P. Michael Henderson
Continued

I also got into restoring old Porsches (that's a two syllable word- Por sha).  I really got involved in the one shown here, a '65 911.  I took everything off the car and had the body dipped to get the paint and rust off it.  Welded a new floor pan on it, painted it and put everything back together.  Never again!! [You can see the whole process here.]

In about 1988, AT&T bought Paradyne and we became AT&T Paradyne.  Feeling that I had gone as far as I could at AT&T Paradyne, I accepted a position with Rockwell Semiconductor Systems in southern California (California truly is a paradise) in 1996 (we bought a house at 12450 Butler Way in Tustin) and was very involved in the creation of the 56Kbps dial modem that you probably use with your computer.  I wrote a very popular paper explaining the 56Kbps technology which got posted all over the web.  Do a search on my full name and you'll still find it, or look on my web site.

I also did some pioneering work on "splitterless DSL" which eventually found its way into an international standard, G.992.2.  I received a patent on the technology.

In 1998, Rockwell spun us off as a separate company known as Conexant.  Continuing that trend, the Conexant division I was a part of spun off from Conexant as a new company known as Mindspeed Technologies.  As part of Mindspeed, I worked on a number of interesting technologies including voice over DSL, but primarily on optical communications, including SONET/SDH.  If you’re interested in the subject, I have a few white papers on my web site.

Although I really enjoyed my job and felt I was doing good work, I got caught in the 2001 “tech wreck” and was laid off from Mindspeed in March.  Fortunately, I was able to get another job in the same area very quickly and am now working for TDK Semiconductor, doing essentially the same thing I was doing at Mindspeed.

On the technical front, I have twenty-five US patents issued and several more in process [Update 2020: I wound up with 32 US patents.]  I didn’t receive my first patent until after I was age 50 but seem to have done some of my best technical work after that age.

Along the way, I’ve traveled to many of the countries of the world, including Russia (Moscow and St. Petersburg), China (Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hong Kong), Japan (Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, and Sanda), most of Europe, and all over the US and Canada.  Conexant has a subsidiary in Israel and I had the opportunity to visit Israel several times.  On one of those trips, in January 2000, I allowed extra time and was able to visit Jerusalem and many of the holy sites in the area, including Bethlehem (which is in the West Bank).  I really recommend a trip to that part of the world if you’ve never been there - but maybe not right now with the intifada going on.  Here's a picture of Jerusalem viewed from the Mount of Olives and one of the Wailing Wall.

Another very interesting place to visit in that part of the world is Istanbul.

As often as possible, Norma has accompanied me on my travels.  In 1999 I made a technical presentation at a conference in London.  Norma came with me and, in addition to doing the London tourist thing, we took the Chunnel train to Paris and spent a week running around Paris.  I still remember some French, enough to make myself understood, although I have trouble understanding when they speak so fast.  We stayed in the La Defense area, close to the Grand Arch, shown below.

In 2000, I had a week of meetings in Maui and Norma joined me again.  We’ve also begun to succumb to the “old age travel” of ship cruises, enjoying the ability to visit many places without having to pack and unpack.  Here we are in Moscow in 1995  and on a Mediterranean cruise in 1998.

We’re now at the age where we’re beginning to think about retiring, but I don’t know if I could take it.  I enjoy the work I do, the technical challenges, and the travel that comes with it – waking up in the morning without an agenda would be strange and challenging.  I’d like to do volunteer work with high school students who are planning to study engineering or physics in college, and have written a paper called “Differential Equations for High School Students” which is also on my web site www.michael-henderson.us.   And take a look at the “about” page – I put some “cute” effects on that page.

Well, that’s a life in a few pages.  It’s been interesting and exciting.  And being an optimist, I always believe the best is yet to be.