Introducing Moshe Netzer
With this personality profile I will stay in Asia, but in contrast to my last profile I would like to draw your attention to a colleague who lives in the Asia part of the Mediterranean Region. In particular, I would like to introduce you to the chair of the Israel EMC Chapter, Moshe Netzer. Our past president, Elya Joffe, introduced me to Moshe at the Santa Clara EMC Symposium in 2004. Since then, I have met him regularly at our annual symposium.
     Moshe was born some 60 years ago in Rambam Hospital, where two of his children were born too and where his son, a gynecologist at the Gynecological Ward, currently works.
     Moshe’s interest in engineering started early in his life. During his first year, as told by his mother, Moshe used to turn over his pram and rotate the wheels with his tiny hands to learn about the adorable mechanics of spinning wheels. Upon growing up and reaching high-school, Moshe studied airborne instrumentation. According to him, most of the studies were a waste of time, but life in the boarding school was a corrective experience, as were the struggles against management to improve the food served to the students.
     In the army, Moshe served in an armored brigade and was trembling with fear whenever Colonel Gorodish (Shmuel Gonen), the strict brigade commander, would pass through the base gate, and Moshe – the rookie – had to open the barrier and salute, with seven exact folds of the shirt sleeve and a starched neck-cutting collar. After an officers course, Moshe was sent to the War of Attrition and served as a logistics officer in a regiment of Brigade 14. At the end of that war, he was drawn to the subject of ammunition and explosives, and was soon appointed a weapons and ammunitions officer of Brigade 14. His responsibilities included replenishment of the entire ammunition at the Suez Canal posts. By then he drew unreserved pleasure from detonating tons of disqualified ammunition throughout the post line along the Suez Canal. One of the deep “moon” craters he created in the dunes near the midpoint of Suez Canal saved his life when he was approaching the bridges on the Canal during the Yom Kippur War and a heavy Katyusha bombardment caught him and his soldiers off guard. The nearest shelter was a crater, which had been created two years earlier in a controlled detonation of disqualified ammunition. Later during his military service, Moshe was appointed an HQ company commander, and was released at the rank of Army Major after a voluntary service of several additional years in the Ordnance Corps’ Army Proving Ground, Unit 5000.
     On completing the army service, Moshe studied electrical engineering and electronics at the Technion, Haifa. In the fourth year of his studies, Moshe happened to meet the young Oren Hartal who interviewed him as a possible candidate for Rafael. That meeting changed his life forever. Right then and there, during the fourth year, Moshe was recruited to the field of electromagnetic compatibility without having the foggiest notion of what it was all about. The term electromagnetic compatibility sounded then like fitting parts of plumbing (like adjusting a connector onto a receptacle). Only when joining Rafael on April 1, 1976, a month after his first son was born, did Moshe understand that it was more about physics than electrical engineering, with no connection whatsoever to plumbing. Moshe allowed himself two years of experience to consider whether to stay in the field of electromagnetic compatibility or seek his vocation as an engineer in another pleasant subject, such as electronic communication or control systems.
     After two years of activity, it became clear to Moshe that he had found his mission in electromagnetic compatibility, especially as he was appointed then to be engaged in two explosive materials-related subjects: static electricity discharge (ESD) associated with explosives and radiation hazards (RADHAZ) connected to explosives and electrical initiators (HERO). Soon Moshe was appointed a Radiation Safety Engineer and Chairman of the Static Electricity Safety Committee – two nominations, which had been pushed and promoted by Rafael’s Chief Safety Engineer.
     Apparently, choosing Moshe proved to be successful and wise, since he started deciphering – one after the other – accidents and explosion events in the defense industry which were connected, as it turned out, to coupling of radio-frequency radiation onto firing lines and ESD through explosive/HAZMAT materials.

Moshe Netzer received the Fellow Award of the Society of Electronic and Electrical Engineers in Israel (SEEEI) for his significant contributions assimilating EMC engineering into many engineering projects in Israel. Dr. Ozi Landau, Minister of the Infrastructure office (foreground left), presented the award.

