Featured Alumni Interview

Alumni:	Brian Cieslak
Field:	Electronic Engineering
Position:	Senior Firmware Designer, Rockwell Automation, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Former member of the Milwaukee Astronomical Society and JETS alumni.
Introduction:	Growing up in the 1950s and '60s — a time of the Atomic Age and the Space Race — Brian Cieslak was fascinated with all things science. For him, the JETS program at his high school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, offered an ideal outlet for an avid young man who loved astronomy, model rocketry and ham radio. Today, he's a senior firmware engineer at Rockwell Automation in Milwaukee, designing programs and hardware for the robotics that are at the core of modern manufacturing.

JETS: We all know about software designers, but what does a firmware designer do?

BRIAN CIESLAK: In simplest terms, firmware is software that is permanently stored in hardware or, more specifically, on a microprocessor chip. The microcomputer — the part you can touch — is called hardware. Computers, like PCs, run programs that the user can select when needed. If you want to play a game, you run a game program. If you need to create a report for school, you run a word processor program or Internet program. This changeability classifies the program as software.

A firmware program is designed to do a specific task. Think of a digital alarm clock or a DVD player. They do the same thing over and over. You can’t change the program because inside there are microprocessors, little computers with a specific program permanently stored on a silicon wafer.

I design electronic circuitry and then I write programs for a microprocessor that controls that circuitry. When my program or my intelligence is embedded into that chip, that’s when it becomes firmware. The whole system is called an embedded system.

My company makes computerized robotic systems made up of hardware and software and firmware that automate factories. In short, we turn factories into giant robots. There are communications between computers and people throughout the factory that monitor, adjust and run motor controllers — is the motor too fast? too hot? All systems are always talking to each other and in touch with people in the factory to make sure everything runs smoothly.

Imagine a long conveyor belt at General Mills with thousands of boxes lined up waiting to be filled with cereal. If something goes wrong anywhere along the system, all other parts of the system have to be able to respond and adjust, otherwise you end up with a bunch of boxes falling like dominoes and a lot of spilled Cheerios.

JETS: How did you get interested in technology?

BC: I grew up in the late 1950s and the 1960s, the time of the Atomic Age and Space Race. Science and technology were always in the news and they really fascinated me.

I grew up in Milwaukee where most students went to the closest high school, but there was one four-year school, Boys Tech, that offered special training in technologies and skilled trades such as electronics, aeronautics, automotive, plumbing, and machinery. You had to apply and be accepted and it drew students from all over the city. Back then it was one of the few racially integrated schools in the city, although it only accepted boys, something that changed in 1973. My brother had gone there four years before and my dad and several uncles before him. I knew early on that I wanted to go there.

In your freshman year at Boys Tech there was a class called Exploratory Shop. You spent six weeks sampling each of the different trades and technology programs that the school offered. After sampling them all, you picked one to be your major for the next three years. I chose electronics.

It was a place you could really blossom. By the time I was a sophomore I was a member of the amateur radio club, and earned my ham radio license. Most kids, me included, couldn’t afford their own ham radio station, but the school had one that we could use. I also dabbled in astronomy and borrowed the math club's telescope during the summer.

JETS: Astronomy and ham radio? With all due respect, if someone like you might be considered a nerd in a regular high school, what was it like to be in a high school were everyone might fit that description?

BC: There weren’t any nerds. Everyone had a value. If somebody was in auto shop, they were good buddies to have because they could help you repair your car and a car is a very important thing in high school. If you were in electronics, the car people liked you because you could help them with their stereo systems. We all had a value that everyone could appreciate.

JETS: Yet today, young people are a lot more likely to be interested in skateboarding or computer games than ham radio or astronomy.

BC: It’s all good, it all involves technology. A lot of kids play computer games — they’ll spend hundreds of hours at it. Yet, if you ask them how to design one, they have no idea. I tell them that instead of just playing the game learn how to program one. It’s the same for a skateboard — don’t you want to know how it works and, if it breaks, how to fix it or make it better?

JETS: What’s Boys Tech like today?

BC: Now it’s called Bradley Tech, after one of the founders of Rockwell Automation, which was originally called Allen-Bradley and was one of the first major corporations in Milwaukee. (We just celebrated our 100 year anniversary).

Bradley Tech is now open to boys and girls and has about 2,000 students. It has also become a magnet for sponsorship from many area corporations that contribute to curriculum as well as financially, including Rockwell Automation, Johnson Controls and Harley-Davidson.

JETS: How did JETS fit into your high school life?

BC: Back then, JETS was just our local high school science club. I wasn't aware that it was part of a big national program like it is today.

Each student chose a project they wanted to accomplish during the school year. We’d meet once a week after school and you would watch others as they proceeded with their projects. My first year in JETS was as a sophomore. I developed a project where I mixed tree leaves with a solvent (denatured alcohol), then poured that solution through a glass tube filled with crushed chalk. As the solution filtered down the tube into various levels through the chalk, it created bands of color, each one revealing a different chemical that made up the chemical composition of the leaves. This is a science called chromatography.

