Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine Vol. 68, No. 04 1993

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Future Fit* Georgia Resear _ Alliance The Atlanta Proje Trends in Management

WithTech Degrees And DeltaTickets, They Can Go Just About AnywhereThey Want.

Delta and the Delta Connection now offer over 4,900 daily Mights ,, more than 500cities worldwide. We thought you should know this because, with a diploma CromTech,you're undoubtedly going places.

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Every Time You Use Your Georgia Tech VISA or MasterCard* Credit Card To Make Purchases And Get Cash Advances, You'll Be Helping To Support The Georgia Tech Alumni Association... At No Extra Cost To You.

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Š 1992 NationsBank of Georgia, N. A. Member FDIC

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OFFICIAL SPONSOR ALUMNI MAGAZINE

OVER GEORGIA A Time W a r n e r A f f i l i a t e d C o m p a n y

is proud to present The AH New,,.

Coming Mid April!

n UJTECH W

Six Flags Over Georgia opens March 6th for its 26th operating season.

Brand new for'93 is The Batman Stunt Show which will feature some of the country's top stunt professionals in the roles of Batman, the Joker, Vicki Vale and the Joker's diabolical "goons."

Batman and all related elements are trademarks of DC Comics, Inc. Š 1992

Š 1992 Six Flags Over Georgia. All rights reserved.

Volume 68 Number 4 SPRING 1993

A L U M N I U M AG AZIN E Page 37

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High-Fiber Information Diet The fiber-optics industry, with the capability of sending incredible amounts of information over thread-thin glass "wires," promises to usher in tlie second Information Age. Tech research will help bring it about.

Written by Gary Goettling

26

Technology and the Atlanta Project

37

Alliance for Technology

Researchers from Georgia Tech are helping Jimmy Carter's Adanta Project map the best ways to provide services and assistance to the urban poor. Lessons from TAP could help rewrite the nation's welfare agenda.

Written by Phyllis Thompson

Georgia Tech and five other research universities are a vital part of the Georgia Research Alliance's strategy to transform Georgia into a hub for advanced technology.

Written byJohn Dunn

Page 18

irtmnts

Technotes Splish-splash . . . further aquatic adventures; How the other half lives; Cheerleaders; College fairs; Fund-raising students; Wehrle promoted; All-USA; Housing; Life study; Electric car race.

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Page 26

Trends in Management Learning organizations

45 55 58

Pacesetters Earl Patron: Six minutes of magicNancy Nolan: Taking care of Atlanta's prosperity.

John Hayes: A remedy for health-care education.

Research Rhythm of life: Glowing research on water pollution.

Profile Prof. Naresh K. Malhotra: Beware the "global teenager."

Cover Photo: A handheld high-capacity ligbiguide directs a test signal toward the GEORGIA TECH ALUMNI MAGAZINE camera. Light carried is published quarterly for Roll Call contributors by the Georgia Tech by fiber optic strands is Alumni Association. Send correspondence and changes of address to: replacing electricity as GEORGIA TECH ALUMNI MAGAZINE, Alumni/Faculty House, 225 North Avenue the primary long- NW, Atlanta, GA 30332-0175 • Editorial: (404) 853-0760/0761 distance information- Advertising: (404) 894-9270 • Fax: (404) 894-5113 transfer medium.

COUKIESYATr-rARCHIVES © 1993 Georgia Tech Alumni Association • ISSN: 1061-9747

Page 14

GEORGIA TECH • Contents 3

ALUMNICJM A G A Z John C. Dunn, editor Gary Goettiing, associate editor Gary Meek photography Everett Hullum, design Dudley Williamson, advertising

Publications Committee Chairman Louis Gordon Sawyer Sr., NS '46 Chairman, Sawyer-RileyCompton, Atlanta Members William 'Guy" Arledge, IM • 71 Manager/Advertising, BellSouth Corp., Atlanta McKinley "Mac" Conway Jr., GE '40 President, Conway Data Inc., Norcross, Ga. Hubert L. Harris Jr., IM '65 President, Investco Services Inc., Atlanta McAllister "Mac" Isaacs III, TF.X '60 Executive Editor, Textile World, Atlanta George A. Stewart Jr., AE '69 President, Stewart Consulting Group, Dunwoody, Ga. James M. Langley Vice President External Affairs. Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta John B. Carter Jr., IE '69 Vice President and Executive Director, Georgia Tech Alumni Association, Atlanta Dudley C. Williamson, IMGT 74 Associate Vice President/ Associate Executive Director, Georgia Tech Alumni Association, Atlanta

4

GEORGIA TECH • Spring 1993

iORIGIA TECH ALUMNI CAREER SERVICES (formerly Georgia Tech Alumni Placement)

presents The 1993 Georgia Tech

ALUMNI CAREER CONFERENCE June 10-12 Exclusive to Georgia Tech alumni

REGISTRATION Georgia Tech Alumni Career Conference June 10-12

• Top corporate recruiters

plc'tc- the form ant! return to Alumni < .11 with two copies of your resume (resumes limited to o n e page/one >

by May 17. 1993

• Resumes published in Resume Book distributed to recruiters

•

Two open sessions to meet with recruiters

• •

On-site interviews No fees to alumni Conference location: B u c k h e a d Ritz-Carlton • 3 4 3 4 P e a c h t r e e R o a d • Atlanta, GA

For more information call (404) 894-2394

Name _ Addres; Date of Graduation I )egree/Major Social Security Number Home Phone Number _ Mail to: Alumni Career Confi'u Georgia Tech Alumni Career Sir The Bill M<x>re Student Success Center • 225 North A\ 1

1, GA .30.552-0395

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I TECH I

OFFICIAL SPONSOR ALUMNI MAGAZINE

2k Vote Splish-Splash... Further Aquatic Adventures

By Gary (Joettling

U

.S. Swimming Inc., the national governing body for the sport, has established a partnership with Georgia Tech to relocate its National 1 )evelopment Center to the Tech campus.

Tech will be the site of the 1996 Olympic natatorium, with construction of the new facility to begin

this year (as reported in the Winter '93 alumni magazine).

The U.S. Swimming center provides training programs for competitive swimmers, educationalprogram support for coaches, and assistance to promising young athletes.

U.S. Swimming will also expand its sports-science programs through collaboration with Tech faculty, particularly in the area of

computer-assisted motion analysis, where Tech's Multi-Media Laboratory is a national leader.

In announcing the agreement, U.S. Swimming Executive Director Roy Essick said that "our primary concern in having this relationship with Georgia Tech is to develop our athletes for 1996."

He added that Tech's research programs will enhance the development of

swim coaches, and serve as a model for other sports.

President John Crecine calls the partnership "a new and creative way of combining academics and athletics." He says that the center will "spawn a whole series of aggressive technology-oriented research projects" enabling Tech scientists to study many human-performance issues.

Potential Olympic swimmers and coaches are MAHGAKKT IIARRIIT I'MOIO

How the Other Half lives "Sophomore" John P. Crecine glances toward the professor with a "wish-I-had-read-the-assignment" look. The occasion was Trading Places Day, an annual fund-raiser sponsored by the Georgia Tech Student Foundation. More than 500 students bought raffle tickets for a chance to exchange roles for a day with President Crecine or Richard Truly, AH '59, director of

the Georgia Tech Research Institute. Martha Lora— Tech's first female president—attended to Institute business while Crecine grappled with physics and English classes. Truly attended an AH class and a Graduate Senate se.ssion while saident Jay Nemeth discussed possible research projects with GTRI staffers. "It was fun. I'd do this every day if I could," Crecine quipped.

GEORGIA TECH • TecbNotes

7

TechMes

expected to begin arriving on campus in June.

Cheerleaders Buzz and the Georgia Tech cheerleaders will be traveling to San Diego to strut their stuff in the national cheerleading competition, to be held April 1519 at Sea World.

Buzz, who won top honors in 1988, has already qualified for the "final four" in the mascot category.

The cheerleading squad, which qualified on the basis of its seventhplace finish in the Division 1-A Southern Regionals, will vie for a national title against teams from 14 other schools. The Tech squad has ranked in the top 10 twice in the past three years.

The competition will be

Buzz will be seeking another championship in the mascot category in the upcoming national cheerleading competition.

vide security at a concert benefitting the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

Wehrle Promoted

aired in May on ESPN.

College Fairs Georgia Tech alumni are taking an increasingly active role in recruiting potential students for Tech.

This past fall, working primarily through the nationwide network of Georgia Tech clubs, alumni and friends participated in 115 college fairs and contacted about 5,000 students.

Fund-Raising Students The Georgia Tech Student Foundation has raised more than $23,000 so far

during its 1992-93 fiscal year, ending June 30. The largest single contribution was a $10,000 grant from Merrill Lynch. The student foundation's seventh annual fall campaign, held over a 10-day period this past November, netted S9,000 from more than 500 donors. Foundation allocations for FY92-93 include $1,500 to the Georgia Tech hockey team for ice time; $500 toward the purchase of sound equipment for the Musicians' Network; and $1,200 to the Kappa Alpha Order to help pro-

Roger E. Wehrle has been named interim vice president for student services. He had served as acting vice president since last May. His responsibilities include oversight for student housing and dining halls, placement, the infirmary, the Student Center, and the Student Success Center programs.

All-USA Lara O'Connor, a senior aerospace engineering student at Tech. has been named to USA Todays 1993 All-USA College Academic Team. The Clarkston, Ga., native was selected along with 19

Georgia Tech Alumni Association Board of Trustees Officers II. Hammond Stith Jr. CE '58

president lohn C, Staton fr. IM '60

past president (',. William Knight IH '62, MS IM '68

president-elect/treasurer Frank II. Maier fr, IM '60

i ice president/actit ities H. Milton Stewart IH '61 Vice presidenl/com inn niailto)is Hubert I.. Harris |r. IM '65

vice presUlent/R6U Call lohn B. Carter |r. IH '69

t 'ice president/executii <e director James M. Langley vice president, external affairs i

8

GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Spring 1993

Trustees Kay Elizabeth Adams IM 74 Theodore Arno II TEXT '49 AT. Beaeham fr. IH '60 William llagood Bellinger EE '63 James W. Bowyer CH '64, MS SANE '66 Richard II. Bradl'ield ARCH '60 Carey II. Brown IH '69 Fred L. Cook TCI l 71, PhD 75 Thomas F, Davenport Jr. IH 76 Charles F, Kasley fr. IM '86 Albeit F. Gandy IH 76 Don P. Giddens AH '63, MS AH '63 PhD AH '67 'Thomas B. Gurley HE 79 Janice Carol Harden IH 74 Paul W. 1 leard Jr. ME '63 P. Owen Herein Jr. IM 70 J. Scott Howell ISyE 73

David R. fones IM 79 [venue Love-Stanley ARC! i 77 Govantez L, Lowndes IF. '83 Jon Samuel Martin IM 6 t Jay M. McDonald IM '68 Charles D. Moseleyjr. IE '63 'Thomas 11. Mullerjr. IH '63 G. David Peake IH'61 Michael L. Percy Sr. TINT '68 J. Lamar Reese fr. IM 73 Neal Allen Robertson IH '69 B. lane Skelton IM 77 Haywood F, Solomon Jr. IM 70 Louis 'Terrell Sovey fr. IE 72 Neal D. Stubblel'ield ME 79 Howard T. Tellepsen Jr. CE 66 Harry B. Thompson III IE '60 Philip S. Vincent IE '66 S.Joseph Ward IM 71

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Applications experience such as subsystems for historical collection, reporting, batch scheduling, recipe management and product tracking also highly desired. Experience must include MIS for process plants (i.e., chemical, pharmaceutical, paper, etc.) or factories with CIM. Must have significant recent hands-on experience and strong working knowledge of UNIX System V, be a strong "C" programmer, have extensive experience using communications software such as TCP/IP, NFS, etc. and have experience in relational database management.

