Oral-History:John Pape
About John Pape
John Pape, born in Manhattan (New York City) in 1948, and raised in the Bronx. He served on the staff of the IEEE Communications Society for more than eighteen years, retiring as Director of Marketing and Creative Services. His publications and marketing career included working for Springer Verlag, Methuen Publishing Ltd., S. Karger, and the American Society of Civil Engineers. He received a B.A. from The City College of New York in 1974. Previously, he graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in 1966, and served in the United States Air Force (September 1966 - August 1970), attaining the rank of Staff Sergeant (SSgt).
About the Interview
JOHN PAPE: An Interview Conducted by T. Scott Atkinson, IEEE History Center, 25 October 2023.
Interview #900 for the IEEE History Center, 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:
John Pape, an oral history conducted on 25 October 2023 by T. Scott Atkinson, IEEE History Center, Piscataway, NJ USA.
Interview
INTERVIEWEE: John Pape INTERVIEWER: T. Scott Atkinson DATE: 25 October 2023 PLACE: Virtual
Early life, education, military career
Atkinson:
Today is October 25th, 2023. I’m Scott Atkinson. I’m a member of the ComSoc [IEEE Communications Society] history committee [IEEE Communications Society’s history committee]. My focus is to do oral histories for the history committee. [00:00:20] Today we have Mr. John Pape, who has agreed to provide us with an oral history. John was previously with the IEEE Communications Society as a staff member, and I personally worked with John for a number of years in the process of [00:00:40] coordinating and handling various conferences of the Communications Society. So, welcome today, John.
Pape:
Thank you, Scott. I feel quite special for being the first staff member to be asked to [00:01:00] participate in the oral history program.
Atkinson:
Okay, very good. To start off with, we like to get some background on you and your upbringing prior to your coming to work for the Communications Society. If you could [00:01:20] tell us where you were born?
Pape:
That does go all the way back. I was born in Manhattan. My father was born in Manhattan; my grandfather was born in Manhattan.
Atkinson:
What year was that?
Pape:
I was born in 1948.
Atkinson:
Okay, 1948 in Manhattan. Did you go to grade school in [00:01:40] Manhattan, or where did you start school?
Pape:
I was brought up in the Bronx. We lived in the house that my great grandfather built, which will be 100 years old sometime this decade. So, that was the way I was brought up. [00:02:00] Early on in life I have two brothers who are two years younger than me and four years younger than me. Our father died when my youngest brother was one month old, so that was in 1952. [00:02:20] That was the basis for the start of my life. My mother worked at the City College of New York. She was the secretary to the Dean of the [00:02:40] Evening Division. We also had a home that my parents had built, well, not built, but bought in upstate New York, between Saugerties and Woodstock, so we would spend many summers up there and [00:03:00] weekends there during the good weather. But most of the time I was in the Bronx, in Woodlawn, which is all the way up north, just on the border of Yonkers.
Atkinson:
Did you go to [00:03:20] school there?
Pape:
Yes, I went to grade school there. I went to high school at DeWitt Clinton High School, which was a rather large high school. There were 8,000 students in that high school when I went there. I graduated from DeWitt Clinton [00:03:40] in 1966, and at that time for those who wish to remember, the Vietnam War was going on. They were drafting you right out of high school, and rather than being drafted, I [00:04:00] joined the Air Force and wound up going to Texas for my basic training, and up to Amarillo for technical school. I was refueling airplanes at the time.
Atkinson:
So that was your job, is to be a refueler of [00:04:20] fighter planes, bombers, or?
Pape:
Oh, well, it was eventually. Then I was stationed up in Alaska at Elmendorf in Anchorage, Alaska. I refueled a bunch of C141s, which are cargo planes, which [00:04:40] came from the east coast heading to Vietnam. I also refueled fighter planes which were there to protect North America at the time. Within six months of being there, I [00:5:00] [was named] dispatcher, so I was already in management literally less than a year into my career in the Air Force.