     In 1984 Moshe was appointed head of a project for establishing an automated system for the IDF radio frequency management (the Cherokee Project). The project was successful but “the patient died” because until it ended, great progress had already been made in both available software programs and hardware systems. It taught Moshe then that engaging in the establishment of a software program that takes a number of years is perhaps suitable for Bill Gates, so he stopped taking part in such things. Anyway, Moshe’s accumulated experience in analyzing and simulating communication disruptions between radio transmission systems and receiving systems enabled him in 1990 – in cooperation with a trainee from Singapore – Lu Yeow Leong – to develop a unique software called CULLING, which made it possible to optimize the antenna layout of transmission and receiving antennae deployed on naval ships, as well as many other military platforms. The software was developed mainly in his residential house after work hours, despite the feeble protests of his wife, Hanna, who claimed that nothing good could come out of such work into the wee hours of the night. Luckily, she was wrong! That software is still being used by Rafael in the field of electromagnetic compatibility in every major project, such as developing the simulator for a Far East Country observation balloon, positioning the antennae on the balloon itself, and many other classified projects which should not even be mentioned.
     Over the years Moshe has supported all major developments of the Israeli Navy projects. He also assisted in developing the Mark 3 and Mark 4 Merkava tank and wrote, inter alia, the Electromagnetic Compatibility Specification for the Merkava, which is being used today by developers of systems and assemblies of this state-of-the-art tank.
     Thanks to connections Moshe had developed while spending sabbaticals in the USA, he became a distinguished lecturer on subjects of radiation and electromagnetic-compatibility by the USA Department of Defense, the Singapore MOD and the Republic of Korea MOD. Moshe gave dozens of courses in these and other countries, with which Rafael had connections, on professional subjects where his name became increasingly well known.
     Moshe’s last appointment in Rafael, which occurred at about the same time of receiving a Level-A Researcher (equivalent in the academic world to an associate professor), was “System Engineer of Electromagnetic Environmental Effects.” It meant that Moshe was actually responsible for non-ionizing radiation on both humans and weapon systems in Rafael. Within this function, Moshe was able to prevent radiation accidents in Rafael, while throughout the Israeli security industry people wanted to know how it was done in Rafael and learn the safety procedures, which helped prevent and mitigate HERP incidents.

Moshe celebrated receipt of his Fellow Award with his wife Hanna following the ceremony held in Eilat – the most Southern city in Israel on the Red Sea – on November 24, 2011. Congratulations Moshe!

    Following fire and explosion accidents and events in the chemical industry due to ESD through hazardous flammable materials, Moshe studied the subject of chemical processes in chemical plants and the special jargon used by process engineers and chemical engineers. He managed to discover the causes of fires and explosions which occurred in a number of plants in Israel and worldwide, especially in Teva’s pharmaceutical plants. The lessons he extracted assisted in significantly reducing such cases which, undoubtedly, prevented injuries and suffering that might have been caused as a result of fire and explosions in chemical production plants in and outside Rafael.
     Moshe continued to be vigorously active both by writing articles and books (yielding so far some 50 articles and five books) and by participating in professional associations representing compatibility engineers. He has been serving as the Chairman of the IEEE Israel EMC Chapter for the last 11 years, and was the Chairman of the EMC Chapter in the Israeli Society of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEES) for the last five years. In the course of these years, Moshe has organized countless conferences, tutorials and workshops. He also served in 1998 as the Vice Chair of an important international workshop in Crete dealing with radiation effects on biological systems.
     Moshe still continues with this type of public activity and has many more years of professional occupation ahead of him. By the way, this year he has been recognized as an excelling in-house lecturer of Rafael for courses on work safety in handling hazardous materials and received the title award of Fellow SEEEI.
     Almost over, but not done with, Moshe has established a consulting company called “Electromagnetic Compatibility & Safety Engineering Ltd.” where some eight technicians and engineers are hired for the abovementioned subjects. It seems unlikely for Moshe to ever be out of work or bored.
     To sum up, I wish Moshe good health and success down the road, and I hope to continue seeing him among EMC colleagues as long as possible. It might be time for him to slow down and even sunbathe on a sunny beach, with a cocktail in one hand. He surely deserves many years of such recreation.     EMC