into a [0:58:00] whole product. That was a really exciting opportunity and I started to work. I was going to Bell Labs locations like once a week, flying back into New Jersey. We were transferring the technology and the learning as we went. Conducting tours for all the Bell executives and things [0:58:20], it was just a really exciting time. We started to produce it.
Hellrigel:
You’re working with Corning Glass at this point, too?
Jefferies:
Well, Corning is a competitor.
Hellrigel:
Oh, okay.
Jefferies:
Dr. [Donald] Keck and people at Corning had demonstrated the first low loss glass so you could do it. Actually, they used a different process, and we had cross patents [0:58:40] with them for things, but we actually used a very different process. They used an outside vapor deposition process and a sintering step to produce their fibers. We used a modified chemical vapor deposition and deposit glass on the inside of a tube and the collapsed it down. There were two different ways that you could get to the fibers. [0:59:00] We knew what everybody else was doing and everything was cross patent licensed and things, yes.
Hellrigel:
Did you have to worry about standards or anything like that?
Jefferies:
Well, not really. There wasn't anybody doing that yet.
Hellrigel:
Okay.
Jefferies:
The designs were different. Our first fibers were [0:59:20] multimode, they were large core, with up to fifty layers of glass inside. It’s a very interesting process. In fact, the only paper that I ever wrote in my career was for a special issue of the Bell Labs Technical Journal and the name of the article was “Light Guide Theory [0:59:40] and its Implications for Manufacturing.” It talked about the theory of guiding light and principles of basically an amorphous silicon glass and what it would take. When you think about it, I’ve got to produce a fiber that can stand [1:00:00] 200,000 pounds per inch of tensile strength, but you can wrap it around your finger. The light stays inside the fiber, but it’s so lightly guided that it’ll get out if you even touch it. How do you package that? How do you put all these fibers together? How do you splice them together? What happens to the photons once they’re inside the glass? It was [1:00:20] kind of an interesting thing. A different kind of perspective that says how would you ever make this product. Once the theory…
Hellrigel:
Oh, this is chemistry plus physics?
Jefferies:
Yes, it was chemistry and physics and mechanical engineering. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
Yes, you say factory, but you must have had [1:00:40] it working as like a laboratory also?
Jefferies:
It started with the lab. We had a couple of glass working lathes and we had one drawing tower to draw the fibers and we had one line that could produce the ribbons for the cables. We had one cabling facility that could wrap the protection around it. Then over the course of the next seven or eight years [1:01:00] the world’s largest copper cable factory was converted to the world’s largest fiber optic [cable] factory.
Hellrigel:
Wow.
Jefferies:
That’s what it was all about. That’s when it was just fun to be big part of that and bring it along. I started out [1:01:20] as the development manager for engineering. Then I moved to some planning jobs, then I was the production control manager trying to figure out who’s going to get it. We couldn't produce enough. We could sell everything we could make. We did have a lot of challenges with production control [1:01:40] and producing the cables then. Really a surprise, one day I was called into the general manager’s office, and they said that we’re promoting your boss to director of engineering and manufacturing and as a result of that somebody in this room gets a promotion and that was me. This was a promotion [1:02:00] to fourth level manager and this was a really big deal. I was responsible for all the engineering and manufacturing for the fiber optics in the whole factory.
Hellrigel:
How did you like this change? Are you on call 100 hours a day?
Jefferies:
Oh, not really. It [1:02:20] It was always about the same. When you’re in that big of an environment, when you have thousands of employees working seven days a week and you’ve got an engineering team of 100 or 150 engineers, there are a lot of people involved [1:02:40] in keeping things going. There were a lot of other considerations. Part of it was thinking about the big picture. For example, if one of our chemical bubblers were to break, we had to train glass blowers to manage these things. If one of those was to break, you’d better run for the Scott Air Pack [1:03:00] and get everybody out of there. This is dangerous, dangerous stuff. The glass was heated with hydrogen torches, so there’s hydrogen running all through the factory. There are a whole bunch of things associated with converting from sort of copper standard materials, drawing dies, and plastics and other things, but [1:03:20] when you get into fiber optics it’s a whole different thing.
Hellrigel:
Did you like being a manager?
Jefferies:
I did. I did. I was always comfortable. You learn things in different ways. I always remember one experience. One of my engineers [1:03:40] came to me one day and he said I'm taking these classes at Brenau College [now Brenau University], it’s a small liberal arts school in North Georgia. He said we have a guest night and I’d like you to come with me to my guest night. It was kind of an unusual request and I said, well, okay, I'll do that. [1:04:00] He was taking courses in organizational development. I ended up actually taking a number of courses at Brenau College. It was not organizational development, it wasn’t about anything else, it was about dealing with people and how do you look at people and it had a lot to do with the truth [1:04:20] versus the perceptions that everyone adds to situations. Would you see someone, they’re dressed in Goth, and they got big boots on and black shirts, so what you see is something you’re adding to the situation. It’s really just a person, you know. But what you see [1:04:40] is all the things you add on. Well, that must be danger. That must be a threat. That must be a bad person. That must be a scary person. All those things are really added on it, and kind of develops the situation.
So, you say did I like being a manager? I liked that part of it.
Hellrigel:
I guess it would be organizational [1:05:00] psychology, human development, but also cultural studies.
Jefferies:
Yes, yes, and it changes the way you manage. You have some of those perspectives. That was kind of a sidetrack. But that was interesting. I did enjoy the management [1:05:20] opportunity. As I say, when I got to the fourth level that was a pretty big deal. But it didn’t last long. There’s the next step. [Laughing] Let’s move along. I had a steady interest earlier in my career. I talked about always focusing on getting more education. [1:05:40] I had done an executive education program in the early mid-1980s, early 1980s I guess, at the University of Virginia, Darden School. It was the six-week summer program. It talked about marketing and economics, organizational development, and accounting. It was a [1:06:00] really outstanding program. I really enjoyed it. I had a big interest in doing even more of that. AT&T had a program for Sloan Fellows. The Sloan Fellow Program was conducted every year at MIT and at Stanford Business School. Classes were about [1:06:20] forty people. AT&T would sponsor a person every year to each one of those programs. It’s spending a year on the degree program.
Gloria and I had talked about this. I’ve got to give her credit because she’s always encouraged me. I’d go in for my [1:06:40] annual performance review and she’d say did you ask them about that special program we talked about. [Laughing] She was always pushing me about this, so I was mentioning it. But the dramatic thing that happened is the Bell System and AT&T was broken up. The decision in 1986 [1:07:00] to break up the Bell System and it created management chaos. Every Bell System now had a whole new hierarchy structure. The things that used to come together were now torn apart. There was a lot of fighting over things. We had a new vice president come in. [1:07:20] What happened out of all of that is it set up an opportunity. I actually was selected to become a Sloan Fellow at Stanford University for the year. It never would have happened if the Bell System hadn’t been broken up and everybody was fighting for the slot.
Hellrigel:
Wow. [1:07:40]
Jefferies:
Yes, the vice president didn’t know me that well. He did this for him, not me.
Hellrigel:
Did he want you to move on then?
Jefferies:
No. I think he wanted to say that he won the slot.
Hellrigel:
Oh, okay.
Jefferies:
It wasn’t about it.
Hellrigel:
His racehorse got it.
Jefferies:
Exactly. It turned out [1:08:00] that that was an interesting opportunity. In 1987, I’m actually a little beyond mid-career, and I have a chance to be a Sloan Fellow at Stanford Business School. The family, we keep the house in Atlanta, but we rent a place out in Menlo Park, and we move out to Stanford campus for a year. [1:08:20] It’s a degree program that leads to a master’s degree in management and the class is forty people. The forty people are selected with half of them are from outside the United States, and half are from the United States. The class is purposely mixed with people that have operations [1:08:40] experience, marketing experience, finance experience, and different areas. For the year you spend time with that class and do all kinds of interesting things and learn a lot.
Hellrigel:
How come Stanford and not MIT?
Jefferies:
[1:09:00] I always thought Stanford had more of the creative side to it. MIT had more of the pedantic side to it. The programs were a little bit different. Stanford is on the quarter system, so you take courses in kind of a different way. The MIT [1:09:20] program had a thesis paper associated with it; Stanford did not. It was kind of, is it the best match? I don’t know. I was a fairly senior manager when I did it. I was one of the older people in the class. [1:09:40] That will lead to some things later on. It was a good choice. It was a good choice.
Hellrigel:
Stanford at that point is also a cultural shift for you. You’ve been Midwest, Southeast, and now you’re in Silicon [1:10:00] Valley.
Jefferies:
Exactly. Exactly. Even the class mix is a little bit different. It’s got much more Far East participants; Japan, China, places like that. It was also a different profile. My team maybe draws a little bit more from Eastern Europe and places [1:10:20] like that, yes.
Hellrigel:
How about men and women? Is it a mix?
Jefferies:
It’s a mix. I want to say, well, out of the forty there were probably just six or seven women I think, and this was 1987. Yes. It was [1:10:40] really as I said [a good choice]. Basically, you just drop out for a year. You go there and you’re not taking any -- I know that my boss back in Atlanta was looking at stuff. I thought I would come back and maybe be a director of engineering at a factory or something. That had always been kind of my goal to have a job like that. [1:11:00] There was an intervention; an executive vice president needed a new staff director. When I completed the program, they’ve got to find a spot for you because you’ve been just basically taken out of the picture for a while, so I went back and became staff director for an executive vice president in New Jersey [1:11:20] at the end of the program.
Hellrigel:
[Laughing]
Jefferies:
I flew into Atlanta and ended up in New Jersey. That worked out okay. I had responsibilities for material management and corporate quality assurance as well as being the staff director for the executive vice president. Not a particularly good match for me [1:11:40] per se. I’m more of hand’s on. I like the quality and the manufacturing and making things and counting how many you made and things like that. But it was a match and we moved back to New Jersey. It worked out well. The kids went to Mendham High School in New Jersey. That worked out very well [1:12:00] as they got ready for their college days. The timing was good in that sense.
Hellrigel:
Where were you based, at the Mendham office?
Jefferies:
We were in Morristown. It was a headquarters building in Morristown on South Street, actually 475 South Street in Morristown. It was [1:12:20] an interesting building. It’s shaped like a giant cross and the advantage of that is that it allowed eight people to have corner offices. [Laughing].
Hellrigel:
[Laughing].
Jefferies:
That was the only reason they picked the building. It’s true [Laughing].
Hellrigel:
You’re running off of [Interstate] 287.
Jefferies:
Right off [Interstate] 87, there, yes. [1:12:40] Yes, we lived in Chester.
Hellrigel:
Oh, oh, that’s a beautiful more rural area of New Jersey.
Jefferies:
Yes, it was. I don’t think they forgave us for isolating them so much.
Hellrigel:
In terms of culture, just that you had made a comment about Atlanta was like a country club, [1:13:00] were you expected to learn how to play golf and tennis and those country clubby things?
Jefferies:
Mainly tennis. Gloria was very active in ALTA, the Atlanta Lawn Tennis Association. The whole time that we lived there, the kids were on the swimming team. The area we lived in [1:13:20] was Chimney Springs. We had a fishing lake and a swimming pool and a club house and ALTA tennis. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
My brain is addled these days, but was 1988 the summer Olympics in Atlanta, or maybe I am off.
Jefferies:
Later [1:13:40] It was later I think.
Hellrigel:
Yes, it was 1996.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
By the late 1980s and 1990s, friends were living in Atlanta and others had already moved there. Atlanta was hip and growing.
Jefferies:
Oh, yes, it was amazing. We moved there in 1977. I lived about oh, ten miles from downtown. [1:14:00] The first five miles I went through two four-way stop signs. Then I would get on a MARTA bus for $.15 (fifteen cents) to go downtown to the office. In the ten years that we lived there, the city grew out to us and over us. [1:14:20]
Hellrigel:
Wow.
Jefferies:
It was just amazing. Gloria used to joke that we’d probably have to take a number to get out of our own driveway. [Laughing]. The way it was going.
Hellrigel:
Oh, yes, the sprawl friends moved there I want to say in the late 1980’s and [1:14:40] they left maybe fifteen years later and, yes, the sprawl was nuts.
Jefferies:
Yes. We had gone into New Jersey and got settled in and were working there. Then the additional changes started to happen. It was AT&T [1:15:00] Technologies and it was no longer Western Electric. That was working in sort of a normal way. Then came Lucent Technologies.
Hellrigel:
Yes.
Jefferies:
The next big spinoff was to create a complete separation and to come up with Lucent Technologies. We did that, [1:15:20] so the executive vice president job was kind of eliminated. He retired. It was kind of eliminated as we sort of made this transition and then Lucent Technologies started to come along. At that point, I was getting a lot more focus on the supply chain issues, [1:15:40] on export of the products, and freight forwarder contracts because much more product was going overseas at the time, including fiber optic products. One of the big projects we did was the entire City of Shenzhen which today is six million people. [1:16:00] We had done the regional fiber optic network. But it was all product that was made here and shipped over to Shenzhen.
A lot of change was starting to happen. We were focused on, say, some of these logistics issues and supply chain. I was [1:16:20] the budget planning vice president at that point in time. Then for some reason, the head of Lucent Technologies wanted to hire an operations person from outside the company. I don’t even know why he felt this was a need, but he brought in this outside person. [1:16:40] That was fine. Look, it’s up in the operations. But that person also wanted to bring their best friend who worked in logistics. I found myself in an odd situation, kind of an interim, halfway reporting situation through someone else. This was not [1:17:00] a comfortable time. It just didn’t make a lot of sense, but it was what was happening. That was a kind of a difficult period.
Then there was another point that came along when Lucent decided that they were going to change; sort of a downsizing approach [1:17:20] to things. It was like, well, everybody can try to find your own position. If you don’t find one, we’re going to have an early out program. I found myself actually in a situation I never expected to be in which was trying to do that. Now that was never my style to depend on a mentor [1:17:40] or someone else to pull me along. I always did what I did and what I could do. I didn’t really have a spot and it was challenging. I was kind of nervous. It was an unusual situation. I might even have left the company right then. Ultimately, [1:18:00] I actually ended up taking a demotion.
Hellrigel:
Wow.
Jefferies:
Yes, to me. I kept the same office. I kept the same salary. It was not really a demotion. I moved into some new things. Then there was a period of time there when I had some new responsibilities. One was for all of the warehouses that we had in the country. [1:18:20] We were closing them because the business had changed so much. The things that you needed to put in an electromechanical switching office were now no longer needed. Even the distribution of wire and cable for outside plant had gone in different directions, so we didn’t really need [1:18:40] these giant warehouses. It was one of my jobs was to close them. That was an interesting assignment. I just had to tell people. I said I can’t change the outcome here, but I can manage the way we do it. Throughout that period, we had these million square foot warehouses. [1:19:00] We worked hard to support the people and find them jobs where we could in the company and provide them with the resources and training and resume writing and career planning and financial planning if they needed it. We did all these things at the warehouses. That was an interesting [1:19:20] period. I hate to say I enjoyed it, but I was really proud of what we did. For example, the headline in the Montgomery, Alabama newspaper, when we closed our million square foot warehouse there, the headline in the local newspaper was “Lucent exits with class” [1:19:40] because we had taken the time to deal with the situations with the people. We had our trades people doing work in local schools and for local nonprofits because they had extra time, and we didn’t rush the exit. We donated furniture and supplies and things to local businesses and government. [1:20:00] It’s always been important to me, it’s not just about what you’re doing, it’s about how you do it.
Hellrigel:
Right, as opposed to some manufacturing that would come in in the darkness of night and pull out of town.
