This profile originally appeared in the Fall 2012 issue of Bowdoin magazine.

Bowdoin Major: Physics

Hometown: Harpswell, Maine

Title: Managing Director Emeritus, Institute of Noise Control Engineering. Former senior engineer at IBM. Managing editor of Noise/News International.

Website: www.inceusa.org

Biggest professional accomplishment: Probably being a founder of the Institute of Noise Control Engineering 40 years ago, and being recognized for several accomplishments by election to the National Academy of Engineering in 1998. More recently, I led an effort to produce a report titled “Technology for a Quieter America” on behalf of the National Academy of Engineering and published by the National Academies Press in 2010.

Something that most people don’t know about the INCE: Actually, most people don’t know anything about INCE/USA. It would be good if more people knew that if there is a noise problem, a board-certified member of INCE/USA is in the best position to solve it.

Greatest influence: Two MIT professors (I have four MIT degrees after Bowdoin), Leo Beranek and Uno Ingard. I still see them from time to time. They both had outstanding careers in acoustics and noise control.

Best movie you’ve seen all year: Probably The King’s Speech.

Favorite Bowdoin memory: The “hat on the steeple” trick. In 1948, tradition had it that all freshman hazing was off if a class could place a freshman hat on a steeple of the chapel. Climbing up to do it meant automatic expulsion. My role (with Linwood Morrell) was to procure a weather balloon in Augusta so that a group of fellow ATOs could float the hat to the south tower. I couple of years ago, retired physics professor Guy Emery showed me a yellowed clipping of the event from the Bowdoin Orient. It was said that the trick had last been performed by Donald MacMillan in 1898. Recently, found an old Orient article online that described what he did and why. He climbed up.