Static & Crosstalk
Dr. E. Thomas Chesworth
A Good Man
It is with great sadness that we note the passing of Joseph L. Norman Violette, one of the stalwarts of EMC, on January 2, 2008. He was a good man and a good friend and we’ll miss his many talents and humor.
Born on August 24, 1932, in Winslow, Maine, Norm won a scholarship to and earned a bachelor’s degree in electrial engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute where he also met the love of his life, Elizabeth (Bette) DeLee Heffron. After a post-grad stint at RPI, he continued on to a successful career in the Air Force and as a consultant.
In the late 1950s he flew high and fast in F-102s and in 1968 came perilously close to danger during the Vietnam War, bringing supplies and ferrying soldiers in C-123s about the country during the Tet Offensive. Stationed in Da Nang for that year, he garnered two Distinguished Flying Crosses and nearly 1,000 takeoffs and landings.
Norm loved flying everything from jets to prop-driven aircraft and logged as many hours as he could, including the perimeter navigation of the United States on a long weekend, taking off in Florida, traveling clockwise around the border of the lower 48 states, using LORAN and employing his mathematical acuity to keep his craft on course. He also ferried a C-47 across the Pacific and made a lobster run from Florida to Maine.
In addition to flying the “Delta Dagger,” he was checked out in C-47 “Gooney Birds,” taught pilots in T-33 and T-38 high altitude supersonic trainers, and towed targets. He didn’t mind getting shot at. It was good training for raising seven children and welcoming nine grandchildren into the world.
After his return from Southeast Asia, he achieved his goal of a Ph.D. in electromagnetics. His thesis was to solve the complex equations of the field distribution around a “bump” on the center conductor of a coaxial cable. Mastering Green’s Functions, he successfully earned his doctorate from North Carolina State University in 1971.
This deep appreciation of the hidden meaning in the mathematics and physics of electromagnetism formed the basis for his exceptional and influential career in electro-magnetic compatibility. Eschewing the notion that EMC is some kind of “magic,” Norm neatly laid out the mechanisms that formed the basis for a rational engineering approach to under-standing and applying the physics to solve real-life problems. Because he was a storyteller, a rac-onteur in the finest sense of the word, he was a great instructor teaching upwards of 200 seminars to a few thousand individuals. His style of teaching was to use flipcharts which he painstakingly assembled for each course, sorting, re-sorting, making changes into the wee hours, with Bette inking changes, copying viewgraphs, punching holes and painting whiteout just in time to make the plane the next morning. He never got into PowerPoint, preferring good old-fashioned plastic.
He was a lifelong member of the IEEE and winner of the Stoddardt Award from the EMC Society. His camaraderie and friendships both professional and personal made him a beloved member of that group. He was founder of Violette Engineering Corp., CEO of Washington Laboratories in Gaithersburg, Maryland (of which son Mike is president and co-founder) and co-author of Electromagnetic Compatibility Handbook.