Oral-History:Kurt Richter
About Kurt Richter
Kurt R. Richter is an IEEE Life Fellow, elected an IEEE Fellow, in 2005, as an Educator “for contributions to the theory and application of computational electromagnetics.” He is a member of the IEEE Education Society, the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society, and the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society Membership. He served as Region 8 Director, 1991-1992, and is a founding member and chair of the IEEE Austria Section from January 1980 to January 1985. The Austria Section was founded 21 December 1979 by Kurt R. Richter, chair; Robert Genseer, vice-chair; Andreas Sethy, Secretary; and Franz Voggenberger, Treasurer.
About the Interview
KURT RICHTER: An Interview Conducted by Anthony (Tony) C. Davies, IEEE History Center, 19 April 2013
Interview #853 for the IEEE History Center, The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
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It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows:
Kurt R. Richter, an oral history conducted in 2013 by Anthony (Tony) C. Davies, IEEE History Center, Piscataway, NJ, USA.
Interview
Interviewee: Kurt R. Richter
Interviewer: Anthony (Tony) C. Davies
Date: 19 April 2013
Place: Meliá Castilla Hotel in Madrid, Spain
Davies:
This interview was done on Friday the 19th April 2013 in the Calle Colón, that is Columbus Room, of the Meliá Castilla Hotel in Madrid, Spain. The interviewer was Tony Davies, a former Director of IEEE Region 8, assisted by Roland Saam, Editor of IEEE Region 8 News. The interviewee was Kurt Richter from Austria.]
If we start by introducing ourselves, I am Tony Davies and I was once a Region 8 Director. I will be the interviewer asking most of the questions, supported by Roland [Samm] who may ask additional questions. Roland, do you want to say something about who you are?
Saam:
I’m Roland Saam. I am Region 8 News editor. I am supporting this interview process.
Richter:
My name is Kurt Richter. I was an active Region 8 Director in 1991 to 1992 and in my other life I was a professor. I am retired, an Emeritus Professor, and a Dean Emeritus.
Davies:
Let’s make a start and to kick things off. Would you like to tell us how you come to join IEEE in very first place?
Richter:
This goes back a long [time] because I started to study electrical engineering, communication engineering in 1952 and finished in 1958. Of course, in the last years we did some research work within the diploma thesis, but we had no literature because we had no printed textbooks. At these times, the only literature we really had was IEEE Transactions and we depended on the IEEE Proceedings, too. I was working on microwaves then. This was very interesting for us, but my salary was so low. All the assistant professors like me had so low a salary that we couldn’t afford to become members, so we did something which is not liked very much in IEEE. We had one member and the others paid for the Transactions that they were very interested in. This was hard enough for us, but you know, IEEE was something which is far away. Later after my Ph.D., [0:03:09.3] I was the first one in my faculty accepted as an author in the IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques.
It was very difficult at this time, and you might remember too, that there weren’t too many offshore authors. They were mostly Americans; okay, fine.
At this time, IEEE was still part of IRE and far up in the sky. However, later when I could afford to become a member, I became a member because of the publications and no other reason. This was the main reason for most people in Europe. The publications were reasonable, and they were excellent, so this was the only reason I became a member in IEEE.
How I became a volunteer, that’s a different story. I studied in Graz and Vienna. Vienna was the capital with two million people, and at this time Austria's population was six million and Graz had 230,000 people. When I was in Graz, I became a full professor in 1975. During the spring of 1979, I got a call from a friend who said, "listen, the President of IEEE is visiting Austria," No, it was not the President, sorry, it was [F. Louis H.M.] Stumpers, the Region 8 Director.
Davies:
Yes, I know him.
Richter:
Stumpers came from the Netherlands. I was there with one other guy named Dick Poortvliet.
Davies:
I also know him.
