Oral-History:Peer Martin Larsen
About Peer Martin Larsen
Peer Martin Larsen, the 1995–1996 director of IEEE Region 8, graduated from the Technical University in Denmark, in 1957, with a specialty in electrical engineering, especially power engineering. Early in his career, he spent one year in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania working with Westinghouse and teaching electrical engineering courses in the evening at Carnegie Mellon Institute of Technology. At the latter, he met members of AIEE and joined as an associate member in 1962. He was an original member of the IEEE Denmark Section, serving as chair from 1970 to 1971 and 1985 to 1988.
About the Interview
PEER MARTIN LARSEN: An Interview Conducted by Anthony (Tony) C. Davies, IEEE History Center, 19 April 2013
Interview #852 for the IEEE History Center, The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
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Peer Martin Larsen, an oral history conducted in 2013 by Anthony (Tony) C. Davies, IEEE History Center, Piscataway, NJ, USA.
Interview
Interviewee: Peer Martin Larsen
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 Peer Martin Larsen, from Denmark.]
I will start by introducing myself. I am Tony Davies and a past Region 8 Director myself and I will be asking the questions during this interview.
Larsen:
My name is Peer Martin Larsen and I am from the Denmark Section and was past Director of Region 8 in 1995 to 1996.
Davies:
Thank you. Well, let’s start by going back to a very early stage. Obviously, before you became a volunteer and before you became a Region 8 Director, at some point you joined IEEE. Could you say a little bit or words about why you decided to join IEEE?
Larsen:
The background was of course that I was educated at the Technical University of Denmark with a specialty in Electrical Engineering, especially Power Engineering, I graduated in 1957, and I got a job with the electric machinery department after military service. Quite early we were interested in introducing new methods of educating students in the laboratory experiences in the machinery lab, and my boss, who was Hildgaard-Jensen, had close connections to Westinghouse and to General Electric in the United States. This resulted in a visiting year in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where I had five days working with Westinghouse and two evenings teaching electrical engineering at the Carnegie Mellon Institute of Technology. Most people in the electrical engineering department at Carnegie Mellon were members of IEEE which was not IEEE at that time but was the American Institute of Electrical Engineers [AIEE].
Davies:
Yes. This was before the merger of IRE and AIEE.
Larsen:
I became an associate member of AIEE on 2 April 1962 and that was before the merger. Consequently, when the merger took place by 1st January 1963, I became a member of IEEE.
Davies:
Did Westinghouse support this? They were encouraging you or not?
Larsen:
No.
Davies:
Not really.
Larsen:
I remember I went to one IEEE meeting in Pittsburgh with ladies and that was the first time I heard something about AIEE in the more social context. First, we had read periodicals and things like that during study at the Technical University.
Davies:
Then you came back, obviously, to Denmark. This was the Technical University in Lyngby, I suppose?
Larsen:
Yes, right.
Davies:
Were your colleagues in Denmark interested in IEEE or did you tell them about IEEE? How was it by then?
Larsen:
The answer is yes.
[At this point, Roland Saam entered the room.]
Saam:
Hello.
Davies:
I couldn’t find you [Roland Saam], so we started.
Saam:
It is now 11 o’clock.
Davies:
We’re just getting into the initial phases and if you would like to sit down we will [continue].
Saam:
I hope the initial phases.
Davies:
We can do introductions later.
Larsen (to Saam):
It is really nice meeting you in person. We met some years ago, so it is a pleasure being here today.
Davies:
Peer Martin was saying, how after being on a visit to the USA and joining AIEE, he came back to Denmark and was talking with colleagues in Denmark. Perhaps you can carry on from that moment.
Larsen:
Actually, at the university I had two colleagues that graduated at the same time as myself in electrical power engineering. One was Aage Pedersen who was responsible for high voltage techniques and the equipment of a new high voltage laboratory in Lyngby. The other friend was an older man, Ole Franksen, who was kind of an evaluator of what we called systems engineering science at that time. Ole Franksen had been visiting the United States for a year travelling around in various locations, and Aage Pedersen was with General Electric in Schenectady learning something new to take back home because a new location in Lyngby was planned in 1960. They took at least twenty years, or more, to complete it, and it of course is still in development. These two colleagues and myself were kind of core for the new time related to international corporations.
Davies:
At that time, there would so far be no Denmark Section? When did the Denmark Section start?
Larsen:
At that time, there was no Denmark Section. I had another colleague called Fraser [incomplete name] who was in the United States, I don’t know exactly where, but he came back in 1965 or 1966. He was the initiator of creating the Denmark Section, and for some reason he invited me to be a member of the first Section Committee.
Davies:
Chair?
