Biography
The 1986 recipient is Harold Sobol, Director of Engineering for Rockwell International’s Telecommunications Divisions. Dr. Sobol has actively served the MTT-S since 1969 and has made many significant contributions. Of particular note is that while chairman of the Awards Committee, he implemented the MTT-S Distinguished Service Award with Ted Saad as the first recipient. In all aspects of Dr. Sobol’s work for the MTT-S Administrative Committee (AdCom) he was highly professional and set a standard for all to follow. His extensive and detailed efforts in long-range planning while Vice President were outstanding. He was the Microwave National Lecturer in 1970. Dr. Sobol was first elected to the MTT-S AdCorn in 1972 and served as Chairman Technical Committees, Vice President in 1977 and President in 1978. He served as Chairman of the MTT-S Awards Committee and currently heads a committee to review MTT-S AdCorn committees. He has served on the IEEE Awards Planning and Policy Committee and was Chairman of the Dallas Section Student Activities Committee for the past two years. Dr. Sobol was a member of the Editorial Board of Spectrum for five years. He served as General Chairman of the 1974 Electronic Components Conference and of the 1975 International Solid-State Circuits Conference. He has been a program committee member of the above conferences and of many MTT-S Microwave symposia. He was Vice Chairman of the 1973 IEEE INTERCON. Dr. Sobol also serves on EIA, U.S. Telephone Association, National Science Foundation, and Electromagnetic Energy Policy Alliance Committee. He is a member of the Industrial Advisory Committees at the University of Texas at Arlington and the University of Michigan. Harold Sobol received the BSEE degree from City College of New York and MSE and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Michigan. He has worked on radar, missile guidance, superconducting devices, microwave tubes, plasmas, solid-state devices, microwave integrated circuits, and microwave and lightwave communication systems. He was with the University of Michigan’s Willow Run and Electron Physics Laboratories from 1952–1959, IBM Watson Research Laboratory from 1960–1 962, and RCA Laboratories from 1962–1 973. He joined Collins Radio which was subsequently acquired by Rockwell International in 1973. He served as Director of Product Development for the Collins Transmission Systems Division until May 1985 when he was promoted to Director of Engineering for all of Rockwell’s Telecommunications Divisions. He has more than forty publications and has presented more than fifty papers at professional meetings. He is an author and editor of an Academic Press volume on Microwave Integrated Circuits. Dr. Sobol was elected Fellow of IEEE in 1973, received an IR- 100 Award in 1969 for his work on microwave integrated circuits. He received the Dallas IEEE Section Award for outstanding Engineer of 1975, and was awarded an IEEE Centennial Medal in 1984.