Jefferies:
Exactly. Exactly. Right. That was a kind of an interesting period. Then [1:20:20] another kind of opportunity came along that was an opportunity to move to Boston. I was talking to a general manager of a factory in Boston, and he said he had an information technology group, and they were struggling. He wondered if I would be willing [1:20:40] to move to the Boston area. This was actually somebody that I had worked with in fiber optics back in Atlanta.
Hellrigel:
Who was that? If you could say?
Jefferies:
Who was it?
Hellrigel:
Yes.
Jefferies:
His name was J. R. Newland.
Hellrigel:
J. R. Newland.
Jefferies:
Yes. He and I had worked together. We were assistant managers together back in Atlanta. [1:21:00] I was working on the fiber, and he was working on the apparatus, the connectors and the things that put it together at the time. I didn’t really have any experience. A lot of organizations had information technology departments, but it’s sometimes kind of hard to define [1:21:20] what you want them to do. This organization did not have a good reputation in the factory. They didn’t have clear direction on what they were trying to accomplish. Our kids were in college, or I guess our daughter was in medical school, and Alex was studying architecture in Texas. Everything was well in place. [1:21:40]
We were there in New Jersey on our own. I said, okay, we’ll sell the house in New Jersey and move to Boston. I moved up to Andover and took over this group. Then it was really an interesting experience because I didn’t know that much about IT and what they were trying to do. But I knew quite a bit [1:22:00] about organizational development. We were able to develop this organization and turn them into a real contributor to the factory. I really enjoyed that experience. [audio hissing]. Overall, the business had changed so much. Western Electric was focused [1:22:20] on manufacturing and on quality and on cost reduction and all of the things that the integration of systems was not there anymore. This was now a company; we’ll sell everything you can make and if we can find some more parts we can throw some more together. It just did not have a positive --. I didn’t see the demise [1:22:40] of Lucent coming, but it wasn’t the same place anymore.
Hellrigel:
Well, you say you didn’t see the demise. I know that the legal case and the trust busting was floating around for a while, but people must have been, I don't know, depressed, but [1:23:00] shell shocked when…?
Jefferies:
Yes, yes.
Hellrigel:
It shook their world.
Jefferies:
I’d say the best word is kind of bewildered. It was like pressure all the time to produce more, to find more parts, to fight with everybody [1:23:20] in the world who wanted the same things. It seemed like it was always in this tension mode. Not that it wasn’t producing a usable product and good things and making a lot of money, I mean stock options and things were all great and so when it crashed that wasn’t so [1:23:40] great [Laughing]. It was very much that kind of an environment. It wasn’t fun. For me it wasn’t fun; well, not anymore.
Hellrigel:
This might be off topic, but I studied a little bit of business history. I know in the 1980s, early 1980s, there was a lot of push for profit, profit, profit. [1:24:00] That must have created a new, I don’t know, well, tension or stress.
Jefferies:
I didn’t feel that in the 1980s. When Western Electric turned into AT&T Technologies it [1:24:20] stayed pretty true to sort of the foundation principles of the organization. When you got into the late 1990s that’s when it seemed like this sort of push did get kind of out of control. I remember we had one manager who would say, well, I'm going [1:24:40] to sell it and then I'm going to throw the bear in the tent and they’re going to skin it. Yes. I didn’t even know what that meant. [Laughing] It was that kind of an attitude. Well, yes, I sold more than we can make, but then you saw the problem kind of thing. That is exactly what drives [1:25:00] that kind of behavior and it doesn’t create, to me, a positive environment. That’d be kind of my thoughts on that. At any rate, it had come to this point, and I remember one of my jobs was a Y2K coordinator with this giant factory.
Hellrigel:
Oh, gosh.
Jefferies:
[Laughing] [1:25:20] Of course, it went very smoothly in the end, but it got to this point. Then I got an interesting phone call. I got a phone call, and the phone call was from a startup company in San Francisco. The company was U.S.Build.com. [1:25:40] It was a supply chain company that was working with production home builders to improve the way that materials get delivered into production home environments. These were the people that build 50,000 a year around the country. The Rylands and the Lennars and people like that. [1:26:00] They had invested money in this company, and supply chain was a big thing in 2000.
Hellrigel:
Yes.
Jefferies:
We didn’t even have a great business plan and that company didn’t have a great business plan, but they had a supply chain idea. Supply chain ideas were popular. They had pretty good financing and it turns out one of my classmates [1:26:20] when I was a Sloan Fellow at Stanford was the connection. She had directed them to me. Gloria and I talked about it. We said, well, it would be kind of a lark, but I'm not seeing the same company that I used to work for anyway. I bet you it’s not going to get a lot bigger. [1:26:40] It’s earned.
[Laughing].
Hellrigel:
At this point it’s a 401(k), or did you start with Western Electric with a company pension?
Jefferies:
No, that’s when I was with Western. I still have the pension although it’s interesting; my pension today comes from Nokia. My Medicare card has Nokia on it.
Hellrigel:
Wow.
Jefferies:
You [1:27:00] never know. [Laughing] You never know.
Hellrigel:
Yes, it would be interesting to ask someone of your dad’s generation, that you’re walking around with this “foreign” company’s card. The World War II era and America as an industrial power. Tension.
Jefferies:
[Laughing] Yes. At any rate, [1:27:20] I interviewed with the company and then we cancelled a couple of interviews. They were still in some uncertainty of their next Series A financing. In the end, I did retire in the fall of 2000 from [1:27:40] Lucent Technologies, took the pension, sold the house in Boston, and moved to San Francisco. I started working for U. S. Build as a logistics planner and then chief operating officer. It was very interesting. [Laughing] [1:28:00] Just kind of a challenge. Then actually, my son and I started our jobs the same day. He had graduated.
Hellrigel:
You both were sent with your packed lunch off on the same bus.
Jefferies:
Exactly right. We drove down to San Francisco together [Laughing] and I picked him up after work. It was kind of fun for [1:28:40] a year.
Hellrigel:
Is that a coincidence that he wound up in San Francisco? Was he looking?
Jefferies:
I don’t think it was coincidence. He had done an internship in Denver. He had also had some connections. I'm not sure exactly what his connections were with Gensler [1:29:00] and Associates. They’re a big design firm. Somehow from Texas he had the connections for that. It was not really coincidence. It just happened that that was the company that he was interested in. They were interested in him. I was in the midst of my change, too. We had lived [1:29:20] there, we rented a house down in Belmont, California with the right to buy it. Then we started looking around for homes, but the housing market was so crazy.
We could never get comfortable with anything either the East Bay or Marin or the peninsula. [1:29:40] We just couldn't do it. Then we moved up to Millbrae and lived in Millbrae for a while in a rented house for about a year. I was going to Denver every week anyway because that’s where the business trials that we were doing were taking place. We had a small office here in Denver. I was [1:30:00] coming here and I said, well, why don’t I move to Denver. It’s better here than in San Francisco, cost-wise and whatnot. We’ll see if we can make this a go. Ultimately, we did. We never bought a house in California. We moved here to Denver and figured the worst that could [1:30:20] happen is we end up retiring in Denver and that’s not so bad.
Hellrigel:
No, no. [Laughing]
Jefferies:
[Laughing] If that’s the worst outcome we have, we’re in pretty good shape. We moved here to Denver. I continued for about another six months then the finances of the dot-com era kind of caught up and the production home [1:30:39] builders were not showing the level of interest that would be required for them to change their business model to take advantage of the supply chain opportunities that were there. They were not going to go there. If they’re not going to go there, then this is not going to have a long-term future and it didn’t. Then in the [1:31:00] end of fall of 2002 basically that was my second retirement. That kind of set me up for what was going to happen next. We can talk about that at another time. That sort of takes us through a career. It was a very [1:31:20] interesting time. I had the opportunity to participate in huge technology issues; the introduction of fiber optic cables and building the very first cables for the system. I had the opportunity to go through a lot of business transitions and a chance to manage different types of organizations and in different ways. I enjoyed it [1:31:40] and never felt jerked around, per se. Our moves we made were often in ten-year intervals and they matched other things that were happening in our lives in a good way. Now we’re sitting here in Denver and retired.
Hellrigel:
You’re actually in Denver.
Jefferies:
Yes, we moved to Denver in [1:32:00] 2002 and have been here ever since.
Hellrigel:
Friends live up in Evergreen, Colorado.
Jefferies:
Oh, yes. Yes.
Hellrigel:
Yes. The ones from Atlanta moved to Evergreen.
Are you content the way your career evolved?
Jefferies:
Yes. Look, I always [1:32:20] tell people that you can never know how it’s going to go. You can prepare your skills. You can prepare and identify and make known your interests. Things that are going to happen. Every promotion, every major thing that happened to me, had an element of surprise in it. [1:32:40] Also, it was likely driven by some big unpredictable event. I would never have had the chance to go to Stanford if Charlie Brown hadn’t broken up the Bell System. Yes, I would not have had the chance to go to get involved in fiber optics if somebody hadn’t decided to pull eight vice presidents [1:33:00] from around the country to a new building. [Laughing] Totally unpredictable things that happened. It’s build your skills. You’ll do everything you can well when you do it. Utilize the teams that are around you. It’s not really going to be about you, [1:33:20] it’s going to be about what you can do with all the resources that are available.
Hellrigel:
I like to ask people, some of my predecessors only asked the women, but I ask everyone, did you have a challenge with the work/life balance?
Jefferies:
I never felt a direct challenge [1:33:40] between the work/life balance. When I was basically in New Jersey there was a lot of travel. That’s when the kids were in high school. I had my [1:34:00] secretary type up a postcard for each one of my trips. I put it on the refrigerator. The kids still kind of joke about this. If you wanted to know where I was, check the refrigerator. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
Where’s Waldo?
Jefferies:
Yes. Yes, exactly. There was a period there when I had organizations [1:34:20] reporting to me from all around the country. I did think it was important to be at those places. That’s how you see the people and that’s how you inspire people. That’s how you understand the real needs. You’ve got to be a part of it. There was probably a challenge there when I could have been home, [1:34:40] but I was always back on weekends. It was always my objective to make it back. I am not one of these people that would go out for a week and disappear. I would take the late night flight back to be back and to be around. That was my style. In fact, it’s kind of funny that one of my [1:35:00] organizations had produced a slide. We used to have the cellulose slides that they used to produce. I don’t know if you remember the commercial with Hertz, where O. J. Simpson is running through the airport and jumping the seats.
Hellrigel:
Yes.
Jefferies:
They had taken that picture and put my face on O. J. Simpson’s face because I would [1:35:20] always be tight on my travel reservations, [Laughing] running thorough the airport.
Hellrigel:
You must have gotten stranded in places.
Jefferies:
I had extremely good luck that way flying out of Newark. Now Newark has become a mess since, but [1:35:40] in the 1980s, Newark was a pretty good airport. Continental had really good control of everything. The nonstop flights almost everywhere out of Newark, so that period was really pretty easy to travel. I very seldom got stranded. The worst thing was just going [1:36:00] down through Texas in the spring if you’re going to Texas or Oklahoma or tornado alley. In April, I circled the Houston airport [Laughing] too many times, but usually got back to Newark. [Laughing].
Hellrigel:
Yes, I’ve seen a cyclone. I taught at Iowa State. It [1:36:20] does sound like a freight train.
Jefferies:
It does. It does. Yes, because of course growing up in Omaha we saw tornados all the time. It’s just part of things.
Hellrigel:
When you were younger you said in fourth grade you had a vision of being an electrical engineer. [1:36:40] What did you envision doing and did it match with what you did?
Jefferies:
No, it did not match.
Hellrigel:
Were you going to build power plants?
Jefferies:
Well, it was more like tinkering. I could remember I used to go with my dad to the World of Electronics. [1:37:00] It was a store in Council Bluffs, Iowa across the river from Omaha. You’d get your electronic junk there. I can remember taking an old TV chassis and disassembling all the parts in it and organizing, learning to read color codes on resistors and color codes on capacitors, even erector set [1:37:20] motors, so it was more about the tinkering side. The first part of my career as an engineer, I did some of that. For example, microcomputers weren’t really in yet. They didn’t come in until later in the mid-1970s. [1:37:40] Actually, I designed a computer for testing resistance on cables rather than buying a computer. We just designed one that was the tinkering part. Really, there was a little bit of that. Very quickly it just evolved more into management and sort of technology management as opposed to tinkering [1:38:00] on the desk.
Hellrigel:
Did your dad have a workshop or a garage with tools that you learned how to be the tinkerer?
Jefferies:
Yes. Yes. Yes, we had a basement once we finished the basement. When we first moved to Omaha, the whole basement was taken up by a gigantic oil-fired furnace.
Hellrigel:
Oh, yes.
Jefferies:
[Laughing] It [1:38:20] took up the whole basement.
Hellrigel:
With the tank, yes.
Jefferies:
Exactly, exactly with the tank. It wasn’t too long before we tore that out and put in the gas.
Hellrigel:
Natural gas.
Jefferies:
Then we had a little workshop, and I had my own little desk. It was made out of old plywood or something. It was [1:38:40] two feet by three feet. That’s where I could tinker.
Hellrigel:
When I spoke with Dick Gowen, he showed me around his house and how he built this and built that.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
I talked to some people, and they mentioned there seems to be a divide between those who could [1:39:00] do things with their hands and those that prefer doing it with calculus.
Jefferies:
Yes. Yes.
Hellrigel:
Then you’ve gone into building televisions and computers, so were you ever a car guy?
Jefferies:
No. I was never a big car guy. [1:39:20] No, the second car that I bought was an old Datsun station wagon. It was a red little Datsun 510 station wagon. We bought it in 1972; it was our second car. I kept that for twenty years. [1:39:40] It was a manual transmission. It had a little tiny four-cylinder engine. You could fix anything on it with your fingers and a pair of plyers. You could reach everything. I put a Heathkit and an electronic ignition system on it so that it would start easily at twenty below zero. [Laughing].
Hellrigel:
Oh, so you didn’t need the oil heater dipstick. [1:40:00]
Jefferies:
Didn’t need the oil heater. For the spark, you could buy a little Heathkit kit, and you could mount it on the inside fender and run the ignition through it. It created this great spark [Laughing] for the spark plugs.
Hellrigel:
To revert to the [1:40:20] work/life balance, what did you do for fun when you’re this big manager with all this pressure on you?
Jefferies:
Well, obviously that’s when the kids were in high school. We had a lot of kids’ high school kinds of activities and support for them. We did [1:40:40] a few things, the more neighborhood kinds of things, like a gourmet club, for example. We would do that or Chastain Park in Atlanta. Chastain Park is a concert series that they run during the summer. People set up sort of elaborate dinners. Then [1:41:00] they bring in named stars on stage and things like that. Visits out to Stone Mountain Park. A lot of things with the family. More things like that. Yes. Kind of a lot of it just around the house, too. Yardwork, we had a two-acre lot. Chester [1:41:20] is all laid out with two, three, and five-acre zoning, so it’s very rural. You kind of have to get into the gardening thing. Driving your tractor cutting two acres of grass takes a while. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
I guess I don’t know if it’s fair to ask but which place had you [1:41:40] liked to live in the most?
Jefferies:
I’ve always said that it seems like every place we lived was the right place when we were there. I never had a desire like what if I could just get back there. Never had any real feelings like that. The kids grew up in Atlanta in a really nice environment that worked out [1:42:00] well for that with easy access to things. Their high school years at Mendham High and in Chester were just the right time to be there. It was very challenging for the kids to spend that year in California. We were ready to leave California.
Hellrigel:
One year in California.
Jefferies:
One year in California at [1:42:20] Stanford.
Hellrigel:
You moved a couple of times though.
