All
Just to give everyone a heads up, on Sept 30, 2011, I retired from The
University of Montana - 37 years Creditable Service (40 years of University
work, if you count a post doc at MSU before I transferred to UM). Plus,
I've exceeded the 65 years of age required for full benefits, and I can pull
SS.
But, that does not mean I'm going to disappear, or that I and my associates
are quitting bee research.
I have just received my first retirement pay check. As such, under State
of MT Retirement Rules, I am now able to resume working for UM under an ~
1/3 time contract, continuing to direct the state's Energy Related Research
and Education Programs. I am the State Director for Montana's US Dept of
Energy's EPSCoR (Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research).
I've been the Director for 17 years, and we are starting Year 4 of a 6 Year
Project concerning underground storage of CO2. So, with luck, I get to
work 1/3 time for UM for another 3 years.
Retirement free's up time to take a more active role in Bee Alert
Technology, Inc., the company I founded in 2003 with four UM partners to foster
Technology Transfer and to provide contract R&D and Services. We have several
ongoing projects, some that address bees, and some that are more focused
on Design, Development, and Testing of specialized electronic devices such
as a Satellite Communicating Traffic Stop Light System.
The joke is that I've moved from two full time jobs to two part time jobs,
which brings me to a normal full time equivalent, as my retirement.
Also, as of Sept 30, we finally have the honey bee and laser detection
system for landmines and other things fully developed, with turn-key hardware
systems, and full integrated software for a plug and play system.
The biggest technical hurdle has been the lasers for mapping bees across
fields (in 3-D space). It took 7 years, but we now have two really good
LIDAR instruments, that can see bees and locate them with centimeter
resolution. These instruments are at least 100x more sensitive than anything we've
had in the past, are small enough to carry about (~35 #), and go to work
with the flip of a switch, producing maps of bee locations in the field.
That's a REALLY big breakthrough, the one that we needed to make all of this
work.
So, at this time, we're working out what our company is going to be in the
future. I've got a talented crew, and they will transition into taking
over more and more of the day to day work. We are primarily a firm that
works under contract to provide research, consultation, and more or less
anything a customer needs, as long as we have the expertise. Since 1/2 of my
partners are electronic design and assembly experts, we can custom build a
wide array of electronic gizmos. We specialize in one off work, we'd
rather solve a problem, provide a service, or build something custom than just
do the same old thing over and over.
I'd appreciate suggestions from Bee-L of services, products that you as
individuals and as an industry as a whole, that are needed, and that we might
be able to provide. We're exploring options, trying to determine what we
are, where we are going.
In the meantime, I'm sticking around to see what turns up.
Jerry
***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html
Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm
|
