A Conversation With Peter Staecker, IEEE President-Elect And Microwave Engineer

By Paul Kruczkowski, Editor

At its most recent meeting, the IEEE Board of Directors certified the election of Peter Staecker, past president of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S) and life-long microwave engineer, as 2012 IEEE President-Elect. Staecker will become the sitting president in January 2013, succeeding 2011 IEEE President-Elect Gordon W. Day of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (retired), who starts his one year term this January. Staecker has served IEEE for 28 years, and his dedication to the organization is matched only by his distinguished career as an engineer.

Staecker earned his BS and EE degrees at MIT and his MS and PhD degrees at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. He began his professional career 1972 at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, where he focused on the development of precise automated measuring techniques as a member of the technical staff. Staecker joined M/A-COM in 1986 as a senior corporate engineer and led his project team to develop a series of high-efficiency, high-power frequency multipliers that achieved record power levels. As the director of advanced program development, he helped M/A-COM broaden its historically military focus to also include commercial markets. Later, he fostered relationships with several U.S. and European universities and research organizations in the role of director of research and development, promoting R&D in those organizations and providing a source of talented researchers for M/A-COM's R&D team.

I recently had the opportunity to talk with Peter about his election and the initiatives he plans to champion as IEEE president. During our conversation, we discussed the emerging trends in RF/microwave engineering, the biggest problems facing the EE profession, the difference IEEE has made in his career, and the primary initiative he plans to champion as IEEE president.

What does it mean to you to be chosen by your peers to lead IEEE?

Ever since I was an undergraduate I have derived value from IEEE — first, from its respected position as source of technical information (the what of my technical portfolio), and second, as the entry point to develop the skills of doing business (the how). I have benefitted immensely from nearly 40 years of access to these resources and am honored to be selected as the 2013 IEEE President. To me, this choice offers the opportunity to continue as a volunteer to help the organization that has meant so much to my professional life, and to continue to work with my fellow volunteers and IEEE Staff partners to improve the member and volunteer experience of IEEE.

Looking back on your distinguished professional career in engineering, what was the most memorable thing you experienced?

The common thread of memorable experiences for me began with the team environment I shared as a young engineer at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. The groups I worked with had many strong mentors with a great sense of purpose and energy. Our focus on the goal led to shared values and accomplishments as we designed and built a complex state-of-the-art communications satellite for the laboratory's sponsor.

I had the opportunity to move from individual contributor to technical leader when I joined M/A-COM. I appreciate the opportunity given by M/A-COM leadership to build a staff of bright, energetic microwave researchers who led the company's R&D efforts. One very memorable project ultimately produced a 77 GHz compact manufacturable radar module for automotive applications. From the outset the team was challenged to consider how to integrate the functions while designing for manufacturability. In many ways, this project was a dream job for all of us.

There are many accomplished professionals in the RF/microwave industry who, for one reason or another, have chosen not to be active in an organization like IEEE. What would you tell them about the difference IEEE has made in your career?

The volunteer activities I participated in when I was a young engineer at Lincoln Lab exposed me to technical and professional challenges that helped me to develop communication skills and an understanding of group dynamics. I carried my appreciation of the collective wisdom of the team and used it throughout my career trying to solve technical challenges and organizational issues. I would tell engineers that IEEE is a low-impact way of really expanding the effectiveness of your professional life.

You gave an interview to IEEE in August 2011 where you identified seven people that were influential in your life and the lessons you learned from them. What advice would you give to our readers who are in a position to influence other engineers?

An effective mentor will help his or her colleagues to understand their strengths and will support them, but challenge them in directions that will make them stronger. Also, be honest with them when evaluating their weaknesses, help them to understand their shortcomings, provide them a list of improvement options and check in on them often. Opportunities to influence come daily, so walk around, ask questions, and engage in discussions. Take time to listen to your coworker's issues and help them develop a curiosity and an analytic approach to problem solving for life in general. In an autobiographical note, Richard Feynman, the famous physicist, attributed his thinking style to the fact that his father engaged him when he was very young and asked him questions that fostered a lasting curiosity. I'd like to think that this is a teachable as well as learnable skill.

Finally, failure is a very good teacher, so don't shield your mentees from that experience, but do help them develop a process to analyze their failure and recover. Honesty leads to transparency and trust. While we were preparing for an IEEE conference, Harlan Howe, one of my mentors, told me not to worry about the possibility of something going wrong. Something will always go wrong. It's how you react to that situation that counts. He was right.

Are there any initiatives or objectives you view as particularly important for IEEE's future, which you will champion as president?

There are many objectives that will be important for IEEE's future, and in the early months of 2012 I will be looking to build consensus within the Board of Directors on several of the initiatives that you addressed in your article about my president-elect status.

One of these initiatives involves advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. Interestingly enough, that particular issue is being driven by our young people. They want to make a difference, and are driving the old fogies like me to do it; I welcome their input.

Our plan for investing in humanitarian technology has two principles. The first is that the technology solution has to be sustainable, a word that has social, environmental, and economic attributes.

The second principle is that the solution be scalable. The idea is that you start out small, in a village. There are many experts in any village; they will come forward and start the process. They'll figure out how to make it sustainable. They will also, depending on their success, spread it to neighboring villages. You not only get the most humanitarian benefit for the investment, you get the most relevant benefit to that particular community. The sustainable and scalable metrics of this approach make a great business strategy for IEEE. By helping humanity using these principles, we help our organization.