Jefferies:
Yes, so it was mainly Omaha starting out. All the families, everything is great. Atlanta with kids kind of growing up, great school years. Quick year in California. Then the ten years through their high school and [1:42:40] well into their college time in New Jersey. Then Boston as they’re okay and going off on their own, so we’re in Boston on our own. The California trip and San Francisco for a year and a half wasn’t a lark, but it was an experience. Then Denver; we [1:43:00] moved here and then settled in.
Hellrigel:
There are a bunch of IEEE people I’ve been talking to in the Denver and Colorado Springs areas, in particular IEEE Past Presidents Karen Bartleson and Gordon Day.
Jefferies:
We’ve been a hot spot for [IEEE] Presidents here. I don’t know how that happened. [1:43:20]
Hellrigel:
Yes, you’re going to have some kind of competition with your challenge coins with Karen.
Jefferies:
Hey. [Laughing]
Joining IEEE, Eta Kappa Nu
Hellrigel:
We’re almost out of time, but we’re almost ready to make our jump to IEEE. [1:43:40] When did you become a member, as a student?
Jefferies:
Yes. Well, yes and no. I can remember going to IEEE meetings as a student. I can also remember going to ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) meetings as a student. I'm not sure I was ever officially a member of IEEE [1:44:00] as a student. Obviously, I was inducted into Eta Kappa Nu in 1968 which was a very important event for me. I'm certainly engaged. But then when I went in the Navy, there was really no connection for that two-year period. When I came back, my next reconnect [1:44:20] happened in the early 1970s. I think it started when I was studying to become a registered professional engineer. We did study groups. You had to the registration back then was pretty generalized and you had to finish your fundamentals of engineering tests [1:44:40] probably when you were still in undergraduate school. Then you had the engineering specialty tests that you would take a few years later after five years of experience. So, I had a connection as a student, but I'm not sure [Laughing] if I was actually a member. I haven’t seen any record of it.
Hellrigel:
I'll [1:45:00] have to check the directory.
Jefferies:
It would be interesting. Actually, my official date is 1973. In the system that would have been when I restarted with the licensure examinations.
Hellrigel:
Well, we’d probably have to go to some warehouse somewhere and go through [1:45:20] paper to see if you were truly a member.
Jefferies:
[Laughing] Yes, but I know I was disappointed though, because when I had they were handing out the anniversary pins. I went in to get my anniversary pins and they said forty years. They said, well, [1:45:40] we don’t have a forty, but maybe we can do three ten-year pins and a five or something. [Laughing] I said, no, you need to get a forty [year anniversary pin]. Of course, now it’s fifty.
Hellrigel:
[Chuckling]. But this year they’re making a big celebration about the 140th anniversary of IEEE.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
Sometimes forty matters and sometimes it doesn’t. [1:46:00] [Laughing]
Jefferies:
Yes, exactly right.
Hellrigel:
You said that it was important to become a member of Eta Kappa Nu. Can you expand a little bit?
Jefferies:
Yes. I was not really a top student. I was a good student, but I wasn’t really a top student. The fraternity house that I lived in was actually off campus, [1:46:20] so I’d usually schedule my classes back-to-back and it was about a mile walk. I usually walked down to the campus. I’d walk down to the campus and take the classes and then kind of walk back each day. I wasn’t really that connected. I wasn’t hanging out in the E E [electrical engineering] building and things like that. I really wasn’t that connected to the campus. [1:46:40] I wasn’t really that aware of some of those things. When I was inducted, it was kind of the first time that I really felt like this is part of the profession. This isn’t just a degree that I'm getting that’s sort of the message that kind of came through. [1:47:00] The combination of values with scholarship, the attitude, and everything that comes with that was an introduction. They talked about that briefly in terms of ethics when you were a freshman and they’re talking about the profession. But that’s why it was important. I always was proud to put it on a [1:47:20] resume. It meant something
Hellrigel:
I believe it’s the 100th anniversary, of Eta Kappa Nu, so is that the reason why you went to the Life Members Conference to attend the celebration event?
Jefferies:
It was the 120th anniversary.
Hellrigel:
Oh, sorry, yes, the 120th.
Jefferies:
For Eta Kappa Nu, yes. Well, the Life Members Conference [1:47:40] was kind of odd because I was talking to the Denver Section about getting involved in the Life Members Affinity Group here in Denver. They said, well, this conference is coming up. We don’t know what it’s going to be, but we’d pay your registration. That’s kind of what got me down there. [1:48:00] It turns out we did have the 120th cake and we did another one actually two weeks ago here in Denver at a Communications Conference where we have a chance to have a booth set up. We are trying to recognize the 120th anniversary of Eta Kappa Nu and the 140th of IEEE.
Hellrigel:
Right. Right. [1:48:20] Well, you have your marketing logos for both.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
Then the Life Member, if you were 1973, are you a Life Senior Member?
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
[1:48:40] How did you like the Life Members Conference? The first annual Life Members Conference.
Jefferies:
Well, I thought it was interesting. I think that there's still some work to do on the scope and the cost of that conference and exactly what it is. It was a high interest conference. The [1:49:00] artificial intelligence speakers were excellent topically. I think it’s the kind of conference that’s going to have a geographic draw. I know there were a lot of Region 5 people there. If you put it on the East Coast, it will be a different audience, so I think it’s got that component to it. It is not at this point [1:49:20] any kind of a training session for Life Member Coordinators or Life Member Affinity Group members. It really is just a high interest conference. I think there’s going to be a balance. I thought it was a little long. I think you could have done that in two days with a better format. I think the cost [1:49:40] is a challenge that they’re going to have to deal with. The ideas that came out of that are potentially colocating it with another conference or possibly some different things to manage the cost structure would be helpful. It may have a place, it may not. I would not vote yet. [Laughing].
Hellrigel:
Yes. I know they’re still planning. It might be [1:50:00] up at Tufts University.
Jefferies:
Yes. Yes.
Hellrigel:
I had my oral history workshop where I made the pitch. So, for the next Life Members Conference, I would like to go and actually interview someone in front of the group as part of the training. Then maybe we could have some [1:50:20] recordings going on at the time.
Jefferies:
Yes. Yes. That could be. It could be.
Hellrigel:
We could get a bunch of small cameras because when I travel I have a small camcorder for an audio and visual recording. That way we could get people more engaged. [Susan K.] Kathy Land, the 2021 IEEE President, had an idea that we should [1:50:40] collect the oral histories of all Life Fellows. There’s one of me and nearly 4,000 of them. Over the past few years, I trained IEEE members for a peer-to-peer oral history project. At this point I'm up to 125+ people that I’ve trained.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
I’ve got six, maybe seven who’ve recorded oral histories, [1:51:00] but it’s groundwork. Tom Coughlin, T. Scott Atkinson, Maxine Cohen, Gene Freeman, and a couple of other people. I think if we could get it going, because for example, I don’t know everyone is eligible for an [1:51:20] oral history interview out of Denver. If I had someone who was working out of Denver and they were trained, then we could build it up. So, that’s my game plan and my pitch.
Jefferies:
Yes, we can keep that idea alive with the Affinity Group here.
Hellrigel:
Yes, [1:51:40] Life Members are close to my heart because they funded my dissertation.
Jefferies:
[Laughing].
Hellrigel:
I went to the Life Members meeting in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, at their inaugural luncheon and gave a history talk. Yes, the Life Members are cool. [1:52:00] I guess we’ve got only a few minutes left. I don’t know if there’s anything related to what we talked to about today that I didn’t ask.
Jefferies:
No, I think we had a good discussion. I enjoyed both the reminiscing and my own stories. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
The other [1:52:20] thing. We’ll talk about IEEE. You were also involved with ACM (Association for Computing Machinery)?
Jefferies:
Well, just when I was in school. Actually, the joke was I used to run our fraternity house bills on the university computer [1:52:40] because they needed computer operators. I would run our university house bills with a COBOL program. I had no rights to anything in the computer but whenever I put my jobs in, they always got run: $.10 extra for the doughnuts and $5 for the party gift and… [1:53:00] [Laughing].
Hellrigel:
[Laughing] Did you say Theta Chi, are you still active in Theta Chi as an alumnus?
Jefferies:
Well, we still receive the magazine and it’s interesting. Theta Chi Fraternity was really a good time for me in the college. What happened with that recently. [1:53:20] They publish a magazine, I don’t know, maybe it’s quarterly, or it may be a little less, called The Rattle [phonetic] and in the most recent issue or one of the most recent issues, there was a summary of the Class of 1970 from my Alpha Epsilon Chapter at Nebraska. [1:53:40] It was interesting because those were people who were there when I was there. Since I only had the two years. I pledged as a junior. This was really my contemporaries [Laughing]. How many ended up as doctors and lawyers and professionals they say, yes, as I mentioned earlier finding the right match [1:54:00] was so lucky there. It was good. But I'm not in it now.
Hellrigel:
Your fraternity was not one of those Animal House fraternities?
Jefferies:
[Laughing]. Well, we had fun, too, I'll just say that. [Laughing] [1:54:20] Actually, for me it was just the right combination. Our house parties: I can remember one time I invited a professor of field theory, electromagnetic field theory. I invited him to be a host at one of our house parties. It was kind of a mistake. [1:54:40] He brought his wife, and he came out to the house and I don’t think he appreciated the drunks in the living room [Laughing] and some of the things that were going on.
Hellrigel:
Yes, yes, it’s probably too undignified. Did Gloria go to parties at the house?
Jefferies:
[1:55:00] She did. Yes. But I met her just for the last four or five months before I graduated. We had our Dream Girl Formal. We had a number of parties at the house that she went to for sure.
Hellrigel:
Was she [1:55:20] in a sorority?
Jefferies:
Yes, she was in Delta Zeta.
Hellrigel:
Yes. Well, my brother was in Lambda Chi at Rutgers University.
Jefferies:
Sure.
Hellrigel:
Yes. Theta Chi is at Rutgers also. [1:55:40]
Jefferies:
Yes. Even fraternities are evolving. Theta Chi has changed. The current theme that they’re working which is a little bit different than the original pledge manual types of things. It’s Resolute Men. [1:56:00] Fraternities can evolve and change and improve, too.
Hellrigel:
Oh, yes, yes, they’re different. Quite honestly at some of the big universities they also solved the housing crunch. Then they also were involved with alumni.
Jefferies:
Yes. Yes, I [1:56:20] stayed connected a little bit right after graduation. Actually, after I got back from the Navy, I was on the Theta Chi Building Corporation Board for the university because we had the house off campus when I was there. Just about a mile off campus. But [1:56:40] I take some credit for this because as the treasurer I was kind of frugal. We were able to save up enough money to move on campus by 1970. They had picked up a house on campus and then they were [audio hissing] an improved house on sorority and fraternity row later. [1:57:00] But it didn’t survive and they’re back in recolonization now.
Hellrigel:
So, they used to own a house off campus and then they bought --
Jefferies:
No, we rented it. We rented it.
Hellrigel:
Oh, a rented house.
Jefferies:
Yes, if anything, it was just a large [1:57:20] old style house.
Hellrigel:
Old house.
Jefferies:
It had a lot of nice features and we had just enough room the way it was laid out. It worked out really well as a fraternity house. It was air conditioned. It was air conditioned by a water pump.
Hellrigel:
Oh, air cooled.
Jefferies:
[1:57:40] They had put in the piping when they built it. All you had to do was turn the pump on and it cooled the house. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
Wow. It can get kind of sticky and hot in Nebraska.
Jefferies:
It can. It can.
Hellrigel:
Then the last question. We joked a little bit [1:58:00] you always tended to leadership posts.
Jefferies:
[Laughing].
Hellrigel:
I don’t do psychology, but you volunteered, or you were elected to a number of posts. Why do you think you liked doing that?
Jefferies:
I don’t know [1:58:20] if I have a good answer for that, but it is kind of a pattern. Meaning, I think part of it is coming in without a lot of agenda. You’re coming in, just to serve and just to be there and to accept and respect [1:58:40] everybody equally. Those are the kinds of things that are really foundational. If you’ve got that kind of an approach, that’s who people will say, well, will you be the leader. Would you like to be the leader? Also not striving for it. I think it’s a big weakness that [1:59:00] you can just feel in somebody: I want to strive for this, and it doesn’t always work. I think it’s that kind of combination of respect, interest, and willingness to serve.
Hellrigel:
The roots are probably in your family. Maybe from the Boy Scouts, you [1:59:20] step up when you’re needed.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
Well, I guess we can end Part One. Then we’ll pick up with Part Two. I believe it’s Monday.
Jefferies:
That sounds good. Sounds good.
Hellrigel:
Then we’ll talk about your different offices and volunteering. [1:59:40] Maybe if there’s a conference or two that was special. Maybe what your game plan was before you took the offices.
Jefferies:
Yes. Yes.
Hellrigel:
Who drafted you and said move forward.
Jefferies:
You’re right, exactly right. The same thing you asked before about engagement, I had the engagement as a student. [2:00:00] I had the engagement during the professional registration opportunity and then there is a forty-year gap. We’ll stop right here in Denver, 2002. We’ll start off on the next step.
Hellrigel:
Then the other question would be if you have a game plan going in or did they expect you to have a game plan [2:00:20] going in as an officer, President of IEEE-USA or President of IEEE. But then if you had a game plan, what were you able to do? What were you most proud of? What would you have liked to have done that you didn’t get to do? I know that [2:00:40] IEEE President is a very short term, one year.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
That’s hard to get up and running before you’re done.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
We can also talk about campaigning if that’s the official word. [2:01:00] How you navigated that. Interestingly, you’re coming of age in these offices as the internet and all this WebEx and Zoom is becoming more prevalent. I also ask people what were [2:01:20] some of their favorite trips as president.
Jefferies:
Oh, yes.
Hellrigel:
Tom Coughlin, my joke with him is Where’s Waldo because he’s out and about so often. I’ve asked him to keep track of how many miles he’s gone. [2:01:40]
Jefferies:
Ah. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
It would be interesting to figure out how much time and effort and energy goes into this major volunteer contribution to IEEE.
Jefferies:
Yes. Yes. The thought: it’s not just the individual. [2:02:00] I was kind of like the last one that had a trailing spouse at a lot of events. I really think that restoring some of that would be an appropriate step, but that’s something we can talk about.
Hellrigel:
Maybe she could give you a story or two about [2:02:20] what she liked what you liked.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
I know that at the Life Members Conference that there was concern about companion and side trips. Maxine Cohen and her husband Arnie stepped up and did some of that. [2:02:40] Yes, some of the photos in the archives, we have of some of the events from a long time ago that are quite interesting. About the side trips. [Laughing]. The guys would play golf and the women would do something else. [2:03:00]
Jefferies:
[Laughing]. Yes, yes, yes.
Hellrigel:
Thank you, Sir. I really appreciate your time. Then we'll meet up again on Monday. If there’s a problem, just let me know.
Jefferies:
It should be easy. Thank you.
Hellrigel:
Yes, bye-bye.
Jefferies:
Bye-bye. [2:03:20]
[END PART ONE, START PART TWO]
Hellrigel:
[0:00:00] Today is June 23, 2024. I'm Mary Ann [0:00:20] Hellrigel with the IEEE History Center. I'm with Jim Jefferies, the 2018 IEEE President. We’re here to record Part Two of his oral history. Welcome, Sir.
Jefferies:
Thank you.
IEEE-USA
Hellrigel:
I thought today we would focus on your IEEE work, [0:00:40] what you see going forward for IEEE and for yourself if you don’t mind. I think we ended with last time, last week, when you joined IEEE [0:01:00] when you started working.
