UFH: Dr. Joseph Johnson

[Mike Martus]

I have known Joe from that very first day at Pontiac Central when I, along with other staff members were called into the office conference room to listen to a presentation from Delphi. Who or what was Delphi anyway?

What I was exposed to was a young ( he is still young) very spirited engineer pitching something called USFIRST. I was very reluctant but in the coming weeks I soon realized that Joe was about "Making a Difference" in the lives of young people - same philosophy I had. From the very start I had great respect for this man, that continues and grows today.

I will always remember Joe using an ordinary yellow pencil to question "Why". The students and myself were captivated with his interactive presentation. this concept given to me that day is the cornerstone of my Pre-engineering program at Pontiac Central High School.

His influence upon FIRST and The Community of FIRST are not measurable they are so vast and far reaching. However, like Joe has said, in other words, the impact is really on the lives of many students here at Pontiac Central as well as schools unknown.

Joe, I thank you for all you have done and will continue to do for the The Community of FIRST and most of all the influence you have had on my teaching career.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Joe,
I must echo Dave Lavery's erudite exclamation earlier in the post.
I don't remember the first time we actually met, it was at MWR or CDI about 1998 (could it have been 97?). I had seen few people with boundless energy, flying through the pits as you were the first time I saw you. I wasn't prepared for the way you entered our pit and walked right up to Raul. I thought, anyone who could argue with Raul and hold his ground was someone that needed respect. Since that time, I have felt privileged when listening in on strategy discussions or mechanical explanations between you and other engineers. Thank you for helping me understand the meaning of Gracious Professionalism and for all you have done for the FIRST community, particularly here in the Midwest. I, as so many others, are better mentors, engineers, and people for knowing you.

[Rich Wong]

Dr. J.Johnson.... IT’S ABOUT TIME!!!!!

I meet you in at the anural NYC Regional in 2001 that was held at Columbia University.
From reading CD, I know exactly who you were, one of the heroes of FIRST. I came over introduced myself and spoke to you about the success of team 47.
I was quite excited to have met you and I was inspired by your work back in 2001. I am still inspired and impressed by your accomplishments.

So.... Congratulation! You have inspired many from coast to coast.

[Vince]

Congrats Joe on a well deserved recognition.

You've made positive impacts in many ways and many areas.

The picture posted with the award says volumes: an uber-engineer, yes, but more importantly a dedicated father.

Hip-hip-hooray & oogah-oogah to Joe Johnson - Vince

[Andy Brockway]

Congratulations Dr Joe!

Your papers on bullet proofing the 3/8 drill transmissions and charts on motor characteristics were the first things I downloaded from CD. Your latest, NBD, will certainly be a classic.

Thanks for all your help in these forums!

[Warren Boudreau]

I too want to offer my congratulations, Dr. Joe.

You are truly one of the people that keeps FIRST going.

Maybe at the championship this year I will get a chance to talk to you more than a few brief seconds.

[Andy Baker]

Dr. Joe is quite a guy and an inspiration to many of us.

When I first showed up at a FRC Regional, our pit was right next to team 47's. I saw this tall, energetic man whipping his team's pit into a frenzy between rounds, getting everyone on his team excited about competing at the highest level they could. It was intimidating. At this point, I knew that this was going to be a fierce competition and people were trying their hardest to win. This was in '98, when ChiefDelphi won 3 regionals. Their shadow was large.

Over the next few years, ChiefDelphi developed as a team. As Brandon mentioned in this thread, this site was created with much input from Joe. The next thing we know, Joe is pushing for "sharing of ideas" between teams. This was that competitive guy in the pits? naaa... that didn't make sense to me. How can you be so good... so competitive, and then want to push the idea of sharing designs? It took me a while to get it. Joe had a vision: he saw that if ALL teams get better, FIRST will grow and reach more kids. With this growth would come the "change in culture" that we want to make. Bingo... it clicked with me. Joe's vision to make FIRST robots better, more innovative, more capable, more INSPIRING has made an impact on FIRST like no other person. His vision was to not only compete as hard as he could, but also allow, enable, and inspire other teams to compete at this high level. Essentially, Joe has been the Pied Piper of inspiration, raising the level of play for all teams in FIRST.

Many people get credit for raising this level of play in FIRST. Many people get credit for sharing ideas, white papers, and designs that help other teams out. No one deserves more credit than Dr. Joe. He pushed it early, before it was cool. He inspired many of us to take this idea and run with it.

I can truly say that Joe has impacted my life in a way that is immeasureable. This energetic, competitive, compassionate guy has made me a better person and given me a means to make an impact in other people's life. He has challenged me to raise the level of play in FIRST, and supported me in doing risky things that keep FIRST moving in a positive direction.

Cheers to you, Joe Johnson, my hero.

