(In loose chronological order)
Mom and Dad: for providing me with an upbringing full of imagination, reading, and opportunities to participate in a variety of activities and interests. Most importantly thank you for teaching me how to focus and get the job done whatever it takes. For providing computers and Lego's and allowing me to take anything of my own apart as long as I didn't cry when I couldn't get it back together.
My Grandfather: For first showing me the design process and all of the considerations that go into building something from raw materials and your imagination. Sitting down and saying "If we're going to do this, we're going to do it right" and proceeding to make specifications and drawings which over time became fully custom furniture.
My friend Roger W. Showing me that just about anything can be fixed, you just have to be able to figure out how it works and what catalog to order replacement parts from. And that adults can still have Legos
My Lego-Logo Camp director Tom D.: For first teaching me problem solving with programming and to read the directions carefully!
My Coaches: Craig S, Mike B and Marion W. for teaching me that hustling, technique and sportsmanship are the most important thing for teamwork.
My Aunt: For instilling in me "if you have time to lean, time to clean". This work ethic of never sitting still on the job has served me very well over the years. (And thanks to my Uncle for my first job)
My friend Chris K. For getting subwoofers and introducing me to ridiculously powerful amplifiers. Wanting to know how to build a bigger, more powerful amp drove my whole career path.(the answer is power supply design)
My High School physics and chem teacher Mike C.: Science is fun, I already knew that, but you showed me why learning more about the details can make it even more fun.
My intro to engineering prof Dr O. For telling me: "You don't want to design audio amplifiers, that's a very tiny field where most of the innovation happened in the 60's. BUT if you do IC amplifier design you'll learn all of the concepts along the way and know how to" I revolted at hearing this, but 10 years later it was stellar advice.
My friends Mark, Eric, Paul and Kathy: Thank you for being my 2nd family while in school and letting me use all of the tools to build things and fix my car. Thank you for teaching me many practical skills along the way and in general for everything. Special thanks to Mark for helping me understand many difficult topics in school and being a fun project partner to work with.
My first technical boss/mentor Chris S. Thank you for providing me with the opportunity to work and learn as a co-op. Learning to use basic lab equipment and derive formula's for excel spreadsheets finally allowed the light bulb to click and I understood what I was doing as an analog facing EE.
My mentor/friend Marc J. : Thanks for showing me that hobby circuits can do real work and for all of the help with cars.
My mentor/friend Rodger D.: Man, thank you for data-dumping from the ground up on high speed PCB design and bring up. Thank you for encouraging me to about be respectful to everyone around me regardless of their corporate status. And thank you for emphasizing proper communication "I don't understand what "it"/"This"/"That" is!".
My mentor Richard S.: Thanks for the thought "If you want to be a design engineer, don't ever take a job in test". It's not impossible to make the change and I have seen people make the jump, but it does take a lot. PS thanks for the amp transformer...
My mentor Chris C.: Thank you for teaching me: "you should be able to unroll the logic in your head" regarding ASIC design. The experience has been extremely rewarding to draw from
My mentor/friend Bryan T: Thank you for the opportunity to be part of a really amazing and streamlined team. I hope we can collaborate on another heroic effort again in the future. Thank you for the inside advice on technical presentations.
My mentor/friend Joe F.: Thank you for the opportunity to professionally do exactly what I went back to gradschool for.
Thanks to everyone else who has supported and encouraged me this far in life!
And absolutely most of all! Thank you to my wife for being a supportive, patient, wonderful being while I work on all of my varied hobby projects!