It was 1965, senior year in high school for me, and the day before Christmas break. Preparing to leave, a fellow classmate told me I should stop by the science dept. before leaving and see Mr. Lerner. As I walked through his door I could see Mr. Lerner behind his big desk, sporting his famous enigmatic smile. Before I had a chance to ask him why he wanted to see me, he tossed a colorful box to me...."Hey Roman" he says, "You're the electronics guy around Barringer High, and I thought you'd get a kick building this Bell Labs kit on speech synthesis over the Holiday week."
Down in my family home workshop I built the kit, carefully following instructions and test procedures. Upon returning to school after the New Year, I brought it back finished to Mr. Lerner, who loved it. Little did I know the impact this kit would have on me---thirty-three years later to be exact.
How many of you remember the old Bell Labs kits? They were incredible mini-courses for teachers/educators and students to use in their classrooms, the forerunners of STEM style activities so popular in schools today. I have two kits in my basement workshop lair, and still enjoy reading through the technical manuals that came with every kit. Over the years I had ordered a variety of them for the many teachers I worked with while doing my PSE&G R&D thing. The kits were inaugurated in 1961 and later discontinued; probably with the many cost-cutting activities leading up to the mid 1980's de-regulation of the telephone industry.
Fast forward now to about 1998 or so, to a gathering at the Thomas Edison National Historical Park in West Orange, NJ. This was a seminar on invention in NJ, part of a celebration of the NJ Inventors Hall of Fame. As chairman of the Hall of Fame, I was emcee for this wonderful collection of NJ's inventive minds and guest speakers. I introduced Jim Flanagan, an IEEE luminary and a recent Hall of Fame inductee, so he could speak about his work at Bell Labs. I had worked professionally with Jim while he was at Rutgers heading up their high tech center on the Piscataway Campus, so we had a very friendly relationship.
As Jim was giving his presentation, he started talking about his speech synthesis work, and out comes photos of the Bell Labs kit his team had developed for schools... the same kit I had built for my inspirational high school science teacher, Mr. Lerner. I was floored! I had never associated Jim's work with that kit. After his speech I shook Jim's hand and whispered to him that I built his kit when in high school. We both hugged, with tears in our eyes. I told the gathering how much that kit had influenced my young dreams as a budding engineer, and Jim got a hearty second applause for his work.
Jim and I often shared a number of meals together at IEEE North Jersey Section Life Member luncheons, always so entertaining listening to Jim and his genteel southern voice, relating his decades of experience. He passed in 2015, and I miss him very much. His work is not only valuable for its technological advances, but also for helping to teach the teachers who inspire students to become scientists and engineers.
Thank you Jim! You are not forgotten.
Talk to you again soon...
Harry