Larsen:
Not as Chair, but the Vice Chair. He was Chair from 1968 to 1969 and then I became for the first time, Denmark Section Chair from 1970 to 1971.
Davies:
At that point, as section chair, I suppose you would have been invited to Region 8 Committee meetings.
Larsen:
Yes, but that is a little bit far. I am not sure how well-organized the IEEE Region 8 was at that time, but it might have been an annual meeting. I am not sure.
Davies:
I think, it is in the records. Then you would have met the wider collection of people who were from Region 8.
Larsen:
Yes. After that, I was still in contact with the Denmark Section Committee, and I became Senior Member in 1971. Then for some reason, I was not in close contact with the Denmark Section until I became the Denmark Section Chairman once again for four years from 1985 until 1988.
Davies:
By then, Region 8 certainly would have been on a more operational level?
Larsen:
That was the progress. You know the whole list of when the Sections came into the picture. I have it as a copy somewhere. At that time, there may have been twenty to twenty-five Sections [in Region 8].
Davies:
At some time, then you must have got involved in some other activities in Region 8. They were looking for future directors and they obviously considered you as a candidate at some stage?
Larsen:
Yes. During the second period as Section Chairman, I attended the Region 8 meeting, and recall that I met the Region 8 Directors. I might recall, one important director was Hugo Ruechardt.
Davies:
Yes, I remember this name.
Larsen:
He was Region 8 Director from 1987 to 1988 and that means that I met him during the time of the Regional meetings. In 1990, he called me on the phone and proposed that I should be a candidate for Director Elect in 1992. I told him I would come to another parallel international activity I have been very keen about, the IFAC, the International Federation of Automatic Control, which was primarily within my special field of interest. I was chairman of an education committee of IFAC and had other jobs in IFAC like chairman of the IFAC policy committee from 1990 to 1996. Therefore, I told Hugo that I am very much involved in IFAC personally, but I have a limited period as these officials, so maybe next time you will consider me as a candidate for director elect. We had an election in 1994 and I won the election. The other candidate was Baldomir Zajc of Slovenia.
Davies:
Yes, that was much later.
Larsen:
Zajc became Director about ten years later? I was the 1994 Director- Elect, the 1995 to 1996 Director, and then past Director.
Davies:
Yes, for a couple of years. At that time, the director elect was for one year only.
Larsen:
Yes.
Davies:
Now it is for two years. It has changed.
Larsen:
It is for two years? I was not aware of that.
Davies:
It gives a better preparation possibly for what is coming, in a way.
Larsen:
Maybe. Yes, to be elected for two years ahead you are better prepared for your job over the next two years. My memory from that time; we can return to some specific cases that I would like to tell you about.
Davies:
Yes of course. I would say, there are two sides to being elected Region 8 Director. One is that you are chairing the Region 8 Committee twice a year, which is one thing. On another side, you are representing, in some sense, Region 8 on the [IEEE] Board of Directors because you go to Board of Directors meetings. [These are] two activities, two kinds of activities. Could you say something about your experience for each one? The first one, and then maybe the other?
What was it like to be on the IEEE Board of Directors and what was it like to chair the Region 8 Committee?
Larsen:
To me it sounds almost the same question. We have the activities within Region 8. We have two annual meetings and prepare for them. The regional director is responsible for direct contact to as many sections as possible. I would like to recall that, but perhaps it is a good idea to say on the top level being the representative of the Region 8 on the regional director Activities Board [referring to R…A. B membership] where we met at least four times a year, as far as I recall.
Davies:
Board of Directors?
Larsen:
Additionally, there were special meetings in the United States at that time considering the future of the IEEE. I was quite enthusiastic to call in and hear how the various directors, the ten Regional Directors and the ten Technical Activities Committee [members], who also were Directors as far as I recall, had different points of view. The U.S. Directors had, of course, a vision of the United States being the center for almost everything, [but] in that period the international role of IEEE increased very much and the membership in, for instance, Region 8, had really grown.
Davies:
45,000.
Larsen:
80,000, the maximum.
Davies:
It goes up and down, yes.
Larsen:
The maximum 80,000 members in Region 8 compared to a total of 560 something. That also varies, but the percentage has increased from something like 6 percent to 15 percent of total membership and that occurs with Region 8 influence if possible. The experience is also that the Piscataway Center is a very large administrative center which thinks they own IEEE as such and have very fixed rules for all the procedures. Sometimes, it is a fight against this Piscataway It is difficult to have influence, a great influence, in the TAB or the RAB surroundings being so many from different countries. It is heavy inertia to push it in some direction.
Davies:
Do you think you had some success, yourself, were you successful in this pushing?
Larsen:
I’m not sure I feel I have been successful within the top management. It is a difficult task because so many speak the English language fluently and sometimes it is also for us that the Dane has some complications in following up. My nature is somewhat modest, so my personal influence in the top level, I don't see was above average.
