Fred Terman at Stanford: Building a Discipline, a University, and Silicon Valley
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.25 (986 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0804749140 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 672 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-03-05 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
This fine book, comprehensive and acutely insightful, documents the transforming power of intellectual leadership." —Dudley Herschbach,Harvard University, Nobel Prize for Chemistry 1986. "Stewart Gillmor has chronicled a grand saga, illuminating how Fred Terman—pragmatic engineer, inspiring teacher, visionary academic administrator—catalyzed the extraordinary rise of Stanford to the top rank of universities, and its symbiotic creation of far-reaching economic and social capital
This biography focuses on the weave of personality and place across timeit examines Terman as a Stanford faculty child growing up at an ambitious little regional university; as a young electrical engineering professor in the heady 1920s and the doldrums of the Depression; as an engineering manager and educator in the midst of large-scale wartime research projects and the postwar rise of Big Science and Big Engineering; as a university administrator on the razor’s edge of great expectations and fragile budgets; and, finally, as a senior statesman of engineering education. Fred Terman’s formula for success, both in life and for his university, was fairly simple: hard work and persistence, systematic dedication to clearly articulated goals, accountability, and not settling for mediocre work in yourself or in others.. Terman was also deeply devoted to his students, to engineering, and to Stanford University. The first doctoral student of Vannevar Bush at M.I.T., Terman was himself a prodigious teacher and adviser to many, including William Hewlett and David Packard. Fred Terman was an outstanding America
Essential reading for IT history, economic development, university-building Terman is one of those enormously significant people in U.S. history who are generally overlooked, his mentor Vannevar Bush who built much of MIT and more is another example. Terman's probably the core reason Stanford is a famous school with huge impact in the California economy and the U.S. economy, well beyond electronics (venture capital, high tech firm formation and culture, innovation, pension fund investment in high tech firms/incubation, tech parks, etc.). The author's focuses are different than my ow. "A Real Biography" according to Michael Clouser. This biography of Fred Terman was thorough, detailed, and well-documented. The author did a fine job in piecing together the biograhical data into an enjoyable narrative. At times it is very scientific and gets into real science, at others its heart warming and all about love, family -- the stuff that really matters.What is really amazing is the amount of documentation -- letters, notes, historical records, sketches, etc -- that not only the author dug up, but apparently Fred kept and then donated to the Uni. C. Stewart Gillmor said correction in spelling-not a review. THHIS IS NOT A REVIEW, BUT A CORRECTION IN YOUR LISTINGS OF ONE OF MY OTHER BOOKS. You mis-spell my author's name in one of my books now out of print. in my book Coulomb and the Evolution of Physics and Engineering in Eighteenth-Century France, you have my name listed as spelled Gilmor, and Gillmour. INCORRECT. Correct author's nameC. Stewart Gillmor, as in four of my other books you list.