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Donald J. Leonard

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Donald J. Leonard(born July 11, 1933) is an Americanelectrical engineerandAT&Texecutive, who received the 1996IEEE Simon Ramo Medal.[1]

Biography

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Born inNew York City,Leonard studiedElectrical Engineeringat theNew York Universityin the 1950s, where he received his BEE in 1956 and his MEE in 1960.[2]

After graduation Leonard started his career as researcher at theNew York UniversityResearch Lab.[3]After working for the New York Telephone Company some time, he joined AT&T Bell labs in 1956. Here he started his lifelong career at AT&T working on the further development of theTransmission System 1 (T-1),which were introduced by Bell Labs in 1962. He later supervised the development of aPulse-code modulationfor theTelstar.In 1963 he moved to Bell Labs inMerrimack Valley,where he was director of the Transmission Technology Laboratory from 1968 to 1970. In 1970 he moved to Indianapolis to direct the Telephone Laboratory. From 1977 to 1980 in Columbus he was executive director of Crossbar and Switching Operations, and from 1980 to 1982 at Western Electric he was Vice President of Corporate Engineering.[2]In 1982 he returned to Bell labs, where he succeeded William O. Fleckenstein[4]as vice president, Switching Systems,[5]and where in 1991[6]he was appointed vice president, Quality, Technology, and Process Research. In 1994 he retired and got succeeded byArun Netravali.[7]

Leonard has been awarded an honorary doctorate fromMidwest College of Engineering;[3]the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Award in 1992 by theSociety of Hispanic Professional Engineers;[3]and in 1996 theIEEE Simon Ramo Medalfor his "engineering leadership in design and development of intelligent networks, digital electronic switching, transmission and signaling systems, and network databases."[1]Pn In 1997 he was awarded an EMMY by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for his work on High Definition TV.

Selected publications

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  • Andre, S. N. and Leonard, D. J., “An Active Retrodirective Array for Satellite Communication”, Trans. IEEE, Vol. AP-12, Mar. 1964, pp. 181–186.
  • Donald J. Leonard. "Local switching: on the leading edge of technology", Bell Laboratories Record. Vol. 60. (7). September 1982. pp. 181–184.

Patents

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References

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  1. ^abIEEE Simon Ramo Medal RecipientsArchived2013-10-04 at theWayback Machineieee.org/documents. Accessed October 1, 2013.
  2. ^ab"Donald J. Leonard, Vice President, Switching Systems, AT&T Bell Laboratories" in:Hispanic Engineer & ITVol. 6, nr. 4 (1990). p.900
  3. ^abc"Donald J. Leonard Vice President, Quality, Technology, and Process Research AT&T Bell Laboratories"Hispanic Engineer & ITVol. 8, nr. 4 (1992). p. 60
  4. ^Leonard A. Schlesinger, American Telephone and Telegraph Company (1987)Chronicles of corporate change: management lessons from management lessons from AT&T and its offspring.p. 225
  5. ^Bell Laboratories RecordVol 61-62 (1983). p. 47
  6. ^Hispanic Engineer.Vol 7-8 (1991). p. 92
  7. ^"Dr Netravali, Digital Pioneer For Television Promoted" in Newspaper Thursday, August 25, 1994. p. 16 (onlineArchivedOctober 4, 2013, at theWayback Machine)
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  • Donald J. LeonardVice President, Quality, Technology, and Process Research AT&T Bell Laboratories, 1993