Woke up excited for three  things: another day of NAE meeting,  the grand opening of the BETA Manufacturing building back in VT, and Max and Becky’s arrival in VT. It’s a big day all around 🙂 

The NAE meeting began at 8:30 today. THe big item today wasan excellent presentation and panel on the engineering challenges posed by climate change. The main sppaker was Prof Arun  Mujumdar , The Director of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. He gave an excellent fact filled talk on the engineering priorities posed by climate change. What I enjoyed most was his ability to quantify the relative impact of various human systems as they related to green house gas accumulation. He also did a great job laying out the technical challenges and costs of a variety of mitigation proposals, Aruns talk was  followed by a great interactive panel of other experts on the subject. I was very impressed by the panelists command of their subjects and their ability to answer the many questions they got from this very smart  audience.  Often climate talks leave me with a sense of hopelessness due to the size of the problem.. this time I came away with a more realistic understanding of the challenges and a bit more hopeful sense of all that was going on to mitigate their impact.. Here a re a few of the many quantifications in Prof Majumdars talk

I’m goign to see if I can share the slides… I’ll let you know if I can get them and if I can share them.

After the pannel there were soem major awards given out.. then we broe for lunch. 

I had a great lunch with my friend Neil and two new friends from the National academy of Science(NAS)  abdnd NAE. Anne is with the NAS and is the WEExecutive Director of the Sceince and  Entertainment Exchange.

which is a collaberation between  the National Academy of Science and the enterntainment energy. THe goal is to to provide sceince and domain experteise to things like Hollywood movies. The exchange ahs been instrumental in giving expert advise to movies you’ve seen.. eg  Minority Report .

The exchange is being extended to include the National Academy of Engineering.. and I’m one of the new members of that consortium.   I’ve done a fair bit of science consulting for reality shows and such.. would love to do more !

 

From there we went to our section meetings. I’m in sectios 7.. the Electronics and communications group. As I said last night,.  I’m very impressed with our new group leadership.   We had a good meeting. It always starts on a bit of a solemn note where we review the folks in the section who have passed away in the last year.. Attending members can offer stories and thoughts abotu the people they new. I’m always surprised abotu how connected this group is. NAE membership is for life.. and many of our members are older and wiser.. so it comes woth the territory. Here’s the  list for this year. .. Some very well knwn and well loved names on there

 

I grew up using textbooks by Gummel and Hodges.. and we all use Ziv’s compression algorithms everyday and Gordon Moore was an icon in our  industry who  gave us “Moores Law”.. As sad as it is to discuss the loss of these folks. the stories people tell of working with these folks are really funny and inspiring. 

Most of the rest  of the discussion was  brainstorming about how to get more diversity in our group. Diversity here means more people from Industry. more women, more bipac, more LGBTQ, more differently abled folks. I know that DEI can be just a buzword exercise.. but here we thrive on diversity of thought.. and for that you need people from different backgrounds and experiences.  We also discussed how to better connect our group.. It will be a challenge to do that but it will be worth the effort, I think 

I had to leave a bit early to catch my plane home. at the airport I ran into my freinds Jose and Manuela.. a husband and wife team who are both NAe members. I really like them both. 

 

.. The flight howm was uneventful.. so I’ll tell you about another  amazing thing from the day. Today was the grand openign of the BETA manufacturing building in VT. at 188,500-square-feet   the largest net zero energy building east if the mississippi  .. and the first large scale manufacturing plant for electric aircraft in the world.   I was sad to be out of town for the opening. but I was able to watch the live stream durign breaks in the NAE memeting. It was an amazing day with Gov Scott , Rwetired Snator Pat Leahy, Both current Senators Sanders and Welch and the Mayor of BTV Miro W. . Our leaderr Kyle did a fantastic job of introducign the building  and its impact. nearly the whole company was there in Beta shirts to celebrate the opening.. At the end, 2 F35 flew over.. then Alia SN1 flew over.. the F35s  were earsplitting (as always).. while ALia made a beautifully soft hum.. It was really impressive. Here are some screen clips from the day.

I was really proud to be part of this team. its great for BETA, great for Vermont, Great for the US. and great for the climate of the world.. 

 

OK.. back to the eveing. I got to the airport just al little after Max and Becky landed. I came down and foudn them in the airport.. . .It was so exciting to see them. / Diane picked us up and we drove home.. happy , tired and excited for the week ahead.

 

what a day !

More fun tomorrow. 

 

nite all, nite sam

-me