Richter:
Later, he became the director, and unfortunately, he died early. It was a very nice evening and then suddenly I got the call again from Vienna; we need a Section. What we need is a Section Chair. The guy who initiated everything didn’t do it, so I was elected. I became Section Chair and my first meeting in the Regional Committee was in 1980. I served them as a Section Chair or a Section head. There were sixty members or so, and nowadays there are 900 members
It was a very small section. When I came to the Region 8 Committee meeting, I didn’t know anything. In German we have the word [unclear] we understand translation but having [unclear] said that it was very difficult because there were some things going on at this time. Dick Poortvliet was already a Director then .. and what happened was the … problems came from EUREL, from the National Society, many National Societies including, I think, IEE, so more or less a competitor. I contacted IEEE and it was mostly power engineering and that’s it. So, anyway, discussions started with the Secretary General who was opposing, actively opposing. When I was there, I came as a designated Section Chair and I had to wait half an hour in the room outside of his office until he gave me an audience. It was a very good discussion and finally we got a very difficult solution for this Section and it was the Austria Section became the Section of the National Society.
It had big advantages because then we were tax-exempt. We didn’t have to prove that we were a non-profit organization because we were under the umbrella of the Austrian Section and as far as I know this situation is still there, so we are Sections of two organizations in fact and interestingly enough yesterday I was asked by the Austrian Section Chairman about this history.
Davies:
Jan Haase?
Richter:
No, no, the other one. Roessler [name unclear] the one that remains. General [unclean] decided that we… that the Secretary General and the last one too, both did not remember or didn’t get any information on the history of the Section, the Austrian Section. But we still as a Section keep a report of the general assembly of the National Society. Anyway, a difficult situation, but finally we were very successful by organizing lectures and so on and the Austrian Society paid for the [unclear]. We made joint events which was very good. This was the situation how I became a volunteer and I think the next question would be how I became a director.
Davies:
It would be, but can I perhaps go back one moment first? You said about the journals being really the important thing at first, but of course these were written in the English language. There were German language technical publications, I suppose, at that time. I just wondered, how important was it that in your field to be able to access and read English language rather than German language publications in a technical sense?
Richter:
Well, in the beginning, at least, English journals were much more important for a certain reason. During the war [World War II], for instance, maybe you have heard sometimes from the Llewellyn-Peterson equations in microwaves. My teacher and my boss at that time, he did the same and they knew each other very well, after the war. But during the war nobody in Germany, and we were a part of Germany, wanted to publish anything. So, in particular, in microwave engineering there were no publications. And talking about publications, in power engineering there were publications, and this was OK, but communications was more or less new because it was top secret and so on, and therefore these papers were very important. But later on, so it must have been in the early 1960s, we decided six of the assistant professors would learn Russian in order to read Russian literature too, because we said, we see only one side and maybe we can see something on the other side. Unfortunately, we didn’t find the right teacher, but we learned a little bit of Russian, at least.
Our English, of course, was the English of the middle school, it was not technical English, so we were totally off as didactic. But it worked out. Fortunately, we had a very famous, now he is famous, professor, he is retired, Ted Van Duzer, from Berkeley University. He was there working on this Ph.D. He was in Vienna and he was on a Fulbright bursary/stipend. He did not learn a word of German, [but] everybody at the Institute was happy [because] there was somebody who could speak very good [English]. I was section chair for five years, which was a very long time. I was a founding-chair, so my term started in 1985. Then I was asked if I would be a candidate for director.
Davies:
It came more or less immediately after, then?
Richter:
Immediately after. I was not out of the committee. This was at the last meeting. Then the next meeting I was a candidate invited and so on.
Davies:
By then, you knew the Region 8 Committee and how it worked.
Richter:
Yes. I believed [I knew how it worked, but] I didn’t know correctly. Anyway, the other candidate was Jacob Baal-Schem. Suddenly, maybe they were not satisfied with the two candidates. They needed three candidates, so suddenly a German candidate came out of the cylinder of the magician, the section chair. Who will decide, a very good friend of mine.
Davies:
Ruechard?
Richter:
Yes, and from Muenchen, from Munich,
Davies:
Whichever way you pronounce it.