Jefferies:
Yes, just a little brief background to catch up here. When I was in college, I was aware of IEEE. Actually, I lived off campus in a social fraternity house and I didn’t spend a lot of time on campus or in the department. I’d group my classes back-to-back, [0:01:20] so I would go down and go back, I wasn’t really connected, but I was aware of IEEE and did IEEE meetings I'm pretty sure. I may not have ever joined as a student member. I did the graduation. After graduation when I entered the service for a couple of years, the military, and then it was time to go back to work. [0:01:40] I started work as a production control and process control engineer. Then about 1973 is when my official start date is with IEEE. I signed up. Now, I'm a person who signed up because I believed in the values of the organization. I didn’t have a particular thing. Every year I would fill out my [0:02:00] little profile that they used to have and I would check off engineering management and I would check off communications because that’s the business I was in. I would check off control theory because that was a technical interest that I had. But I didn’t really know much about IEEE for the next 40 years especially when I was a manager at an executive level I didn’t have [0:02:20] an engagement approach. I didn’t really understand IEEE. I wasn’t aware of section activities. I didn’t see notices about them. I wasn’t aware of Regional activities. I'm sure my kids remember seeing the [IEEE Spectrum] magazine on the coffee table while they were growing up, but it was not an engagement [0:02:40] opportunity.
I finally retired in 2000 and the second time in 2002 living here in Denver and things were going good. One day I went out to the mailbox. I opened up the mailbox and there was a postcard in there, a 4 x 6 card [4 inches by 6 inches]. It was from IEEE. The postcard said [0:03:00] we might be interested in having more volunteers in the Denver Section. I hadn’t even thought about or realized there was a Denver Section. But I set it aside. A few weeks later I got it out again and I called the number. I met with Jim West. He was the former Chair of the Denver Section, and he was [0:03:20] recruiting some volunteers for open positions they had. We had a hamburger together and we talked about Professional Activities. It was just at that time connected IEEE-USA. Also, I didn’t know there was an IEEE-USA. We met. We talked. I said do you have professional activities? It is something I’d be interested in. I’ve always cared about careers [0:03:40] and the opportunities for engineers. That would be an area, a good area to start with. Then he said, well, there’s a meeting coming up. I think it was the next weekend.
It was the Annual IEEE PACE Conference. This was like 2004. The PACE Conference is Professional [0:04:00] Activities Committee for Engineers. All the Professional Activities Coordinators from around the country would come together once a year. It’s a big annual meeting. I went there and suddenly I was exposed to all the ideas, all the things that were happening.
While I was at that meeting, I also met the Region 5 people [0:04:20] and found out there was a Region 5. I met the Region 5 Coordinator and the Director. We got to talking and he said, well, I have some openings, too. His open interest was in government activities. I said, well, I also care about that. I know government activities and I’ve always said [0:04:40] that every engineer’s career is going to be impacted by government policy whether they impact that policy or not, so I had an interest there. He says, well, we have this opening maybe we could do that. [Laughing] Within a period of two or three weeks I went from almost no engagement to engagement at both the [0:05:00] section and the region level in two different areas of interest. Suddenly I was on a path and started out in really getting going with IEEE.
Hellrigel:
Who was the Region 5 Director that coordinator that you met with?
Jefferies:
I think it was [0:05:20] Bob Scolli at that time, but there were a lot of people. A big part of my engagement was the timing of things and the people that I met who were willing and interested in engaging and really, they had to teach me how to be a volunteer. Bring me in. They did [0:05:40] do that. That was a critical part of the process. I started doing professional activities here in Denver and we did a lot of kind of interesting things. I had a lot of fun with it. We did a Congressional Visits Day at the State House which hadn’t really been done before here in Colorado. We did a [0:06:00] survey with a local think tank on the impact of engineers on the Colorado economy which no one had ever really done before. We surveyed all of our membership on where they lived and where they worked, where they spent money, how they spent their time. It revealed some things which were kind of counterintuitive to a lot of the economic development [0:06:20] philosophies at the time.
Hellrigel:
What did it reveal that was counterintuitive?
Jefferies:
Well, basically this idea that a development agency attracts businesses to their location they’ll give these huge tax credits so they would -- but they really don’t get the benefit out of that, all of these, because the people don’t live in those areas. [0:06:40] They will set up a job and they’ll give a big tax credit to the company to set up their building there but the people go live in the suburb. [Laughing] That is not there. It’s not where they spend their money. The base assumption is that if you set up to do business, there it’s going to bring economic growth to the area, but it actually may be bringing economic growth to a nearby area. [0:07:00] Just some things like that. Exactly the engagement. How much engineers cared about policy when they were informed which they didn’t always get information, so some interesting things like that.
There was also a governor at the time who was interested in technology policy. [0:07:20] More than, say, more than more recent administrations. There was an IEEE and Colorado Tech Week that we did. We had three-day events. We brought together researchers from the universities, talked about technology and also talked about policy. We had a member who did an excellent presentation on the history of Nicola [0:07:40] Tesla in Colorado Springs which is where he did a lot of his experiments. A lot of really fun things going on. At the same time, I was starting to get involved with the policy things in Washington. Then my ramp continued to go up. The next thing that happened is there was a Region 5 [0:08:00] meeting held in Denver. I didn’t have to go any place and I started to understand a lot more about what Region 5 was about. Regional activities. Then I think it was maybe that same year or the following year that the Board of Directors of IEEE had a meeting in Denver. They invited the local officers to [0:08:20] come to the Board meeting, Board Series. That would have been a Board Series probably in 2008 or something like that. That was another big introduction. Each step for me just kind of drew me a little farther into IEEE and new things.
Hellrigel:
You could be a case study on how to do it. [0:08:40]
Jefferies:
What’s that?
Hellrigel:
You could be a case study, the case study of how to engage members because it worked for you.
Jefferies:
It did. It did.
Hellrigel:
I go to Membership Development meetings every month and they talk about the engagement and this game plan and that game plan. But what most people [0:09:00] do point out, it is the person-to-person connection.
Jefferies:
Absolutely. That was a very big part for me. Then along came the Sections Congress. All of these things, this is all timing. It might have happened a whole different way without this combination of things. But the Section Chair [0:09:20] at the time in Denver, and they’d asked me if I would be Vice Chair of the Section in addition to the PACE Coordinator, and I said yes. They didn’t tell me that the Section Vice Chair automatically became the Chair the next year.
Hellrigel:
Okay.
Jefferies:
They didn't really mention that but that’s how it worked out. So, in 2008 I was Chair of the Denver Section. [0:09:40] But the Chair before me had said there’s this thing coming up. It’s called the Sections Congress. They hold it every three years and they invite representatives from all over the world. Our 230 Sections around the world come together and they vote on important issues. [0:10:00] It was designed then as member input to the leadership of the organization. He said I think that some of us should go. He was planning to go, and he said would you and one other active volunteer, why don’t we all go. We went down and now I got Sections Congress. Now, I’ve been exposed to the Region, exposed to the Board [0:10:20], exposed to Sections Congress, and the worldwide activity. It really opened my eyes to a lot of things. Just having a great time. Then in 2008 at the Sections Congress, because I was the Chair of the Denver Section, I was actually the voting member and I got to put my hand up on the priorities that we’re going to dictate to the leadership. [0:10:40] That’s kind of a startup story. A simple engagement leads to a bigger engagement, led to another engagement, exposure to so much of the organization That’s how we got up to like 2008, 2009 that kind of range. I was having a lot of fun. The Region 5 [0:11:00] meetings were spread all over our region. That’s what the directors were doing at that time, and it was very helpful. We got to know a lot of people and started a lot of fun events. But then another thing happened. It’s time for Region Director elections. I had not planned [0:11:20] for any of this. I didn’t even know about most of these things until the first time I heard about them. It turns out in Region 5 there was a bylaw requirement that the director had to come from a different geographic part of the Region on a rotating basis. So, the north area where Denver was, [0:11:40] it was their turn. Had this been a different timing it wouldn’t even have been an option for another six years, but it was just the right timing. I did run for Region Director of Region 5. I did win that election and that makes you connected directly [0:12:00] to the Board [the IEEE Board of Directors] for two years.
It’s a six-year commitment so it’s actually quite a commitment that you do it. It’s two years as a Director-Elect; two years as the Sitting Director and an IEEE Board Member; and two years as Past Director. It’s a very long and significant commitment [0:12:20] made at the Region level that got me exposed in participating and going to all the Board Series meetings. I continued to be very active with IEEE-USA. I was the Vice President for Government Relations at the same time and did things to support the Region. I moved on to represent the Region on the Board of Directors [0:12:40] and continued also to do the public policy activities with IEEE-USA.
Hellrigel:
When you became a member of the IEEE Board of Directors, I believe it’s 2012 to 2013. What do you remember? Was that any fun? [0:13:00] [Laughing].
Jefferies:
It was. It was. Actually, there’s quite a bit of preparation the two years before that in 2010 and 2011. You do go to the Board meetings, and you sit in the back. That’s what that six-year commitment was all about. You’ve actually already had a couple of years of exposure to Board [0:13:20] activities when you actually take the seat at the table to take on the voting responsibility. I also then became Chair of the Audit Committee. My background both in the executive ranks and business school was a good fit. I did become Chair of the Audit Committee immediately which [0:13:40] also brought a little extra attention with reporting on the finances of the organization and audit issues. It was a very good time. I'm more of a quiet Director. I’m not the one who’s going to put their hand up and say I agree with everything that’s been said. I will say something if I have something new to put in or something to [0:14:00] really add. I was probably kind of a quiet Director.
Hellrigel:
When you are on the Audit Committee and working with finance, this is a time where I believe IEEE is running in a deficit around then?
Jefferies:
No.
Hellrigel:
Or not quite.
Jefferies:
No, we were okay on that. Obviously, we were going through [0:14:20] the 2008 downturn which had a big impact on the reserves of the organization, but we hadn’t gone down so much that we were really concerned. The recovery, even from 2008 the recovery was relatively rapid. By 2012 [0:14:40] and 2013, actually things were pretty strong economically. We did change auditors, so you do have a sort of a fiduciary responsibility to consider every ten years or so it’s important to kind of turn over your auditors, so you don’t get just too much of the same opinion going. [0:15:00] We did accomplish that. Yes.
Hellrigel:
Did you put out an ad for soliciting a new auditing company?
Jefferies:
Oh, yes. Yes, we got proposals from additional companies. They’re high-level companies that would be of a size that would be appropriate for the amount of budget [0:15:20] that we had. It’s a significant budget and $500,000 and significant reserves on hand. Yes, we did, and we made a selection through an audit selection process.
Hellrigel:
What were some of the big issues then when you were on the Audit Committee? What were you looking at?
Jefferies:
So, it’s interesting, I don’t remember a bunch of huge issues, during that period. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
Okay, that’s good.
Jefferies:
This is an organization and it’s really [0:16:00] kind of the nature of IEEE. Its operations are so diverse and so distributed that there is a lot of decision that isn’t made at the Board level. At that time there was really nothing coming strongly to the Board that I recall was a major issue. Something we had to do, [0:16:20] I guess we did go through one issue with Standards, [the IEEE Standards Association, IEEE SA]. Our Standards organization wanted to make a change. I can’t remember if that was during the first term or my second term on the Board. Standards was wanting to change its policy so [0:16:40] that there was less influence from large companies basically because in Standards, people volunteer to be on Standards bodies and are often trying to influence the standard to match their technology as opposed to take it just from a pure Standards point of view. The discussion was about trying to [0:17:00] be a partner in regulating the cost of cross-licensing patents. It was a policy change. It was a big change from the way things had been that was one major issue that went on for a couple of Board meetings.
Hellrigel:
You see this [0:17:20] as a good development to try to rein in --
Jefferies:
It came out fine. Actually, I wasn’t totally in favor of it because it’s a question of who should be regulating this. Is this really a private industry issue or is it a Standards body issue to do the regulation? The outcome has worked out. There was a lot of contention. [0:17:40]
Hellrigel:
This might be off base but is this one of the challenges between the IEEE Standards Association and that industry group, the ISTO?
Jefferies:
I'm not familiar with that so I wouldn’t know.
Hellrigel:
Okay. That’s another group that is industry-based.
Jefferies:
Oh.
Hellrigel:
There’s a division [0:18:00] that they’re sort of related to standards in that they both work with standards, but the IEEE Standards Association has to have a wall up in what it does with ISTO.
Jefferies:
Yes, yes. The roles would have to be appropriately separated. Now what I didn’t mention, also back in Denver, [0:18:20] we had the Denver Section join the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry for the first time that we’d done something like that. We were actually engaging and attempting to put good technology thinking and good technology policy thinking into sort of the Chamber of Commerce environment. [0:18:40] We were able to do that as long as we didn’t have them lobby for us which would have been outside of our charter. We were able to do that so those things do come up. You have to find your spot in that, and it’s got to be set up the correct way
Hellrigel:
Did you need Legal [the IEEE Legal and Compliance department] to review that?
Jefferies:
We did. Yes. We actually drafted a special [0:19:00] document that we had them sign that they wouldn’t lobby for us. [Laughing] Yes, we did make sure that we did it in a not on a backdoor stance but in a full sense.
Hellrigel:
Legitimate, yes.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
That would have violated the 501(c)(3) rules.
Jefferies:
Exactly. Exactly.
Hellrigel:
[0:19:20] Legal would have been knocking at your door with a big postcard.
Jefferies:
[Laughing]. They would have. They would have. That’s a typical example of things where we have to find our place and fitting in properly
Hellrigel:
That also points out the old school way of doing things with a letter or a postcard. Now, do you get a lot [0:19:40] of email from IEEE but not as such real mail?
Jefferies:
Yes, yes. I see very little. About the only thing that comes down in real mail is advertisements for insurance and benefits and things like that. In terms of operations of the organization, it’s nearly all [0:20:00] electronic.
Hellrigel:
Do you think it would make sense for maybe Denver Section or maybe Life Members to actually send a postcard?
Jefferies:
It actually might. Although I’ve had pretty good luck. I'm currently reengaging a little bit with the Denver Section and Life Member activities. [0:20:20] We did a survey back when I was chair. We did a survey of all the members because the Section was big, it covered the whole State of Colorado. You know 5,000 members and 400 or 500 miles apart. It’s like how do you reach out. It’s really about targeting the communications in a way. [0:20:40] We’ve had some recent discussions about setting up some subgroups in different geographies to help offer services to members that aren’t going to come to Denver for a meeting 400 or 500 miles apart.
Hellrigel:
Right, you could have Subsections.
Jefferies:
Yes, you can. We had two. We had two of them in the Denver Black Hills [0:21:00] Subsection in part of South Dakota actually.
Hellrigel:
Right.
Jefferies:
We had another one --
Hellrigel:
Pikes Peak?
Jefferies:
Pikes Peak is a full Section.
Hellrigel:
Oh, full Section.
Jefferies:
Yes, we still have the Black Hills Subsection. But there’s also a new section, also soon after I was Chair at Denver, we did add [0:21:20] a subsection. We had in Northern Colorado which is around Colorado State University and the University of Northern Colorado. Actually, we formed a new Section, the High Plains Section.
Hellrigel:
Right, that’s up by Greely.
Jefferies:
Right, by Greely and Loveland and that area.
Hellrigel:
Given the [0:21:40] geography of Colorado it makes sense maybe not to plan on face-to-face meetings in the dead of winter.
Jefferies:
True, [Laughing] true.
Hellrigel:
With the storms. I think Loveland Pass out there, there’s a place, or Monarch Pass.
Jefferies:
Yes, oh, yes. [0:22:00]
Hellrigel:
You get stuck [because you are snowed in or have other weather problems].
