Dr. William G. Duff
Associate Editor
John Windell
started his career with The Boeing Company as a Student Engineer in June 1956. His first
exposure to Radio Frequency Interference, as it was known then, was helping to reduce data
from the FAA Certification testing of the 707 aircraft in 1958. The following summer he
received further exposure to RFI by calculating transmitter to receiver coupling on the
BOMARC missile. In December 1959, following completion of his graduate course work, he
began full time employment in the RFI Technical Staff. His first assignment was to plan
and support conduct of the MIL-I-6051 qualification test of the BOMARC B missile. He has
continued to work in the EME area throughout his 40-year career with Boeing.
John participated in the early development of computer modeling and analysis of EMC coupling at the system level by directing a subcontracted effort to calculate both antenna to antenna and cable to cable coupling of the BOMARC missile and, subsequently the Minuteman Launch Facility. Many of the techniques developed in that code are still used in the present IEMCAP. He then was assigned to lead the EMC system qualification testing of the Minuteman system. He and his colleagues developed the “circuit sensitization” approach to demonstrating EMI safety margins and successfully applied it to full system testing at Vandenberg Air Force Base. In 1970, John was asked to lead the EMC program for the AWACS aircraft and he was promoted into management in 1973. He has subsequently managed the EMC programs for the Inertial Upper Stage booster, a classified space program, the V-22 OSPREY aircraft and is currently working on the International Space Station. John will be retiring from Boeing in January 1999.
John was appointed as the Boeing representative to the Electronic Industries Association G-46 EMC Committee in 1975 and was elected Committee chairman in 1988. As G-46 chairman, he has attempted to foster greater coordination between the various industry committees and between industry and Government, particularly the DoD. He has regularly attended meetings of the SAE AE-4 and ANSI C-63 committees to maintain communication with those groups. He has participated in numerous DoD sponsored activities and has been a member of the DoD/Industry E3 Standards Committee since its inception.
John is a member of the IEEE and the EMC Society but has limited his participation due to the demands of the G-46 activities. He served as a volunteer at both the 1977 and 1988 EMC Symposia in Seattle and has participated in panel discussions and as a Session Chairman at other EMC Symposia. John is the Technical Papers Chairman for the 1999 EMC Symposium in Seattle.
John received the BSEE degree in June 1958 and the MSEE degree in March 1961, both from the University of Washington. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Tau Beta Pi and Sigma Xi. John and his wife Ellen live in Bellevue, Washington and have two daughters, Jonella and Julie who live in the same city. They enjoy attending symphony and theater performances, Husky football games and travelling. John’s hobbies include gardening, coin collecting and reading.