Working knowledge of X-Windows, MOTIF and 4GLs a strong plus. Must have a proven ability to provide overall conceptual design and design coordination of a systems software product plus

experience managing a development team of 3+ engineers from concept through product implementation.

Systems Account Managers Positions are located at various locations in the East.

SW and MW U.S. Manages assigned territory as a business to maximize systems bookings. Ideal candidate should have an extensive knowledge of Distributed Control Systems to the Process Industries; have B.S. in Engineering and 5-10 years of successful Systems Sales experience.

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Ideal candidate must have 5+ years experience in plant process environment with emphasis on flow measurement applications and problem solving; experience with control loops using flow, pressure and temperature measurement; experience in service with a flow and instrument supplier or as an Instrument Engineer in a process plant preferred. Requires B.S. in Engineering.

Liquid Analytical Specialist Ideal candidate will possess a B.S. in Engineering or related technical degree with 58 years of experience in liquid analytical product lines. Successful candidate will provide technical and application support for Johnson Yokogawa liquid analytical product line to customers, regional specialists and representatives.

Supports customer marketing/sales activities through product demonstrations, training, cooperative sales calls with sales force; application evaluations and response to requests for quotation.

Assists in establishing competitive market strategies and directions in the development of new product designs and introductions. Experience in other related analytical product lines such as gas. GC/MS. infrared analyzers and continuous emissions monitoring also a plus.

If you meet these qualifications and desire a highly competitive compensation and benefits package along with the opportunity to grow, we would like to talk to you. Send resume and salary history, (applicants only), in confidence to: Manager, Employee Development and Recruiting, GT; GEN 193 Johnson Yokogawa Corporation, 4 Dart Road, Newnan, GA 30265-1040.

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46™ other outstanding college students from a group of 1,342 candidates. In February, O'Connor joined her academic team members in Washington, D.C., for an awards ceremony.

O'Connor, a recipient of a Leadership Scholarship from the Alumni Association, came to Tech five years ago with an Alexander-Tharpe Track Scholarship. She was named Most Outstanding Sophomore by Omicron Delta Kappa, and was recognized with an Outstanding Junior Award and an Outstanding Senior Award by the Society of Women

Engineers. O'Connor has served as a math teaching assistant, and does volunteer work for the Georgia Special Olympics.

Each university was allowed to nominate one undergraduate student for the competition. After reviewing O'Connor's record, the Georgia Tech deans voted unanimously to nominate her as the Institute's representative.

Together E veryone's C ontr ibution

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Housing With the Summer Olympics a little more than three years away, Georgia Tech is busy expanding

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$109ANIGHT JACKETS REQUIRED. — TICK OFFICIAL SPON ALUMNI MAGAZINE

A special rate for Tech fans only. Weekends through- ^ T ^ w out football and basketball seasons. Afterward, relax \fMn with a drink. Or enjoy sumptuous dining in The Res- gJjyKa taurant or The Cafe. Then settle back in a luxuriously Wo-oV

appointed room at the heart of downtown Adanta. For reservations, call 404-659-0400 or 800-241-3333 and ask about the Yellow Jacket Weekend. And for just $109 a night, you can stay at a legend when you cheer one on.

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GEORGIA TECH • Techmtes

11

This announcement appears as a matter of record only.

i ebruary, 1995

GARY MEEK PHOTO

Georgia Tech Foundation, Inc. $5,000,000 Construction and Renovation Loan Facility for Non-Governmental Student Residence Organizalu >ns

The undersigned has agreed to become the exclusive Lender for this project.

1^= Banh Souit I ^ 11 W* Real Estate/Private Banking

Finishing touches are added to the Graduate Living Center on 10th Street, which opened on March 22.

and upgrading its on-campus housing.

The Graduate Living Center on 10th Street opened March 22, and a new undergraduate dorm next to the Student Athletic Complex will be ready for occupancy this fall.

In addition, Smith, Harris, Brown, Perry, Matheson and Callaway resident halls are undergoing or are slated for major renovations this year. The six buildings will be closed for 3-6 months for improvements ranging from new paint and carpeting to new

plumbing fixtures and furnishings. Health clubs will be added to Harris, Perry and Matheson halls.

Electric Car Tech students will join teams from 13 other universities in a Clean Air Grand Prix at Atlanta Motor Speedway on May 1315. The race is part of an exposition and conference about alternative-fuel vehicles, to be held at the Marriott Marquis in Atlanta.

For more information, call (404) 237-2228.B

life Study Student life and education at Georgia Tech will be the topics of a long-term study being conducted by a panel of 30 faculty members. Professors Gregory Nobles and Marcus Marr are co-directors of the effort to find ways to improve the "Georgia Tech experience" for students.

The assessment is expected to take at least three years to complete, with participants seeking input from alumni and other members of the Tech community. President John P. Crecine hopes the study evolves into an ongoing self-analysis for Tech.

12

GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Spring 1993

Thankyou to the official sponsors ofthe

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Learning Organizations

By Gordon Sawyer

T

he most successful corporations of the 1990s will be "learning organizations" with superior and up-to-date brainpower, according to Fortune magazine.

So what's new? The idea of superior brainpower among the people in an organization has been around a long time.

The need for "training" has been recognized for decades. But a company philosophy that says all of its people will have the new knowledge, when needed, to reach its corporate goals—that is a new philosophy at the core of the learning organization.

The learning organization is being driven by the ever-increasing speed of change. A college education once seived a person reasonably well for a lifetime. That no longer is true.

Futurist Dr. James Crupi points out: "If I go to a technical university and I graduate this year, five years from now 50 percent of what they have taught me is obsolete . . . the great majority of the technology we'll be using by the year 2010 hasn't been invented yet."

While technology is certainly an important force driving for change, it is not the only one. Dramatic changes are taking

14

GEORGIA TECH • Spring 1993

place in management methods, communications, global marketing and competition—almost everything a company leader must manage.

One corporate executive puts it in accounting terms: "If we make a capital investment in a piece of machinery and it has a 10year life, we will write it off—straight line—at 10 percent a year.

"If the combined knowledge of all our people is depreciating 10 percent a year, and some other company is investing to stay current, then I figure competitively we will be in real trouble in about three years—five at the most."

That is the type of thinking causing the CEOs of some of the biggest and best companies in America—and the world— to wrestle with the need for a learning organization.

That, and the realization that it will be nearly impossible to make Total Quality Management work without some form of organized and continuing learning program.

And this CEO-level thinking brings to light a massive problem: No matter how much lip service is given to education, professional development or training through the years, the idea of an integrated, top-to-bottom company learning program that

actively supports a company's goals is a change.

This is new territory.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher Peter M. Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization, says, "In the evolution of the learning organization, we are today somewhere on the path from invention to innovation." Many universities and a number of companies are experimenting, but few, if any, have a comprehensive Learning Organization in place. eorgia Tech is positioning itself for a leadership role in developing the front-edge concept of a Learning Organization, says Dr. Denney Freeston, head of the Department of Continuing Education.

"Georgia Tech, with its emphasis on technology, its focus on management, and its global view, can achieve a point position in developing learning organizations that can outcompete anyone, anywhere," Freeston says.

Tech's Continuing Education is already one of the leading technologyfocused programs in the

G

Dr. Denney Freeston wants Tech to achieve a national "point position" in developing learning organizations.

GARY MEEK ['HOT')

MICROPHC WHEN ASK A QUESTI

GEORGIA TECH • Trends in Management: Learning Organizations

15

Trends in Matmetnent •

world, he says. During the past academic year, more than 14,000 people participated in the various professional and management courses, seminars and workshops sponsored by Tech. That is more than the 12,500 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled at Tech. Present offerings range from videobased delivery of graduate degree programs, which can take three years or more, to technology update seminars, which might take only one day.

But the foundation which gives Georgia Tech a running start on the de-

velopment of the true Learning Organization is its experience customizing courses for major corporations. Continuing Education can draw from all departments, disciplines and research in the university to design and conduct courses, and has already worked with such organizations as IBM, the Southern Co., BellSouth, Lockheed, and the U.S. Department of Defense.

Tech plans to expand its continuing education services, and expects to work closely with companies as they take their customized Learning Orga-

Tomorrow's successful companies will be places where knowledge is recognized as the key to reaching corporate goals. nizations to the next level.

The new Success Center on campus will help focus on lifelong learning for Tech graduates.

"One of our goals at Tech is to keep our graduates up to speed academically—for life," says John B. Carter Jr., IE '69, vice president and executive director of the Alumni Association. "That will be a great advantage for our graduates, no matter what

company they are with."

As for the individual company, the development of a learning culture and the evolution of a Learning Organization may be a key to its success or failure by the year 2000.

Says Senge. "Learning disabilities are tragic in children, but they are fatal in organizations. Because of them, few corporations live even half as long as a person—most die before they reach age i()." • Gordon Sawyer. ,VS '46, is founder and chairman of Sawyer-Riley-(A>inpton in Atlanta.

^ o m e experience our newly constructed, state-of-the-art theatre designed with you, the audience, in mind. Consider 1200 intimately designed seats offering each guest the best seat in the house. Feel the emotion as each performance comes to life with cutting edge lighting and sound. Experience the magic, contact the Theatre Box Office: 404-894-9600.

JEAN-PIERRE RAMPAL, FLUTE THURSDAY, APRIL 1 8 PM Co-Sponsored by: The Consul General ol I ranee, The Honorable Jocky Musnier, The French American Chamber of Commerce & Alliance Fronccin • D Atlanta.

ATLANTA SYMPHONY CHAMBER ORCHESTRA FRIDAY, APRIL 16 8 PM JULIAN BREAM, CLASSICAL GUITAR WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28 8 PM Co-Sponsored by: Holiday Inn Worldwide & bank South

MASTERWORKS GEORGIA TECH MUSIC DEPARTMENT SUNDAY, MAY 16 4 PM Sponsored by: Mr. & Mrs. James P. Poole

GEORGIA TECH THEATRE WHERE TECHNOLOGY MEETS THE ARTS

16

GEORGIA TECH • Spring 1993

The official Georgia Tech Watch

by Seiko -

o

A Seiko Quartz timepiece.

Featuring a richly detailed three-dimensional re-creation of the Georgia Institute of Technology Seal, finished in 14 kt. gold.

Electronic quartz movement guaranteed accurate to within fifteen seconds per month.

The leather strap wrist watches are $200 each and the two-tone bracelet wrist watches are $265 each. There is a $7.50 shipping and handling fee for each watch ordered. On shipments to Pennsylvania, add 6% state sales tax. A convenient interest-free payment plan is available with seven equal monthly payments per watch (shipping, handling and full Pennsylvania sales tax, if applicable, is added to the first payment). To order by MasterCard or Visa, please call toll free 1-800-523-0124. All callers should request Operator E72LS. Calls are accepted weekdays from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and weekends from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (Eastern Time).

To order by mail, write to: Georgia Tech Alumni Association, c/o P.O. Box 670, Exton, PA 19341 -0670 and include check or money order, made payable to: "Official Georgia Tech Watch". Credit card orders can also be sent by mail â&#x20AC;&#x201D; please include full account number and expiration date. Allow 4 to 6 weeks for delivery.

Actual diameters of watches are as follows: men's 1-3/8" and ladies 15-16".

High-Fiber Information Di Alexander Graham Bell believed that his most significant contribution to communications was... the photophone. In 1880, four years after patenting the telephone, Bell demonstrated a device that carried sound over focused sunlight instead of wire. "I have heard a ray of sun laugh and cough and sing," he wrote.

"I have been able to hear a shadow, and I have even perceived by ear the passing of a cloud across the sun's disk" Tlje instrument worked, but not well enough or over a long enough distance to be practical And, of course, the sun had to be shining. Yet, despite its drawbacks, the Bell photophone demonstrated light's potential as a transmission medium

*

^

^

^

or almost 20 years,fiberoptics have been harnessing that potential. With the attributes of high speed and a mind-boggling data-carrying capacity, the technology easily matches the growing sophistication of electronic devices, particularly in telecommunications. And as the diverse information industries merge into a new multimedia environment, fiber optics become essential to their deployment.