Richter:
It was Hugo Ruechard, who I must say was an excellent director because he had all opportunities at this time. For Siemens, a Director of Region 8 was something, so he kept his office and his secretary and had nothing to do with anything. He was also the chairman of the [unclear]. To finish the election, I lost the election and Hugo was elected. He invited me to chair a jubilee workshop in the Ivory Coast, in Abidjan, on education in Africa; a great experience and very, very interesting. After that, I said, I will be a candidate and there was already not one candidate but two. It was again Jacob Baal-Schem and Fernando Aldana, who was a very, very famous and well-known person. And finally, he talked to me, and I agreed, and this election I won. I was very surprised about it, but I have my own feelings about the election. The more North geographically you come from, you become the Director, and you can look back.
I won this election. And we agreed because Fernando said when I would have known you were a candidate too, I wouldn’t agree but now I agree. So, I said, well, listen, whoever of us loses the election needs the help of the other and we could work together afterwards, why not? Then when I won and I offered this to Fernando, Fernando said “no, I have other interests now.” In fact, when I came to the Board of Directors, Fernando was already the elect chair of the Technical Activities Board (TAB). There again a very difficult time because Fernando was not really working this time and many people say we don’t need Regions. You will find them even today especially in Societies and Chapters. So I had really sustained our… together with the other Directors the same decision and to defend… I was really sorry because there was a gap … myself.
Davies:
Between RAB and TAB.
Richter:
This is how I became a director. This is four years I wouldn’t like to miss. It was probably much easier than it is today. I mean, on the one side there were fewer sections, [and] there were less visitors at the Regional Committee meetings. The meetings were small and you know the teams were not as big [so] you know the officer, and there were not so many committees and so on. We have the chapters and the chapter coordinator, we have the student activities, conferences -
Davies:
And that was more or less it, wasn’t it?
Richter:
It was. There was no education activities and so on. There were some highlights and there were also some negative experiences at first. To start with the negative experiences to get it behind me. The one was when I had to cancel the EUROCON ‘92. This was supposed to be in Switzerland at Davos, It was totally orientated toward industry people and all the managers from ABB and from Siemens and Philips were invited as speakers. T he idea was, my conference coordinator was Jacob, and Jacob was fighting for that too. The idea was to have these managers sit with conference participants in the evening, but which manager can afford to stay after his presentation in the evening?
Anyway, three weeks before the conference I got a call from a conference coordinator telling me, we don’t have enough participants, so I called for the conference in Zurich at the airport. Then we have the Natural Society of Switzerland, the Swiss Section Chair, Kundig, and me. It was a very hard negotiation. The National Society said, well we cannot agree to sponsor. I said, but we have to pay the fee for the conference hall and they said “No, no, we have very good relations.” Finally, I cancelled it and we had a big loss because they charged us. Perhaps you know the story. This was very depressing for me, but there was [unclear]. It is interesting. Tell me, you’ve worked on the history in Iran and, for instance, during my time I rejuvenated the Iran Section and I was the first time in Iran just before I became [Region 8] Director. No, I was already Director, but I was there as a Dean not as a Director at that point. I was visiting the university at Tehran and there was Carlo Lucas [unclear], a very good friend of mine. He died, unfortunately, two years ago. He organized a meeting of the IEEE members and I explained how important it would be to attend the meeting and so on. Finally, from this time on the Iran [Section] had a representative on our Committee. Once we had a candidate for Presidency in Iran, the Section Chair. Anyway, this was good.