Atkinson:
Anything else on your military career you want to add?
Pape:
Two things, [00:05:20] perhaps. My next location was Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, White Sands Missile Range. (I always tell these stories and my daughter’s eyes roll.) I drove from Alaska to New York City back in 1969. [00:05:40] And of course we’re talking about February. Those 1,200 miles of dirt roads which they call the ALCAN Highway were a challenge [with the ice and snow]. [00:06:00] Then when I got down to New Mexico I had a roommate, and we [would drive] out to California, or up to Colorado. So, I saw a fair amount of the United States before I ever went to college.
Atkinson:
[Please continue.]
Springer Verlag, ASCE
Pape:
When I [00:06:20] [received] my honorable discharge, I came back to New York City and went to the City College of New York. [The] City College of New York at the time had a good reputation. [00:06:40] [It was said to be] a poor man’s Harvard. And it was also said that if you couldn’t get into City College you could always go to NYU. So that was my experience of getting into City College. [00:07:00] Of course, I did have the GI Bill -- another advantage of having been in the military. When I went to college, I studied literature and [00:07:20] [got close] with a professor, [Professor Schlenoff], and I actually [helped write descriptions of] courses to be held in Europe. I spent a semester in London and Paris when I was a young [student] or [before] my career [in publishing].
Once I [received] my degree, I worked for Springer Verlag, a scientific, technical, [and] medical publisher, [00:08:00] at their New York office in the Flatiron Building. I started by proofreading, and within [a few] years, I [was] running the [Promotion] Department. [That was my pathway] into publishing. I [had several more positions] in publishing [before joining the] IEEE Communications Society [as Marketing Manager].
Atkinson:
Can you enumerate some of those?
Pape:
At Springer Verlag, which was a German-based publisher, I was involved with all their different product [00:08:40] lines, so that meant physics, mathematics, chemistry, medicine, geology, [and more]. It was a long list of professional or post graduate publications. I was even part of the [00:09:00] group that started The Mathematical Intelligencer, which was a magazine [specifically] for the mathematics area. From [Springer-Verlag] I went to a British-based publisher, Methuen [Methuen Publishing Ltd.], in New York. [00:09:20] I spent about a year and a half with Methuen, which was a conglomeration of scientific and humanities [titles] and postgraduate [publications]. They also published trade publications. At this point, I was getting into the [00:09:40] publications world heavily. I was recruited to [work for] S. Karger, a Swiss-based medical publisher. For eight years I was involved with [00:10:00] medical publishing marketing [medical books and journals] in the United States, although all of the publications were fulfilled from Switzerland. Karger is a [privately owned family] organization. [00:10:20] I knew several generations of the family [during my years] there.
Atkinson:
From there, is that when you transitioned into [the IEEE] Communications Society, [00:10:40] or did you have other jobs between that?
Pape:
I was at the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and that was where my connection with the engineering [discipline] started. The American Society of Civil Engineers was located [00:11:00] in the United Engineering Center, which was on 1st Avenue very close to the United Nations. At one point, IEEE had its headquarters there. ASME [American Society of Mechanical Engineers] and AIChE, [American Institute of Chemical Engineers] [00:11:20] were there, too. These are all acronyms for other engineering societies which were part of what was called the Foundation [The Founder Societies of the United Engineering Foundation formed the United Engineering Societies (UEF)]. I understand that it was [originally formed] by Andrew Carnegie, so there’s a history. The building that we were in [00:11:40] was about a twenty-story building on 47th Street and 1st Avenue. It wasn’t large enough for the four or five societies at the time, so that’s when IEEE started to move out. [00:12:00] ASCE, American Society of Civil Engineers, moved to Washington D.C., and that’s when I left and [started work with] the IEEE Communications Society.
IEEE Communications Society
Atkinson:
Do you recall the date of that transition?
Pape:
I believe it was [00:12:20] 1998.
Atkinson:
1998, okay. Tell us a little bit about what you initially were hired to perform there?