In addition, fiber has the advantages of

GEORGIA I M I I * Fiber Optics

being difficult to tap or jam, and is impervious to interference from electromagnetic radiation such as generators, power lines or lightning. It is much lighter than copper, making it ideal for aircraft and spacecraft. In a large airplane such as the B-l, a single optic strand does the work of 100 miles of wire.

Alased gallium arsenide crystal the size of a grain of salt can send 1.7 billion pulses of light per second— the digital equivalent of about 24,000 phone calls.

<•/

20

The Fiber City

A

tlanta has become such an important air L transportation center, goes the joke, that you can't even get to heaven without a layover there. The city has also become a major data communications hub, and soon one's prayers may be routed through there as well.

Atlanta is a "fiber crossroads," says Richard K. "Dick" Snelling, chairman of the board of the Georgia Center for Advanced Telecommunications Technology.

GCATT is a center at Georgia Tech and a separate division of the Georgia Research Alliance. It is a non-profit venture among business, government and academia to advance research in telecommunications, information and media technologies in Georgia.

To drive home his point, Snelling likes to quote the president of a world-wide network management company, who tells people that he moved his operations to Atlanta because "28 fiber cables eminate from Atlanta—and only eight from Manhattan."

As an important long-distance telephone switching center, Georgia's capital city was a logical candidate for installation of some of the first fiber-optic trunk lines for telecommunications. Today, virtually the entire trunk network in Atlanta is fiber, Snelling says.

The city's businesses also have access to an extensive fiber network, due mostly to the aggressive efforts of BellSouth and its Glass Atlanta program. "That infrastructure is one of the central reasons that a growing number of medium-size, information-intensive companies are locating here," Snelling says.

The Atlanta area can lay claim to another important connection with fiber optics: In 1979, engineers at Bell Lab's cable-manufacturing plant in Norcross transmitted data over a 40-mile fiber loop. The demonstration was the first application of a fiber network in the world, Snelling says. Also that year, the first commercial application of fiber in the public network was installed, in Atlanta. The 23-acre Norcross facility is the world's largest fiberoptic manufacturing plant.

The Tech campus is underpinned with

GEORGIA TECH • Spring 1993

fiber optics, both for high-speed telecommunications and local computer netw < >rking.

"One of the most powerful attributes of Georgia Tech research activities is the ability to link together the various mainframes and microcomputers around campus." Snelling says. He adds that the fiber network will be a major resource when Tech serves as the Olympic Village.

Grains of Sand

F

iber-optic systems may be divided into two broad groups, depending c >n whether information is to be transmitted less than a couple of miles, or over longer distances of hundreds or even thousands of miles. But the basic process is the same: Information is digitized—converted into the l's and O's of computer language—and flashed by a light source through a hair-thin strand of glass, to a receptor that converts the pulses of light back into electronic signals. Over long distances, "repeaters" may be needed at intervals to boost the signal.

For long-distance telecommunications, tiny lasers no bigger than grains of sand provide the powerful, focused light. A lasetl gallium arsenide crystal, for example, can send 1.7 billion pulses of light per secontl—the digital equivalent of about 24,000 phone calls.

Light-emitting diodes are often used for short-distance data transfer. Although slower than lasers—LEDs emit about 200 million pulses per second—and with lower optical power, diodes have the advantage < >f being relatively inexpensive and long-lived. And unlike lasers, which emit a coherent light of a single bandwidth and frequency. LFDs are incoherent.

No Place To Go

G

etting infonnation into a fiber is one thing, but getting it out quickly or moving it to another fiber presents a different set of problems.

The devices at a data stream's "destination"—such as photoreceptors that convert light back into electrical signals f< >r downloading the data, or switches in a cross-country telephone trunk network—create a bottleneck because electrons move much slower than photons. Think of Manhattan at 5 o'clock: Thousands of vehicles are straining to leave the island over only five bridges.

At Georgia Tech, Dr. Carl Verber, a profes-

MARGARET ISARI

Atlanta is a "fiber crossroads," says Dick Snelling, former executive vice president for networks with Southern Bell.

Snelling, now head of the Georgia Center for Advanced Telecommunications Technology, located at Georgia Tech, says the fiber network is one of the reasons "a growing number of informationintensive companies are locating here."

GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Fiber Optics

21

sor in the School of Electrical Engineerinf by routing data through an "all-optical" switch, so that conversion of data from opliswilch w o u l d be electronically managed, a w o u l d be able to look at destination inlorn lion by converting a small amount o f light

II you nave cells ol data wliiclt are many nanoseconds long, you just leave some switching time at the front of the- cell." says Verber. "The fact that the cell is going through aft optical switch rather than an electronic switch means that the data rate within the cell can still be very high."

For Ycrber's Idea to work, the light signals must arrive synchronized at the switch. Since this doesn't always hanoen, he would devise

"a delay line such that light comes in. < irt u kites in a loop, is delayed by ll amount of time" for the latest-: The loop is basically a local memory. \ erber explains. The' problem with photons is that if you try to make them stay still, they disappear."

Also, under Verber's plan tl switching system can be configured so that data is not lost in an electrical failure. "We want to have as much as possible d o n e optically." he says. "The aim is to build a communications system in which data goes from the transmitting mode to the receiving mode, and remains in optical form throughout."

Types of Fiber

O

ne of the difficulties Bell encountered with the photophone is light's tendenc y to diverge, Fiber optics overcome that problem through the makeup of the fiber itself.

Hair-thin fibers of ultra-pure glas transmit voice, dl and video commui. > cations in the form of by semiconductor lasers the size of a grain of salt.

The thin strandsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;actually smaller than a human liairâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;are extruded from the purest glass possible. In fact, if the Pacific Ocean were as clear, you could float on the surface ami easily see the bottom of the Marianas Trench, 32,000 feet below. dually two concentric glass and a cladding. Each layer has a minute amount of a particular compound added so as to imparl a specific refractive indexâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the angle at which light passes through a material, by manipulating the different refracthc indices of the core and cladding, light can be directed through the core.

in effect, by "bouncing" it off the cladding.

The fewer the bounces, the clearer the signal.

It is this phenomenon of light and the principle of refractive index that enable light to pass through an optical fiber even if it is bent.

Commercial Optical fibers are either singlemode or multi-mode strands. The former have cores big enough for only a single wavelength, ami are designed to operate with a coherent laser beam. Single-mode fibers cm handle 30 times the pulse-per-second rate of multi-mode fibers with virtually no signal distortion, making them the choice for longdistance telecommunications. cores that will accept many wavelengths from an LED. but the incoherent LED light trawls ie.yl continued on pave _>5

"The aim is to build a coijrimuiiicatioiis system in which data goes from the transmitting mode to the receiving mode, and remains in optical form throughout"

Wired For Battle Telephone and cable companies gear up to dominate the informationservices market

"W^TTliHc fiber < iplics has become an % / m / important component of the nation's T T communications Infrastructure, its lack of progress in going the "final mile" is con spicUOUS. Fiber is not making its way Into homes and apartments i< »r o msumer use as quit kh as us enthusiasts had predicted.

The central issue Is money, individual hook ups are labor Intensive and costly—up to $2,000 per household, according to some estimates, A durable, copper wire telephone network is already In place, and new techno! ogy such as compression algorithm tech niques may facilitate deliver) ol services such as video over the existing lines. And a Catch 22 argument says a fiber home delivery sys tern can't be built without consumer demand

for extra services, but the demand for those services—such as high definition television can't materialize without the delivery system.

Meanwhile, the regional telephone and cable companies have directed their resources into an all-out battle for dominance in the information services market that may ultimately be settled only by the I f.S.

(ieorgia Tech Professor William II. Read says that one Bell company has a strong First Amendment argument in its hattle to enter the video-programming business.

24

GEORGIA TECH • Spring 1993

Supreme Court, "Today you have two wires going into the home—one for telephony and one lor cable television," says Dr. William II. Read, South em bell professor of communications policy at Georgia lech. "The question becomes: is there going to be one wire into y< >ur home, or two wires? And if there's one wire into the home, who's going to own and operate it?"

I he activities of telephone companies are separated from cable companies by the Cable Communications Policy Act of 19S i. That barrier has been weakened somewhat by the Federal Communications Commission ruling last July that telephone companies could transport—but not originate —video over their networks.

The decision was small comfort to the phone companies, which don't want to run fiber to individual households if tin'Cable Act will present them from taking lull advantage of the technology, Nevertheless, the phone companies seem determined to get into the video business and compete with cable -not |ust as a medium,

in a much more helter-skelter fashion, creating a blurred signal over long distances.

Cheaper to manufacture and easier to splice than the single-mode variety, multi-mode fibers are commonly used in local networks and instrument-control applications.

Keeping Up with the Crays hul as programmers. Read says.

In the other corner of this information delivery fight stand the cable companies.

They are re-engineering their networks, adding a fiber-optic tnmking system and a new architecture that would enable them tO offer telephony. The plan most often advanced by cable interests involves cordless home telephones that communicate with a local base station, Read explains, from the hase station. calls would be routed to wherever the cable company provides sen T e . or connected with the public phone system.

The conflict has intensified in recent months as each side jockeys for position.

Southwestern Bell recently purchased two cable TV systems in the Washington, D.C., area. (Telephone companies are not permit ted to own cable systems in areas where they d o business, but can rlo so in other markets.)

In Atlanta, Wometco Cable has formed a subsidiary to compete with BellSouth in pro viding telephone services for local businesses.

Most observers agree that fiber-optic home connections are not a matter of If, but when.

And the timetable may soon be decided in court challenges to the Cable Act. "()ne Bell company is attacking it from a First Amendment point of slew, that they airbeing denied free speech," says Read, an attorney.

The role the new Clinton administration may play in the debate is unclear. It is worth noting that Vice I'residenl Albert Core, while a senator, introduced legislation in Congress thai would repeal tlie reside lions on tele phone companies in exchange for a commitment to expand their fiber optic networks to I ionics by the year 20 IS. ' l i b e r optics is starting an unpredictable and dramatic technological revolution In both computing and communications," Core says.

'When our- is in the middle of a technological n o ilution, one has two choices: to follow yesterday's map. or quickly chart a new course and grab the opportunities thai we

find."

—Gary Goettling

T

he theoretical capacity of fiber optics is truly astounding. The potential communication bandwidth of an optical fiber is about 100 terahertz. With frequencies 10,000 times higher than those of microwaves, the spectrum of visible light alone has the potential to carry 80 million TV channels—and quickly.

Currently, the fastest fiber-optic systems transmit data at a rate of 1.7 gigabits per second—that's fast enough to relay the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica in two seconds.

Georgia Tech, in association with GCATT, BellSouth and Northern Telecom, are putting together a proposal for all-optical, high-performance network architecture that operates at 100 gigabits per second, according to Snelling. The effort involves several areas of optics and computing, and would b e applied primarily to networking supercomputers to operate in a "global fiber ring," he says.

So far, the U.S. lags behind Europe and Japan in the deployment offiber.Still, the transition from copper to glass is taking place, phasing in the Second Information Age.

The Final Mile

F

iber's next challenge may not b e technological, but in applications, w h e n its immense capabilities become available to individual households. Fiber-optic connections could greatly expand the home-computing environment, provide two-way telephone and video, access to electronic libraries, h o m e shopping and banking. They could also provide a means for remote monitoring of gas, water and electricity use.

But so far, the U.S. lags behind Europe and Japan in the deployment of fiber, with a handful of field tests extant. In 1989, for example, Southern Bell and Northern Telecom installed fiber-optic cable to 256 homes in Heathrow, Fla., an upscale Orlando suburb.