I would like to return to the activities of Region 8 because that is much more exciting. Of course, the first year as Director Elect was in 1994, and I think, I remember that we had a Milestone [in Denmark ?] at that time where people came in. I also think that at the same location we had the Region 8 meeting in Denmark.
Davies:
Was it maybe at Hillerod.
Larsen:
Yes, Hillerod.
Davies:
I wasn’t there, but I remember the name.
Larsen:
This Milestone was around Valdemar Poulsen’s invention of the electromagnetic ……
Davies:
The Poulsen arc for the transmission radio. Yes.
[The Region 8 meeting was at Hillerod, History Milestone for Poulsen Arc is at Radio Lyngby]
Larsen:
It was a grand event. We went with Region 8 members to Tivoli and [unclear], and things like that. The first interesting event in my time as director was the celebration of the Russian Popov Society which celebrated that Popov in 1895 demonstrated a device for receiving electromagnetic waves from a distance. The Russian Popov Society also commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of its formation, and I represented IEEE Region 8 at a reception in Moscow with the press, and professor Yuri Gulayev, who was President of the Russian Popov Society and Chairman of the IEEE Russia Section at that time. He got the A.S. Popov gold medal. That is something I recall. We came to Moscow for that last celebration. We went to the Bolshoi Theatre for a performance, and everybody got half-drunk with vodka.
Davies:
Yes, as usual. You were in Moscow? Popov worked in St. Petersburg, well, it became Leningrad in those days. Did you visit St. Petersburg or only Moscow?
Larsen:
We visited only Moscow. I think the Russia Section had its location in Moscow.
Davies:
It was in Moscow certainly.
Larsen:
The St. Petersburg Section came later.
Davies:
It was separated off, but that was a long time later.
Larsen:
It was separated off, yes.
Davies:
Indeed. Did you visit other sections while you were Region 8 Director? Did you travel around a lot for visits?
Larsen:
the four major groups of races of South Africa. In 1993, all these races got equal rights after many, many years of unrest and international pressure. The new constitution was realized in 1994. The South African Section was active all through this time, but now it got the opportunity to arrange an international event, AFRICON ’96. I went down in 1995 and actually signed an agreement between the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers and the Foundation for Research and Development and with IEEE. We had an agreement and I have a photo where we signed this agreement. The next year we had AFRICON’96 in Stellenbosch and I attended this meeting with my wife and that was a very interesting and good experience to participate in. Everybody was eager and happy about the result, and you can read a report in the Region 8 Newsletter.
I had maintained my connection to IFAC. The week after AFRICON’96, there was an IFAC collection of old officers, also in South Africa, where I had the opportunity to meet old friends in IFAC. That was the key point coming to AFRICON.
Another thing that was very interesting was that the Technical Activities Board had decided annually to organize a TAB colloquium outside the United States. In 1996, they had planned a tour to five countries in Eastern Europe for a visit and brought two distinguished speakers to speak in each place. I was invited as a Region 8 Director to participate in the TAB colloquia, and I gave a speech on something, which I’ve forgotten all about, in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, in Hungary, Romania, and Slovenia. The two distinguished speakers were Peter Spencer from the [IEEE] Power Engineering Society and Peter Setzer from the [IEEE] Electron Devices Society. That was another experience, and it took something like ten days traveling in Eastern Europe. Again, it was a kind of celebration that Eastern Europe was now coming into the light and developing within the international regimes of IEEE.
I think those are the four main points that I would like to remember. Of course, I met with other section chairs at Region 8 Committee meetings so I feel that I have a rather close connection to the sections and of course in Scandinavia we had a very good connection with the Swedish Section. I think they had a kind of subsection in Lund and Professor Karl Olsen [uncertainty about the name] was one of my relations in Automatic Control at the time.
Davies:
In Denmark, there is a National Society for electrical engineering or engineering?
Larsen:
Yes.
Davies:
Just the Danish one?
Larsen:
When considering the Denmark Section, the basic route at that time was the Technical University in Lyngby, and we had relations to the Aalborg Technical University. The latter is now Aalborg University Centre and includes the technical sciences as well. If we think of the time when I was director, the chairs of the Denmark Section attended the Region 8 meeting. I would like to say today that we have the section and the section has a close relation to Aalborg. There is a section chair, Ole L…sen [uncertainty about the name], who was just elected. We have some misunderstandings with him, but we will not relate that here. We have a secretary from Aarhus and a vice chair from Aalborg, so the section committee today is shared, you could say, with people coming from Copenhagen, Aalborg, and Aarhus. That’s a very good sign.