Pape:
At the IEEE Communications Society, I came in as the director of marketing. [00:12:40] Most of my marketing experience up to that point had purely been within the realm of publications. At IEEE Communications Society, I [was involved with] membership and conferences. [During my tenure,] I [00:13:00] became involved with [many different programs, including] the certification program, and [other] different areas.
Atkinson:
Let us try to take these in some sort of a chronological order. If you could walk us [00:13:20] through some of those various roles and projects that you were involved in?
Pape:
Well, from my standpoint I always looked at the market and generating interest. Generating market demand is the way I [00:13:40] [considered marketing]. [There were] different segments of your market. [There were] wholesalers, bookstores, jobbers, [and] subscription agents. Another [market] segment was the libraries, academic libraries, corporate libraries, [00:14:00] government libraries. And then you had the individuals: [mostly] academics, who were teaching, and those who were involved in research, and professionals employed by government, by companies, [or] by nonprofits. You had to stimulate [00:14:40] all these areas to generate demand. And that [meant working with] sales [00:15:00] also. I was involved in the transition [from print to electronic] at that point, in 1998. That was just before Y2K. No one knew what was going to [00:15:20] happen at Y2K. [Many] thought that the computers were going to completely [shut down] because [it was unknown if software] could handle going into another millennium. So that was [00:15:40] a [significant concern at that time].
Atkinson:
I didn’t realize that your career with the Communications Society and my active participation in the Society were pretty much all together because it was around 1998, and 1999 when I became a full-time volunteer [00:16:00] and started getting involved in the conferences arena.
Pape:
Steve Weinstein was the president [of ComSoc] at the time.
Atkinson:
Right.
Pape:
When I first got there, I was hired by Jack Howell. Jack Howell was the executive director of the [00:16:20] Communications Society. Jack and I got along well and that was [beneficial]. I had a relatively small staff. At the time there may have been eighteen or twenty people on staff for the Communications Society. [00:16:40] About four or five were in the marketing area and the marketing [department] was transitioning from a basic direct mail [approach] to everything electronic and digital. We were [executing] both [approaches] [00:17:00] [simultaneously] at that time.
Atkinson:
I know you did some marketing for ComSoc outside of the actual ComSoc conferences themselves. Could you give us some history and background about those events?
Pape:
There were many ComSoc conferences. I [went] to some of the [00:17:20] conferences and conventions such as CTIA. [Many] conferences were jointly [sponsored] by ComSoc and another organization such as MILCOM (Military Communications Conference), or OFC (Optical Fiber Communications Conference). [Occasionally,] I [00:17:40] [went] to Mobile World in Barcelona. I didn’t go to all, but I went to most of them at one point or another [during my tenure], that’s in addition to the large [annual ComSoc] conferences that [00:18:00] the Communications Society [hosted], such as GLOBECOM and ICC (International Communications Conference). I [also attended] CES, the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. [00:18:20] Within a year or so, [the team] was marketing approximately one [new] event per month. [The plan for attendance was to] put on a display, [00:18:40] send out fliers, provide catalogs, and [offer] sample copies. Of course, in those areas that permitted it, we would have books to be sold, [subscriptions taken and] new member [applications completed]. [At events] you could get a feel for [genuine interest], you developed relationships. One-on-one relationships with individuals [helped generate new] members or [persuade a member to] upgrade. [00:19:20] Many times there would be those who had IEEE memberships but didn’t have Communications Society membership, and we tried to entice them. They had a chance to get our magazine, they had a chance to get all the other publications that they might want from the Communications Society.
Atkinson:
[00:19:40] I remember that. I first heard about you when I was the executive chair of GLOBECOM 2001. I was working with [Gayle and Deborah], a couple of ladies on your staff. [00:20:00]. Anyway, I was working with them, and I kept asking about, publicity related to the conference and to our supporters and I heard your name.
Pape:
[00:20:20] Right.