What problems or trends in the electrical engineering profession most concern you? What corrective action can the IEEE take to address these issues?

The technical knowledge required by the industries we work in is expanding so quickly that it is outpacing the ability of education systems around the world to adequately train or retrain the engineers needed for the work. Students emerging from engineering fields in colleges are not prepared to handle assignments that companies require. This is a global challenge.

In response, companies are setting up their own schools to accommodate the education gap between these required skills and those acquired by graduating students. Students are interviewed; those with promise are hired and attend training within the company for 6 to 18 months.

IEEE can be part of this solution, with the capability to provide a top-quality continuing education program, including certification, accreditation, and customized curricula. We will be successful in closing this gap by investing and working closely with our industry partners.

Since our readers are predominantly involved in RF/microwave design, what are the main issues you see specific to that field of engineering?

RF engineers face the same challenge of keeping up with changes in technology to stay relevant. An RF designer must always strive to understand the fundamentals. Increasingly, these fundamentals appear in related interdisciplinary areas, including design for manufacturing, device physics, and, more recently, fundamentals in communications and signal processing. Young engineers fresh from university have some of this broader knowledge base. Experienced engineers need to stay abreast of changes in the field and find ways of improving themselves to stay current.

Both populations can benefit from attending the many IEEE-sponsored regional and international conferences and workshops that present overviews as well as cutting-edge results. Increasingly, current topics of interest are presented by Distinguished Lecturers from a number of the IEEE Technical Societies who visit local chapters or sections, and online webinars may be found in IEEE's e-learning library that address these design areas.

Given your history as an RF/microwave engineer and past president of MTT-S, do you have a special understanding of that industry's issues and perhaps a sympathetic ear as IEEE president?

Yes. MTT's founders were from industry, and they established a bond between industry and the society that exists even 60 years later! It has always been a positive role model for its fellow technical societies. One of the founding members, Ted Saad, who recently passed away, said it very well: "MTT is the crown jewel of IEEE Societies." He was a key person in developing a strong industry connection with the society in its early days. I benefitted greatly from the society's do-it-yourself approach to serving its industry partners and members, and it served me well in my professional as well as my volunteer career. The industrial exhibition at our flagship meeting, the IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium, reminds us annually of our strong ties to the microwave industry.

What do you think will be the next big thing in RF/microwave engineering?

I'm not good at predicting the next big thing, but I can identify the forces of change that will move us in the right direction.

At the top of the list is Moore's Law. It states that feature sizes on integrated circuits get smaller by a factor of 2 every 18 months, which reduces power consumption and increases speed. As long as the process/design improvements continue, RF and microwave applications will approach "big thing" status. It is interesting to note how resourceful the engineering community is in helping the trend persist.

Another force of change is technology convergence. This is where related fields like signal processing, wireless communications, and medical electronics or life sciences come together at the system level to push progress in technology forward. As these technologies converge, the RF and microwave community has to learn more from other disciplines and, in doing so, generate great ideas. For example, in the past five years Apple and Android mobile operating systems have made smart phones commonplace, and the convergence of digital signal processing and microwave functions are being applied to lowering cost and improving performance. The life sciences community is making applications and sensor add-ons to smart phones that can monitor vital signs in real time; the revolution in personalized medicine is now being driven by wireless technology.

Finally, materials like gallium nitride and silicon carbide are bringing change to the microwave industry. Both are high bandgap and high thermal conductivity materials, and can operate at much higher power levels than silicon or GaAs, and at lower operating temperatures. GaN also has higher electron mobility but lower thermal conductivity than SiC, allowing complementary roles for both materials in the power/frequency space.

I recently wrote an article on graphene technology. Do you think graphene is a material that will bring change to our industry?

The characteristics and features of graphene may induce substantial and disturbing concepts in the way we design and employ electronic devices. As you noted, IBM reported graphene transistors with 40 nm gates showing record cutoff frequencies of 280 GHz at the most recent IEEE Electron Device Meeting. These results strongly validate the potential for future graphene devices, and a number of centers of excellence focused on graphene research are springing up in universities and research centers, or in consortia involving both in the United States, Europe, and Asia. It would be safe to assume that there are many more articles on graphene technology in your future!

How do you see the electrical engineering field changing over the next five to ten years?

I believe that the forces of change will be:

1. The competitive dynamics among business enterprises
2. The increasing need to be responsible stewards of our environment, and, by extension, to provide engineering solutions to segments of the population that are underserved or disadvantaged
3. Attention to the grand challenges of engineering as identified by our national academies
4. The urge to extend and expand human intelligence and understanding, and
5. The proper education and training of the engineering workforce.

What does IEEE need to do to prepare for that future?

Linking loosely to the forces of change listed above:

1. The IEEE Standards activity offers an opportunity for all businesses to compete on a common platform, providing efficiency in achieving products that benefit global clients.
2. IEEE needs to follow its recipe of investing in technology for humanity mentioned previously.
3. IEEE must focus its technical activities on the support and progress of these grand challenges.
4. IEEE needs to serve as the unbiased voice of technical progress through our technical journals and conferences.
5. IEEE must strengthen and deploy educational activities to help primary, secondary, tertiary, and continuing education efforts address the specific training needs of the local population.

IEEE needs to continue to press our mission to foster technological innovation and excellence for the broader scope of benefitting humanity, as well as to attend to our vision: to be essential to the technical global community and technical professionals. With aligned purpose we will be successful.