| Personality Profile |
Bill Duff, Associate Editor |
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Benoît Nadeau |
Benoît Nadeau (pronounced Benwa Nado) was born in 1959 in Charny, Canada on the south shore of Quebec City. He was fourth in a family of seven. Half of the family pursued technical careers and the other half became artists. Benoît was the only one who combined both interests. His last summer job as a student was to play electric guitar in a rock band.
Benoît received a bachelor degree in 1984 at Université Laval in Quebec City and started to work in EMC a few months later for Matrox Electronic Systems Ltd.
The FCC rules were new and the application to computer add-on cards was not clear especially for cards designed for MULTIBUS or VME busses. So his initial work in EMC was to do pre-compliance tests and to answer customer's questions. During his first years in engineering he also worked on the mechanical design of card cages. At that time he learned the ABCs of shielding, bonding and grounding.
In 1989, Matrox won an important contract with the US army to develop a video disc based learning system called EIDS (Electronic Information Delivery System). Benoît participated in this project by performing the mechanical design of the chassis and preparing the test plan which included EMC as well as sound, temperature, over voltage and drop tests.
Also, in 1989 the FCC modified Part 15 making a clear statement about add-on cards. As a result, almost all of Matrox Products were not FCC compliant. Matrox started a tremendous effort to correct this situation. First by using outside laboratories, then by the design and construction of the first Open Area Test Site to be listed by the FCC in Quebec province.
Early in 1990, Benoît left Matrox to set-up the first commercially available EMC test laboratory in Quebec at the Centre de Recherche Industrielle du Québec (CRIQ). His years at CRIQ were very productive. Along with Mr. Christian Dubé, he started the Montreal Chapter of the IEEE EMC Society. He also developed and taught a number of courses and gave presentations on EMC.
Benoît obtained a Master degree in EMC at École Polytechnique of Montréal. Two University professors, Dr. Stanley Kubina, from Concordia University and Dr. Jean-Jacques Laurin from ÉcolePolytechnique, played a major role in this achievement.
Benoît also started to be active in National EMC Committees. He is a member of CSA C311, CISPR A, CISPR G (recently CISPR H) and TC 77B. In 1993, with Cristian Dubé and Jean-Jacques Laurin, Benoît requested and obtained the honor to organize the 2001 IEEE EMC Symposium.
In 1996, he left the CRIQ to return to Matrox which had changed a lot during the past six and a half years. Matrox had grown considerably and become a multi-national company having numerous OEM accounts with Dell, Compaq, IBM and HP. The new challenge of having to comply with many different regulations, especially in Asia, was stimulating and demanded a lot of research and special efforts. In addition, he had to prepare all the Quality System needed to get the ISO Guide 25 certification for the EMC laboratory at Matrox. He participated in the listing of the first 3 meter semi-anechoic room and the only 10 meter OATS in Quebec.
In 1997, he participated, with his friends Dubé and Laurin, in the organization of the 1997 IEEE Symposium on Antennas and Propagation chaired by Dr. Kubina. This was their big rehearsal for the upcoming 2001 Symposium.
Today, as the Chair for the 2001 IEEE International Symposium on EMC, he is working actively to prepare a memorable event for everyone who will visit Montréal next August.
Benoît said "We would like to increase the number of participants that come from outside North-America. Our theme: 'International Rendezvous' uses a French term that underlines the fact that this is the first major IEEE EMC Symposium to be held outside the USA. Since I knew that we had to prepare this event years ago, I went to every Symposia wrap-up meeting from Austin in 1995 to Washington last August and made notes of every good and bad aspect relating to the organization and logistics that our predecessors went through." With the ongoing work of the organizing committee and dedicated effort of their PCO (JPdL Multi Management) Montréal is in good shape for the next EMC Society big event.
On a personal note, Benoît Nadeau has a family of three children. He is active in the community as a member of the twin cities association in his hometown. He loves traveling, reading, soccer and ice hockey. EMC