SOMETIMES MY MIND WOULD WANDER. I'd find myself peering out the classroom window at the students streaming by. I couldn't keep my focus on the blackboard. It's not that I didn't like thermodynamics, and Bill Black was an awesome teacher. He had this way of teaching that made the technical seem obvious. I found that when Bill taught technical concepts, they would just slide right into my brain. I didn't even have to work that hard to get a “B” in his class.

Part of my problem was that this class was right after lunch. Too often, I'd find myself nodding off, waking up only when my pencil rolled off the desk and hit the floor. Could that pencil sound loud. Maybe I wasn't the best student, but Bill was my favorite teacher. Even better, Bill invested his life in supporting his students as we tried to find our way in life.

I'm sure you can name a few encouragers. Maybe it was a high school teacher who guided you through a science project, or it might have been your first boss. How about a high-level department head who congratulated you for doing some little thing?

When I'm visiting utilities and I meet someone with uncommon drive, I'll ask, “Who had the biggest impact in your professional life?” It's usually someone who pushed aside some pressing duty to show a personal interest and give some encouragement. Some of those kind souls might still be out there, but I expect they are few and far between. At the same time, too many utilities today want new hires to hit the ground running. Too often, we inadvertently send the message, “Sink or swim; it's your choice. If you burn out, fine. We can always find another poor soul willing to put in 60-hour weeks.”

LEAVING A LEGACY

Bill Black taught in Georgia Tech's mechanical engineering department for more than 30 years. His specialty was heat transfer, and he was always enmeshed in interesting projects. I worked in the research lab at Georgia Power (now NEETRAC). My cohorts and I would provide the brawn (testing), while Bill and his graduate students provided the brains (software). Together, we developed and verified a model for the dynamic rating of overhead power lines funded by EPRI and now used by utilities worldwide. With Bill's analytical model, you could input line current, wind direction, wind speed, air temperature and a few other variables, and out would pop the line temperature. Because power lines are rated based on maximum thermal limits, this information is quite important. Not to mention that line sag is directly proportional to line temperature, and none of us want high-voltage lines sagging down into stuff.

A GENEROUS SPIRIT

I was knee deep in an EPRI-sponsored research project. We were investigating how heat and moisture are transferred away from energized underground power cables. I had placed a power cable through the center of this large (6-ft by 3-ft by 3-ft) tank built of Plexiglas and was hand-tamping soil in 1-inch layers. This was the third or fourth tank I'd filled, and I just couldn't take it any more. I was sweaty and dirty, and I was ticked off and even starting to get depressed. Then Bill showed up. He never said a word; he just picked up a tamper. Now, instead of being drained, I was pumped. This man I truly admired came alongside me for the rest of the afternoon. His actions spoke volumes. There is no work beneath Bill Black.

Over time, my relationship with Bill has changed. We occasionally go golfing or fishing. We talk about our families. I even have a collection of incriminating photos of him. In one photo, Bill is in a cast from when he broke his ankle (using wooden snow skis I rented for him on the cheap). Another photo shows Bill attempting to fly fish with a technique only a mother would love. But my favorite photo might be the one of Bill at the San Diego Zoo, only this shot doesn't have a zoo animal in the background. I snapped a picture of Bill just after a bird flew overhead and made a deposit on his shirt.

Bill has racked up quite a few accomplishments. He's written hundreds of technical papers and solved some very thorny technical problems. And he is a fellow of both the ASME and IEEE technical societies. But that's not what sticks out in my mind. What I remember is that Bill made time for a graduate student who had proven himself to be a little slow and maybe even a little difficult to control.