1993 – 2003

The Last Shall be First

by Peter Sutherland

My RPI career was somewhat unusual. I was among the last students able to get a PhD part time while working full time. I must thank my employer at the time, General Electric, for paying for it, and allowing me the time off to take all those 4:30 classes. I took the entire 10 years allowed to complete the program. I was in one of the last classes in the former Electric Power Engineering program. I took classes from famous professors like Harry Hesse, Alan Greenwood, Shep Salon, Keith Nelson, David Torrey and others. The event most people remember about me was the midterm in Dr Hesse’s Electric Machines course. I was driving over from GE when my car broke down on the Collar City Bridge. I was able to limp into the parking lot of the shopping center just past the end of the bridge. I left my car and ran to the exam room, arriving late and out of breath. Everybody stared at me. Naturally, I failed the exam, and had to drop the course. I took it over the following year and aced it. I went on to use the knowledge and skills I had learned in a long career, wrote many papers and became a Life Fellow of the IEEE and Fellow of the IET.