Jefferies:
It can be challenging to get around. In fact, we had a senior member upgrade meeting just a couple of months ago here in Denver. It was at a golf club that was sort of just north of Denver and I tried to drive up there. I could see about twenty feet in front of the car most of the way in the snowstorm [Laughing]. We got [0:22:20] there and the newer members couldn't actually get to it, but we did get some senior members upgraded. [chuckling]
Hellrigel:
Oh, well, that’s fun. If you reengage with the Denver Section, that will make you active on the local level again.
Jefferies:
Yes. Yes.
Hellrigel:
As an IEEE Past President, [0:22:40] how do they treat you? Are some of them afraid to talk to you, the younger ones who do not know you may be intimidated.
Jefferies:
Nah. No, they do. In fact, it’s a big part of the fun maybe to kind of go back to the stories. At 2013, the Region 5 Director, [0:23:00] 2014, he talked to me about running for President of IEEE-USA. I’d been pretty active on their Board. The other thing you remember about a Region Director is that the Region Director has got a huge scope of responsibilities. They sit on the IEEE-USA Board, they sit on the MGA Board, and they sit on the IEEE Board. Those are four [0:23:20] days of constant engagement. There’s a lot of things you get a lot of exposure to as a Region Director. They talked to me about running for President of IEEE-USA which I did. I did win that election and I served as President of IEEE-USA in 2015. Then I came off my Board service and then in 2014 I was going to the Board meetings because of IEEE-USA candidacy. In 2015, I was back on the Board as the President of IEEE-USA. Then 2016 is when they talked to me about running for President [0:24:00] of IEEE. Again, these were not things that were on a path that I had planned out or even though about.
Hellrigel:
Oh.
Jefferies:
Go ahead.
Hellrigel:
Well, okay. You didn’t think about it, but did you have any reservations to be the President of IEEE-USA?
Jefferies:
I did not. I really did not. [0:24:20] I enjoyed being part of the Board. I enjoyed all of the people who I worked in that What had been fortunate for me is just the way and the speed at which I had been able to see a lot of the organization. My own background from career and things made it very comfortable to come in and do that. [0:24:40] It was not a path or a goal at all but the opportunity was there. In fact, it’s kind of funny because I didn’t actually know what was going to happen. I had opened the Fluid Review Survey System where they gather all the resumes and I’d [0:25:00] opened it up actually to look at a job I didn’t want and that reactivated a resume. I got a phone call and they said we’d like to interview you. I said what for. [Laughing] It was for President.
Hellrigel:
Of IEEE-USA?
Jefferies:
Of IEEE. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
Oh, of IEEE.
Jefferies:
Of IEEE [0:25:20]
Hellrigel:
What job did you not want, if I can ask?
Jefferies:
I think it was something… what was it in? I can’t remember. It was [0:25:40] definitely for the opposite reason that I opened it up. [Laughing].
Hellrigel:
Well, yes.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
They could have been trying to track you for like a technical director…
Jefferies:
No, no, it wasn’t for another track or a different way. It was a sub-job, a vice president or something.
Hellrigel:
Okay.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
The way they [0:26:00] set up the IT, whoever goes into the portal, then they get a list.
Jefferies:
Yes. Yes, it pops up a list of opportunities. You can self-nominate for any of these jobs. For most of the jobs. It was just kind of a strange path, but I did the interview and I [0:26:20] had a fairly straightforward approach to things. I wasn’t bringing in a particular agenda from a particular background. I had an opportunity to be exposed on the USA side and on the region side. The technical side from participation on the Board. I was mainly making [0:26:40] an argument in my candidacy that I would bring a senior executive perspective to the organization, that we had a strong organization of capabilities, volunteer base is incredible, and we would improve by improving our execution on the plans that we had. That was the simple part of my [0:27:00] platform. That’s what I tried to do as President.
Hellrigel:
If we could backtrack to IEEE-USA. Then we’ll come back to that.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
You were the 2015 IEEE-USA President. I guess you were President-Elect the year before and [0:27:20] Past President.
Jefferies:
Yes, I guess I was President-Elect in 2014 for IEEE-USA, and I served as President of IEEE-USA in 2015. Then I was the Past President in 2016 at the same time that I was getting ready to run because I had been President-Elect of IEEE [0:27:40] in 2017. Over that decade of time, I was really around the Board of Directors. I met a lot of people, certainly knew a lot of people and just carried myself off the way I am, and I guess it was good enough
Hellrigel:
What did you intend to do? [0:28:00] I found some interviews with you. In them you said that you had maybe three big things, the issues for IEEE-USA, including public visibility, young professionals, and humanitarian outreach.
Jefferies:
Yes. Yes, certainly [0:28:20] public visibility. A lot of people would not know about IEEE-USA including myself. They didn’t have too many years in the organization and the impact that it can have and it’s through members. Of course, because of the limited lobby capability of IEEE overall based on our incorporation [0:28:40] it really has to be by constituent impact. When we bring members, say to Washington for Congressional Visits Day, they’re not really representing IEEE. They are there and get the meetings with their representatives and their senators because they’re constituents.
Hellrigel:
Right. [0:29:00]
Jefferies:
That’s the important thing: keeping that visibility high and making sure that the visibility lasts beyond the meeting, so you have the meeting. There’s usually a certain set of asks and things, but the meetings are relatively short. If you can begin to build that visibility and say here’s a question regarding a [0:29:20] policy technology question or a workforce policy question with temporary visas or things like that, we’d like you to call us. We have people. If you’ve got a question, maybe on power and energy and what’s happening, we can get an expert who knows everything about that to work with you. [0:29:40] That’s the visibility part. Young Professionals: there’s a natural interest, I think at the Young Professional level. Policy and what’s happening and engaging them and that was at a time when Young Professionals were really starting to come into a bigger focus in IEEE. [0:30:00] The Young Professionals Affinity Group was formed.
When I was President we also, for the first time, put a Young Professional on our Board of Directors as a voting member. Not just as a representative of an affinity group. That was another thing that we worked on. The humanitarian side of it that was also [0:30:20] developing. It was, I think, in maybe the first meeting, even before the first meeting when I was President that we introduced the IEEE-USA Move Truck.
Yes. The mobile truck that goes out and supports disasters and things. That idea had come around I think about 2014 [0:30:40] and we funded it in 2015. I bought the first truck and deployed with the Red Cross to disasters. That program has continued to expand and some great leadership from Mary Ellen Randall and some other people that has really kept that thing going.
Hellrigel:
Have you been out on a Move [0:31:00] volunteer project?
Jefferies:
No, I never trained on it. I never qualified to drive the truck. [Laughing] But I just would see it at events and always be supportive of it.
Hellrigel:
I know they had two, maybe three trucks.
Jefferies:
Yes, I think there was certainly the one we had on the East Coast for [0:31:20] for most of this time sort of more on tornado, floods and hurricanes and things. Then there’s a West Coast one and there’s a plan right now to put another truck in actually Region 5 in the Midwest here (because of) kind of tornadoes and some of the disasters that hit the Midwest. It’s going to actually be a [0:31:40] little bit smaller version the original truck that was pretty large and heavy duty. There is a little smaller version we’re going to put in Midwest. Yes, those were three things that were important. We accomplished something with each of those.
Hellrigel:
I think under your presidency, was there the Future Leaders [0:32:00] Forum that was established?
Jefferies:
Well, I think all of the credit for that goes to John Meredith.
Hellrigel:
Okay.
Jefferies:
I haven’t mentioned John Meredith, but he was probably the one person that got me really engaged. He was a region director and later president of IEEE-USA himself before me. [0:32:20] He was always the most encouraging guy. But the Future Leaders Forum was something that we started. I think they changed the name now to a different name but we had the first Future Leaders Forum down in New Orleans actually and it was intended for Young Professionals, just to bring them in. [0:32:40] It was a day, day- and-a-half kind of event and really to get them thinking about their careers and the impact that they could have.
Hellrigel:
Yes, I know there’s another one, Rising Stars, that Mike Andrews runs. He’s based in Region 5.
Jefferies:
Well, [0:33:00] Rising Stars actually started in Region 6 out on the West Coast.
Hellrigel:
Oh, okay.
Jefferies:
The Rising Stars Conference started about… well, not about, they had their tenth anniversary event this year. I was at it actually this year. The tenth anniversary event was held this year. The first one must have been in 2014. [0:33:20] That’s when I was President-Elect of IEEE-USA. I was at the first five events as a speaker. Supporting Rising Stars is a similar idea to bring in the Young Professionals and to have neat activities held in Las [0:33:40] Vegas. It was held at the Excalibur Hotel. Well, the first one actually was held at the Riviera. The Riveria hotel in Las Vegas. The next year they tore down the Riviera. It had to move to the Excalibur. It moved to the Excalibur Hotel then in the south part of the strip in Las Vegas. [0:34:00] The Excalibur has not been torn down yet but the 10th anniversary was held at the Tropicana which is across the street from the Excalibur and it’s just been torn down we’re having a little bit of [Laughing] --
Hellrigel:
So maybe that’s why you’re getting good deals on them. [Laughing]
Jefferies:
It could be that. Probably the best we can do. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
Wow. Whenever I think Excalibur, I think it’s of King Arthur.
Jefferies:
Yes. That’s their theme. That’s their theme.
Hellrigel:
Yes. I guess Mike Andrews will be busy finding another venue.
Jefferies:
He might find one they are [0:34:40] not going to tear down next year. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
I’ve given two virtual talks on oral history for the Rising Stars conference.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
Then maybe one of these days I'll get out there to do it in person because there’s a notion that the younger ones are pretty good with the podcasting and all that, [0:35:00] so maybe recording oral histories will be second nature to them.
What were some of the challenges of IEEE-USA President that you would have liked to accomplish but you couldn't?
Jefferies:
Well, the IEEE-USA is [0:35:20] the one-year term. Really, a lot of it is continuity. The way IEEE-USA is set up, it has two key missions. One is advancing careers and the other one was basically public policy. Advocating for public policy there was a lot of [0:35:40] continuity. The public policy is run by nine policy committees. The policy committees are headed by volunteers. They’re appointed by the President then the committees actually do position papers, white papers, and things like that that become the foundation of the public policy arguments and that are made. We did a couple of [0:36:00] amicus briefs with the Supreme Court on some important issues that were happening. There's a lot of continuity on the policy side over time. Policies do sunset if a policy has been around for a while and it may be the same, it may need to be [0:36:20] sunsetted, and moved on.
On the career side, that’s also run by some of the committees. One we had is the Student Professional Activities Conferences for all the Student Branches around the country. We encouraged them to have a Professional Activities event. [0:36:40] PACs were a big part of it. Then on the career side, it was really a combination of policies that would support careers and also career training. In terms of emphasis, the membership in the United States has not been growing. The only funding revenue for [0:37:00] IEEE-USA, and this is a big ongoing problem for IEEE-USA, comes directly from a dues assessment on U.S. members. That membership has declined, sometimes because members become Life Members that are not paying dues anymore, and sometimes [0:37:20] it’s just a decline in membership. We’re an organization of IEEE that recruits a lot of people. I think we recruit on our value. We keep some people on our value and keep some people on our deliverable of programs and things that they need. We do not get 100 percent renewal rates. [0:37:40] We’re kind of constantly recruiting and renewing as we go forward. As those numbers have dropped a little bit, it’s been more and more difficult to support the professional side of things.
Hellrigel:
I guess Chris Brantley was working on that?
Jefferies:
For two years Chris was [0:38:00] the Director, yes.
Hellrigel:
Are you still active in IEEE-USA?
Jefferies:
No, not really. I was at Congressional Visiting Day earlier this year; the first time I’d been back in probably five years. I'm still connected, but not [0:38:20] engaged.
Hellrigel:
I guess there’s been some concern or some talk against IEEE-USA.
Jefferies:
Yes, there was a period of time when there was some question about how it fit in and it’s representing now a minority [0:38:40] group in the organization. Of course, when it was formed, forty years ago it was the majority group. [Laughing] Of course, over time as we’ve recruited outside the United States and growing outside the United States, it is now a smaller group. It’s still significant. Not the majority of the organization. [0:39:00] I haven’t heard much about that recently. There was a period of time, also, a question whether or not IEEE-USA presidents should be a Board member because it was a double representation. You’ve got five directors, six directors and a USA president but in general my sense is that at least at the time [0:39:20] that I was a part of that was that those issues were being sort of pushed back a little bit. It was a question but there was not a dramatic movement.
IEEE Presidency
Hellrigel:
Then I guess you’re becoming higher profile within IEEE and then [0:39:40] you happen to click on a website and you’re brought back to attention.
Jefferies:
[Laughing].
Hellrigel:
Who called you up for an interview? Was that from…?
Jefferies:
It was Gordon Day.
Hellrigel:
Oh, okay.
Jefferies:
Gordon was the [IEEE] Past President and he was the Chair of the Nominations and Appointments Committee as the Past [0:40:00] President.
Hellrigel:
Yes, 2012 IEEE President.
Jefferies:
Yes, that’s the structural connection. It was going to be set up. The interview, we actually did it by phone and I forget where I was. I was in a hotel room somewhere. I called in and gave the pitch.
Hellrigel:
He’s going to vet you and see if you’re [0:40:20]…
Jefferies:
Well, the whole committee. The pitch was to the whole N&A Committee that has to decide to bring the candidates. The N&A Committee brings the candidates to the Board at the November Board Series. The candidates to be President-Elect [0:40:40] the following year in the election. Then there’s a campaign period that leads up to the August election. Then when whoever wins that election becomes the President-Elect the following year it’s kind of a cycle of things that happen.
It turned out in my case, the [0:41:00] candidates that were brought by the N&A did not end up being the candidates. There’s another provision that other individuals can be nominated by Board members during the discussion. The two candidates brought by N&A, I was one of them but the other [0:41:20] candidate was actually brought by the Board when the selection was made.
Hellrigel:
Is that Wanda Reder?
Jefferies:
It was Wanda Reder, yes. A much better candidate than me on paper.
Hellrigel:
It’s interesting. I was looking for the election results of that year and I haven’t been able to find them. [0:41:40] You won. Maybe she’s out of Region 4. She’s out of Chicago?
Jefferies:
She’s out of Chicago. I think she’s out of Chicago.
Hellrigel:
Yes.
Jefferies:
Most of her IEEE work had actually been with the [IEEE] Power and Energy Society.
Hellrigel:
Yes.
Jefferies:
She had lots of support from the technical side of things and then she had done a lot of things for the [0:42:00] organization. My rise had actually been relative rapid through the organization. The actual results of the election: it was one of the closest elections that we ever had. It was 1 percent: 500 votes out of 50,000 decided the election.
Hellrigel:
Wow. Wow. [0:42:20]
Jefferies:
It was no shoo-in. Huh. In fact, one of my campaign strategies was to make sure I didn’t get out the vote.
Hellrigel:
You did NOT get out the vote?
Jefferies:
Not get out the vote.
Hellrigel:
Why?
Jefferies:
Because I figure any vote that was got solicited there was a 50/50 chance: me or her because she’s a very strong [0:42:40] candidate.
Hellrigel:
Okay. Right.
Jefferies:
She’d make a good president, too. I never sent a single email. I didn’t do anything to encourage voting.
Hellrigel:
Wow. I came across two or three interviews you did. What’s interesting is there’s one [0:43:00] recorded interview that you did, it must have been in 2016 and they just posted it on IEEE TV in 2022.
Jefferies:
Oh, okay. [Laughing].
Hellrigel:
You look at the date and it’s like, okay, this is misleading. They’ve got to fix that and say when it was recorded.
Jefferies:
[Laughing]
Hellrigel:
Your interview [0:43:20] popped up. I think somebody is going through their computers and maybe downloading things.