Another conference was positive, this was the story which I call the ‘King and I.’ This is the Swaziland story. This was the AFRICON. It was the first conference which South Africa organized. It should have been in South Africa. We went during the Gulf War. We travelled, Jacob and me from Austria to South Africa to look if we can do this conference in South Africa. We had a lot of discussions with the organizers and they absolutely… well, the manager of the conference center absolutely wanted to have this conference, but finally I had to decide that we cannot do it in South Africa because of the apartheid politics which was going on and we wouldn’t get anybody from Central Africa. Then the conference coordinator had the idea, let’s have it in Swaziland because the South Africans can organize it there, and they have wonderful hotels. Then Jacob had the idea, and this is typical of Jacob, that the King of Swaziland should open this conference and of course it would be hosted by the President of IEEE. I was responsible for the Region 8, and the President was at this time was Merrill Buckley. Well one week, in fact, two days before the conference started, I got a fax to South Africa and I was already with my wife in South Africa. [The fax said that] Merrill Buckley was sick, he couldn’t come, and you have to host the King and take care for the conference. Fortunately, I must say, I got the budget of the King.
Davies:
Too much!
Richter:
No, this would be too much. [I got] the budget and the King came and opened the conference. I don’t want to go into details. It’s a long story. Anyway, I hosted the King for more than half a day because we had lunch together with all his government. I was paying, and okay, so this was the story, ‘The King and I’.
Other problems that we had was EUREL, the conflict with the National Societies. I was surprised, nowadays, I read that that there are only nine countries anymore in the EUREL. I thought all European Societies were in it. But the problems were the VDE, the Austrian Society, and the IEE too. It was a very funny situation that I was at a meeting in Italy, the EUREL wanted to start something like the Transactions for the various fields. Okay, it never worked out properly and I asked for a meeting with the people, with the secretary general of the EUREL and I believe it was from IEE, Williams was his name.
Davies:
John Williams, it could be John Williams. He was Secretary at one stage.
Richter:
It was. I must say it was a very friendly atmosphere. The meeting was in London, and I have a feeling that the situation was a little bit of a relief [because] after this meeting, finally, there were no conflicts afterwards anymore. What else can I tell you? The other problem we had was the Brussels office. The Brussels office was, well, the reason for the, why we were very happy for the Brussels office, Hugo Ruechardt was very much pushing for the Brussels office for the simple reason the communication was almost impossible for some Sections in our Region for the United States, because you know if you have a call from the Arabic countries to the United States the time shift is ten hours. So, the Brussels office should be the link. There came the Brussels office before my time, but it was organized and paid by the [IEEE] Computer Society so it had a totally different task. Okay, there were some conflict situations. Later they helped with the Brussels office, but we were totally unhappy with that. Nowadays, the communication is no problem where there is email. At this time the best was fax, no, fax was later even, but the teletype and so….
Davies:
Telex.
Richter:
Telex, Telex, yes. So, okay, there were a lot of discussions. Then at the Board of Directors, the South American Region 9 started to ask for a Regional Desk, and I was very much complaining. We had one lady, it was Barbara Ettinger, and she was the one who was the link. She was our Regional link to the United States.
Davies:
She had some position like Transnational Officer, I believe, as the title.
Richter:
It was called the… She was the staff of the Transnational Office.
Davies:
Yes.
Richter:
She did a very good job I remember. When I was the Director , headquarters and volunteers, too, started to get out of this Transnational Office. Region 9 wanted to have its Regional Desk. I remember some volunteers were very much in favor of it and I was very much against it. It was already a Transnational Committee. I said, well what should the Regional Desk speak? Yes, for Region 9 it must be a Spanish speaking person. I said, well how many languages should the Regional Desk speak for Region 8? This was the argument. Now it is not necessary anymore. These were all things which happened, but this was indeed old times. This was the Regional Desk. Yes. Then as I said there was also this big RAB-TAB conflict. It was so far that from the Board of Directors in a meeting that had Directors, met the Regional Directors, without Vice-Chairs, without staff. Only the Directors, it was a perfect atmosphere, and everything was okay. This I think was the only way we could survive. It worked out very well. Yes.
Davies:
Gulyaev
Richter:
It was Yuri Gulyaev. Yuri and I understood each other very well. The two Presidents were Troy Nagel, and the other was Martha Sloan from the [IEEE] Computer Society. She was President and Troy Nagel.
