Dr. James R. Andrews, founder of Picosecond Pulse Labs, earned BS, MS, and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering in 1964, 1965, and 1970 from the University of Kansas. He was elected a Fellow of the IEEE in 1989 being cited for "contributions to picosecond domain pulse techniques and measurements". His technical expertise spans the design of pulse generators, oscilloscopes, ultra-broadband active and passive components, and precision time domain metrology. Dr. Andrews worked for the USA National Bureau of Standards (now NIST) where he designed several oscilloscopes and pulse generators and was responsible for establishing several picosecond pulse calibration services. While at NBS he published over 60 papers and was granted 3 patents. In 1971-72, Dr. Andrews was a visiting guest scientist at the French Centre National d’Etudes des Telecommunications (CNET) in Lannion, France. While at CNET, Dr. Andrews performed some of the early pioneering measurements of picosecond pulse dispersion in fiber optics. He has served as a consultant to the Los Alamos National Laboratories. In addition to the IEEE, where he has been active in organizing meetings and reviewing technical papers, Dr. Andrews has been elected to URSI and is a member of OSA. Dr. Andrews founded Picosecond Pulse Labs in 1980 and served as President until January 1999. The company’s product line includes over 20 different pulse generator models and more than 75 different ultra-broadband coaxial component and amplifier models - most of which he personally designed. His philosophy has always been to design and build NIST standard quality products and sell them to customers for reasonable prices. All of Picosecond’s products are designed to have nearly perfect time domain pulse response, free from distortion. As a result, several of the products are now used as "pulse standards" in calibration labs worldwide. More recently, the gigabit fiber optics telecom and datacom industries have recognized the importance of pulse fidelity in achieving low bit error rates. As a result many products are being purchased in large quantities for use in 10 GB/s and future 40 Gb/s fiber optic systems. After receiving an Entrepreneur of Distinction award from the Boulder Chamber of Commerce in October 2001, Jim retired from Picosecond Pulse Labs. |