Jefferies:
Oh, interesting, interesting.
Hellrigel:
Yes, it was an interview you did. Yes, I forget the person [0:43:40] that interviewed you. Oh, here it is. A Close Up with IEEE Presidential Candidate Jim Jefferies with Editor-in-chief, Dr. Eddie Custovic interviewing you.
Jefferies:
Okay, yes.
Hellrigel:
Someone by the name of Robert [0:44:00] Sachs posted it on IEEE TV. Oh, also it went up on the Young Professionals blog on February 10, 2022.
Jefferies:
Yes. Yes.
Hellrigel:
But I didn’t come across a recording of you from that time period. This was the blog. [0:44:20] Yes, that showed up and then today I was looking again at something, and an interview with you and Wanda with [the IEEE] Computer Society just popped up.
Jefferies:
We did some candidate forums and answered questions. We went to all the Region meetings. [0:44:40] Campaigning here was a lot of fun in 2016. Really, the spring of 2016 was a campaigning year. We did some events. They’ve kind of changed the way they do it. Back then we had a small budget to travel to see how many places we could get. I think we made it to [0:45:00] almost all the region meetings. The toughest one I had was the Region 9 and Region 10 were on the same weekend.
Hellrigel:
Wow.
Jefferies:
I had to go from Trinidad and Tobago Islands in the Caribbean to Bangkok in one weekend. That was an interesting trip. [0:45:20] But we got them both in and did the interviews.
Hellrigel:
Well, why was it interesting? Were you mostly in the airport?
Jefferies:
Just the whole idea and an overnight flight into Kennedy, a flight into Taipei, [Laughing], some flight into Bangkok [Laughing].
Hellrigel:
Right. At this point [0:45:40] I think it’s after Howard Mickle was the 2’15 president when they started to institute flying coach. Did you get stuck in coach?
Jefferies:
Yes, I had to on that one Yes. [Laughing].
Hellrigel:
That would stretch the budget, too.
Jefferies:
It was. [0:46:00] We did quite a bit with the money that we had. We did have the candidate forums and they were the most fun. In fact, you mentioned Eddie Custovic. Obviously, the Young Professionals, I really liked the young Professional meetings that we went to. We had one in Regensburg, Germany that we went to. It was just some events you go to [0:46:20] and it feels like there’s energy and it feels like you’re connected to the group and it’s really good. That was one.
Hellrigel:
Are you and Wanda traveling together?
Jefferies:
Usually not. I don't recall ever -- I guess I can [0:46:40] recall going through a customs line maybe together at one time or something, but we didn't really travel together.
Hellrigel:
Eventually you’d show up at the same venue.
Jefferies:
Exactly. Yes.
Hellrigel:
I don’t know if I'm supposed to ask but did you get along?
Jefferies:
Oh, yes. Yes, we got along [0:47:00] when the election was over. We didn’t have a relationship before the election. I didn’t really know her well except that she had also been a Board member. I didn't really know her well before and so we didn’t have any close connection. In fact, another factor kind of in the election process is some people would [0:47:20] mention to me that we had a little different style. If I went to the meeting I tended to stay for the whole meeting. She would usually leave the meeting quickly do the event and leave. Somebody commented to me about that.
Hellrigel:
I notice some people that I’ve dealt with, I [0:47:40] don’t know, not Wanda, but other people double and triple book themselves with events so maybe like a meeting is four days but they’re going to be there a day because they’re going to another IEEE thing.
Jefferies:
Sometimes that happens [0:48:00] so if you’re kind of a drop-in, drop-out some people don’t care about that, some people do.
Hellrigel:
Yes. Yes, and you’re then campaigning, I guess we can use that term.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
Is there anything you didn’t like about that process?
Jefferies:
No, I liked that process a lot. [0:48:20] I thought it was a very important process. They’ve kind of discontinued it now.
Hellrigel:
Meaning they discontinued to physically go.
Jefferies:
Well, because of the timing of things the election cycle has changed. When I was running you were identified as the candidate in November and you [0:48:40] had the spring basically which is when most of the regions hold their regional meetings.
Hellrigel:
Yes.
Jefferies:
Usually before April you had that time to campaign and that’s part of the campaigning process. With the current changes that were made in the last couple of years, you don’t actually begin the campaigning process until after April. [0:49:00] Right? It might even be May 15.
Hellrigel:
Right.
Jefferies:
Because it has to give a chance for petition candidates to come in and a number of things. It also cut down the cycle before the election itself which doesn’t start until August. That would be a big change. But to me it was important because I didn’t know [0:49:20] as much about the regions outside the United States. To go to those region meetings, to sit through their whole meeting, you get exposure to everything that they’re doing. You get exposure to all the chairs of their committees. You really got a much better feeling. It made it easier actually to come in on the President side as I felt like [0:49:40] those region directors and director elects that I met in that environment in their home environment at their own meeting, really did help a little bit. I enjoyed doing that a lot.
Hellrigel:
That’s true as opposed to air dropping you in as president.
Jefferies:
Yes, exactly.
Hellrigel:
Why did they change [0:50:00] the cycle?
Jefferies:
One of it is there had been some abuses of campaigning.
Hellrigel:
Ah.
Jefferies:
The longer you go, the more chances there is for some things like mass emailings on inappropriate mailing lists.
Hellrigel:
Oh. [0:50:20]
Jefferies:
Things like that. There were a number of things beyond that that wanted to trigger a rethink of the things the committee did, look at that, and decided one way to manage that. It was known at the time that if you did make these changes, you would certainly eliminate it. The communication with members now comes almost [0:50:40] entirely from IEEE. IEEE controls the websites. I tried to do my own website. It was terrible. I don’t know how to do websites. But I just put up some fun pictures and then the recordings that I made. You might find those if you look, too. I did make a few videos, just campaigning kinds of [0:51:00] videos. I never sent them anywhere and I never sent any emails. But others would send mass emails, the vote for me kind of a thing. It’s managing that side of it and putting IEEE more on an equal footing for the candidates. Sometimes the candidates, I think at least in my election, I think we were fairly even as candidates in terms of our resources [0:51:20], in terms of our access to events. We didn’t miss any events. We were both at all the Region meetings and the other events. Yes, that’s what was behind the changes.
Hellrigel:
Right. Because if you had more money, you could … Well, I guess if you set up a website you [0:51:40] personally had to pay for that?
Jefferies:
Yes. Yes. Well, I used a free WordPress thing.
Hellrigel:
Right, right. But if you’re really affluent, you can then hire a company to do it.
Jefferies:
You could actually build up a better one than somebody else and things like that, yes. Now the website’s controlled by IEEE. They’re given a standard website [0:52:00] portion and then they’re given a personal site, personal portion, of the IEEE site to put up their own personal message.
Hellrigel:
Okay.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
Yes, I think I’ve come across some of your statements on IEEE TV.
Jefferies:
Uh-oh. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
I'll have to look because I put together some biographical material. [0:52:20] That’s the other deal, like you never know, if you record it, even though you’re not supposed to be posted without your knowledge, some people think, whatever, and they post things. They post things, not you in particular.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
What’s your reaction when you’re elected President?
Jefferies:
[0:52:40] Surprise, actually. This election was going to be tight. She was an excellent candidate. She had a broad reach across the technical community which drove a lot of previous elections. Like I said, to me in my mind I was relatively new. I had a consistent and solid [0:53:00] message. I didn’t have any reach much outside of the regional side of things and like I say, IEEE-USA wasn’t popular with everybody, so that wasn’t an automatic.
Hellrigel:
Right.
Jefferies:
A lot of the things that I did were not automatic. I tried to keep a very simple message. I never changed one word of it during the campaign no matter where [0:53:20] I went. I always said exactly the same thing. To try to tailor it to audiences or pander in a way that was just my style. It was going to be a close election. I think we all thought that so I was surprised. I was ready either way. [0:53:40] You know I got the call from Barry Shoop the November or October when they finished the [IEEE] Tellers [Committee] review. He was also surprised how close an election it was.
Hellrigel:
Right, and he was the IEEE President before you.
Jefferies:
[0:54:00] He was the President before me, so Karen Bartleson was actually right before me.
Hellrigel:
Right. Yes, 2016, so he was IEEE President when he called.
Jefferies:
He was President when the election took place, so he made the call.
Hellrigel:
Right.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
Yes, that brings me to one side venue [0:54:20] before we talk -- because I'm going to forget it. Your Challenge Coin.
Jefferies:
Oh, yes. [Laughing].
Hellrigel:
Yes. There are three people that have had Challenge Coins so far. Barry Shoop, Karen Bartleson and yourself. Also yourself. [0:54:40] Where did you get Engage, Inspire, Celebrate?
Jefferies:
Out of my head [Laughing].
Hellrigel:
Okay.
Jefferies:
It didn’t have any particular -- I had looked at the previous coins. I started giving it some thought, well, really [0:55:00] after the election was over what I might want to put on a coin like that and what I wanted. What I was thinking about for a coin was one) I wanted it to be somewhat industrial. I didn’t want it to be sort of just a fancy sort of thing. I wanted it to be somewhat industrial: the edge on there, the diamond edge [0:55:20] got on there and it looks like kind of some rivets and there’s a circuit board on one side. Then it’s the standard Advancing Technology for Humanity with the name it was kind of just a solid industrial feel. The other thing I wanted it to represent was the people of IEEE. I think that’s the heart of IEEE. So, on the side there, we had some [0:55:40] challenges trying to find the combination. We ended up with the celebrating group of people on there; tried some different versions of that. Then the Engage and Celebrate and Global Community [phrase] was about community, the global community of all of IEEE and respect for everyone. [0:56:00] It was about engaging and celebrating as well as achieving. That’s what was in it. From that we just developed the coin, sent off some samples, and they sent some back, so that’s how it evolved.
Hellrigel:
Who helped you develop this? Was it the media group and marketing staff? [0:56:20]
Jefferies:
I had help from the staff who had done it before. I had never done one. Then the company itself that actually stamps the coins would say, well, we can’t do that, but [Laughing] we can do this. We decided what we could do and came up with the foundation. You can pick the font; you get to pick the font you want [0:56:40] to put on there.
Hellrigel:
You have six people across, so that represents your group. I imagine if you wanted more people, you’d have to have a smaller font and then it wouldn’t sit right.
Jefferies:
Yes, a lot of things. At one point, actually the [0:57:00] original [challenge] coin we had, we actually tried to have faces on it. That turned out to be a little bit coin challenging. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
Right. I know some of the IEEE Awards, the medals, have faces, but they’re bigger and it’s a deeper imprint.
Jefferies:
Deeper cut. Yes.
Hellrigel:
Yes, it’s [0:57:20] a deeper slab that you’re working on.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
Here, you’re probably an eighth of an inch. I’d have to measure it.
Jefferies:
Yes. It was interesting that people looked at the coin in different ways. I tended to hand them out only to people, not really as a token but as an achievement.
Hellrigel:
Okay. [0:57:40]
Jefferies:
I gave them -- usually we tried to do it during a discussion about something that they’d accomplished or done or helped in IEEE. People look at it in different ways. Some people look at it as a leadership coin. They would say, well, I'm going to get it because I'm a leader. Others would look at it as kind of an achievement award for a particular event. People had different views [0:58:00] which is fine. I really enjoyed having them handing them out.
Hellrigel:
Did you have any challenges trying to get through security with a bag of challenge coins?
Jefferies:
[Laughing]. A few times. A few times. If I had a bunch of them in my backpack it looks like a giant piece of metal about six [0:58:20] inches in diameter. [Laughing] Yes. Yes. Although, it’s interesting, the couple of times that I did have that, and I opened them up and they’d say, oh, my, that’s really nice, this is great, and go ahead. It really was a positive thing in the end
Hellrigel:
How many did you have printed up?
Jefferies:
I had a couple hundred [0:58:40] printed out. Interestingly, right at the end, I was running out, so I ordered a few more and by mistake they double shipped it. I actually still have quite a few of these [Laughing].
Hellrigel:
Yes, I recently received one from you at the Life Members Conference.
Jefferies:
[Laughing]. [0:59:00]
Hellrigel:
They’re a nice piece and there has been some talk of bringing it back. I guess it all depends on the President and what that person wants to do.
Jefferies:
Yes, I suggested both to Tom [Coughlin], the current President, and Kathleen [Kramer], the President-Elect, that it might be nice to revive that if they wanted to, but [0:59:00] we’ll see.
Hellrigel:
Yes, for Tom it’s getting a little late in the season.
Jefferies:
Yes. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
Tom Coughlin travels so much, so my joke with him is “Where’s Waldo”?
Jefferies:
Yes, exactly.
Hellrigel:
In terms of travel, how much traveling did you do as [0:59:40] IEEE President?
Jefferies:
Quite a bit. Quite a bit. Of course, there’s another policy change. When I was doing it, travel was also authorized for my wife, so we traveled together. We went a couple of times a month or more whether it was a Technical Field Awards or the Milestone [1:00:00] Awards or region meetings or special conferences that we were hosting, a new award ceremony, the Board meetings so we were heavily, very heavily traveled.
Hellrigel:
Now the policy is that…
Jefferies:
The spouse is not covered. That was changed a couple of years [1:00:20] after I was out.
Hellrigel:
If you had to do IEEE President-Elect, President, and Past President, you are probably traveling a lot as President-Elect and President?
Jefferies:
Yes. Some of it is kind of dictated. [1:00:40] Certainly, there’s the Board meetings. You’re the co-host of the Awards Ceremony, so there are a lot of President-Elect activities. Then every year things like the Technical Field Awards. We try to have the Presidents, too, are divided up. The President will pick first, the President-Elect second, and [1:01:00] the Past President third, I think is what we did. Of those, yes, it was quite a bit of travel building up, not as much as during the year. During the [presidential] year, it was just a lot more. Past [President] was a trail off.
Hellrigel:
You’re on the road [1:01:20] three out of four weekends a month.
Jefferies:
Yes. Yes.
Hellrigel:
So, it’s very fortunate you were retired.
Jefferies:
[Laughing] Well, yes. I could not have done it I think when I was working. It just wouldn’t have been a possibility. Again, that’s another element of timing. Much of [1:01:40] what happed here was timing of when things were available and when I was available and it just kind of came together in a very workable way.
Hellrigel:
Who helped you do all of your traveling?
Jefferies:
Well, that’s Kathy Burke.
Hellrigel:
Kathy Burke, that’s right.
Jefferies:
Yes, yes, but she’s retired [1:02:00] now. She was in Corporate Activities and a former United Airlines employee. One of her responsibilities was to keep track of us. [Laughing] Keep track of the Presidents. [Laughing] She did an excellent job. In fact, it’s quite amazing that the three years that we traveled [1:02:20] we never had a single major flight delay or interruption, including international travel.
Hellrigel:
Wow.
Jefferies:
Not once. Well, right at the end we had one with a snowstorm in Denver, we never got out of town but other than that we never had a delay, we never had a missed flight. [1:02:40] It was pretty amazing.
Hellrigel:
You would get on the phone or email with Kathy [Burke] and say I have to be XYZ and she would make it work.
Jefferies:
Yes. Yes.
Hellrigel:
She would deal with the visas and all that other stuff?
Jefferies:
Yes, not too many visas involved. Most of the places we go, [1:03:00] you can travel just with a passport. Then with places like China and India, you can get the ten-year visas.
Hellrigel:
Did you travel to Russia?
Jefferies:
No. Never entered Russia on IEEE business. I did a Baltic cruise one time [1:03:20] to St. Petersburg, but not an IEEE event.
Hellrigel:
Are there any trips that stick out or?