Atkinson:
I reached out to you, and I had a conversation with you. That was our first interaction in the Communications Society. I know over the years we had many, many interactions with each other. I may relate some of those [00:20:40] others, but this is your interview, so this is up to you to tell us what you remember about your tenure at the Communications Society. Do you have any interesting [00:21:00] experiences that you had that are kind of unique that would be of interest?
Pape:
Well, I’ve had many crazy experiences, especially with the Communications Society. [ComSoc] launched [the WCET] certification program about 2012. The certification program itself [00:21:40] needed to have [an educational element] with it and we, [ComSoc, initiated] a group of online courses for the certification that were live courses through Webex. I believe that was the [00:22:00] [online] technology that was used. They, [the courses], proved to be more successful, or more attractive than the certification itself, which was kind of interesting. So that was one, and of course, [00:22:20] we didn’t know that until we started offering the courses. That was [a positive experience]. [00:22;40] Another anecdote I remember [was] MILCOM in 2012. MILCOM that year was held in Florida. I get down to Florida, I start setting up our exhibit at the MILCOM [exhibit hall], and Hurricane Sandy hit [the East Coast]. They canceled MILCOM that year. [00:23:00] That was crazy [and a first for me]. I couldn’t get home, so I spent three extra days in Florida listening to my wife on the phone telling me how bad it was. So, yes, there were many, many experiences like that. [00:23:20] People may not know that I jogged for something on the order of twenty-eight years. [Eventually,] my legs wouldn’t let me do it. I was [at a conference] in [00:23:40] Istanbul maybe, or Budapest. [Yes, the event was in Budapest.] I couldn’t get out and run. I tried, but my legs weren’t working.
Atkinson:
Jack Howell used to also jog, as I remember.
Pape:
Jack Howell was a very big jogger. [00:24:00] He was athletic. The other big thing Jack did was ski. He was a big skier. Yes. Then [00:24:20] again, one little anecdote that is a little bit off [topic], but it was [about another ComSoc president] Tom Plevyak. He wrote an article, I believe, for the magazine, and it was all about the fact that whenever communications came [00:24:40] to an area the economy of that area just picked up. It was almost as if once you’ve got communications somewhere it was almost like civilization showed up. I thought that that was really an [00:25:00] important point to make, that’s for sure. Let me see if I’ve got anything else over here. Before I ever got to IEEE, I was warned that it’s the most complicated [00:25:20] organization in the world. [That was] from a publication’s standpoint – these were publishing people, because you never knew who had the authority to authorize anything at IEEE. Now, once you were in the Communications Society you knew what your chain of command was. [00:25:40] But prior to that, you never knew what, who – because every event they put on, every magazine they have, every society that they have, every chapter that they have, every local [00:26:00] university has its own organizational [structure]. And they were all different people. It was difficult to figure out who you needed to contact in order to get anything done.
Atkinson:
Oh, [00:26:20] here’s an interesting question. Were you ever an IEEE member? Pape: Yes, I was an IEEE member. As a matter of fact, I am a Life Member right now.
Atkinson:
Life Senior Member, maybe?
Pape:
No, just a Life Member.
Atkinson:
Just a Life Member.
Pape:
Right.
Atkinson:
[00:26:40] All right. Did the IEEE Communications Society ever bestow any awards on you?
Pape:
I have some certificates for ten years [service] and that type of thing. So yes, I’ve [received] some awards.
Atkinson:
[00:27:00] Do you want to comment about any of the good experiences that you had with other people in the Communications Society or ComSoc members you know that were not part of the staff?
