I Learned Electronics from My Dad

My father had a PhD in Physics and was a very hands-on guy. He worked on everything from electronics to hay bailers to a prototype hovercraft — which met its end, sadly, by crashing into a pole in the RIT parking lot. He taught me the basics of circuitry - resistance, current, and voltage. When I got to college, I wanted to learn more about electronics, outside of my class work, so I got a job in the university Physics lab working on a cosmic particle detector.

But the most important thing I learned from Norm was that things can be fixed. This seems simple but for a 10-year old country kid who’se minibike won’t start it’s unfathomable. I couldn’t imagine what would happen next. It just sat there. And Norm said, let’s take it apart, and proceeded to take off the carburator and blow out the jet. He had it running in short order. And I had my eyes opened, wide, and my future shaped decidedly.

—Alex Mountjoy