Jefferies:
Well, it’s events maybe. There are different kinds of events. There’s the ceremonial award types of events. There’s the participation with members [1:03:40] in an actual conference event. There are different kinds of things. I think back on the award side, one that I remember very clearly was the Maxwell Award which is a joint award with IEEE and the Royal Society of [1:04:00] Edinburgh. [The James Clerk Maxwell Medal is awarded jointly by IEEE and the Royal Society of Edinburgh.] It’s always on the English Royal Calendar when we did it in Edinburgh, it was with Prince William.
Hellrigel:
Oh, okay.
Jefferies:
He was recognizing the two individuals that were the founders of the GSM Cellular System in Europe: the early and very, very advanced mobile system [1:04:20] that started out in Europe. One from France and one from Norway. I remember that one very clearly. They received their medals from the Prince. I made the remarks, and they received their medals from the Prince. Then later we did a reenactment because I actually liked [1:04:40] to place the medal over their head and personally recognize them. [Laughing]. We kind of redid it [Laughing] a little bit later.
Hellrigel:
You got to meet Prince William?
Jefferies:
No.
Hellrigel:
No?
Jefferies:
Oh, everybody stand up, here comes the Prince, [Laughing] and nobody can touch him. [1:05:00]
Hellrigel:
Right, no shaking hands.
Jefferies:
Yes, you never -- you don’t really [Laughing].
Hellrigel:
Did you go to any IEEE Milestone events?
Jefferies:
A lot of them. I loved the Milestone events. Everyone that we did was kind of special. [1:05:20]
Hellrigel:
Do any stick out?
Jefferies:
Well, one that stuck out to me, actually, was Karlsruhe University in Germany. It was the discovery of liquid crystals. Liquid crystals are the foundation in every cellphone display that we’ve got now. They were actually discovered in 1899 in Karlsruhe University. It’s also the university where Hertz discovered waves. The two plaques are there together. Now I remember that one [1:06:00] very well. We were in the lecture hall where Professor Lehmann had lectured. We toured his lab; the old equipment was still there. I remember that one very well. I had a lot of fun with that. I always liked the Milestones because you never know [1:06:20] what you’re going to find.
Hellrigel:
Are there any favorite conferences? I know that when you were involved in your career you didn’t really go to conferences.
Jefferies:
Well, even as President, I didn’t go to too many conferences. It was more member activity events. One that I [1:06:40] really did enjoy, I mentioned it earlier, was Regensburg, Germany with the Young Professionals. That was a really good conference. But there’s one other one in Bali, Indonesia. It was the Region 10 SWYL Conference. It’s Student, [1:07:00] Women, Young Professional and Life Members. It was a conference that kind of tried to appeal to everybody and it was just a high energy conference of all types of members. It just emerges as a great event. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
Wow.
Jefferies:
I think they’re still doing it. [1:07:20]
Hellrigel:
Is this your first trip to Indonesia?
Jefferies:
It was.
Hellrigel:
When you are President, I guess you supported continuity, but I think one of your [1:07:40] Q&As you said that one of the concerns of IEEE was to focus on its values and to be of value to members. When you’re President, do you have a few things you wanted to address?
Jefferies:
Well, there were a few things. Obviously, the one thing you do as President is you have a retreat, [1:08:00] so I had a retreat for the Board. We did it in Panama City, Panama. We had some arranged topics that we thought were really going to be important for the year coming up. There were a couple of them. One was open access in publications. One of the big issues at the time was open access [1:08:20] was coming into existence. There were people on one side, they would say open access is going to completely eliminate our publications business where we make all our money. There was another side that wasn’t sure where we were going to go. We did spend quite a bit of time talking about how we were going to deal with that. It wasn’t [1:08:40] necessarily my issue, but I was more concerned about issues for the organization. Important issues that were going to be about the future of the organization. That was a critical one we spent a good bit of time talking about that.
Then we talked about membership and membership in the context that you just described, which is the value of membership. There are members [1:09:00] who stayed members just because they believe in the organization. There are other members that are actually looking for a value equation. The value equation is very different for a student or a young professional or mid-career or even a Life Member. The value propositions are not the same. It was really about tailoring. I did talk a lot about tailoring the value [1:09:20] propositions to audiences.
There’s one thing here, you’ve got to say make value, well, you have to define what that means to individuals. We did spend that as a second major topic that we talked about in Panama. Then during the year, we focused a little bit on [1:09:40] strategic direction. It was the 2020 to 2025 plan that was coming up. Our five-year plan, our strategic plan, was due for renewal. We did engage in that during the 2018 year. In most of the Board meetings I would take [1:10:00] a moment and give up the gavel to lead those discussions. I told them if you don’t want to do this, we don’t have to, but if you want to, [Laughing] we will take the time to work that out. We came up with the 2020-2025 plan which included both a statement about how we would want to go about doing things and five key objectives [1:10:20] for organizations to align. Then we also introduced the Strategy and Alignment Committee as a standing committee of the Board. It didn’t exist before that. To assure that at least organizations across IEEE, all the operating units, are thinking about their connection to the strategic plan. It doesn’t mean everything they do [1:10:40] has to somehow be part of it. It’s just so you thought about that and then see what your connection is or isn’t. That was another kind of major activity.
Hellrigel:
Before that, there was no five-year plan?
Jefferies:
There was a five-year plan. This was an update. [1:11:00] We did a small consulting engagement. We weren’t going to try to change all the values and things and said let’s just talk about the five key directions, including education, visibility, reaching out to members, [and] creating value. Those were the themes. You can look up the five.
Hellrigel:
Right, right. Yes. [1:11:20]
Jefferies:
It’s time to do it again. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
Right, yes, I have the laminated big plastic sheet.
Jefferies:
Big laminated sheet, yes. [Laughing].
Hellrigel:
It’s the size of a placemat.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
Big placement.
Jefferies:
That was the output. [Laughing].
Hellrigel:
Then they had the small ones that were 8.5 by 11 [inches].
Jefferies:
Right.
Hellrigel:
We have those. [1:11:40] Is there anything that you found challenging in running the meetings because you’re the person with the gavel.
Jefferies:
No. No, I think the secret is to have a clear agenda. There were times, a few times, when I basically [1:12:00] had to, I guess you’d say, exercise leadership and stop a discussion. I said we are not taking that up. I remember one in particular, they wanted to bring a big motion and the Board was not ready. The discussion we’d had and the amount -- there's no way that this should go to a vote. I just stopped [1:12:20] and I said, oh, break for lunch. [Laughing] The person who wanted to make the motion just looked around and said what just happened. [Laughing] What just happened is we’re not taking that up.
Hellrigel:
Right. Following Robert’s Rules, you have the authority to do that.
Jefferies:
Exactly. [1:12:40] Overall, the most important thing is really to have a sensible agenda. You decide what’s going to be on the agenda. If you’re not ready, then that day you just say I'm not going to do that you can leave things off. Then once you’re into the agenda, think about sticking to the timeframe and to [1:13:00] seriously and honestly respect everybody’s input. A big part of running a meeting is kind of keeping that balance. Sometimes you get someone who wants to dominate a conversation, or they have one single point of view that they just keep going over and over. You’ve got to kind of manage that and that’s just a sense of the meeting and using your leadership where it’s appropriate. [1:13:20]
Hellrigel:
The meetings run, I guess, the daily schedule is 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM? Did you have any times where you were running behind and you went to the wee hours of the morning?
Jefferies:
We didn't. I don’t recall any time that we got way off schedule. No. [1:13:40] No, there was only one time we made a big mistake. We went into executive session, and I didn’t intend to dismiss the Director-Elects. I did. Then we came back. I had to call them all together in the corner of the room and tell them what we talked about to close the gap. It was [1:14:00] a mistake. I had read the agenda item wrong.
Hellrigel:
So, they were allowed to sit in?
Jefferies:
Yes, certainly, whenever you’re in executive session you can allow anyone you want to stay in. That was my intention. That they would be a part of that discussion because it was really about, well, some of the things that are happening now. It [1:14:20] It was about keeping the discussion regarding the future of the organization’s geographic alignment which we’re now getting into much deeper. The Board was not ready to deal with that, but I wanted to make sure that they kept it in front of them.
Hellrigel:
Where is the compromise? How do you get Region [1:14:40] 1 and 2 to agree to merge? Is that after you?
Jefferies:
Yes, that was after me. I really don’t know what might have gone on once -- my guess is it’s kind of vitality issue. [1:15:00] You’d almost have to have a feeling that there was advantage in it. Yes, geographically it’s certainly possible. It’s not a huge geography. Geographically it works. Economically there was a challenge. There was a problem. They tried to increase [1:15:20] the region assessment in Region 1. I don’t know if you remember that. If you looked it up, you would find there was a discussion where they tried to increase the region assessment in Region 1. It got voted down by the Board. Every other Region that’s gone in for a regional assessment increase has gotten their increase. [Laughing] But something about [1:15:40] the way, oh, I know what it was. It was about the way it was presented. What they were going to with the extra money. The Board voted it down that might have been a part of it, too.
Hellrigel:
Sometimes there’s a lot that goes on that goes above my pay grade. I know there were a few constitutional amendments [1:16:00]. I started working at the IEEE History Center on 4 January 2016.
Jefferies:
Oh, okay.
Hellrigel:
In regard to the IEEE Board of Directors meetings, now that I'm here longer and know more people, I'll hear about certain things afterwards.
Jefferies:
Oh, yes.
Hellrigel:
However, not being here all that long, it’s hard to understand how [1:16:20] deep the roots go and which factions are involved.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
I don’t know, this points up that IEEE has thirty-nine Technical Societies, seven or so Technical Councils, and Affinity Groups. [1:16:40]
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
Did you find it difficult balancing the various entities? One of the buzz themes was One IEEE. Did you find it difficult to find the balance [between] IEEE’s universal vision versus all the others?
Jefferies:
Well, yes and no. [1:17:00] I would say that certainly there are all the individual organizations. They have their own bylaws and charters and sometimes their own personality if you want to use that word. But I was never a big fan of the ONE IEEE thing. It seemed like a concept that [1:17:20] floats a little too high, to me because we’re not exactly one. We do have all the common things and we ought to celebrate those together. So that you’re accomplishing it. But this idea, I don’t know [phonetic]. We could unify this, but I never was a big fan of that. It’s just my personal opinion. [1:17:40] No. When I would go to a conference, for example, like a Technical Field Award, and that’s basically lining up with one individual Society, usually their major flagship conference. That was a connection that was fine. They had their conference. They did their thing. They had their Board of Governors and their own things [1:18:00] that they’re accomplishing. You mentioned one. There was one conflict that did come up, but it was just before me. That was the constitutional amendment that was brought to basically restructure the Board. I participated in part of that when I was President-Elect. [1:18:20] The idea was that we would have outside directors. The problem with that overall was that when the tension began to develop it became head-to-head combat. It did not become let’s talk [1:18:40] about what’s valuable here. I wrote a little paper one time, I think, to Karen [Bartleson] when she was President-Elect, and I took both sides in the paper. I said there is a valid argument on one side, there’s a valid argument on the other side. I just said unless you can get people to really talk about what [1:19:00] they can do, this is going to come down to what it ended up being. It became very contentious in the organization and nasty. Yes, part of what I was doing actually with the way I started my presidency was to settle some of that.
Hellrigel:
Once again: the constitutional amendment [1:19:20] was to change how people were…?
Jefferies:
Well, the actual amendment itself… that’s a long story probably and I don’t know everything because I wasn’t there for the whole thing. Basically, the amendment itself was only to allow a different structure. [1:19:40] All that was really going to happen in the vote was -- nothing was going to change because of that amendment. All that it was going to do was allow the possibility of a future change. Because the way it was written initially it was only one way but the amendment would actually change and allow other [1:20:00] alternatives to happen. Then they started defining what those other alternatives were going to be. There was no agreement on what that path had to look like. It became all about the fear of what might come out as opposed to the amendment which was simply to allow an alternative structure. The Board, I think, could function better with an [1:20:20] alternative structure. It’s not ideal.
Hellrigel:
Meaning fewer members.
Jefferies:
It could be smaller. It could be selected in a different way. The qualifications of members. I mean ten Region Directors based on what do they bring, what experience, how does this work? Ten matching Division Directors who also come from [1:20:40] kind of an uncertain (background) is the only way that our Board can be put together now. The amendment was to allow other structures to be possible. You could argue that there would be some ways to improve the functioning of the Board.
Hellrigel:
Right. There was some [1:21:00] more direct -- some people were pushing maybe more members directly voting.
Jefferies:
Well, the members would still do the voting, but they could vote on people that were not.
Hellrigel:
Oh, true.
Jefferies:
They were outside of the pool. So, it wasn’t a total ex officio [1:21:20] kind of set up.
Hellrigel:
Okay.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
If you have someone who’s really a long-term volunteer, a really knowledgeable maybe they would get a seat.
Jefferies:
That would be a possibility. They would be the best candidate even though, well, for example my example. I would not [1:21:40] have been on the Board except that the timing happened in that particular year. Now am I good Board member? Well, I think I had some experience that helped with the Board so that could have been good. But I would not have had any opportunity because the only way in is through the ex officio path.
Hellrigel:
When you were President, did you ever [1:22:00] have a problem where you were not going to have a quorum?
Jefferies:
No.
Hellrigel:
Okay.
Jefferies:
No, never any issues with that at all. No.
Hellrigel:
Okay, people were able to show up and get through the airports and all that.
Jefferies:
Oh, yes. We never had any real attendance issues. [Laughing] No attendance report. [1:22:20]
Hellrigel:
Well, that would be a kerfuffle where if you had, say, people getting held up because of a strike in an airport all having come through London or something.
Jefferies:
I have to say I don’t think we had anything, any big thing like that happen that I can recall.
Hellrigel:
When you were [1:22:40] Past President, does anything stick out?
Jefferies:
So, Past President is sort of a wind-down. You’re taking the field awards that the others didn’t or couldn't do. [Laughing] You really are in kind of a wind-down mode. You become a member of the N&A Committee (IEEE Nominations and Appointments Committee). Well, you’re not the chair [1:23:00] until the following year. You kind of move into a sort of a wind-down mode. You’re at the Board meetings so there is consultation that goes on. You’re still part of the agenda process. You’re part of the actual running of the meeting, sitting next to the President. There’s [1:23:20] discussion and things that can happen there, but it’s a wind-down year. Then when you go into the Past-past President year, you become chair of the N&A and then you really have no official duty. You make your farewell speech at the last Board meeting as the Past President. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
Okay. [1:23:40] Before you, Shoop and then Karen Bartleson, and then after you was José Moura.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
Did you have the Three Ps which is President-Elect, President, and Past President? How were the Three Ps working with you? [1:24:00] Karen [Bartleson} and José [Moura]?
Jefferies:
It was not as much as it probably should have been. In fact, I'm chairing a committee right now to look at that. How do we get improved continuity across the Three Ps and clearly [1:24:20] identify any goals and objectives that they have? José and I would appear at joint events when he was the [President-] Elect. We did one here in Colorado and I think we did one other place. We did some joint appearances, but we didn’t present ourselves as the continuity.
Hellrigel:
But you [1:24:40] did more so with Karen.
Jefferies:
Yes. Yes. They really are the kinds of things we’re talking about improving is that a President-Elect, if they have particular goals, in my case I didn’t bring in any particular goal. My goals were what are the things that we need to keep IEEE moving forward. [1:25:00] I didn’t have another personal agenda. It’s really about identifying goals and making sure that they fit in with the strategic plan which is already there. It’s about integration and it’s not about separation. Any time that someone wants to bring in -- you’ve got a one-year term, if you have [1:25:20] some goal which is really separate from everything else the organization is doing, it’s not likely to be successful. Anyway, you really do need to think about how this is integrated. We could do more with that. Kind of propose some things that would allow that to happen.