We have six chapters. I follow the [IEEE] Power and Energy Section [Chapter] very closely. Its chair is a professor at the Technical University in Copenhagen, Lyngby, and the vice chair is in Aalborg, so that gives a close cooperation. They have had quite a number of chapter meetings for the last two years. The other chapters are active, then suddenly they are not active, and then they appear again. Our chapter for control and robotics is still alive. It was one chapter I founded many years ago, it has been running ever since, and they have just called for a meeting in, I think, Aarhus or Aalborg. It is good to see they have appeared again. Things like that are the charge of the chairman to try to ensure the chapters create new meetings.
Finally, we have two student chapters also in Lyngby and in Aalborg. The activities in Aalborg have also been varying for various reasons. Sometimes, it is both very good and sometimes the new student branch chair, who was a lady, was in opposition to somebody else in the department, so that’s always something to look at. I think that being the Membership Development Officer of the Denmark Section gives me a fantastic opportunity to follow what is going on in the various chapters in the section and to try updating new officers in their job.
Davies:
If you think back to your time, mainly as Region 8 Director, long ago and the things that came around that, what is your overall memory? Do you feel it was a nice part of your career or something you would rather forgot? What is your overall feeling about being an IEEE volunteer at this high level?
Larsen:
I would say I have experienced so many fantastic things serving in these various positions. I have built a network that is quite fantastic. It is a new way to keep track. Through the years, my colleagues become older, and you feel young yourself, so it is sometimes hard to follow what is going on. All the new people coming in who have never heard about Peer Martin, say that old guy, what is he doing now in this location. After all, I would say my career in IEEE has been fantastic.
Davies:
You’ve met lots of different people in many places that you would never have met otherwise, probably.
Larsen:
That’s correct, yes. Unfortunately, I forget names. I try to keep track and this has been a fantastic opportunity to look through the old pictures and see what I was doing fifteen years back now.
Davies:
Yes, well thank you. Roland, do you want to ask some questions. Something that perhaps we haven’t covered or additional…
Saam:
Maybe a couple of other things. I wondered whether we might get to spell out some of the names, you mentioned various things and people who were Danish.
Davies:
Maybe, afterwards, you can write them down. It may be easier for us for the record.
Saam:
There was one question, it was when you discussed this point about participating in the Board meetings in the States and the difficulty that language has in following what is going on, keeping up, and trying to make a contribution in those meetings. In my opinion, that is very common.
I have also experienced a little bit about… I’m American and I go over there and the people think in another way, so to make your point across and for me to make my point across to them in a committee is very difficult sometimes because they have a certain momentum of “US think”, as I say. I’m wondering if we could give a message to future Directors or volunteers, what would it be? How do we break this mold because this year or maybe from last year the majority of members will be outside the United States, and yet, it is so difficult to get representation for very many reasons, one is we have to find volunteers. Charles [Turner], for instance, is constantly asking, can you get somebody to nominate somebody for these positions and the various TAB and MGA now. The question I would ask is, is there something that you could say about how it could be done better, or how we could break this problem, or how would could make some progress on the problem?
Larsen:
The first problem to solve is to get the right people elected in the Section. It is not that easy to get a new chair. The people that you ask might go for vice chair, but not as chair and I recommend that the chair is chosen through the former section committee members.
They need experience to take charge of the chapter [section].
Davies:
Just bringing someone in off the street is not the best way perhaps?
Larsen:
No. Even if they are enthusiastic about electrical engineering and have a large network, it is very difficult to educate these people how to communicate outside the section and outside the country. You have to be aware in the section to have your elected members as well as a long list of appointed members for various tasks, so you really have a group that knows a lot and are enthusiastic. That’s the basis in the section and from there you will have to put in your efforts to the region and that’s the responsibility of the section chair. Then you ask how to communicate with people on the highest level of IEEE. It is difficult to say. Some of our people are born speakers and listeners and communicators and others are more modest. It is hard to be any solution.
Davies:
We’ve covered quite a lot of topics. Do you think there is something important we’ve missed out or have we really covered all that is reasonable and that that is important you can think of? [Do you have] anything else to say or have we covered the main points?
Larsen:
I think we have covered most of the important points.
Davies:
I would say thank you very much. It has been very interesting to hear. Perhaps one final thing. Roland, would you just like to introduce yourself and say who you are? We did that ourselves before.
Saam:
I’m Roland Saam. I’m editor of the Region 8 News for the last thirteen years. I think and that’s it really. I am a lifelong member of IRE and then IEEE. Thank you.
Davies:
So, can I say to both of you, thank you very much. I’m sure people will be interested to hear about this later. I’m very glad to have been here to take part, so, thank you.
Larsen:
It was all my pleasure, as we usually say.
Davies:
Thank you.
[End of recorded material.]