Pape:
[00:27:20] Well, the ComSoc staff, most of the staff were great. Everybody worked hard. There everybody had to manage a great many projects all at the same time. [00:27:40] When you had someone who was dealing with a conference, they may be dealing with one conference that was in one month and another conference in another month, and a third one, and that all had different people involved, and they all had different scenarios. I enjoyed [00:28:00] working a lot with the publications, the editors of the journals and the magazines. They were all top-notch people. I think Curtis Siller at one point was the editor of IEEE Communications Magazine. There were a number of [00:28:20] people that I really enjoyed working with, and in my experience the engineers I dealt with at the Communications Society were much more reasonable than the vast majority of professionals [00:28:40] that I used to deal with, whether it was in medical publishing or civil engineering or other sciences. Many of them were very self-composed, and they were sure of themselves, and they didn’t have other agendas going on [00:29:00] most of the time. I enjoyed working with a lot of those professionals, and that was very, very, very heartwarming to me. [00:29:20] Our staff we had writers, we had graphic artists, we had [00:29:40] people involved in doing some of the analysis of the data and that type of thing also. And of course, we went to conferences or conventions or expos where potential members might be. [00:30:00] They had a conference at OFC where IEEE came out with a book on dense wave division multiplexing, and we couldn’t keep it in stock. We kept calling the warehouse to send more and more. [00:30:20] It was probably the one event that I went to that we had more sales than any other, and I think we added over 100 new members at that event too, so that was [a success]. [00:30:40] I’ve been to many places with the Communications Society. I started writing them down, [including] Canada, Peru, Brazil, Hawaii, Japan, Australia, China, Singapore, South Africa, [00:31:00] England, France, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Greece, Italy, Finland, Scotland, [and] the Netherlands. It’s a long list. I added up [trips to] California. How many times, how many days? [00:31:20] How long have I stayed in California? I added it up and it came to two years of my life, one week at a time. That was my experience with California.
Atkinson:
One conference that I remember [00:31:40] specifically where you and I had more than just a little interaction, and I’m curious as to what you might say about it. It was Cape Town, South Africa.
Pape:
Cape Town, South Africa.
Atkinson:
We were hanging around and then after some meetings or what have you, we decided to all go out to dinner together. [00:32:00] Do you remember that?
Pape:
I think I do. Yes. I enjoyed Cape Town, although it felt a little antiquated down there. But still I enjoyed all of the camaraderie that we shared together.
Atkinson:
We did. We had a lot of that. [00:32:20] There’s no doubt about that.
Pape:
Yes, we did. Yes, we did.
Atkinson:
Yes. Before we move on to post ComSoc career points, is there [00:32:40] kind of anything more you want to add to your ComSoc experiences?
Pape:
Well, let me just take a look down here. You know, at one point we were adding 15,000 new [ComSoc] members a year, which was a pretty amazing number at the time. So that was, [00:33:00] pretty good. And during my time we introduced blogs, videos, interviews, press releases, and newsletters; most of which were on the Internet on the website. Those were some of the [tactics] [00:33:00] to inspire people to continue to innovate. That was [a priority]. One [tactic] of marketing is testing, and when you find something that works, [00:33:40] you keep doing it over and over again until it no longer works. That’s what marketing was somewhat all about.
Atkinson:
Yes. I can sense that it was a very fulfilling career move to work with the [IEEE] Communications Society over [00:34:00] those years. It’s probably much more intense than maybe some of your other positions before joining the IEEE. Pape: It was intense in a different way because at the Communications Society I was involved in virtually everything that was going on. Whereas [00:34:20] most of the other jobs that I’ve had, most of the other employment has been very specific or just involved in publications. At some places I was only involved in [specific] publications, not the magazines, just the journals and books. So, there was [00:34:40] a difference that’s for sure. Certification and all of the other activities. And of course, there was competition among [IEEE] societies. I assume there still is. If one society can grow more than [another] [00:35:00] society, it [generates] more exposure, and [interest]. IEEE is a very complicated organization. I think they say they [organize] 2,000 conferences a year. Probably since we’ve been speaking today, they’ve opened [00:35:20] another two conferences.
Atkinson:
Yes. Okay.
Pape:
Yes.
Atkinson:
Do you want to move on to your post ComSoc career activities?