The digital lines provided TV reception, two telephone lines and a data service permitting high-speed computer communications.

Still,, the transition from copper to glass is taking place, phasing in what could become the Second Information Age. By the next century, fiber optics may have extended our information reach as profoundly as the automobile has extended our physical reach. • GEORGIA TECH • Fiber Optics

25

Technologv& Logy< The AtlantaTroject taPn

By Phyllis Thompson

S

he was born on the cold bathroom floor of a South Atlanta crack house, to a mother so strung out on cocaine and alcohol she didn't i even know she was giving birth. Four months premature, weighing ' barely a pound, the fragile infant nearly froze to death in the first hour of her life. Her temperartire was so low that it didn't even register on a thermometer, and doctors gave the child little chance of survival. But at Grady Memorial Hospital, the baby dubbed "Pumpkin" by nurses hung on, through endless prodding needles, blood transfusions and medical tests.

Her mother disappeared.

Too weak to cry, so small she easily fit into a nurse's palm, Pumpkin won the hearts of countless people, including former President Jimmy Carter, who saw her while on a tour of the downtown Atlanta hospital. For Carter, Pumpkin became a symbol of an entire city's ills.

"I never knew about it before," said Carter, a member of Georgia Tech's class of 1946. "God knows I should have. I've been governor of this state. I've been president of the United States. I didn't even know about things like this."

More than a year later, Pumpkin lives with foster parents in Fulton County. Although still beset by many chronic medical problems, she has already cleared a hurdle that most infants in her situation do not: She is alive. And her struggle moved Carter to start a project in October 1991 that some believe may profoundly change how the country deals with its societal problems. t /

26

GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Spring 1993

*'&A

IOFV IVAXSCO PHOTO

Overwhelmed by the incredible sight of the crack baby "Pumpkin," President Jimmy Carter vowed to do something to remedy urban social ills. His evolving efforts are finding new ways to humanize technologyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; the computer-generated maps on this and following pages, analyzing Atlanta income and employment levels, reveal the potential GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ The Atlanta Project

27

President Jimmy Carter's personal touch is often more evident than his 'hits and bytes" awareness that led to heavy use of computers for problem-solving in the Atlanta Project.

I

n a quiet room in a renovated area of the long-abandoned Sears and Roebuck distribution center, Georgia Tech Professor David Sawicki and two graduate students stare at a computer screen. They review long lists of numbers, making changes here and there. They come to a glitch in the software program. For 10 minutes they try to make it work. Finally, it does. They merge lists of numbers. They type more commands.

Suddenly the computer screen is filled with dotsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;hundreds, thousands of them.

And behind the dots appears a map of Atlanta. "We've hit paydirt," says Sawicki.

It's hard to imagine that the detailed, tedious work of Sawicki and 12 graduate saidents can have a direct impact on the lives of thousands of Atlantans. But the columns of numbers and the computer commands will make it possible for many aspects of life to be improved.

Sawicki, on a part-time, two-year leave from the Institute, and through funding from the Georgia Tech Foundation, serves as senior advisor for data and policy analysis for the Atlanta Project, an effort by Jimmy Carter and The Carter Center to attack the social problems associated with poverty in U.S. cities, beginning with Atlanta.

"We're proud of getting the Olympics, we're proud of the Braves, Atlanta's skyline and that sort of thing. But underneath, Atlanta is rotten in many ways, and this needs to be addressed frankly," Carter said in an interview announcing the Atlanta Project (TAP) "I think now there's a general conviction in this country that nothing can be done about school dropouts or homelessness or unem ployment or crack babies or teen pregnancy. r/

28

i

GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Spring 1993

The computer-map on the previous page illustrates the percentages of tract populations in poverty in metro Atlanta. The map at left is the center section of the metro map (and covers the Atlanta Project itself). It represents the percentage ofpeople in the labor force (blue equals 25-75%; green only 6-16%.)

"But I think if there can be a bold-enough, inspirational-enough concept engendered, then I think Atlanta people will rally to it."

The project is focused on a three-county group of 20 neighborhoods called clusters, most named after the high schools which serve as their focal points. Within these clusters lie some of the poorest parts of the state, attended by the poverty-related problems of crime, joblessness, teen pregnancy, substance abuse, lack of education, poor housing and homelessness. The Atlanta Project plans to address these problems—and find ways to solve them—by establishing partnerships among government agencies, service-providers, cluster residents, volunteers and business.

In discussions with Atlanta Project organizers, the word that crops up most often is

a

"empowerment." The hope is that the ineffectiveness of previous anti-poverty efforts can be avoided by involving poor people themselves, to set their own community priorities and participate in their implementation, rather than simply have another government plan foisted upon them. It's a "bottoms-up" philosophy expressed by the old saying: Give someone a fish and there is food for a day; teach someone to fish and there's food for a lifetime.

In each neighborhood cluster, the Atlanta Project is represented by a coordinator and an assistant, who help organize the community and relay its concerns to the Atlanta Project headquarters on Ponce de Leon Avenue. Volunteers play a key role in the project's outreach. The project plans to coor-

Alumni & the Atlanta Project • just want to d o something constructive," Keith I lollingsworth, IE '90, MS •-IE '92, says simply. He is one of many Georgia Tech alumni numbered among the 100,000 or so individuals w h o have volunteered for the Atlanta Project.

Hollingsworth may put his Tech training to use by helping analyze demographic data to determine the best locations for various service providers. Next quarter, he may take a public policy class that will provide additional opportunities to work with the project.

In addition to Jimmy Carter, Cls '46, many other Tech alumni have donated a substantial amount of their time to helping the Atlanta Project get off the ground. Fred DeMent, IM '61, an executive on loan from

Georgia Power Co., is the economic development chair of the project's seven-member governing secretariat. Harold McKenzie, IE '53, former executive vice president of Georgia Power, is a senior advisor for facilities management.

The Atlanta Project Campaign Cabinet, which is raising money to fund the project, is chaired by Delta CEO Ron Allen, IE '64.

Other members of the group include Charles Brady, IM '57, chairman of IlxATiSCO Capital Management; L.L. "Larry" Gellerstedt III, ChE '45, president of Beers Construction; Gay Love, Hon '89, of the Gay and Erskine Love Foundation; and D. Raymond Riddle, IM '55, president of National Service Industries.

—Gary Goettling

GEORGIA TECH* The Atlanta Project 29

dinate a massive number of volunteers who can help teachers in schools, assist in community health centers, assist probation officers, serve as mentors to unwed mothers-to-be or tutor children who need attention.

Corporations have donated the funds for a vast computer network which will make it possible for participants and communities to network ideas and information with simple computer commands.

I

nformation is essential to the project, and that's where Sawicki and his class come in. Today, Sawicki and students Joe Zagame and Rick Wood are using current census data to map areas with high concentrations of children under the age of five. Using this and other data, they will be able to determine where children live who have had no prenatal care, no well-baby care—and no inoculations.

Recently, the class was abuzz with a rumor that Vice President Al Gore had called Sweat to ask how the project would handle inoculations, should they be made available without cost by the U.S. government. Soon thereafter, newspapers nationwide ran stories telling of President Bill Clinton's intention to provide free inoculations to qualified children.

"What we're doing is really basic computer work—down-in-the-trenches stuff," says Zagame. "But it makes you feel good to know that these maps can really make a difference in people's lives."

The work can be faistrating. Zagame and Wood have spent about two days just learning the software and organizing the census material. Their class meets from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays. But today the computer was down for several hours. Now, it's 5 p.m. and Wood must go to another class. Zagame is tiredrand anxious t,'

30

GEORGIA TECH • Spring 1993

about missing the building curfew. Sawicki is looking at his watch, entering more computer commands, calling home to report that he's once again running late, and trying to find glitches in the computer program. When the dots finally materialize against the outline of an Atlanta map, there's a tired sense of accomplishment. Then more disappointment.

They forward the information on the screen to the printer, race down the hall to see the results—and, nothing. The printer is on the blink; the network is down. Sawicki looks for someone to fix the printer. Everyone who could has gone home.

They call it a day.

S

awicki, a graduate of Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Cornell, was chairman of the Planning Program at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee before coming to Georgia Tech in 1983.

He directed the city planning program until last year, when he stepped down to do more research. Shortly after that, he learned about the Atlanta Project, and realized that it was something he wanted to be part of. "I really believe in what's going on here," he says.

Sawicki, who is supposed to work parttime at the project, has worked seven days a week there for the past six months. He jokes about cutting back to six days a week. His job description makes him the liaison between the secretariat heads and those who gather data, as well as those in the community who can provide data.

It is a surprisingly political cross to bear. Sawicki must constantly protect students from working too hard at tasks that he believes will not yield important results, and field criticism from those who

J

Marcus Lowe, left and Daryl O'Neil live in the Vine City neighborhood, one of the areas targeted by the Atlanta Project.

GARY MEEK I'HOTii

By dividing Atlanta into four poverty-measure rankings, researchers are able to pinpoint Project tracts that are most in need of increased service and economic stimulus.

The worst quartileâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;in blueâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; covers more than half the area.

GEORGIA TECH* The Atlanta Project

31

With the glittering Atlanta skyline in the background, Tech students and others work in poverty-stricken Techwood Homes.

TAP promises hope for such neighborhoods. seek information that is not available.

"A lot of times we're working with bigpicture people," says Zagame, "who don't understand the details at all."

But Sawicki and his students know that their behind-the-scenes work will yield big benefits. "We're lucky as students to get to be a part of something this big," says Zagame.

T

he Atlanta Project itself is a massive endeavor—an approach involving state, local and federal resources in a manner that is inventive and unparalleled. Regularly, other countries send officials to learn from the experiments here. Nowhere else has a city tried to cross racial, geographic and economic lines to cure its problems.

Nowhere else have city and county governments, corporate enterprises and private citizens joined forces so "completely.

Perhaps because its task is so huge, the Atlanta Project has received some criticism for moving too slowly. There have been internal power struggles, with some claiming that the secretariat is made up of too many suburbanites, out of touch with real inner-city problems. There have been complaints that innercity dwellers in the clusters are too slow to participate.

"We are developing an empowerment model. And that takes time," says Dan Sweat, the Atlanta Project's overall coordinator. "We have deliberately held off on making decisions about projects until the communities tell us their priorities."

The problems are clear enough. Within the Atlanta Project neighborhoods, which cover parts of southern Fulton and Dekalb counties, and northwest Clayton county, more than 90 percent of the residents are <-. black, unemployed, and • /

32

GEORGIA TECH • Spring 1993

The computer-map printout on unemployment in Atlanta reveals the same concentrations as in other maps, with unemployment in the blue area ranging from 10-42%—versus less than 3% in the green areas. Yellow-area tracts have 3-5%; red-area, 5-10%.

LAIRA SIKHS PHOTO

living in substandard housing. Here. 30 percent of babies are born with n o prenatal care.

There are an estimated 15,000 homeless people in Atlanta. Yet nearly 12 percent of housing units o w n e d by the Atlanta Housing Authority stand vacant. Seventeen percent of all newborn babies at Grady Hospital are born to mothers w h o abuse cocaine. In the last five years, drug cases in Atlanta's Fulton County Juvenile Court have increased by 1,700 percent. During that same period, weapons charges increased by 73 percent, robbery by 240 percent, and violent crime by nearly 300 percent.

Sawicki's students, representing majors in city planning, public policy, and industrial and systems engineering, have been divided into six teams: health, education, economic development, criminal justice, housing, and geographical information systems. O n e graduate student, Lynn Brockwell-Carey is writing a master's thesis on grocery stores—or a lack of them—in the area.

From their findings, the students h o p e to b e able to tell where and what the greatest health needs are. They want to provide data that will make it possible and plausible for businesses to begin in the inner city. They will look for ways not just to improve housing, but to create housing.

It seems almost miraculous that all of this work can b e performed by students sitting before PCs. But that is only a small part of the miracle. "I really need for this project to work," says Zagame. "I don't mean the class.

