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Spotlight
On
IEEE-USA President Gerry Alphonse
by Georgia C. Stelluto
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TODAY'S ENGINEER wants to
congratulate you on becoming IEEE-USA President, Gerry. How does
it feel to hold one of the top
volunteer governing spots in the Institute? |
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I feel both proud and humbled
by this accomplishment. As a person coming from a small
third world country, I am grateful to RCA Laboratories (now
Sarnoff Corporation) for having given me the opportunity
of a lifetime of technical achievements, and to flourish in days
when someone's skin color was still the determinant of one's
place in life. I am also grateful to the IEEE for recognizing me and
elevating me to higher and higher levels of responsibility among
its volunteers, giving me the opportunity to become a leader.
When I joined the IEEE, it never occurred to me that I would
become one of its top leaders. The Institute has been good to me
and I want to give something back to it. It is through the IEEE
that my scientific and technical accomplishments have gained me
worldwide recognition (with my elevation to the Grade of
Fellow), and that I am recognized today as a leader in the
technical and professional community.
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Could you tell us a little bit
about yourself, Gerry? Where are you from
originally —
and, what brought you to the United States? |
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I was born in Port-au-Prince,
Haiti. After my secondary school, I
competed for and won admission to the Polytechnic School of
Haiti, where the only engineering curriculum was civil
engineering. My real interest was
electricity, physics and math. My father knew that, from
observing the
things I used to do with electricity and radios in my room or my
backyard at
home, using batteries and vacuum tubes. One day, my father
approached me out of the clear blue sky and asked me: "Would you
like to go to the United States to study?" After staring at him
for a while, I told him: " You can repeat the question or
withdraw it, but if you repeat it, I am going to take you up on
it." He repeated the question.
The next day I was at the American Consulate in Haiti
looking up U.S. college bulletins. I submitted applications
to several of them. New York University
(NYU) was the first institution to offer me admission, and
that was all I needed. Since I was still a minor and knew no one
in the United States, my father had to give me a certificate of
emancipation (this declared me to be a fully responsible adult)
before I could be granted a visa. On 10 September 1954, my whole
family accompanied me to the airport en route to New York, where
I found my way to the New York University admissions office and
was assigned a dormitory room on its campus in the Bronx.
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We heard that you speak
several different languages, Gerry — can you
elaborate? What are they, and why did you learn several? |
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French is the official
language in Haiti. However, everyone in Haiti
speaks or knows Creole, a French patois. My parents sent me to a
school (Institution Saint Louis de Gonzague) run by the Christian
Brothers, where students were not allowed to speak Creole. So, I
know French from home and school, and Creole from exposure. At
Saint Louis, we had to learn Latin (one had to learn the
classics), and English and Spanish as mandatory foreign
languages. Being surrounded by Spanish-speaking countries in the
Caribbean, I could listen to Spanish radio stations from the
Dominican Republic and Cuba, so I got much practice in Spanish
to complement my knowledge of the grammar. I learned both
English and Spanish very well. Today, my English is much better
than my Spanish, but I can manage quite well in Spain or Mexico
after only a couple of days in those countries.
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How long have you and Tammy
been married? What brought you two
together? |
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This is a long and interesting
story, but I can give you a short version. After I finished my Ph.D., I was going to take a short
vacation in Paris, but a friend of mine suggested that India would be a more
interesting
experience, since I like ancient cultures and civilizations. I
decided I could still stop in Paris on the way back, so for
three weeks I went all over India. While at the Bombay (now
Mumbai) airport, in the line to go through customs, I was
chatting with a Parsi gentleman —
an Indian of Persian (today
called Iranian) origin. A young lady acquaintance of the
gentleman showed up, and he introduced me to her. That was my
wife's cousin. I was going for my stop in Paris, and she was
going to the Sorbonne for graduate work in Biology. While in
Paris, I offered to show her the sights of Paris (museums,
Eiffel tower, etc.), since I "knew" the language. We exchanged
correspondence. Two years later, I went to Europe
again for some business, and it was her turn to show me Paris.
She then told me that her younger cousin was on her way to the
United States for graduate work at the University of Ohio, and
she asked me to take care of her. That was Tammie. After I
contacted her, I found that my phone bill in Princeton was
getting enormously expensive. We’ve now been married 32 years,
and have three children and two grandchildren.
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What do you and Tammy like to
do in your spare time, Gerry? |
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Our quiet spare time is
usually weekend mornings, when we sit together
at the kitchen table and read and chat, sharing coffee, cheese,
crackers
and grapes. On a really relaxing day, or when we have guests, we
show off our cooking specialties, particularly Caribbean from
me, and some great Indian meals from her.
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What are your favorite
hobbies? |
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I like to listen to old
French songs and chamber music, and to read. I
used to play a little bit of the classics on the piano, but I
don't do it anymore. I hope one day to get back to the piano.
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Which historical figure do you
most identify with? |
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This is a hard one to
answer, because I don't think I identify with
anyone. And it is not because I don't want to. I admire a lot of
historical figures, but I don't think I identify with them. For
instance, I
am fascinated by Einstein's mind, but as you can see,
identifying with him
would be too presumptuous.
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If you could live anywhere you
wanted, where would you live? |
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My wife and I have often
wondered about this. We have thought about Hawaii, the
Caribbean, the South of France, and southern California.
We have reached the conclusion that we like to go to
many places, but our thoughts always bring us back to
Princeton. That is probably because of our children.
Princeton is about a one hour drive for one of our
children, and four to five
hours for the other two. That makes it easy to get together on
important
holidays.
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Who are you favorite writers? |
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I can answer this better
by discussing the kinds of things I like to read. I like
documentaries about science and the scientific
luminaries. I probably have read everything I can about
Einstein. I read a lot about cosmology theories
(relativity, string, quantum). I like historical novels,
particularly those of Wilber Smith and Gary Jennings. I
also read the thrillers of John Grisham, Robert Ludlum
and others.
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Who are your
real-life heroes? |
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I call a hero someone I
admire but cannot emulate. By this definition, my
scientific hero is Einstein, and my real-life hero is
Martin Luther King. I can do neither the accomplishments
of one, nor the sacrifices of the other.
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What is your
personal motto? |
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My personal motto is:
Always do the right thing —
be a role model for the aspiring ones. |
Thanks for letting Today's
Engineer and its readers get to know you a little better on
a more personal level, Gerry. Go to:
www.todaysengineer.org
(Jan.’04), or www.ieeeusa.org
to find out more about Gerry Alphonse’s plans and priorities
during his year as IEEE-USA President.
Georgia C. Stelluto is
IEEE-USA’s Publishing Manager, and Managing Editor of
IEEE-USA Today’s Engineer quarterly print digest. Comments may
be submitted to
todaysengineer@ieee.org.
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