SHARING HIS Knowledge

The first edition of that book was written in England. Michael rewrote it using American terminology and added chapters in Boolean Algebra and Microprocessors.

Later, as editorial director for the National Education Corporation (NEC), which operated 50 technical schools in the United States, Michael standardized and wrote an entire series of outlines for books, teachers’ guides and lab manuals for electronics.

“At all the schools, the teachers were using different books,” he said. “If you wanted to transfer schools, it was difficult. The NEC asked me to put together a program to standardize everything throughout all the schools.” While doing so, a friend asked Michael if he would be interested in writing technical books. An editor was looking for authors to write about transistors and other solid-state devices, or semiconductor electronics.

Today, Michael is the author of two books on electronics: “Solid State Electronics with Experiments,” published in 1987 by TAB Books, and the second edition of “Understanding Digital Electronics,” published in 1989.

“When I was a kid, it could be difficult to understand electronics, especially if the teachers used a lot of math,” he said. “The first thing they want you to know in college is calculus and differential equations. I always try to look at the subject matter in a different way. I always said if I ever had a chance to write something, I would write it in simple terms, because that’s how people learn.”

As the training supervisor for C-TEC Corporation (now Frontier Communications), a company that sold telephone equipment to corporations, schools and hotels, Michael created a new employee orientation program and taught courses in time management, stress management, interview techniques and succession planning. He also wrote an instruction manual for a system that was used to schedule telecommunications repair work for the company’s customers.

After leaving C-TEC, Michael became director of marketing at BortonLawson Engineering, where he wrote a high school program for students interested in pursuing a career in engineering. His last job before retiring was as a management analyst and program/specifications writer for the Social Security Administration in the IT department.

“It was the best job I ever had,” Michael said. “I was able to write and learn a new program language. The biggest thing was helping people who were calling [into the Social Security Administration] and to solve any issues they might have.”

Michael and his wife, Molly, retired together in 2017 and moved to Masonic Village at Dallas in September 2021. Michael became a library volunteer and, in October 2022, began reorganizing and cataloguing roughly 800 books in the library.

“The most difficult part of the work involves selecting books to be donated to our local public libraries for their yearly used book sale in July,” he said. “I recently began keeping track of books signed out by residents so I can eventually analyze the most popular categories and authors, and we’ll know in the future which books to provide to the residents and which books we can donate.”

Michael receives many compliments from staff and residents for his work. He credits Molly, as well as Carolyn Bosak, executive assistant, for their advice and assistance.