[sebhc] Welcome and bio

[Lee Hart]

Hello to all! Oh, it's a joy to see so many familiar names appearing!
Here's my bio:

To me, there was something special, almost magical about Heathkits. I
credit them with giving me an enjoyable, rewarding career.

I grew up in a small town (Dowagiac MI), bright and interested in
science and engineering. But, it was a town where you grew up to be a
farmer, or a jock, or if you were lucky, moved to the Big City (Detroit)
and worked in an auto plant.

But, I was lucky! It was 1960, and Heath Company existed. My parents
knew about Heath, because they knew Howard Anthony (then president of
Heath); he too had grown up in Dowagiac MI!

So, I got a Heathkit for my 10th birthday. It was a 4-tube radio,
covering the AM and shortwave bands. After much trial and tribulation
(and a trip to a local TV/radio repair shop to learn how to solder), it
worked! I can still remember the thrill of saying "I made it myself!"

The TV/radio shop that helped me bought Heath test equipment, but didn't
like assembling the kits (it's what they did all day anyway). So, they
gave them to me to assemble. I was in heaven. I probably built 50
Heathkits by the time I was 15.

Listening to the shortwave bands on my Heath receiver got me interested
in ham radio. I started working at the TV/Radio shop (they *paid* me to
build kits!) as well as sweeping floors, moving TVs around, and fixing
TVs when the other servicemen could point out what needed replacing. I
used my income to buy Heath ham radio gear, and got my Novice license
(WB8DQN).

By the time I was in high school, I had a regular job at the TV shop as
a repairman. When I graduated, I decided to become an electronics
technician and went to a 2-year school, Lake Superior State College. But
I quickly found out I already knew most of what they were teaching, and
switched to electrical engineering. I got my BSEE in 1973 from Michigan
Tech Univesity.

I went to work for Eastman Kodak, and was there until 1980. But I found
they were incredibly backward and stodgy about electronics. They
believed "film is forever", and I was always fighting with management to
put electronics in their products. At home, I was building and designing
microcomputers; the Mark8 with its 8008, RCA Elf with its 1802, then
S-100 computers (IMSAI 8080, Northstar, etc.) with the 8080 and Z80.

A friend from college started Technical Micro Systems (TMSI) in 1980,
and offered to hire me as 'chief engineer'. I took it! We designed CMOS
microcomputers based on the RCA 1802 for industrial users. Our own
computers were initially S-100 systems, but we switched to the new and
wonderful H89s.

When the IBM PC boom began, TMSI gradually shifted to follow the mob and
design "PC compatible" products. As we were already familiar with the
H89, I designed a replacement CPU board called the H-1000, which had a 4
MHz Z80 and 8 MHz 8086 and 1 megabyte of memory. It did everything the
H89 could do, and could boot and run PC-DOS, and was faster and had more
memory than even the IBM AT.

But, TMSI was too small a company to keep up with the frantic pace and
intensely competitive PC-clone world. TMSI put all its resources into
the PC market, but it wasn't enough; it killed the company. I lost my
job, my home, my life savings; everything.

So in 1987, I started over as a design engineer at Robertshaw Controls,
designing the microcontrollers for home appliances, furnaces, and the
like. But they were bought out in a hostile junk-bond takeover, and all
the jobs moved to Mexico. I jumped ship before it sank, and went to work
for Honeywell in Minneapolis in 1992.

At Honeywell, I also designed furnace controls. I figured this was their
core business, and they were the best on the market; that *had* to be
secure. Wrong. Honeywell was bought out by General Signal, and engaged
in a massive out-sourcing and layoff campaign. I was laid off in 1997.
(Honeywell/General Signal has continued to go downhill; they were in
turn been bought by GE, and the Dilbert-style madness is only getting
worse.)

At this point, I did some hard thinking about my life. I have always
wanted to be an engineer; to design things that really mattered, and
made people's lives better. I thought a big company was the place to do
it, but I was wrong. The ones I worked for were only interested in
money, and maintaining the status quo. They did as LITTLE innovation as
possible, took advantage of engineers who worked hard, and gave them
nothing in return; no money, no status, no job security. All the jobs I
could find were to design useless products that meant nothing, helped
nobody, and were destined to be landfill within a year or two.

So, I became a consulting engineer. I took a drastic pay cut, but now
only accept contracts that really interest me, and for projects that I
think will actually make a difference and help to make the world better.

I've always been interested in elctric cars. I've also been building and
driving them for 20 years now (I'm on my 4th one). So, I ve been
designing battery chargers and monitoring systems, motor controllers,
and related products for electric vehicles. I'm currently desiging the
charging system for the Tango EV, a revolutionary concept in
transportation (see www.commutercars.com).

I also finally got married, and have an 8-year-old son. He is just like
me; bright, eager, and interested in building things. But the world has
changed. Heathkit is gone. I have bought him electronic kids, and he
loves building them as much as I did. But, today's kits have horrible
quality, worthless manuals, and do useless things -- without my help he
wouldn't have a chance.

I still have many of my old computers; he loves playing games on them
and is just starting to learn programming (he's only up to Tiny BASIC so
far). I think adults forget that kid's standards are far lower than
adults. Kids *still* love playing with cardboard boxes, building
treehouses, tinkering with their bikes, and playing "Zork" or "Y-Wing"
on an H89. It's the *adults* who think that kids NEED vastly complicated
expensive powerful toys!

I started a program called BEST (Bridging Science, Engineering, and
Teaching -- see www.bestoutreach.org). I and a dozen other engineers go
into 4th-6th grade classrooms, and mentor the kids to teach them how to
use simple tools, how science and engineering work, and how to actually
design and build something. The project we have them build is an
electric 'car'. Without plans, without a kit, without money, and without
adult work, these kids are building go-kart-like electric vehicles that
they can drive and race!

For example, my 5th graders last year invented their own Segway -- a
2-wheel, self-balancing, non-tandem vehicle that can legally be driven
anywhere you can walk, without helmet, license, or age limit. THAT shows
that today's kids CAN think creatively!

But, it takes people like me and my fellow engineers in BEST to
introduce kids today to the joy of actually inventing and building
things. Kids start at the bottom of the technology ladder. We've sawed
off all the rungs that I used as a kid to climb up. We hand them a
finished solution, and assume they will somehow figure out how it works
or came to be built. It doesn't work. They treat it as a magic box, that
you must buy from someone else. Sure, they learn like monkeys to push
buttons to make things happen, but have no understanding at all of how
it really works.

How can we expect today's kids to solve the staggeringly complex
problems they will face in the world we are leaving to them? Pollution,
energy shortages, overpopulation, etc. are all getting worse, and we
have no solutions.

Heathkit, where are you now? We NEED you more than ever!!!
--
"Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the
world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has!" -- Margaret Meade
--
Lee A. Hart  814 8th Ave N  Sartell MN 56377  leeahart_at_earthlink.net

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