Pape:
Well, like I said, post ComSoc I’ve done a little bit of consulting, and [00:35:40] that’s basically been it. I’ve got two daughters, and now I’ve got five grandchildren, so that can occupy a bit of your time also. [00:36:00] I do go into NYC (New York City), and I do see some of the people I used to work with occasionally, although very few of the ComSoc, very few of the IEEE people [are in the New York Office] because most have been moved out of the City (New York City, Manhattan)]. [00:36:20] I’m on Long Island, so I’ll [travel] into the City. One daughter lives close to the Verizon headquarters in [Basking Ridge], New Jersey, and the other one is in Massachusetts. [00:36:40] One has three children, the other two. And when you’re retired or semi-retired your job is to manage your health. That’s also been one of [00:37:00] my priorities.
Atkinson:
Do you have any hobbies that you’re engaged in these days?
Pape:
Oh, not really. I don’t really have too many hobbies. I enjoy my wine [00:37:20] every once in a while, and good restaurants. That’s probably something that the Communications Society contributed to my expertise in that area. And, like I said, [00:37:40] I still do some consulting, too, mostly marketing. I’ve done it with some friends, and I’ve also done some [consulting] with other engineering organizations, too.
Atkinson:
[00:38:00] Well, I’ve kind of have run out of questions to ask you, I think.
Pape:
This is something I did years ago, okay, not that many years ago, but I apologize to Ervin Drake and Frank Sinatra, who sang it. [00:38:20] I made a little bit of a spoof on It Was a Very Good Year, that Frank Sinatra did. When I was seventeen it was a very good year. It was a good year for pinochle on summer nights in upstate New York with mother and brothers and Mokie on the floor, and for shooting pool in old Bronx cellars, [00:38:40] graduating from DeWitt Clinton, flying away to feed my wanderlust, and [United States] Air Force patriotism when I was seventeen. When I was twenty-one it was a very good year. It was a very good year for Laguna’s ocean beaches; Cuban cigars; very cold Coors beer; [00:39:00] the cruise across the desert in Bullet’s Mustang; the visits to Haight Ashbury and God’s grand redwoods; reminiscing about Alaska’s deep freeze while baking in white sand sun; matriculating at City College where Kurt Vonnegut taught and Colin Powell studied; and finding Shakespeare, [00:39:20] Dostoyevsky, Gershwin, Gericault, Cezanne, and Henry Moore. It all came together when I was twenty-one. When I was thirty-five it was a very good year. It was a very good year for fireplaces and celebrating the early years in Kings Park together with Diane and the Koelles; [and] the birth of daughters Jessine and Pam, [00:39:40] just two years apart. [It was also a good year for] developing joy in Beckett, Charles Krug, Foie Gras, and the New York City changes; juggling a faded Maoist Vision; tsunamis; Pascal; lithotripsy; stem cells; design loads, and DWDM into a career. [00:40:00] Crashes and bubbles, I’ve known a few, but I’ve never desired to drive in limousines, when I was thirty-five. Surprise, the days have grown short, I’m not in the autumn of the year. But unlike the song I think of my life as vintage wine, with a loving family, longtime friends, good neighbors, health, intelligent people [00:40:20] to work with, opportunity to discover, a base in Manhattan, a global stage. From the brim to the dregs, life pours sweet and clear. When you get to my age, they are all very good years.
Atkinson:
Wow. Fantastic.
Pape:
Thanks. See, that you didn’t know about me, [00:40:40] right?
Atkinson:
Yes. I guess we’ll never really know everything about everybody that we encounter in our lives.
Pape:
No.
Atkinson:
John, I have certainly enjoyed this. [00:41:00] But I don’t want to cut you short if you have more information that you would like to provide.
Pape:
I think you’ve gotten most of my [life]. I’m sure that I’ve got [much] more if I had to put it together. Every time I turn around, I think of something else, and I say well, wait a second, is that important? When I was in medical publishing, [00:41:20] one year I went to New Orleans six different times. I was so sick of creole or Cajun anything. But the one regret I have [is that] I never got to Frankfurt for the Frankfurt Book Fair. [00:41:40] That’s the biggest publication event of the year, and I never made that.
