Technology Division

By John Hickey
The Technology Division of West Virginia University at Parkersburg has new programs, new faculty members and a new chairman.

Paul Milhoan, new chairman, said the division is offering this year a new Applied Science Degree in Automotive Technology, which will operate at the PRT Vocational-Technical Center in St. Marys, WV. Prior to this year, he said, because local West Virginia training was not available, West Virginia students attending Washington State Community College’s automotive technician program in Marietta were granted Ohio in-state tuition rates under a reciprocity agreement. But with the new WVUP program now in place, West Virginia students enrolling in the Washington State program would pay a tuition rate twice WVUP's. So the new WVUP/PRT automotive training program is more accessible for most West Virginia students, and much less expensive.

Dr. David Thompson has joined the Technical Division faculty as an Instructor of Engineering-Electronics. This fall he is teaching ELEC105, Direct Current Circuits; ELEC127, Analog Circuits II; ELEC220, Industrial Instrumentation I; and ELEC222, Digital Logic Circuits.

Thompson has studied an extraordinary variety of circuits in his career. Early on as a young musician, to understand the electronics of synthesized sound, he enrolled in WVUP’s Associate in Applied Science program in Engineering-Electronics Technology. He subsequently repaired instruments, became an industrial electrician, a project engineering coordinator, and a control systems analyst and designer. He returned to obtain a West Virginia University Regent’s Bachelor of Arts, earned a Masters in Psychology at Marshall University and then a Ph.D. in Psychology from Columbus University, focusing on perception, information processing, and cross-modal neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to form neural connections in one mode of perception, like hearing, to synthesize information serving another mode of perception, like sight. So his study of the circuitry involved in information processing has taken him from keyboard repair to the neural circuitry of the brain.

He continues to make music. He and faculty member Mark Bruce join four other musicians to form “Too Far Gone,” a group which employs acoustic, electric, and bass guitar, four-part harmonies with two male and two female voices, and Thompson’s keyboards.

He also enjoys restoring and maintaining automobiles (his favorites are German ), motorcycling, carpentry, and babysitting his 4-year-old nephew, Toby.

Thompson’s office hours, at CCAT, are Mondays 12:30-1:30 p.m.; Tuesdays 12:30-2 p.m.; Wednesdays and Thursdays 10:30-noon; and Mondays through Thursdays 9-9:30 a.m. Thompson can be reached at dave.thompson@mail.wvu.edu and by phone at (304) 424-8251.

Tom Lemon has joined the Technical Division as Instructor of Maintenance Technologies and Coordinator of WVUP’s Industrial Maintenance program and of the new Multi-Craft Technician program. This fall he is teaching IM121 / MTEC130, on bearings and lubrication; M223 / MTEC232, Wood Technology, on power saws, jointers, sanders, routers, wood joints, gluing, and finishes; IM233 / MTEC136, on pumps and seals; IM234 / MTEC132, on fluid mechanics and hydraulics; and MTEC140, Pipefitting.

Lemon joins WVUP after twenty years in the U.S. Air Force, where he was a Master Instructor Flight Chief, training dozens of the Air Force Crew Chiefs who now keep our aircraft flying around the world. He brings to WVUP an expectation of a high level of professionalism, coming from an arena where an understanding of materials and technologies and a firm grasp of design and maintenance principles are essential for the survival of airborne equipment and human beings.

He related a story that brought this home. On an Air Force base where Lemon was Flight Chief of a Field Training Detachment, an E-6 Lead Technician was called in at 5 a.m. to work on a giant C-17 transport. The sergeant had not been trained by Lemon and had not been trained on this particular aircraft, but his E-6 rank gave him the credentials to do maintenance on the C-17, whose problem was that a hydraulic “spoiler,” one of twelve four-foot-high panels that rise from the wing during landings to act as a speed-brake, was stuck in the up position. The spoiler had not retracted into its well to be ready for the next flight. The sergeant climbed into the well and disconnected the electrical line energizing the hydraulic equipment. It was a fatal mistake. The sergeant’s credentials as Lead Technician had not required the training that would have told him to work on the spoiler from under the wing, and would have saved his life. He had not been trained in the basic principle that electrically powered equipment on aircraft is designed to mechanically return to flight position on power loss.

The victim of poor training in this case was the mechanic, but it often is a business or individual man, woman or child who suffers loss of time or money or even loss of life when maintenance is poorly done. Lemon aims to train technicians to understand what they’re working on and to know industry standards, so that not only individual jobs are done well, but a consistent maintenance regime is achieved.

Lemon’s office hours, at Room 0112, are Mondays 2-4 p.m. and Thursdays 12-3 p.m. Lemon can be reached at tom.lemon@mail.wvu.edu and by phone at (304) 424-8394.