About the Author

I grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Southern California in the 1950s and 1960s. I knew from an early age that I wanted to be an engineer or scientist, and started by collecting old radios and other broken electronics from neighbors and taking them apart to find out how all those little tubes and cylinders worked.  As a teenager, I was a radio amateur and even built a special antenna for radio astronomy. I was an avid science fiction fan from the time that I could read. 

I was the first one in my family to go to college, being admitted to the University of California at Berkeley as an Engineering Student, graduating with a BS and MS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science with a thesis on organic dye lasers.  Later, after working for a few years at a small tech company in Silicon Valley, I returned to the University of California at Santa Barbara to complete a PhD in EECS with a thesis on high-speed optics and ultrasonic imaging.

In the mid-1970s, I started work at the Hewlett-Packard Company Microwave Technology Center in Santa Rosa, California. Starting as a semiconductor R&D engineer, I had roles that included Project Manager, R&D Section Manager, Manufacturing Manager, and Semiconductor Operations Manager.  After 25 years, I left HP and started my own technology management consulting firm, where I worked with companies large and small around the world for 17 more years.  I then returned to work at the grandchild company of the original HP, now called Keysight Technologies. I have recently retired from full-time employment.

Through all those career roles, I have enjoyed writing both scientific papers and books, and science fiction.  However, I didn't start publishing my science fiction works until a decade ago.  I write for the pleasure of it, and I get a lot of joy when people like my stories.  I research the details of every story meticulously to ensure that the ideas I put forward are physically possible.  I enjoy a well-written fantasy novel as well as anyone (J.R.R Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" is my favorite), but I enjoy hard science fiction even more, and that is what I like to write.