I mean the Atlanta Project itself.

"I feel like we're a part of history here.

We've got to succeed. Not just for ourselves or for our city, but for everybody—for the world." • Phyllis Thompson is a free-lance Atlanta.

writer in

GEORGIA TECH* the Atlanta Project 3 3

Technology Drives TAP

By Gary Goettling

T

the Atlanta Project relies heavily on technology to marshal its resources, manage volunteers and identify problems, according to William M. "Bill" Guilfoil Jr., an IBM executive on loan as senior advisor for management systems.

"Technology is a tool," he says. "If we can apply technology effectively to addressing the needs of the inner city, if it can enhance communication, if it can enhance the problemsolving or the decision-making capacity of the communtity—which we think it can—then it will have served its purpose."

The Atlanta Project (TAP) office is equipped with the latest computer systems, donated by IBM, and software from such firms as Lotus Development and KnowledgeWare. Spread throughout the cluster communities is a network of 40 remote terminals for electronic mail, and to provide basic wordprocessing and spreadsheet functions.

An overall project management program is nearing deployment, along with a KnowledgeWare package that is helping Atlanta Project organizers develop their internal processes. The work is breaking new ground in technology and management.

"In the business world, you typically have homogeneous groups of people who know each other and work as a team on processes they are familiar with," says Guilfoil. "But in this environment, you're dealing with people who have never met each other, never worked as a team and come from all different paits of the community—from service providers to residents to volunteers. Plus, you are asking them to create a community-based series of processes and functions that have never really been thought through before."

Guilfoil credits Jimmy Carter with emphasizing the Atlanta Project's reliance on tech f /

34

GEORGIA TECH • Spring 1993

nology. "He's a bits and bytes guy," Guilfoil says. "I le can log in from Plains, and has really become adept at our advanced operat ing system."

One of the most interesting applications of technology to the Project's decision-making process involves software called Team Focus.

Developed by IBM, the software facilitates electronic meetings that permit participants to express themselves freely and anonymously.

The program allows simultaneous entry of information, giving each participant an equal voice. Comments appear on a large screen.

The program, designed to make meetings shorter and more productive, is particularly useful in situations where a high status differential is involved—such as in meetings with Garter, who has become one of the system's most enthusiastic proponents.

"I don't think he'll have a meeting tinymore without using that tool," Guilfoil says.

The objectives of the Atlanta Project would be virtually Impossible to achieve without using computer technology to manage scores of demographic indicators.

Georgia Tech Professor David Sawicki and his graduate students are gathering raw data from police and health departments, census reports, staue and government agencies and the like. "We clean it up and put it into a form that lends some intelligence to it—maps, databases, spreadsheets—where sc imeone can learn something from it," says Sawicki.

To help answer questions about crime, for instance, Sawicki is analyzing death records, and mapping the addresses of all violent deaths that occurred within the Atlanta Project area during an 18-month period.

Sawicki and his legion of student number crunchers also help identify community resources. They have compiled a database of

\\

all businesses, grouped by standard industrial classification code, within the clusters. The information can also be mapped to reveal, for example, locations of day-care centers.

Currently, much of Sawicki's attention is focused on color-coded maps of the clusters at the census tract, block group and block levels. "We can get it down to the parcel level in some areas," he says. "That's especially useful in housing and community-development work." Sawicki hopes to have enough information by year's end to plot parcel-level descriptors such as house condition and tax status in each cluster community.

An immediate concern is the Atlanta Project's intention to inoculate all children under age 5 in the clusters. Sawicki has just obtained 43,000 birth records for 1991.

"Each of those birth records has about 200 descriptors—premature or not, weight of the baby, whether or not the mother received prenatal care, and so forth. The students who are working in the health area are meeting with the professionals in that area to see what is of most interest to them."

The primary descriptor—children under is plotted on a cluster map, revealing concentrations of pre-schoolers. As possible immunization sites are identified and marked, the focus shifts to policy analysis.

"How do you deliver [the inoculations]?"

Sawicki asks rhetorically. "What does the delivery system look like? Are these locations any gcxxl?"

As the Atlanta Project matures, Sawicki's data will be used to measure its progress.

"It's very basic, but very responsive research," he says. "It's just the kind of operations work that needs to be done." •

Tech's David Sawicki and his TAP learn of researchers discovered per capita income in the blue area was no more than $13,000 annually; it rises dramatically in other sections; red peaks at $34,000; blue tops $195,000.

GEORGIA TECH* The Atlanta Project

35

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You've been to Georgia Tech. You know the importance of fostering interest in technology.

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Alliance for Technology

Y

'•*

Georgia Tech andfive other research universities are a vital part of the Georgia Research Alliance's strategy to transfonn Georgia into a center for advanced technology

By John Dunn

T

en years ago, the state of Georgia surprisingly found that it was a major contender for a high-technology prize—the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corp.

But it was a prize won by Austin, Texas—primarily because of the research strength of the University of Texas. The fact that Georgia was in contention at all was in large part due to the research strength of Georgia Tech.

William J. Todd, president of the Georgia Research Alliance (GRA), looks back on that incident as the catalyst that forged a new strategy for technological growth linked directly to university research.

The GRA—a coalition representing state government, private business, Georgia Tech and five other research universities—is at the center of the new strategy. Its mission is "fostering economic development in Georgia through the science and technology industry."

Todd, a 1971 industrial management graduate of Tech, says the alliance's goal is to transform (le< >rgia into an internationally recognized high-tech economic center.

Before his appointment as head of the alliance, T< >dd held several administrative posts in Emory University's health-care system. But his move to the GRA's fifth-floor office in Downtown Atlanta's Hurt Building in the summer of 1990 was unusual.

"When my secretary and I came over from Emory—there was no desk, no telephone, no anything." Todd recalls with a smile, sitting in a spacious and well-appointed office. "That

The Georgia Research Alliance is focusing on three fields:

was an interesting opportunity because an organization did not exist. We literally chartered it and incorporated it as a not-forprofit entity."

The GRA's thrust is focused on three strategic technologies, which Todd calls industries of the future: advanced telecommunications, environmental technologies, and human genetics.

In its first year, the alliance raised $18.8 million, the state contributing $15.05 million and private sources con-

TEI^COMMUNICATIONS

Telecommumcations has emerged as a multi-bilhon-dollar industry combining broadcast, computer, telephone, consumer electronics and CATV industries, which could revolutionize the way people are educated and business is conducted in the 21st century.

Geogia Tech graduate William J. Todd left Emory University for the challenging task of organizing and developing the Georgia Research Alliance.

GEORGIA TECH • Georgia Research Alliance

37

"Eminent scholars" chairs are awarded among the six universities on the basis of economic promise.

Telecoiiijimiini Located on the Tech campus, GCATT is the Alliance's "telecommunications front"

tributing $3.75 million. Of this total, $7.05 The fields play to million was allocated to advanced technoloexisting strengths gies; $7.15 million to environmental technolo at Georgia gies; and $4.6 million to genetics. universities: The industrial thrust reflects the strengths of the six research uniENVffiONMENTAL versities^—Georgia Tech, Georgia TECHNOLOGIES State, Emory, Medical College of Georgia, Clark Atlanta and the University of Georgia. Tech President John P Crecine and the presidents of the other five universities are members of the GRA board of trustees, along with a dozen Georgia business leaders.

Larry Gellerstedt Jr., ChE '45, chairman of Beers Inc., the Atlanta-based construction firm, served ak the GRA's first chairman of the board. The current GRA chairman, Thomas G. Cousins, chairman of Cousins Properties, serves on a board that includes Georgia Tech alumni D. Raymond Riddle, IM '55, president and CEO of National Service Industries; J. Leland Strange, IM '65, chairman, president and CEO of Intelligent Systems Corp.; and Virgil WillTechnology iams, IE '63, chairman and CEO of Williams concerning Services Inc. ecology, atmospheric and earth To enhance the research strengths of the sciences, universities, the Georgia General Assembly is toxicology, establishing endowed chairs at $1.5 million hydrogeology, each to attract 36 "eminent scholars" who are celebrated researchers in one of the three medicine, targeted technologies. engineering and economics.

The chairs are awarded among the six Georgia Tech universities based on projections that a parresearchers, for ticular chair will stimulate economic developexample, are ment. seeking alternaDr. John A. Copeland, who received his bachelor's, master's and PhD degrees in Phys- tives to chemically based paperics from Tech and has received 37 patents for making processes his research at Bell Labs and Hayes Microthat often cause computer Products, was named an eminent pollution. scholar at Georgia Tech. Copeland occupies the chair of vice president for the Georgia Center for Advanced Telecommunications Technology (GCATT). The chair is one of three funded by the 1992 session of the General Assembly. Nine chairs, three of which would go to Georgia Tech, are scheduled for 38

GEORGIA TECH • Spring 1993

Advanced telecommunications, one of the ZjA three technologies th Gi. >rgia Re X J L search Alliance (GRA) has identified as vital to Georgia's future, is a rapidly growing domain in which Georgia Tech

excels, "Georgia Tech (learh leads in the telecommunications area through its electrical engineering ,WK\ computing activities," says William J. Todd, GRA president, lie s e c tin L996 Summer Olympic Games In Atlanta as an opportunity for (icoigia Tech and the alliance to de n slrate telecommunications prowess.

Todd, a l()7l industrial management

graduate of Tech, sees a telecommunica lions revolution transforming such distinct Industries as broadcasting, telephone, computing, cable television, and consumer

electronics.

"The Georgia Center for Advanced Tele communion ions Technology (GGA'IT) is our telecommunications front," Todd states, GGA'IT is located in the Joseph M. Petti!

Microelectronics Research Center on the campus.

"GCATT is at the forefront of understanding how the new advanced tele, omniunioi lions industry will emerge,' Todd adds, "We believe that Atlanta and Georgia will be the center of a new, global industry." < icoigia 'lech is using its telccommunioi iions strength to support projects at the other five GRA research universities—! icoigia state.

Emory, Medical College of Georgia, Clark Atlanta, and the I iniversity of Georgia, for example, Tech's support in teleinedidne involves the computer capabilities of the Graphic, visualization and Usability (GVI I) Center, says Dr. Peter Freeman, dean of the t i illege of Computing.

The 11VI i adds another dimension to GGA'IT research that Is popularly referred to as vinual reality.

"We prefer to use the term virtual environment' as opposed to virtual reality because the notion of virtual reality suggests that somehow you are creating things thai arc

cations realistic," explains Dr. James Foley, director of the GV1' center. Through the computerized world of virtual environment, Foley says, a molecular \ iew of DNA could allow a biolo gist, wearing a head mounted display helmet, to view different side chains of DNA. "In that case, there is no real analog of the visual representation that is being developed."

The virtual environment can be interactive when the head-mounted display is combined with a data glove, which operates on the principle of a computer mouse. The data glove gives a person the freedom to reach for objects in the simulated environment, grasp objects and move them around, Virtual environment opens u p an astonishing range <>i applications—everything from architecture to video games O n e potential application is In the training of surgeons. The system is being designed to provide forced feedback through the data glove. "Yom hand is holding an imaginary scalpel, so that as you begin an incision, you (eel some force feedback,'' Foley explains.

Dr. Peter Freeman, dean of Georgia Tech's College of Computing, and Dr. James Foley, director of the college's Graphics, Visualization and Usability (enter (GVII), work to help develop programs that advance the Georgia Research Alliance's effort in teletnedicine and Other forms of telecommunications.

"In the domain ol rente >lc medic inc." Foley says, "a doctor or specialist coulu'help in the training of s o m e o n e at a remote site."

Through head mounted displays, for instance. a doctor performing an operation at a remote clinic would be able to confer with an expert a) the medical school w h o is obsen Lng exactly what the doctor sees. vn important element lor onr work is called computer-supported collaborative work, or teleconferencing,'' Foley says.

