BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

William D. Becher has retired now and is, for the most part, happily pursuing his hobbies and dreams. He spends any time remaining studying all those engineering and mathematical concepts that had always eluded him and familiarizing himself with all the exciting new technologies and concepts being discovered by those who must still work. On occasion, he has been known to offer his services as a consultant--but that is considered a last resort.

The following is offered for those who would like to know more about his history--a career divided nearly equally between education, research, and industry.

Education: His love for teaching began in the military service where he supervised and participated in the instruction of enlisted and commissioned personnel in electronic fundamentals applicable to searchlights, mine detectors and sniperscopes. After earning several advanced degrees, he began teaching at the university level where he taught undergraduate and graduate courses, developed many new courses, and chaired two electrical engineering departments. As chair, he was instrumental in the design and initiation of an MSE program and a computer engineering BS program. Initial and/or continued ABET departmental accreditations were received for all the programs under his direction. His teaching emphasis included circuit theory, digital logic design, microprocessor system design and programing, and computer-aided algorithm design. He served on many university committees and generously provided his services to the university community. Most recently he taught introductory electrical engineering courses for beginning engineering students and considered it one of the happiest experiences of his entire career--especially the one-on-one interaction with his students.

Also, as part of his educational experience, he was for several years privileged to serve as Dean of a college of engineering. The college consisted of departments of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Industrial and Management Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and a Division of Engineering Technology.

Research: He managed departments engaged in research, development and analysis of digital image processing computers, target classification techniques, and synthetic aperture radar systems. Among the achievements of the departments under his direction as program manager were the successful demonstration of a new and unique SAR technique and the application of a new form of image processing to both military weapon systems and commercial robotics systems. Other duties included management of a VHSIC (Very High Speed Integrated Circuits) technology insertion program involving development and presentation of workshops, tutorials and information analysis centers and the direction of a group concerned with the development of MTI radar systems, digital data processing equipment, and the application and programming of digital computers for radar systems. His most recent work involved the design and demonstration of a new concept for computer animated textbooks.

Industry: He most recently served as chief administrator and co-founder of a company which used its know-how in computer based systems, software and hardware design to provide turnkey computer, instrumentation and process control products, services, training, and consulting to industrial OEMs and users. Other industrial assignments included the design of data handling and display systems for weather reconnaissance, missile, communication satellite and radiation measuring programs; several high speed data handling and recording systems; a high speed analog-to-digital converter; a reconnaissance and processor subsystem for a missile guidance system; subsystem components for a general purpose analog computer; and several ultrasonic liquid level measuring systems employing digital circuitry.

Return to Becher's home page.