Carnes named 'Citizen of the Year'

Mercer Business, Feb 01, 1996 by Delany, Don

In choosing Dr. James E. Carnes as its "Citizen of The Year," the Mercer County Chamber of Commerce is honoring a man who for several years has been quietly making significant contributions to the business, scientific, social and educational communities in the area.

As president and chief executive officer of the David Sarnoff Research Center in Princeton, Carnes has been on the cutting edge of some of the most exciting happenings in the world of electronics. He is a pioneer in the field of high definition television; within recent months the Sarnoff Center perfected an HDTV system which promises to open up a new world of television viewing, one with unprecedented clarity of picture and sound.

As a community activist, Carnes has been a leader in promoting the efforts of the United Way to provide the funds the various service agencies in the county need to serve those in need of help and support. Presently chairman of the board of trustees of the United Way of Greater Mercer County, he was an ardent supporter of the 1994 merger of the Princeton Area Communities United Way and the Delaware Valley United Way, a move which has streamlined and improved the efficiency of the United Way's effort throughout the area.

Carnes is deeply involved in the affairs of Rider University and Thomas Edison State College, serving on Rider's board of trustees and on the Edison College Foundation. "Education is the key to our competitiveness and our quality of life as a nation," he believes.

"Education is also a key factor in our business here at Sarnoff," he noted in a recent conversation. "We are a collection of people here, so we're only as good as the people we bring in to the building. And of course those people are only as good as the educational system which trains them."

As a Rider trustee Carnes helps provide advice and oversight for the university's administration. He also helped set up the university's science advisory board and is a past president of that body. "Rider had a very successful business advisory board," he recalled, "and they decided they also wanted to get help from the community for the science department. They contacted me to help form an advisory panel."

His work with Rider has been a learning experience for him, Carnes said. "A lot of problems are common to universities and business," he explained. "We are all struggling with similar kinds of things. So it's nice to get a broad view of how people are addressing those problems."

The Edison College Foundation Board, Carnes pointed out, is seeking to raise an endowment fund, to provide what George Pruitt, the college president, calls the "margin of excellent."

All colleges, Carnes said, are struggling with keeping tuition rates down, with shrinking state funds and the tightening of other resources. "We are trying to create another source of funding, an endowment, from the college's alumni, friends, corporations."

Carnes also recently joined the board of the American Boychoir, the world-renowned boys' chorus whose school is located in Princeton.

After serving as the 1992-93 campaign chairman for the Princeton Area Communities United Way, Carnes joined others in the region in calling for a merger with the Delaware Valley United Way.

"I was vocal in supporting the merger," he says. "I thought it was the right thing to do to make for a more efficient operation." The Princeton area organization, he says, served some 60 agencies, 40 of which were also served by the Delaware Valley group. "We brought them all together, they're not double-served now."

The United Way has lost some of its supporting companies which have moved out of the area, and its base is down, Carnes says. "Our work is cut out for us," he adds. "However, the per capita giving is up substantially. People are giving more. I think they understand the problem."

The "Citizen of The Year" Award will be presented to Carnes at the Chamber's annual dinner on February 28 at the Hyatt Regency.

A native of Hagerstown, Md., Carnes joined RCA Laboratories, the Sarnoff Center's predecessor, in 1969 after earning a degree in engineering science from Penn State University and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Princeton University, and serving four years in the Navy. "I wanted to fly airplanes in the Navy but they wouldn't let me because my eyes weren't good enough," he says.

In 1977 he was assigned to RCA's Consumer Electronics Division in Indianapolis where he held a variety of management positions in integrated circuit design and development and TV advanced development. Five years later he was named division vice president of engineering, at RCA's Consumer Electronics Division. He returned to Princeton in 1987 as vice president, consumer electronics and information sciences research, when Sarnoff became a subsidiary of SRI International, which is headquartered in Menlo Park, Calif.

The Princeton research center almost closed down after General Electric acquired RCA in 1986, Carnes says. "GE already had a big research center in Schenectady. But through the work of several people we became part of SRI International. In April of '87 we essentially went into business for ourselves as an independent research laboratory."