Since the printing of the Spring 2010 issue of the EMC Newsletter, it saddens me to report that Bill Rhoades passed away. Many thanks to Dan Hoolihan who provided the following tribute to Bill.
I would like to continue to solicit your support in helping me receive the names of EMC Society members that have recently passed away. You can either forward them directly to your local Chapter chair, or if you don’t know who that is, you can forward the names to me (d.heirman@ieee.org) or a member of the Completed Careers Committee directly, including Bruce Archambeault, Don Sweeney, and Andy Drozd. See page 3 of this Newsletter or the EMC Society website (www.emcs.org) for contact information of these committee members.
Thank you in advance for your assistance as we honor EMC Society members who have completed their careers.
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William (Bill) Theodore
Rhoades 1930–2010 |
Bill Rhoades, a long-time member of the EMC Society of the IEEE, passed away in March at the age of 79. Bill spent his entire career with Xerox and was a world-renowned specialist in Electromagnetic Compatibility Engineering.
He followed the “technical ladder” at Xerox and was at the Principal Scientist level when he retired. He chaired an international standards committee internal to Xerox which was vital for the development of Xerox products.
Joe Fischer, a Past-President of the EMC Society and Technical Director for Fischer Custom Communications, worked with Bill at Xerox. He said, “As I remember Bill at Xerox, he was very analytical. When investigating any task, he would assure himself that no parameter was too small to have an effect on the outcome of a solution.”
In the 1970s, Bill represented Xerox on Subcommittee 5 on Electromagnetic Interference which was part of the Environment and Safety Committee of the Computer and Business Equipment Manufacturers Association (CBEMA). Working cooperatively with representatives from Burroughs, Control Data, Digital Equipment, Eastman Kodak, Hewlett-Packard, Honeywell Information Systems, IBM, NCR, Sanders Data Systems, Sperry-Univac, and Tektronix; Bill and the Subcommittee developed a report called CBEMA/ESC5/77/29 in May of 1977. The title of the report was “Limits and Methods of Measurement of Electromagnetic Emanations from Electronic Data Processing and Office Equipment.” This report was the basis for the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Rules on Computers which were released in October of 1979 and which were part of FCC Docket 20780 proceedings.
He published a number of papers on Lightning Effects, Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) and Power Line Disturbances. An example of one of his papers can be found in the 1988 IEEE International Symposium on EMC Proceedings, the paper is titled “Avoidance of ESD Effects” and it is located on Pages 184–189 of that publication.
At the time of his death, Bill was an active member of the United States Technical Advisory Group on CISPR I. (CISPR I is the Subcommittee that looks at “EMC of Information Technology, Multimedia Equipment, and Receivers;” it is part of CISPR which is the International Special Committee on Radio Frequency Interference.)
Bill received his Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1958. He also received his Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from MIT in 1959.
Bill was living in Fullerton, California at the time of his death. He is survived by his wife, Patricia. EMC
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Completed Careers