Sincerely,
Andy Baker

[JVN]

When I was honored as an UFH many months ago... the quote I chose to submit was:
“If I have seen farther than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants." - Sir Issac Newton


We all stand on Joe's shoulders..
Alll of FIRST. Everyone.
Even if you don't realize it, you still do.

His accomplishments over the years make FIRST what it is today.

Kudos to you Joe.
Thank you for all you've done, and continue to do!

John

[Lisa Perez]

Dr. Johnson! Thank you for all you've done for FIRST and OCCRA

[Joe Johnson]

Dr Joe Speaks...

Preamble:

The title of this message Dr Joe Speaks is a reference to Atlas Shrugged,
perhaps the most influential book I have ever read with the exception of the Bible. Note my avatar. Who is John Galt? Anyone who has read the book knows this answer but also knows that the chapter “John Galt Speaks” is almost a novel by itself. So… …I expect that Dr Joe Speaks will be a novella in its own right by the time I hit “submit.” I hope you make it to the end. JJ

My 2 weeks of fame are almost up so I thought I had better respond before I move off stage for the next UFH.




I was surprised how much I have enjoyed being an UFH. I knew it was coming, but somehow when you actually ARE the UFH and people you know, respect, and, in some instances, love are saying all those great things about you, well… …I’ll tell you truthfully, it gets your throat all tight and your eyes all watery.



Of course I want to say thank you to all those who have said nice things about me. Thank you. But more than that, I want to thank OneAngryDwarf for nominating me and most especially the UFH committee for creating the conditions for so many great people to get some well deserved recognition. You are throwing the easy pitches for others to hit out of the park. Keep throwing those high ones right down the middle of the plate, it is a worthy endeavor.



As to the folks who responded to this message, I will thank you individually, but let me say to you all as a group, that I was moved by your compliments and stories. Thank you.



Now more about me and a bit of news that I will save to the end (I don’t want to lose my audience when my keyboard is just getting warmed up :-)



I believe much of life is a sort of Brownian Motion affair. We are like small bits of smoke whacked this way and that by the people we meet. Those who know me well know that I am a man of faith and that I believe in a higher purpose and plan to these “random” events. Even so, it is often hard for me to discern a higher purpose to most of these chance interactions. I am not so lucky as George Bailey to have my random walk mapped out for me. Reading the above thread, I have been reminded more than once about the Wonderful Life I have had.



But back to my Brownian Motion reference, the path of my life is so complex and the number of interactions has been so numerous and apparently random that it is hard to assign a cause effect relationship to the vast majority of my life. BUT the vast majority is not the entirety. There are some whacks that have changed the arc of my life so dramatically that it is hard not to link cause and effect.



Indulge me as I detail some of the impacts and the change in course they have caused.



If you would have spoken to the 8th grade boy that grew up to become Dr. Joe about his future plans, he would have told you straight away that “4 more years of this school stuff and I am DONE!” He would have been kind of fuzzy about what he was going to do to make his way in the world (perhaps he’d start some sort of business), but college was not in The Plan, that much was clear.





Mom & Dad. Fill in the usual boring stuff folks say about parents here but perhaps add that in raising me they found the right balance between the freedom to explore new things, the right limits needed to prevent permanent damage and the encouragement I needed to spread my wings and fly.



Mrs. Phillips. When Mrs. Phillips required everyone in her freshman science class to pick a career description card from a file box, read it and write a short essay on that career, I can remember thinking, “What a stupid assignment!” But, if they ever make a movie about my Wonderful Life, the score will crescendo as I read that randomly chosen 8 ½ by 11 sheet of paper with Mechanical Engineer in bold print across the top. It was like I was reading about a lost race of people that I never knew existed but that I now knew were MY PEOPLE. If four years of schooling were required to claim my birthright, what was that to me? Thanks to Mrs. Phillips, I was headed to college to get a THUNK on the head! I was off to get that B.S. degree, the stamp of approval that made official to the world what I knew in my heart: I belong to that strange and mysterious race called Mechanical Engineer.



Prof. Klein. Back to that movie script, the role of Prof. Klein, wise old curmudgeon, would be played by a Walter Matthau or Fred Thompson type actor I suppose. Professor Klein opened a whole new world up to me. The beauty of mathematics and the usefulness of automatic control theory. He was irreverent and idealistic at the same time. The way he taught engineering made me think, “Why isn’t all engineering taught this way?” He made me want to join the struggle to fix engineering education at Big Time Engineering Schools (which was and remains broken in many ways). But… …I needed another THUNK on the head to be able to get into the game. What are 4 or 5 more years when the stakes are so high? I was off to grad school.



