Oral-History:IEEE Past Presidents

IEEE Past Presidents Oral Histories

In 2009, as part of the celebration of the 125th Anniversary of IEEE, the IEEE History Center undertook a project to record oral histories with as many living past presidents as possible.  These oral histories focus on the interviewees' experiences as IEEE leaders, rather than on their professional careers. To date, the following oral histories from the project have been completed and posted on the GHN. Additional interviews are being processed, and will be posted when completed.

Dates refer to the year the individual served as IEEE President:

Jerome Suran (1979) Suran retired after 30 years at GE, and then became a professor at U.C. Davis. As IEEE President, he tried to balance the somewhat divergent interests of US and non-US members.

Robert Larson (1982)

Charles "Bud" Eldon (1985)

Henry L. Bachman (1987)

Emerson W. Pugh (1989)

Merrill Buckley (1992)

Martha Sloan (1993)

Troy Nagle (1994)

James Thomas "Tom" Cain (1995)

Wally Read (1996)

Charles "Chuck" Alexander (1997)

Ken Laker (1999)

Bruce Eisenstein (2000)

Joel Snyder (2001)

Ray Findlay (2002)

Michael Adler (2003)

Arthur Winston (2004)

Michael Lightner (2006)

In addition to their oral histories, eight past presidents participated in one of two video-taped panel discussions at the 2009 IEEE Conference on the History of Technical Societies.

The IEEE History Center earlier conducted oral histories with the following IEEE past presidents on their IEEE activities:

Ernst Weber (1963)

John Granger (1970)

James Mulligan (1971)

John Guarrera (1974)

Robert Saunders (1977)

Ivan Getting (1978)

Bruno Weinschel (1986)