Davies:
It was Troy Nagel.
Richter:
This worked out very well. I believe I could help because [more than] any other Director of the Region could help because we, Austria, had a lot to do with the Russians. We were occupied or liberated, I don’t know, for ten years, so we know quite well the mentality of these people, we had a very good contact, and it could help also how to handle these people there. I think I could help. This was also an interesting experience because at this time we had the obligation more or less we should visit all our Sections during the Directorship. However, for me, this was impossible for two reasons. I was not retired from my job and I still gave lectures, and I was at the same time dean, so it was quite hard. During my time as Region 8 Director, I believe, I don’t know if it was very favorable for my research work. I lost a little bit of contact with the people in my institute. Anyway, I do not regret it. I believe, since then, except for two years, I have been an IEEE volunteer for thirty-three years.
Davies:
When you look back over all the things that IEEE involved you in and you involved yourself in with IEEE, what is your overall impression of being involved in IEEE?
Richter:
The impression first of all it is engineering, but it is also, we have to be frank, it is also a scientific community even though there are always complaints that our sections are too much scientific and we need for industry I believe. This impressed me very much, this network. And I like to work with people and these contexts which open up and this is why I am so much interested in this workshop, not on the travelling, but that there were other cultures, mentalities, collegians. I learnt so much about the Muslims from the Muslims, very interesting things which I didn’t know before. I believe this possibility of contact only IEEE can do because it is a worldwide organization and a big one, a big one and a very successful one. So, this is my impression of IEEE. I wouldn’t like to miss it.
Davies:
At the time, when you were director and about this sort of time this was when the big changes were happening in Eastern Europe. The membership could grow there or it hasn’t grown so far, but membership was possible. New sections and chapters were being set up in that part [Eastern Europe]. Did that have any particular impact on you?
Richter:
I am writing, trying to write, an article which I call my IEEE life.
Davies:
This is part of it?
Richter:
It starts with the introduction of what time it was because I started two years after the Iron Curtain came down. These were the years when the Western countries started to realize that it is not just something you turn over and you get from the Eastern mentality and economy into the western and these people switch over from one side to the other. They were under this regime and education a long time, forty years, fifty years, forty-five years.
The people who were engineers were from their childhood in this regime, but it was still very encouraging to see how the Hungarians came in again and the Czech people. But the problem was the financial one and this was the time when we got these sections-in- development. The support of the section chairs could attend the meetings and nowadays we know that it could really work.
It worked, yes.
Davies:
This was exactly at the time and, yes, it was an interesting time.
Richter:
We’ve probably covered the main topics by now already.
Davies:
If you believe so.
Richter:
Roland, anything extra to ask or other thoughts?
Samm:
No, I’ve been deep in thought here.
Richter:
You could ask when I want to stop as a volunteer. I can answer very clearly, never.
Davies:
Yes, you can have a mixed feeling about this because the younger people have to come along.
Richter:
No, no, they have to. They have to.
Davies:
People will not hold them back.
Richter:
There are things which the young people cannot do, and we saw it. You are a member, Roland is a member, and I was the chair of the Jubilee Book. This the young people couldn’t do.
Davies:
No, no.
Richter:
A second problem is, of course, we were young when we came in, but we had problems with our profession and with our work because I took the volunteer-ship. If you take it earnest, [it] is time-consuming.
Davies:
Yes, it takes time away from other things.
Richter:
Our wives would say well, okay [go] ahead, I know I won't see you because you’re with IEEE this weekend. You have a meeting there and a meeting there. Most of the weekends are gone as a director because most of the meetings are on the weekend. But I love it. This is the advantage of most teachers. I love to work with young people. But excuse me, it was a pleasure to work with you.
Davies:
Thank you for that comment. I thank you for coming to this interview, telling us these things, the work, and getting this all properly recorded. The transcript and this will get underway. Thank you very much.
Richter:
It was a pleasure for me. Thank you very much and I hope my English is not too bad.