"Two doctors might be talking to each oilier, seeing each other's faces, but more importantly, seeing the same medical records, the same X rays, the same CAT scans, the same lab results—not on paper, but on the computer screen—so the expert and the doctor OUt in the field have- the same results."

"Telecommunications is going to change the way we do business, conduct our leisure activities, educate our children and manage our health care." Todd stales. "And the slate of Georgia is on the leading edge."

—'John Dunn

GEORGIA TECH • Georgia Research Alliance 39

A "critical mass" of scientific entrepreneurs and supportive businesses is essential to GRA plans.

Tech's Emina Telecommunications vice-president plans year of organizing, developing relationships

funding by the 1993 General Assembly, Todd says.

"We are confident that nine additional scholars will be funded in the fiscal year 1994 budget," Todd adds.

The GRA chief believes the state's investment will pay off.

"These scholars are the best and brightest in their fields," Todd states.

"And like a magnet, they will attract the best and brightest students, graduate students, and postdoctoral students. These are the most likely candidates to be the entrepreneurs of tomorrow. They will start the new technology companies.

These research stars will also attract exist ing industry because they represent the cutting edge of technology."

The GRA wants to create a "self-sustaining economic cycle known as critical mass," Todd says. The process results in an economic chain reaction.

Critical mass is the emergence of a sufficient pool of scientific entrepreneurs in a supportive business environment to create and sustain start-up companies.

According to research conducted by management consultants McKinsey & Co. for the state of Georgia, four elements must come together to build critical mass: • Applied leading-edge, industry-oriented research at universities.

• A supportive business environment with available venture capital.

• Concentrated industry presence with major research and development facilities.

• Skilled work force of scientists, engineers and technicians.

In the cycle, university research scientists produce industry-oriented research and ideas that stimulate thigh-tech economic growth, support existing companies, and attract new companies. The university graduates become either entrepreneurs or highly qualified members of the work force. And new and existing companies financially support university research and hire university graduates.

The GRA has received strong support from Gov. Zell Miller, Todd says. "Gov. Miller's 40

GEORGIA TECH • Spring 1993

Thefieldsalso reflect research strengths and future trends:

D

r. John A. Copeland's appointment on March I as the first Georgia Research

Alliance eminent scholar .it Georgia Tech is something of a homecoming lor the soft-spa >ken researcher.

Copeland, who was named to the chair for vice president of the Georgia Center foi Advanced Telecommunications Technology (G( iA'IT), is

formerly with Bell Labs and Hayes Microcomputer Products,

Genetics research is having a major impact on society and the quality of human life.

Biotechnology products are on the market for diagnosing and treating diseases, improving crop production and reversing the impact of pollutants.

He attended Georgia Tech from 1957 through 1965, earning his bachelor's, master's and PhD degrees in physics, As a graduate student he worked lor Tech's former Engineering Experiment Station, now tin Georgia Tech Research institute, Before receiving his appointment to Tech, i it ipeland was vice president of technology at I laves. In an eight war association with the firm, during which he received four patents, Copeland was responsible for evaluating and applying emerging technologies in the field ol communications.

Copeland began his career at Bell Labs, During a 17-year period that resulted In J>.i> patents, he conducted research on semi conductor microwave and millimeter-wave devices, supervised the group that developed magnetic-bubble computer memories, and led the team that designed HMOS integrated circuits and produced Bell labs' first microprocessor, I lis research at Bell was also in the areas of lightwave communicatii ins and optical logic.

I le returned to Atlanta in 19K2, where he was vice president for engineering technology at Sangamo Weston.

"I have worked on a number of Georgia Tech volunteer committees during the past 10 years," Copeland says. He has served on the industrial advisory board foi electrical engi neering, and the board of trustees of the Georgia Tech Research (lorp.

"I'm familiar with the work thai is going on, and I know how Interesting it is—panic u hnly for someone who enjoys doing creative research," he adds. "My own particular inter-

it Scholar

est is developing the technology i<> Improve deskti >p to deskti >p communications, "GCATT is in a very early stage," Copeland observes, "The primary effort for the next year is to help GCATT get organized and to build up its research program, and establish relationships here on campus and on other campuses."

Dr. John A. Copeland, GRA eminent scholar at Tech, with alumnus Dr. Yufei Bao, who holds a mask that is used to make optical switches.

Copeland is a fellow of the Institute of lie, trical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) ami has served as editor of the ii ii TYanscu lions mi Electron Devices, in 1970, he was awarded the Morris \ . l.iebmann Aw aid horn the IEEE for his work on galtium arsenide microwave devices. He is a member of the American Physical Society. â&#x20AC;˘

GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Georgia Research Alliance

41

GRA is unique in the breadth of its public-private partnership, and in the extent of its university participation.

other high-technology companies and supleadership came to the forefront w h e n this port existing companies. This is the stage, public-private partnership was formed. The Todd says, w h e n the state would begin a selfgovernor saw this as a way to grow our way sustaining economic cycle. out of a recession and b e less susceptible to the next.

Todd says the GRA is unique in the breadth of its public-private partnership, and "This initiative is about growing wealth for in the extent of its university participation. the state," Todd adds. "It's an economicdevelopment initiative. It is not an academic "The point of uniqueness is the thoroughly initiative. We're trying to take excellence in effective public-private partnership," Todd academics and enhance that in some tarstates. "We are perhaps more ambitious, and geted, strategic, focused ways—and leverage therefore more at risk because we're really that into economic development." committed to making this a statewide initiative involving six research universities.

The GRA is building the infrastructure for a "Some other very impressive m< )dels have "tremendous future impact," Todd explains. involved one university in one town and one "This is a long-term initiative. The ultimate technology—the University of Texas and the payoff is a 20-year window."

Austin area with its microcomputers," he The program would unfbld in short-, meadds. "That's a good niche. But we're going dium- and long-range phases. to d o this statewide, not just in the cities of Short-term payoffs over a five-year period Atlanta, Athens and Augusta. We're serious would be realized in jobs ranging from the about that." hiring of scientists and researchers to construction workers w h o build the laboratories While the universities may compete for funded by early investments. "It is an ecostudents, faculty, financial suppi >rt. and on Georgia nomic stimulus not unlike what the national Research AUiance the athletic field, Todd says that the universiadministration is talking about by publicties realize that their competition is beyond wants to escalate works projects," Todd observes. the state boundaries. the research "In this matter of technology-driven ecoThe second phase would b e established capabilities of nomic development, the competitors are in over a period of approximately 10 years and Georgia's Palo Alto, Cambridge, Tokyo and Berlin—not would involve research contracts for private universities to within Georgia," Todd states. "Only by comindustry and government agencies. improve the state's ing together d o w e have a critical mass, or In the third phase, approximately 20 years economic future. the combined talent that makes off, university-based research us competitive to the rest of the would result in n e w technology, PLOWING RESEARCH world."

• launch n e w companies, attract

INTO THE ECONOMY

PHASE 1: Payoffs over a five-year period include construction jobs to build the laboratories, and the Wring of scientists and researchers.

42

GEORGIA TECH • Spring 1993

PHASE 2: Establish contracts with private industry or government agencies to support umversitybased research is the mid-term goal.

PHASE 3: University research creates new technology companies, attracts Wgh-tech firms, and starts a self-sustaining economic cycle.

ATDC Markets Research GRA President Todd calls ATDC "the model that other states study"

T

he Advanced Technology Development Center (ATI X I) at < ret ngia Tech, created in 1980 to promote technology business in Georgia, is helping faculty researt hers in the Georgia Research Alliance's six universities bring their efforts to the commercial market.

The Faculty Research Commercialization Program, which started as a pilot program involving Georgia Tech faculty members, was expanded this year to include till six GRA-designated research universities, says Wayne I lodges. ATDC director.

If the ATD< I sees a market potential lot the research, it can fund up to $50,000, on a matching basis in cooperation with private enterprise, to develop a prototype product for the purpose of establishing a new company within the ATDC. O n e role of the ATDC is to provide start-up assist.nue to new "incubator" companies Since 198b, firms started in the ATIK have generated $775 million in revenue, I lodges States. In that lime period, ATDC supported firms have created more than 4,700 jobs and Stimulated $1.1 billion in economic activity, general ing $213 million in employee income, $57 million in stale income taxes, and $33 million in luc.il government taxes. The stale litis invested a total of $10.8 million in the ATDC since L980.

"The ATDC is a tremendous asset to the state," says Georgia Research Alliance President William Todd. "It's the oldest university based incubator for technology companies, and it is the model thai other states and countries study." â&#x20AC;&#x201D;John Dunn.

Wayne Hodges, director of the Advanced Technology Development Center on campus, points to the agency's accomplishments since 1986: ATDC firms have created more than 4,700 jobs and stimulated $1.1 billion in economic activity.

GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Georgia Research Alliance

43

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Patton: Six Minutes of Magic

By John Dunn A s far as E. Earl Patton L^m Jr. is concerned, he's JL J L done the hard part.

Now all he has to do is raise about $600,000.

The hard part—some said the impossible part— was getting a commitment from the production company of nt( >vie magnate George Lucas to do a sixminute pr< >mt itional video about Atlanta in the spirit of, say, "Star Wars."

Patton. (Is '50, chairman of the board of the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau (ACVB), beams. When he first solicited Lucas some 18 months ago, he had been politely turned down. But Patton is persistent.

"In January, I composed a letter that, on a scale of

one-to-10, was a 10," Patton says, infused with excitement. "I said, 'I don't think you understand. The largest event in the history of mankind is coming to Atlanta. It will be seen by a television audience a billion more than have ever seen any event before. It's going to be the first major event in history seen on high-resolution television.

And it will be the last time in the next 20 or more years that the summer Olympics will be in the United States, much less the South. And you're going to miss it!'"

The letter resulted in Patton having a 49-minute conference call with executives at LucasArts Industrial Light + Magic.

Patton, who will be chairman of the hospitality

committee when the Super Bowl football game is played in Atlanta next year,' visited Lucas' production studio after attending this year's Super Bowl game in California.

"LucasArts is the most nondescript building you've ever seen from the outside—but inside, they've got their own fiberoptics system, they've got 200 to 300 people making magic on computers," Patton says.

Patton anticipates a sixminute, multi-lingual video that is so exciting it will leave viewers sitting on the edge of their seats, and eager to visit Atlanta. He wants to be able to pull 30- and 60-second spots from the video for advertising purposes.

The LucasArts crew will

be in Atlanta'in late April or early May to develop a story line for production.

"Then I'll know what the budget is and try to raise the money," Patton says. "If I'm as successful as I think I will be, then it'll go into production by summer and we should have it by Christmas."

Why six minutes? "Acaially, I came up with the idea of eight to 12 minutes," Patton says. "But everybody sort of beat me back on that and made a believer out of me. Six minutes is a long time to sit still when we're talking about trade shows, meetings and airplanes—getting exposure on all international air carriers."

LucasArts' commitment to do the film has generated media attention, in-

Backdropped by the awards and honors of three decades in business, Earl Patton looks to the future—his and Atlanta's.

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Another concept advanced by Patton that has generated media attention and controversy is a proposal to raise $3 million to promote Atlanta by making VISA the official credit card of the city. 窶｢'You stay in a lot of hot water trying to get people to give you S3 million," Patton observes drily. ''But we're going to need at least $3 million in additional monies to market the city of Atlanta and state of Georgia each year for the years leading up to the Olympics."

VISA, American Express and MasterCard were approached to generate interest in becoming the official sponsor of the ACVB. "Our idea was to go after four or five firms that were going to be major Olympic sponsors," Patton explains. But VISA expressed interest in being the official card for Atlanta and offered to pay $3 million. Patton adds.

Then the city council became invoked. "They're afraid everybody is out to take advantage of the city."