JETS: Why did you wait until your sophomore year to join JETS?

BC: At this high school, ninth grade was a year of survival. Freshmen have to adjust to the pace of the school and the expectations of the teachers.

JETS: But, by 10th grade you were hitting your stride?

BC: Absolutely. JETS was a neat scientific community, a great resource for learning and an opportunity to see what’s available, because while your first year project might have been simple, like mine, you were also in a program with seniors and their stuff was pretty sophisticated.

JETS: What did you do for your junior year project?

BC: Model rocketry. It’s something I still do today, though the rockets are bigger and go higher.

They’re also a lot more expensive. My rockets can weigh up to 50 pounds, fly two miles into the sky and can carry cameras, electronics and radios.

JETS: And senior year?

BC: My mom made me get a job after school. I worked at a local department store repairing small appliances. That was a pretty good experience, too.

JETS: Well, we assume the department store gave you a paycheck. What did you get out of JETS?

BC: JETS gave me the avenue for discovery — solar power, heat engines, radio transmitters, receivers — JETS gave me exposure to all that stuff. Mr. Jackland, the JETS Club advisor at Tech, enabled us by giving us access to a lot of the equipment we needed from the science department’s storeroom.

JETS: When you were a sophomore back at Boys Tech, did you ever imagine you’d be designing computer software and firmware that would operate entire factories of robots?

BC: You’ve got to remember that was 35 years ago! Back then computers were so rare they were almost science fiction. When I studied electronics at Boys Tech, color television was the high technology of the day. I expected to become a TV repairman.

JETS: What did you do after high school?

BC: I received an associate degree from Milwaukee Area Technical College in electrical technology. I joined Rockwell Automation 18 years ago and, thanks to their tuition reimbursement program, I began attending Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin. After ten years of night school I received my Bachelor of Science degree, a double major of physics and computer science. I also minored in religion.

JETS: If you were to talk to a young person today considering joining JETS, what would you say?

BC: JETS gave me a discipline that allowed me to solve problems. Problem-solving is a process. You start out with a problem and after you’ve analyzed the problem, you form a hypothesis as to what will solve it. Then you test your hypothesis.

In firmware engineering, everything is analysis. You have to analyze what your program needs to do, how it has to respond to its input and its environment. Once the analysis is done, you can design the program and electronics.

You learn through experimentation and process. JETS taught us not to be afraid to fail. It seems a lot of parents are afraid to see their kids fail, but this is the way you learn in technology — you take chances. If it doesn’t work out, learn from it and try something else. I call that process "discovery."

Today, JETS is even better than it was when I was in school, because now it’s much more team oriented. Teamwork is the way it is in the workplace. You have to learn to rely on other experts.

JETS: Any advice for young people curious about science and technology, but who have no idea what they want to do for a career?

BC: I advise young people to try a little bit of everything: Read a book on electronics. Learn how to use machine shop tools, take $20 and buy a chemistry set.

Go to the school library. Our library had a series of books entitled "The Adventure in ..." that covered different technology and science careers. Thanks to Ebay I have a full set of those books in my personal library. Believe it or not all that will teach you a lot about what you want to do to with your life.

JETS: Technology has obviously benefited you in your career. How has it played out in your personal life?

BC: My hobbies then are my hobbies now, only more sophisticated and, like I mentioned about model rocketry, more expensive. I continue to operate my own radio station and communicate with friends from around the world. Though I’ve never met most of them in person they all know me by my ham radio call letters, K9WIS.

My astronomy pursuits led me to become a member of the Milwaukee Astronomical Society back in the 80's. I helped build their 26-inch telescope and design the computer controls that run it. It has been modernized over the years by other members. During those years I’ve participated in the International Halley's Watch, measuring the change in appearance of Halley's Comet when it passed by in 1986 and I participated in the USNO Lunar Occultation Program.

JETS: The what?

BC: It was an amazing program that hundreds of volunteers across the country did on behalf of the U.S. Naval Observatory. Before American ever went to the moon, it could only be estimated where in the heavens it was. No one was sure exactly how far away it was. So, individual amateur astronomers would precisely measure the time the moon would "eclipse" or pass in front of a particular star — that was the occultation part. By recording thousands of such findings, NASA was able to measure precisely how far away the moon was and where it was in the sky. This allowed them to send the Apollo astronauts there and hit their mark.

JETS: Wow!

BC: And get this: Once the astronauts got to the moon, they placed mirrors on the surface. NASA then could send laser beams to the mirrors for precise measurements of distance and, with reverse calculations, determine where all those stars are in relation to the moon.

JETS: You mentioned that in college you minored in religion. Isn’t that kind of an odd combination for someone majoring in physics and computer science?

BC: Remember that a lot of the great scientists had affiliations with the church, like Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. So it’s not a unique combination. I have a very strong faith and am involved in my church. I believe there’s a bigger plan and my faith helps keep everything in perspective. When it’s all said and done, we’re put here on earth to help each through life and our gifts and talents should be focused for that goal.