Atkinson:
Oh, yes.
Pape:
Yes. But that’s the way it goes.
Atkinson:
Well, yes. We shared, as I say, our careers were parallel. I really started in [00:42:00] about 1999, with the conference in Vancouver, Canada. And from that point on the interesting story is, as I was up there, I just checked in to the hotel, walked across the lobby, and ran into Ross Anderson. [00:42:20] And Ross said, hey, Scott, why don’t you do GLOBECOM 2001 in San Antonio? This was 1999.
Pape:
Right.
Atkinson:
I said oh my gosh. Well, if you can deliver two things for me, I’ll do it. One is, you’ve got to get me a figurehead, [00:42:40] chair of the conference, and you got to get me a program coordinator. A couple of months went by, and I finally asked Ross, I said Ross, any results on getting those two? And, he said yes, I got them both. So, he secured those two positions, and we were off and running to GLOBECOM 2001. [00:43:00] It was headed towards an extremely successful conference when 9/11 hit. You know, that was at thirty, forty days prior to our conference and we were losing seventy registrations per day because all of the airlines were shut down around [00:43:20] the world.
Pape:
Right.
Atkinson:
So, in spite of that, we still made $7,000.00 surplus.
Pape:
You still made a surplus.
Atkinson:
And, we did not have to cancel the conference, because that was something that was on our minds regularly. Should we cancel because a lot of other IEEE conferences were canceled. [00:43:40] But we decided not to cancel ours because for one reason we already had made a surplus. If we held the conference and nobody came.
Pape:
Right.
Atkinson:
As it turned out we did have a fair attendance, but it’s always one of those things if you could do it over, you’d do it [00:44:00] differently, you know? But that’s how we live and learn, you know, from all of these various experiences. But John, you’re one of the individuals I always enjoyed chatting with at all these conferences, and you [00:44:20] made my day as well, to know you, share those conferences with you. What was the last conference you attended as as a flagship conference?
Pape:
Oh, it was 2015, I think.
Atkinson:
That was London, England?
Pape:
Maybe 2014. It may have been the last one was [00:44:40] at the GLOBECOM 2014.
Atkinson:
Yes, that was Austin, Texas.
Pape:
Right, right.
Atkinson:
I was the executive chair of that particular conference.
Pape:
Yes. You were busy.
Atkinson:
Ted Rappaport was a Vice Chair, I was the Executive Chair, and we had the president of one of the AT&T companies as the formal chair.
Pape:
[00:45:00] Right.
Atkinson:
At that time, it was one of the most successful conferences for the patronage. We had over $500,000.00 patronage for that conference, and it was the most profitable up to that point of the GLOBECOMs. Since then, [00:45:20] they changed it all up, as you know, that the rotation is now all different. It’s one in Europe, one in the States, one in Asia, one in Europe, one in the States, one in Asia. Relative to the two conferences per year that we used to do GLOBECOMs in the States and ICC is [00:45:40] somewhere overseas.
Pape:
Right.
Atkinson:
[Those were] tremendous times. I went to twenty conferences, no, that’s not right. I went to forty conferences in twenty years. So, anyway, it was something like that. [00:46:00]
Pape:
Right.
Atkinson:
So yes, the experience of attending the conferences and sharing the conferences. My last conference I believe was in 2017, and I was no longer on the Board of Governors or as the [00:46:20] North American Region Director. So, I almost hate to shut this down, but I think we’ve had –
Pape:
I’ve always enjoyed talking to the graduate students who would be at the conferences to make a presentation of their paper. Many of them were very, very uptight about the whole thing. [00:46:40] And I would say to myself, in three years they’re going to be pros at this, and they will know what’s going on.
Atkinson:
Well, any last comments?
Pape:
No. Thank you very much for the opportunity to [00:47:00] tell my story about being with IEEE and being with the Communications Society. I think it was the highlight of my working career.
Atkinson:
Very good. Thanks John, I am now going to terminate the recording.