Patton is serving his second year of a two-year term as chairman of the ACVB, which observed its 80th anniversary in February and has a $9 million annual budget. "By charter, our purp< >se is to market the city of Atlanta and the state. We have no other purpose. We operate on a

In a career that spans hotel ownership, politics and Indochinese pilots, Patton now works to project the image of Atlanta worldwide. limited budget, and it doesn't provide for things like marketing our city for the Olympics or a Super Bowl."

Patton is chairman and CEO of Parkwood Group, a hotel/resort development and management company located in Atlanta, and owns Hawthorn Suites Hotel, Atlanta Northwest. He has chaired the Georgia Tech Athletic Association's Alexander-Tharpe Fund, and serves on the board of The Japan America Society of Georgia.

"I went through Georgia Tech in three years and two quarters," says Patton, who married his wife, Mary, his senior year. "I didn't do too well. I really wanted to get out and get going."

He got a job he liked with Proctor and Gamble, but when the Korean conflict started, he joined the U.S. Air Force. At one point, he became part of a special mission. "The French were fighting for Indochina窶馬ow Vietnam," he recalls. "We took four planes from Korea, landed in Clark Field in the Philippines, not knowing where we were going. They took

those planes, painted them "There are .three people black, put on French mark- who share responsibility ings, and I donned civilian for Atlanta getting the clothes, although I was still Olympics," Patton says. in the Air Force."

"Billy Payne for being a believer, Andrew Young After flying the planes because of his worldwide to Vietnam, Patton helped connections, and [John P.] train mercenaries from Pat Crecine, who created China Air Transport to fly the genius of the interacthe planes. "Those were tive video that was seen crazy guys. We went by around the world. Without the book, following operany one of them, we ating procedures. When I would have lost." 窶｢ finally turned the plane over, the guy threw the book out the window, waved at me and took off."

Patton started his own company as a manufacturer's representative in the chemical-equipment business and became involved with the Republican Party in Georgia. Elected to the Georgia Senate in 1969, he served two terms representing the district that included Georgia Tech. In the 1970s, Patton ran for U.S. Senate. "I became the

By Pam Rountree first Republican candidate from Georgia for the U.S. ancy E. Nolan is Senate in 103 years," says helping write Patton. "It was a mileAtlanta's success stone." story. As senior project Patton lost the election manager for economic deagainst Democratic incumvelopment at the Atlanta bent Herman Talmadge. "I Chamber of Commerce, knew what the odds were, Nolan, a 1979 master of but I was trying to help city planning graduate, has create a two-party system helped to bring the headin Georgia." quarters of CARE and United Parcel Service to Patton became an early the city. She is also the first believer that Atlanta could woman to be named get the 1996 Olympic president of the Georgia Games, and traveled to Economic Developers AsTokyo in September 1990 sociation in the organizawhen the voting took tion's 30-year-old history. place.

Nolan: Taking Care of Atlanta's Prosperity

N

GEORGIA TECH 窶｢ Pacesetters: Patton & Nolan

47

Pacesetters

Nolan's 1995-96 term as GEDA president means she will be in office as Atlanta prepares for and hosts the 1996 Olympic Games. While the Atlanta Chamber has not finalized specific plans regarding the Olympics, Nolan anticipates that "Within a year the Chamber will have developed a program to take advantage of the public attention we will receive, relative to corporate sponsors and entertaining business people that will be in Atlanta. We'll also further develop our news bureau so there will be one source people can go to-particularly the press-for information on metro Atlanta.

"There is no question in my mind that the exposure we'll get all over the world will generate a great marketing opportunity," she said. "The Olympics are always a factor when we make presentations to companies.

"The theme for this Olympics is telecommunications," Nolan adds. "You will view during those two weeks never-before-seen ways of transmitting information. Products will be tested and put into commercial utilization after the Olympics are over."

Nolan is also concerned about Atlanta after the Olympics. "We have to be realistic that after 1996, we're still here. We will have advanced as a community, but what's next?

48

GEORGIA TECH 窶｢ Spring 1993

In her planning for Atlanta, Nancy Nolan observes that there will be "life after the Olympics.'

We're not going to stay a leading city unless we keep doing things that are right. We still have racial problems to deal with. We certainly have the education problem to deal with."

Education is especially important to Nolan. Prior to her career in economic development, Nolan taught school. "I am veiy con-

Nolan urges women in the workforce not to be "afraid of the challenges, but never forget you are a woman.

And never lose your dream."

cerned about Georgia's educational system窶馬ot the university system, we have a great one. But we're not raising kids capable of getting into Georgia Tech. There is a great challenge for me, as a professional, and for the chamber, in education."

Nolan's biggest and most rewarding coup came last fall when CARE, the world's largest ($400 million budget, 11,000 employees world-wide) nonprofit provider of goods and services to the needy, decided to relocate its headquarters to Atlanta.

CARE had been contemplating a move from its 50-year-old New York headquarters because of

increasing costs. With strong competition from Baltimore and New York, Nolan's challenge was showing CARE, it could save money by moving to Atlanta.

CARE was looking for an "incentive package" and Nolan devised a way to meet its needs. Baltimore offered public funding, but Atlanta, through a $3.5 million grant from the Woodruff Foundation, allowed CARE to buy and renovate the 151 Ellis Building in downtown.

Consultants w< >rking for CARE also determined that the move to Atlanta would save the organization approximately $10 million in operating costs < >ver an

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CARE anticipates more than half of its employees will move from New York for the fall start-up.

"We offered a very attractive package,"' Nolan says. "We're proud that it all came from private money. Working with nonprofits is different than working with other organizations. They are more demanding and exacting, and have fewer resources."

Although CARE's charitable work is done outside the U.S., Nolan hopes that • it will add "a U.S. component into its services. One way is through Jimmy Carter's Atlanta Project [see page 22]. There is a perfect synergy between what he is trying to do about poverty in America and what CARE already does around the world."

Nolan remembers her years at Tech with fondness. She returns to Tech's city planning department once or twice a year to talk to students about her work, and she participates in the Institute's Futurescape program for young women. She has a 10-yearold daughter who would "love to go to Tech."

"When I was at Tech there was no question about it being a male-oriented institution. Being one of the very few females in my class prepared me well for the business I'm in—it's really a maledominated field."

50

GEORGIA TECH • Spring 1993

Her professor, Dr. Malcolm Little, "had the reputation of being a gruff, tough, exacting professor.

In a way he was, but what his approach gave me was a very high standard of professionalism that has served me well. My degree from Tech has opened doors. There is a sort of instantaneous approval that is hard to put into words. The school has a tremendous reputation. I owe a lot of my success to the fact that I got in—and got out," she laughs.

She urges women in the workforce not to be "afraid of the challenges, but never forget you are a woman. I have seen some women who are very successful in business, but I wouldn't call them successful human beings.

They've forgotten who they are. And never lose your dream. There will be people who feel threatened by you. Strong women are still not trusted, but don't be discouraged."

Nolan points out that only 15 percent of U.S. families have a woman at home and a man working.

"Women have brains, but they go to mush if you don't use them."

The business community is "coming along" in its attitudes toward women, she believes, "and we'll come along a lot more under President Clinton—as far as understanding that your

family life is just as important as your business life.

You can have both, but you have to be realistic and have a great support system. Hang in there, have at it, and someday maybe we'll aile the world." • Pam Rountree is an Atlanta free-lance writer.

Hayes: A Remedy for HealthCare Education

By Monica L Scott

I

n 1986, John Hayes saw multimedia technology as a way of fundamentally changing the health care industry's approach to education.

Hayes, a 1970 industrial and systems engineering graduate, founded Interactive Health Network (IHN), one of the nation's largest providers of interactive multimedia products for healthcare.

"I don't see any difference today than from six years ago," Hayes says.

"People are still approaching health-care education from a project standpoint rather than trying to fundamentally change the way communication is done."

Hayes' company and Lifetime Medical Television are seeking the cooperation and participation of professional medical organizations, pharmaceutical manufacturers, information-technology providers, and other sponsors in the development and deployment of the Physicians Interactive Network (PIN).

The 10-month-old network is designed to be a comprehensive information service that provides physicians with the information needed to maintain professional competency in the rapidlv changing world of medicine.

"We and Lifetime are creating a whole new delivery system t( > take electronic information to physicians," says 1 Lives.

The material is delivered to a CD-ROM downloader from cable television, and is transferred over telephone lines, thereby providing the subscribing physician with on-demand. 24-hour, seven-day-a week information services. The types of information include continuing medical education, case studies, and research and reference, he adds.

Information can be transferred virtually anywhere—to the home, of-

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Pacesetters Hayes translated his Tech co-op experience "into an innovative product in my first job out of school And I created other companies out of that same spirit"

Foresight and business savvy have combined to help alumnus John Hayes carve out a new niche in the health-care industry.

fice or hospital.

So far, the product has only been market-tested with physicians. The last six months have been spent lining up relationships with professional

medical societies and sponsorship from the pharmaceutical industry.

"My goal is to have every physician in the country using [the system] Lifetime and I are developing

law degree in 1977, Hayes was among a group of Tech alumm'who started Peachtree Software, one of the first microcomputerapplications companies.

The company was sold to Management Science America in 1981. as their way of accessing electronic irrformation," He formed Comsell in Hayes says. "The prelimi1983 with Ben Dyer, IE 70. nary response has been The company did multimeextraordinarily good." dia work in a variety of applications.

Hayes became interested in health care soon "I really got started in after graduating from Tech, the multimedia area as an when he spent three years outgrowth of the microworking for Georgia Sen. computer business in Herman Talmadge, chair1983," he says. man of the Senate Health Hayes has always had a Subcommittee. keen eye for the future, as "I spent a lot of time on demonstrated by a line health-care issues," says from a speech he made 15 Hayes. "I saw the converyears ago. He remembers gence of the need for saying, "By the end of this better education in health century there will be a percare with multimedia ' sonal computer on every technology." desk in America." Many people thought then that During his time in he was crazy, Hayes reWashington, Hayes also developed a taste for high- calls—and most of them now have computers on tech innovation, and he their desks. designed and installed the Senate's first word-processHe now predicts that by ing system. The program the end of this century, 90 was later bought by Wang. percent of physicians in "I was able to take what the country will have a I had done with the Tech personal information applico-op experience and ance which will be their translate that into an innogateway to the world of vative product in my first electronic infonnation. job out of school," says He hopes that it's his prodHayes, who held a co-op uct, of course. But given job at Martin Marietta in his record, it might not be Florida. "And I created wise to call him "crazy" other companies out of this time. • that same spirit."

While at Emory UniverMonica Scott is a free-lance sity, where he received a writer in Birmingham, Ala.

GEORGIA TECH • Pacesetters: Hayes

53

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Re: arch Rhythm of life M M / Tourers of modern 1 1 / r emakers need • Tnot fear microwave ovens or radar—sources of electromagnetic interference that < >nce could lead to a heart attack.

B. M. Jenkins, a research engineer with the Georgia Tech Research Institute, is among researchers nationwide who have helped manufacturers improve the safety and performance < >f pacemakers.

Since 1969. he has tested more than 1.200 of them, domestic and foreign.

Jenkins is co-author of a research paper that recounts the research history of cardiac pacemakers.

"It is the requirement for high sensitivity that contributes to the pacemakers vulnerability to interference." Jenkins explains. "The pacemaker has to sense the heartbeat—and the heartbeat is a very small signal."

Concern about interference to pacemakers grew in 1970, 10 years after the first devices had been implanted. Electromagnetic waves from microwave ovens could falsely signal pacemakers that hearts were beating regularly, and cause them to cut off, leading to cardiac arrest.

At about the same time, the U. S. Department of Defense became concerned abt tut the effects its

Researcher B. M. Jenkins displays a pacemaker in the anechoic chamber where the devices are tested at Georgia Tech.

radar/communications systems might have on pacemakers and funded research projects.

Jenkins and other researchers at Georgia Tech made major contributions to the development of the current standardized testing methodology required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The test method consists of exposing a pacemaker to radiated fields or conducted currents while immersed in a saline solution with electrical characteristics similar to those of body tissues and fluids.