Prof. Bajaj. Getting a Ph.D. in retrospect was a great thing for me, but not for the reasons I had decided to get one. I could write a novel on this but let me just leave it with these 3 points: 1) The more I learned about what most professors really do, the less I wanted to become one. 2) The best part about having a Doctoral Degree is that once you have it, you have it your whole life. I have years for the degree to pay me back for the pains it took me to obtain it. 3) Had it not been for the kindness and advice of Professor Bajaj (played in the movie by himself – Eastern mystic philosophers age very well, if at all ;-) I likely would have called it quits before reaching the goal.



Carl Visconti, hired me based solely on a single phrase on my resume, “I want to work with interesting machines.” What need did he have to hire someone with a Ph.D.? None, as far as I could ever discover. Lucky for me he couldn’t hire enough folks who loved interesting machines.



Dr. Barbara Sanders has been a mentor almost from the first day she stepped into my chain of command. At the time she was my Great Grand Boss (my boss’ boss’ boss). She has been a great mentor and personal advisor but she also played an important role in my introduction to FIRST.



The story of my introduction to FIRST still puts goose bumps on my skin. Ten years ago, the Sunday paper supplement, Parade Magazine, had a cover story on FIRST (then U.S. FIRST). As someone who has been looking to change the world since as long as I can remember, I knew that FIRST was the program for me. I cut out the article and made plans to pitch the idea to my management, specifically, the Director of Advanced Development, Dr. Barbara Sanders.



Before I continue I have to tell you a part of the story was unknown to me at the time. As it turns out, some weeks earlier, the General Director of Engineer from my division, Al Billis (my Great Great Grand Boss ;-), heard a pitch about a robot competition and high school kids from his counterpart at Delco Electronics. The seed landed on fertile soil. Subsequently, Mr. Billis forwarded the follow up letter from the Delco exec to one of his direct reports, the Director of Advanced Development, Dr. Barbara Sanders, writing in the margin, “Barbara, Make this happen, Al.”



Now back to me and that Parade article: it took me until Wed. to get on Barbara’s schedule. On my way to her office with the FIRST article in my hand, I stopped to check my mailbox where I found the very letter above forward to me, in turn, by Barbara with the following note below Al’s: “Joe, Come see me about this. BAS.”



So let me summarize: armed with an article about FIRST, I was on my way to talk to my management about sponsoring a FIRST team when I received a letter from my management asking me to come see them about setting up a FIRST team. There was a hot feeling in my face as my heart nearly beat out of my chest. I was slightly dizzy as I walked to Barbara’s office, but I knew that this was no random whack but a purposeful redirection of the arc of my life.



There are more stories I would like to share but this message is long enough. Besides you get the idea. Our lives are intertwined in complex ways. You never know when a “non random whack” will come. Even more importantly, you never know what direction such whacks will take you…



…Which leads me to the news bit of this thread.



As my team already knows, I have not been spending time helping Chief Delphi this year. Other personal priorities have pulled me away. That 8th Grade Future Dr. Joe may have been wrong about the 4 more years of school bit but he may have had it right about that starting some sort of business idea.



In any case, I am going to be taking time off of Delphi for a while, perhaps going part time or maybe a leave of absence. Even though my commitment to FIRST is as strong as ever, given my personal situation, I just can’t do FIRST this year. I will be curtailing even my advisory role with Chief Delphi and I will more or less have to abandon ChiefDelphi.com for the time being. On the positive side, I still plan to be a judge at the Great Lakes Regional and (perhaps) in Atlanta. Time will tell.



Failing some huge non random whack, I am confident that I will be back but not right now and probably not for months or years.



I thank you all (especially those who’ve made it this far down the page ;-)



I bid you fair well until we meet again.



Joe J.

(Alias Dr. Joe)

[Gary Dillard]

Thanks for the insight Dr. Joe. Just so you know, I'd rather read a 10 page post by you all the way through then read any number of one line posts by most anyone else. If you take the time to write it I'll take the time to read it.

God Bless you and your family

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

In any case, I am going to be taking time off of Delphi for a while, perhaps going part time or maybe a leave of absence. Even though my commitment to FIRST is as strong as ever, given my personal situation, I just can’t do FIRST this year. I will be curtailing even my advisory role with Chief Delphi and I will more or less have to abandon ChiefDelphi.com for the time being. On the positive side, I still plan to be a judge at the Great Lakes Regional and (perhaps) in Atlanta. Time will tell.

You will be sorely missed, Dr. Joe.

[Rich Kressly]

Well reading all of that really makes a person feel humbled. Joe, we've never met, but JVN has already said that you have influenced all of us, and you have. Those purposeful redirections in life are "whacks" that I'm acutely aware of as well. It seems as though those (not so) random events happen around FIRST more than anywhere I know. You've set a high standard and I promise that I will do my level best, along with all of those other lives you've touched, to carry the torch forward and take care of this culture changing movement as best we can until it is time for you to return.