Squeaky Wheel . . . and Other Serious Things, The

Sound and Vibration, Jan 2007 by Miller, Laymon N

I grew up in El Paso, TX and went to the the Texas College of Mines and Metallurgy (now UTEP. The University of Texas at El Paso). In those depression yoars, the tuition was $25 per semester plus books and lab fees. I majored in physics and math, had an outstanding teacher in each of those subjects and graduated in the Summer of 1938. I then went to the University of Texas in Austin and had several more outstanding teachers, one being Dr. Paul Boner, noted acoustician even then. But I wasn't into acoustics; I was in electron and atomic physics, and my Master's Thesis was in radioactivity. Somehow that qualified mo to bo sent by the faculty to Dr. F. V. 'Ted' Hunt's Navy Lab, the Underwater Sound Lab at Harvard University in October 1941. just two months before Pearl Harbor. I immediately became immersed in underwater sound - learning about generation, transmission and reception -and in the design, construction and testing of transducers (mostly for acoustic homing torpedoes). At the end of WVV II, that work was moved to the Ordnance Research Lab at Penn State. I worked there until 1954 when I joined Bolt Beranek and Newman in Cambridge, MA. The rest is history, as they say, and some of that is contained in the accompanying article. I retired from BBN as a Principal Consultant at the end of 1981 and we moved to Florida. At the end of my "Squeaky Wheel" story, if you can persevere, I have added what I believe is a very important P.S.

Laymon Miller is a Memberof the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) since 1943 and was elected Fellow in 1056. He is a Member, Institute of Noise Control Engineering (INCE) since 1977 and was board certified in 1993. Laymon was named an Honorary Member, National Council of Acoustical Consultants (NCAC) in 1994. He has been a Contributing Editor to NOISE Newsletter from 1996 to the present, Technical Editor at NOISE Control magazine, 1960-1961 and a Contributing Editor to Sound and Vibration from 1977 to 1098.

I am sure you have beard of it, but we actually saw it - a framed picture in the window of an art gallery. It said boldly:

Now, that might sound like simple homespun philosophy to most people, but not to the guy who has a grease gun in his hand, . . . nor to an acoustician. We went in and bought the framed famous 'slogan.' Later, we made a slide of it, and still later it appeared at one time or another in almost every one of my talks on Noise Control. Well, who was |osh Billings?

That wasn't oven his name! Henry Wheeler Shaw (181H-1885) was an American humorist who became famous under the pen name of Josh Billings. He was born in Massachusetts, and at age 40 moved to Poughkeepsie, NY, as an auctioneer and real estate dealer. He wrote articles for newspapers but they didn't attract very much attention when written in a serious vein. Then, he tried some of his crackerbox stuff and that was popular. Hence, the "squeaky wheel." There were others but this is his best from my point-of-view. My life in acoustics has come across a few squeaky wheels and lots of other noisy devices.

Enter Stealthy Acoustics

It was my first paying job out of college. I wasn't even trained in acoustics, but Tod Hunt and the Navy didn't seem to care. I joined what was to become the Harvard Underwater Sound Lab (HUSL) on October 10, 1941. As submariners would say, "there's been lots of water over the bridge" since then, but we worked diligently, cooperatively, and competitively with Bell Labs and helped develop the acoustic homing torpedo. There were some historic events in those four years, but most of them should remain unsaid, so we will move on. At the end of World War II, Harvard did not want to continue wartime work in peacetime, so our half of the lab was moved to Penn State where we became the Ordnance Research Lab. I was there until 1954, when I received a very important invitation from Leo L. Berannk to come to BBN for an interview.

Enter Bolt Beranek and Newman

I had known Bob Newman when we were graduate students in Physics at the University of Texas, I had known Leo since 1942 when he was Director of the Electro-Acoustics Lab at Harvard, and we knew Dick Bolt as the liaison representative to HUSL from the NDRC/OSRD office in New York. NDRC and OSRD were wartime agencies that brought together the military needs and the engineering and scientific manpower of our country at that time. So, it was a happy reunion in 1954 for me to see those three noted acousticians at that interview. I came (as employee No. 14) and I stayed 27 years - about the most dynamic time of my life. In addition to Bolt. Beranek, and Newman, just imagine the privilege of working with Ira Dyer, Clay Allen, Bill Cavanaugh, (ieorge Kamperman, Ted Schultz, Sam Labato, Warren Blazier, Bob Bruce, Jack Curtis, Jack Purcell, Colin Gordon, Parker Hirtle, Bob Hoover, Eric Wood, Eric Ungar, Ed Kerwin, Karl Kryter, Carl Rosenberg, Istvan Ver, Bill Waters, Francis Wiener, and. while I am name-dropping, how about Walter Rosenblith, 'Lick' Licklider. Ken Stevens, and, yes, lack Mowry! I loft out about a hundred others. One of the best things about working at BBN was that each week we had meetings in which we learned what each other was doing. The sharing of problems and potential solutions made it better for us and our clients. Suppose I name a few of my problems as examples. I will intentionally omit the names of some of the clients and job identifications. Of course, we are all accustomed to normal consulting jobs, so I might mention a few abnormal ones.