Researchers apply interfering signals and track pacemaker pulse amplitude, width and rate using bronze screen electrodes submerged in the solution and connected to monitoring equipment.

Georgia Tech's test data helped serve as a basis for the FDA's requirement that

pacemakers withstand a 200 volt-per-meter field at 450 megahertz. Manufacturers now enclose the devices in stainless steel or titanium cases to reduce interference. "Modern pacemakers also are outfitted with filters that distinguish between interfering signals and normal heartbeat signals," Jenkins adds.

Glowing Research on Water Pollution

G

eorgia Tech •researchers are studying a tiny, fluorescing aquatic organism that won't k e e p them in the dark about water pollution.

Dr. Terry Snell, colleagues and students are measuring concentrations of toxicants in water samples by watching the glow of rotifers, tiny herbi-

vores that eat unicellular freshwater and marine algae. Measuring the ingestion rates and enzyme activities of rotifers is faster and cheaper than traditional tests that expose microscopic animals to polluted water samples and then track their mortality rates or study h o w their reproduction is inhibited.

Researchers chose rotifers because they are small (about 10 could fit on the head of a pin), have short life cycles and are easy to cultivate in a laboratory.

To study the ingestion rates of rotifers, researchers exposed them to samples of water with varying concentrations of the toxicants pentachlorophenol, copper and cadmium. The animals then ingested fluorescentlabelled latex spheres.

Researchers view the fluorescing of the spheres inside the animals using a microscope equipped for epifluorescence.

Their findings indicate that ingestion rates were significantly reduced as toxicant concentrations increased. The fluorescence of rotifers exposed to water with as little as 20 parts per billion copper toxicants, for example, dropped from 160 fluoresce units in controls to almost zero fluoresce units.

The ingestion rate test run for 15-minute expo-

GEORGIA TECH • Research 55

Research

sures was not as sensitive as a 48-hour reproduction test, but was equal to, or more sensitive than, mortality tests. Researchers are exploring the use of ingestion rates to predict how reproductive rates might be affected later.

The enzyme activities monitored by researchers were those of esterase and phospholipase, which are used in digestion, detoxification and other cellular processes.

The rotifers were exposed to a sample of wafer containing a toxicant, then to edible substrates that fluoresce when cleaved

The next step may be fluorescent fish that lose their glow whenever the water pollution count reaches dangerous levels. apart by the enzymes after ingestion. Researchers found that enzyme activity is substantially reduced at higher concentrations of toxicants. The esterase activity, for example, dropped five-fold as concentrations of pentachlorophenol increased from 1 to 2 mg/liter. The enzyme activity test was found to be less sensitive than the reproduction test, but about as sensitive as mor-

tality indicators.

In the future, SneU envisions using a gene from fireflies to produce transgenic fish, rotifers, shrimp and other animals

that actually light up when they are not stressed. As the animals become stressed by toxicants, their bioluminescense would become dimmer. â&#x20AC;˘

Dr. Terry Snell works with graduate students in the study of fluorescence in a rotifer, a tiny aquatic organism.

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Beware the "Global Teenager''

By Charles Hyatt

I

nterpreting the global economy as consisting of homogeneous regional trading blocks would be to invite disaster, says Georgia Tech marketing professor Naresh K. Malhotra.

"We really are in a glo-

bal economy now," says Malhotra, who last year was named president-elect and a distinguished fellow of the Academy of Marketing Science. "Mass media has contributed to creating a kind of 'global teenager' who wears denim, sneakers and a back pack, and who probably watches

The Malhotra File Born—Nov. 23, 1949, Ambala, India Education—Received bachelor of technology in mechanical engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, 1971; MBA, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, 1973; MS, statistical sciences, SLINY Buffalo, 1978; PhD, marketing, SUNY Buffalo, 1979 Quote—The greatest mission in life is to discover God's will for your life and fulfill it. The psalms in the Bible say it this way: "Thou wilt show me the path of life" (Psalms 16:11).

Professional Interests—Application of behavioral science, statistical, technological and scientific principles in understanding and predicting marketing phenomena in a global marketplace.

Professional Achievements—Named top market researcher in U.S. based on publications in The Journal of Marketing Research, 1987; Named full professor, Georgia Tech, 1988; Named Regents' professor, Georgia Tech, 1992; president-elect, Academy of Marketing Science, and distinguished fellow, Academy of Marketing Science, 1992.

Leisure Activities and Interests—A lay preacher, he was converted from the Hindu religion to Christianity in 1978, and is a deacon in First Baptist Church, Atlanta. He enjoys reading, writing and traveling.

Persons Most Admired—His father, Har Narian Malhotra, because of his love, commitment to the family, integrity and intellectual caliber.

58

GEORGIA TECH • Spring 1993

MTV and drinks Coke. But that doesn't mean everybody speaks English and has the same value system.

"Many U.S. firms have seen this coming and have become experts at learning about other countries and their cultures. Coca-Cola is a prime example. Not only do they market all over the world, but they actively develop executives from many lands, training them and looking to them to ensure diversity and crosscultural input. Unfortunately, many U.S. firms still ignore these issues. They will pay a heavy price for it in the end."

Malhotra, who was named Regents' professor last July, coordinates the marketing and management science programs in the Ivan Allen College's School of Management. He also serves as an honorary consultant to the Russian Marketing Association, and works with the Singapore Marketing Institute and Faculty of Management Studies, India.

When Malhotra was invited to present a paper on international strategic alliances at an academic conference in Russia, he stayed an additional 10 days to learn about Russia's economic crisis.

"With the jump to a market economy, the Russians are experiencing quite a shock, but I am

convinced they made the right decision and will be better for it in the long run," Malhotra says.

"They're highly educated people who feel shortchanged on their standard of living. I observed a lot of pent-up demands, but with very little affordability. You have FhDs in physics who can't find a job. Several of my taxi drivers had master's degrees."

The increasing number of U.S.-Russian joint ventures is slowly bringing about changes, but the immediate improvements hoped for by some U.S. companies were overly optimistic, he says.

Despite the incident in Tienanmen Square in 1989, Malhotra also sees a growing market economy taking force in China, partly spurred by its incorporation of Hong Kc >ng in 1997.

T

lhe emerging unified market in Europe is another source of Malhotra's interest. In a paper co-authored with international management professor John Mclntyre and two graduate students, Malhotra determined that for U.S. companies to view Europe as one market as a result of 1992 unification would be a mistake.

"We still see three distinct regions of European

MEEK HHOTO

Marketing professor Malhotra: "Georgia Tech needs a marketing plan, too. consumers." Malhotra states. "England and Ireland form one Englishspeaking region; Germany, France, Belgium, Denmark and The Netherlands form another distinct block; and Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece form a third region.

Each has differing styles, needs and expectations, so marketing to all of them as if they were one and the same would be a mistake."

Malhotra s new textbook, Marketing Research: An Applied Orientation, illustrates many of these issues, and its publisher, Prentice-Hall, has already released an international edition.

After earning a bachelor of technok >gy degree in

mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Malhotra worked as a marketing consultant for two years before moving to the United States in 1975. He received a master's in statistical science in 1978 and a PhD in marketing in 1979, both from SUNYBuffalo, before joining the Tech faculty.

In 1987, Malhotra was named the top market researcher in the nation based on his numerous publications in The Journal ofMarketing Research. He has published more than 60 articles in major journals, including works on

statistics, psychology and health care, and he has served on the editorial review board of several journals in marketing, marketing research and consumer behavior. In addition, such companies as BellSouth, Mead, Contel, and Fisher-Price have turned to him for consulting and research.

"With the reorganization of the Institute and tire creation of the Ivan Allen College, we received a charge to expand our international focus as well as our PhD programs," says Malhotra.

"I think we've done both, and the doctoral students in marketing we have today are some of the best I've seen." Malhotra and

two of his students, James Agarwal and Imad Baalbaki, have completed articles on international services marketing, international product life cycles, and international market segmentation for such publications as The Journal of International Marketing, The Journal of Euromarketing, The International Marketing Review, and the Journal of International Consumer Marketing.

Other research areas the group is pursuing include analyses of marketing research data, consumerchoice processes, and the impact of technology on marketing and management-decision marketing.

Malhotra believes that Georgia Tech is addressing many of its own marketing issues.

"Institutions of higher learning are increasingly competing for smaller pieces of the pie," he says.

"Changes in demographics are causing us to re-examine our own target markets and constituencies. We need to develop an integrated marketing plan which correctly identifies these constituencies and then, just like a business, meets those needs better than anyone else." â&#x20AC;˘ Charles Hyatt is a graduate student in management at Georgia Tech.

GEORGIA TECH â&#x20AC;˘ Profile: Malhotra

59

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1992 The Coca-Cola Company. "Coca-Cola" and the Dynamic Ribbon Device are registered trademarks of The Coca-Cola Company.

The Official Georgia Tech Lithograph The Georgia Tech Alumni Association has commissioned Mary Lynn Perney to create an original painting depicting the Ramblin' Wreck From Georgia Tech and the Tech Tower. Mary Lynn Perney's work is included in many collections throughout the United States and the world.

In the late 1800"s, the legend began with rewritten lyrics to an old dri nk i ng song and tales of a group of young engineers roaming around the South American jungle in vehicles to become known by the locals as "THE RAMBLIN' WRECKS FROM GEORGIA TECH." The phrase moved into campus lingo when beloved Dean Floyd Field's 1924 Ford was labeled the "Ramblin' Wreck" by the student newspaper in 1927.

The first structure on the Georgia Tech campus, the administration building, was completed in October of 1888. Since then, THE TECH TOWER has been the focal point of a steadily growing campus and a symbol of pride for all lech alumni.

Mary Lynn Pemey has captured the essence of the Ramblin' Wreck and the Tech Tower in an intricately detailed drawing. Once you have placed your order for your Official Georgia Tech Lithograph, the color will be individually hand-applied.

Each lithograph will be double-matted and fully museum-mounted—a special conservation method that isolates the art in its own environment and protects it from any discoloration associated with the aging process, and framed.

The price per lithograph is $ 195. The Official Georgia Tech Lithograph is a unique work of art that will be the focus of attention in any home or office, and a very personal one for all who hold the Institute dear.

Illustration reduced. Actual size is 24" in height and 20" in width.

tPersonafiReservation 'Jorm Mail orders to: or Georgia Tech Alumni Association c/o P.O. Box 670 Exton, PA 19341-0670

Phone toll-free 1-800-523-0124 Weekdays 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. EST Request Operator 117JU

. (GET-LIT) Official Georgia Tech Qty Lithograph(s) at $195*, plus $8.50 for handling and insured shipping charge per lithograph. *On shipments to Pennsylvania only, please add state sales tax of $12.21 per print.

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ENCLOSED IS MY INITIAL INSTALLMENT of $39 for each lithograph payable by check or credit card (information provided below), together with shipping and handling charge of $8.50 per lithograph. I agree to pay the balance due in 4 monthly installments of $39 for each lithograph.** (On shipments to Pennsylvania only, please add state sales tax of $12.21 per lithograph with your deposit).

tZZl IN FULL BY CHECK. Enclosed please find my check or money order for the full amount due, made payable to "Official Georgia Tech Lithograph".

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IN FULL BY CREDIT CARD. Following shipment of my lithograph(s), please charge the full amount due to my credit card as indicated below.

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Signature:, "'All orders are subject to acceptance. There is no finance charge on the monthly payment plan. The amount of payments (total sales price) is equal to the single payment price. If purchaser fails to pay any portion of the total payments scheduled, the entire balance shall become immediately due at the election of the lithograph distributor, Wayneco Enterprises. ©lib 1993

The Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine Georgia Tech Alumni Association Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0175

Non-Profit ()iganization 11.S. Postage PAID Atlanta, GA Permit No. 1482