Hellrigel:
Now you’re on a committee. [1:25:40] What’s that committee called?
Jefferies:
Well, it’s an ad hoc committee on continuity. It’s actually a spinoff committee from the two-year discussion last year. The two-year term discussion.
Hellrigel:
Who else is on the committee with you?
Jefferies:
José Moura [Laughing] who you just mentioned and [1:26:00] Kathleen Kramer. She’s the President-Elect coming in. Just about to experience it. Now experiencing some of these things. José and I were a few years ago coming out.
Hellrigel:
You and Karen Bartleson were both from industry. [1:26:20] Did you think that helped you work maybe a little closer or was it because you are from the same Region?
Jefferies:
Yes, it’s interesting. There’s been quite a few presidents from the from the Denver area here. We had Mike Lightner, we had Gordon Day, we had Karen [Bartleson], and we had myself. [1:26:40] [Laughing]. It’s been like kind of a hot spot. No, the industry experience I think it wasn’t so much industry experience as sort of senior executive leadership experience. I certainly understood the issues of industry. We had a well-defined and well-functioning Industry Engagement Committee [1:27:00] as a standing committee of the Board. Those things were there no matter what. It didn’t really depend on the President that much.
Hellrigel:
Then you’re the Past President. When you are the President, you’re not involved with N&A (IEEE Nominations and Appointments Committee) and [1:27:20] who’s going to be your successors. You’re removed from that.
Jefferies:
You’re right. Right. That’s not something you have to worry about. [Laughing].
Hellrigel:
When you were President is there anything you would have liked to accomplish that you didn’t?
Jefferies:
No. There was nothing I felt left undone [1:27:40] but again I didn’t come in with a goal to achieve a particular thing. It was about doing everything I could to position the organization for a stronger future. We did make progress on the open access issue and now we’re well into that. The membership thing is [1:28:00] just going to be an ongoing challenge for this organization. The organization has a recruiting strength, and we have a turnover challenge. [Laughing] It’s both on the member side and it’s on the leadership side. We need to do everything we can continuously to work on that. Then the strategy plan: I [1:28:20] think we did get that in place along with an alignment mechanism to try to keep the organization moving in the right directions with that.
Hellrigel:
You worked with Prendergast, Jim Prendergast?
Jefferies:
Yes. Yes. Well, his last year. [1:28:40]
Hellrigel:
Right.
Jefferies:
Yes, Steve Welby came in as Executive Director the same as my year, 2018. My year we started out new together.
Hellrigel:
Right. What was it like? I guess you [1:29:00] were President-Elect with Jim Prendergast. Did you work with him much?
Jefferies:
Yes. Yes, I’d known Jim for many years. It was fine. When I had also worked on the Executive Compensation Committee through audit and goal setting, so we had established good goal setting process and I was on the EBCC Employee Benefits and Compensation Committee for a while.
Hellrigel:
Right.
Jefferies:
Yes, I was comfortable with Jim, but he had made his decision to move on and Steve Welby came in. In fact, I was visiting my [1:29:40] daughter in Arlington, Virginia and Steve Welby and I met at a coffee shop, the first time, just started talking about how we’d set up the transition and what we could do together.
Hellrigel:
Wow. You contacted him and said we should meet?
Jefferies:
He’s already been the candidate. It was just a matter of hooking up. [1:30:00]
Hellrigel:
Okay. Were you involved in hiring the new COO, Steve Welby?
Jefferies:
I guess, yes [1:30:20] and no. See we would have hired him in 2017, right, so I was the President-Elect but I'm trying to remember when. In 2016 I was not an official member of the Board because I was a candidate, but I was at all the Board meetings. [1:30:40] Yes, I don't recall.
Hellrigel:
Okay, I guess that would that have been run by, I don’t know, well they must have had a special committee.
Jefferies:
Yes. There was a Selection Committee and [1:31:00] an outside consultant. A number of candidates were brought to us. I recall an interview, I think, with three candidates. It’s an interesting question because I don’t actually recall a vote process. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
I do remember a few other names getting floated around.
Jefferies:
Yes, I think there were two others that presented to the Board.
Hellrigel:
Why do you think Welby was selected? [1:31:40] Was it his government and industry links?
Jefferies:
I don’t think it was necessarily that. I think a lot of it had to do with his grasp of the command of the technologies and the issues. It’s certainly his presentation and his background. We used the government thing [1:32:00] marginally, but not that much. It was more about his grasp of the technologies coming from the DARPA side and the grasps of the technologies and his ability. As a speaker, he would prep me in amazing ways. We’d have a little issue [1:32:20] and he’d give me a whole binder of information about a topic. Sometimes I’d say, well, I really don’t need all of this, I'm not going to slip up [Laughing] and say something wrong here. But I appreciated, [Laughing] I think it was his attention to detail, his grasp of the technology. That really seemed to be the things and his ability to [1:32:40] function and act as a leader.
Hellrigel:
Did you know him before he was hired by IEEE? No?
Jefferies:
No, I didn’t know him until I met him in that coffee shop.
Hellrigel:
Because I didn’t know if maybe you crossed paths at IEEE-USA due to his DARPA work.
Jefferies:
No.
Hellrigel:
You enjoyed working with him?
Jefferies:
I did. I did. [1:33:00]
Hellrigel:
Even if he gave you homework.
Jefferies:
Yes, [Laughing] he gave me homework.
Hellrigel:
At this point, too, you’re also working with, I don’t know, the Legal or Compliance Department? As IEEE President did you have to [1:33:20] interact with our Legal & Compliance Department much?
Jefferies:
The only issue we had was the there was one case of a member that had misappropriated some funds.
Hellrigel:
Oh, okay.
Jefferies:
I'm not going to talk about it in detail.
Hellrigel:
No, no, [1:33:40] no, no.
Jefferies:
Except to say that in the end it became a difficult situation because it got into the legal court system. I did have to, at one point, officially ask someone else to take over that Society. [1:34:00] So, we did go through that process. I also had to kind of explain to the Society well, actually, it was kind of an interesting meeting and I met with the Society. It was very upsetting because they hadn’t gotten any information. The reason we couldn’t give them any information was because we were under court order not to. Yes, [1:34:20] I did eventually meet with them in person at one of their conferences with their Board of Governors and I had a chance to talk through what I could say. I also made some recommendations on how we could have done things differently. It wouldn’t have gotten into that, but we did that. It was the only time that [1:34:40] I really had a deep involvement.
Hellrigel:
I guess maybe I asked the wrong way.
As IEEE President do you have an official orientation?
Jefferies:
Well, we do for the Presidents. That’s another thing that I mentioned. Our committee that’s working right now would be recommending some [1:35:00] improvements in the process. You usually have a chance to meet. I would meet weekly with the executive director, so there was a connection there. Then there was an onboarding session that we would do for the President-Elect usually in September where every major OU (Operating Unit) head would come. [1:35:20] We’d take a day and a half or so and have everyone present kind of what their plans are, where they are. Those are the kinds of tools that there’s an onboarding plan. As I say we’re going to try to document that in a little more detail with this committee that I mentioned earlier.
Hellrigel:
Right. The onboarding session, would you and the OU [1:35:40] directors meet somewhere?
Jefferies:
Yes, although when I did it, we met actually in [Executive Director] Steve Welby’s office in Piscataway because most of the OU heads are there anyway.
Hellrigel:
Right. A day and a half of here’s what you should know.
Jefferies:
Yes, these are the most important things we’re working on [1:36:00] right now. The chance to have interaction. We both get to know the executive director and staff directors, and we also could have some interaction and may share advice.
Hellrigel:
Did you know any of these directors of the OUs [1:36:20] before then?
Jefferies:
Yes. Well, obviously over the years, they’d come in. They’d been at all the Board Series meetings so in different ways and at different levels. Some people were new. There were some changes, too. At times so new people come in. You have to get [1:36:40] to know them in a different way.
Hellrigel:
Was it smooth sailing for you or did you ever have any second guessing about, oh, boy, what did I get into?
Jefferies:
Nah, I loved every minute of it. [1:37:00] It’s the strength of the organization. There are so many people dedicated so much to what they’re trying to do. When you can give them a chance and an environment to succeed, it’s just going to go really well. I never had any trepidation or second guessing in my head saying why did I do this or anything like that. [1:37:20] I kind of knew what I was getting into. I loved every minute of it. I loved working with the people. As I said, when I departed at my final Board meeting, I'm going to miss the interaction with the people. I'm going to miss the people themselves because what it was all about for me, the people.
Hellrigel:
In your final Board [1:37:40] meeting, you give a talk?
Jefferies:
I did. Short speech.
Hellrigel:
A short speech? I don’t know if I’ve seen that.
Jefferies:
Well…
Hellrigel:
We could add that to your biographical entry.
Jefferies:
Well, I don’t remember what I said. All I remember is the theme. [Laughing] I didn’t write [1:38:00] anything down.
Hellrigel:
Oh, okay.
Jefferies:
Yes. It was just that I said that I thought that the organization was in an excellent position. We were financially solid. A couple of the key issues that had been with us were resolved. We could move forward. The future was bright as long as they [1:38:00] stayed true to the plan and the strategic direction. I would be missing the people and the interactions.
Hellrigel:
One question, the Employee Benefit and Compensation Committee.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
That’s a pretty big challenge. [1:38:40]
Jefferies:
Yes, it’s a committee that’s responsible to support -- but we use a lot of outside consulting support. For example, the compensation to executive directors of the organization. [1:39:00] There’s a lot of outside consultant information that’s used to set the bands and the range on the jobs. That’s the compensation part. Employee benefits: if we’re going to make a change in a major benefit of a health plan or an insurance plan or a 401(k) [1:39:20] option those are things. It’s really a committee of volunteers chaired by a volunteer, but it’s focused around employee benefits and compensation of the management committee level C-Suite kinds of people. There’s a lot of support to it. You’d want people in there that have [1:39:40] had experience in those kinds of areas before. We usually always get pretty good information about why the change is being made and how it might benefit and why we’d want to do it.
Hellrigel:
You were on this for two years?
Jefferies:
I think it was two years, yes. [1:40:00]
Hellrigel:
Did you volunteer or did they find you?
Jefferies:
Well, I don’t recall. I think they invited me to do that. I don’t think it was ex officio. One year it might have been ex officio. [Laughing] It’s like in IEEE [1:40:20] there’s no way to resign anywhere.
Hellrigel:
I guess you could just send an email, gone fishing.
Jefferies:
[Laughing].
Hellrigel:
What do you think best prepared you for your IEEE presidency?
Jefferies:
I think building up to the presidency was, [1:40:40] for me certainly, my career provided me with a lot of skills leading up to it both on the business and the management leadership side. Then I think the ramp up. Just the way that things happened. It seemed like doors opened in front of me [1:41:00] at the time with the right information and with really good people. Suddenly, you’re happy with your work at the Section and then you’re in the Region and things are going good. Then you’re happy at IEEE-USA and finding new things and learning new things. The Board kind of opens up through the Region Director position [1:41:20] and it just seemed like that was the path. It was just like a ramp up of opportunity and when I did get to that point, I was not uncomfortable at all. Capable and ready.
Hellrigel:
Then you’re going to go to Past President [1:41:40] and was that year okay as you’re ramping down?
Jefferies:
Yes. Yes, it was fine. It’s kind of an undefined thing. You get the things that are left. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
Right. Now, you’re on the committee to maybe review the orientation or continuity. [1:42:00] Do you think the Past President is perhaps the most important voice?
Jefferies:
I think that the roles have to continue to be defined properly. The President is the President. The transition of power has to happen. [1:42:20] The Three Ps can be a group as a consulting team but there is a president.
Hellrigel:
Right, no, the President would be in charge but in order to tell the newest person coming in listen, I’ve survived all the previous two years.
Jefferies:
Yes, I think [1:42:40] the President-Elect year and the observations that you have, even in campaigning, really do kind of build you up for it. You really are moved into it in a way, so I don’t think it’s a more important role. I think all three play a role.
Hellrigel:
Okay. Are you very happy you were not involved [1:43:00] during the COVID year?
Jefferies:
[Laughing] Yes. All I can say is yes. I had sympathy for Toshio [Fukuda] of course. It started with Toshio and Toshio came in and even the objectives that he had in mind that he would have liked to have accomplished in the midst of the transition of the way [1:43:20] that you could do things. We found a way through a lot of that. Both operationally and financially we found a way through all that, but it was a time I would not have enjoyed that I don’t think. It’s just because when you’re not meeting with the people directly, which was a big thing for me, you’re not Yes, [1:43:40] you’re kind of guessing, second guessing the next step all the time. I am very happy to have concluded my presidential year, in fact, my last official activity was February of 2020. It was the Solid State Circuit Conference in San Francisco. [1:44:00] Gloria and I were there at the event and as we were flying in, we started getting all these messages that everybody from China was cancelling out. That was February. That was the start of it and that’s the last thing we did.
Hellrigel:
I was at the Region 6 annual meeting. I believe it was in LA (Los Angeles) [1:44:20] the first weekend of February 2020. Then after that it feels almost like a Get Smart episode where all the doors kept closing.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
As people wound down.
Jefferies:
Tell me when you have to drop off.
Activities post-presidency, closing remarks
Hellrigel:
Okay. One last question then. Post-president activities, what are you doing now in IEEE?
Jefferies:
It’s just a few Ad Hoc Committees and things like that on request. I'm just getting a little more involved with the local Section. Back again. I did go to [1:45:00] Congressional Visits Day (CVD), for the first time in five years this year making some connections and back at a lot of some of these conferences. I happened to be at the Rising Stars Conference this year. Actually, it was for another event. I'm serving on the Board of Governors of Eta Kappa Nu; I'm just starting. [1:45:20] Those are some of the things, but it’s a much quieter time.
Hellrigel:
Does Eta Kappa Nu have a president?
Jefferies:
We do.
Hellrigel:
Can you be elected? Do you see that in your future?
Jefferies:
No, [Laughing] I never see that.
Hellrigel:
No?
Jefferies:
I never see the future. [Laughing] [1:45:40] Who knows?
Hellrigel:
Is there anything we didn’t cover, Sir?
Jefferies:
No. I think this is a good. It reminds me of all the good things that happened along the way and what a great experience it was. What an honor to have the chance to be at the head of a really valuable and important organization. [1:46:00]
Hellrigel:
Who would have thought that you would have achieved this? One last-last question. Are you content?
Jefferies:
I am content.
Hellrigel:
The other deal is that there are a lot of [1:46:20] people retiring and going to the Denver, Colorado area, so maybe there will be more [IEEE] Past Presidents popping up in Denver.
Jefferies:
It could be, it could be. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
I think even Prendergast is maybe in Arizona?
Jefferies:
I think last I knew he was in [1:46:40] Durango, Colorado.
Hellrigel:
Oh, that’s right.
Jefferies:
He lives in Durango, and he had a place in in Hilton Head I think.
Hellrigel:
Right, I misspoke.
Jefferies:
I met up with him. [Laughing]
Hellrigel:
Oh, Colorado is a hub.
Jefferies:
Yes.
Hellrigel:
Well, thank you very much, Sir.
Jefferies:
Well, thank you Mary Ann, I really enjoyed the chance to do this and as I say it brought back [1:47:00] a lot of good memories for me and it was a great experience.
Hellrigel:
Thank you for the coin [Laughing].
Jefferies:
Very good, thank you.
Hellrigel:
Have a good day.
Jefferies:
Yes. Bye-bye.
Hellrigel:
Bye-bye.