About

.

Bob graduated with a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering degree (with a minor in physics) from the University of Delaware in 1974 and went to work for E I DuPont in their corporate engineering division. His major assignments were in the mechanization of DuPont's plants where Bob developed industrial control systems for a variety of applications. After 10 years of various assignments Bob was transferred to DuPont's Glasgow Site where he worked in the Printing & Publishing, Medical Diagnostics, and later the Medical Imaging Departments. In 1997 DuPont sold their Medical Divisions to Sterling Diagnostic Imaging. In 2000 Agfa bought Sterling and the workforce was reduced from 500 to 30. As Bob had sufficient service and age he was retired with a pension. Bob now does product safety and EMC compliance consulting, writes industrial control software for programmable logic controllers, maintains several web sites in addition to www.StanleyMotorCarriage.com, as well as maintains several small-business computer systems.  Bob also teaches part time at Delaware Technical and Community College.

Bob's major hobby is steam; both steam locomotives and steam cars.  His special interest is Stanley Steam Cars.  Until 2002 Bob maintained a diesel engineer's certificate, steam locomotive fireman's certificate, and conductor's certificate for the Wilmington & Western Railroad, which is a local steam tourist railroad.  As a second hobby, Bob maintains an active interest in theatre pipe organs and maintains several private residence installations as needed.  Bob has a small instrument in his townhome and he is associated with the Dickinson Theatre Organ Society.

Bob's other accomplishments include two books; The Programmable Controller Handbook and Red Clay Valley Rails published in 1992 and both out of print at this time.  He has a patent (robotic sampler - patent number 4,816,730 ) and a Professional Engineer's license for the State of Delaware (number 5589).  Bob also enjoys astronomy, the space sciences, and photography.

	The Programmable Controller Handbook was published in 1985 by Haden Publishing and served as an educational textbook.  It was the first technical book ever published which described programmable logic controllers in detail from both a hardware as well as a software programming perspective.  Programmable logic controllers are computer-based industrial controllers using relay ladder logic symbology as the programming language.  Over 40,000 copies of the 800-page book were printed during the five years it was in print.  Newer books on the subject and major changes to industrial automation devices made The Programmable Controller Handbook obsolete and too extensive to revise.   Used copies can be found on the internet.
While working for DuPont's Thermal Analysis business, Bob led a team in the development of the first automated sampling device for differential scanning calorimetric (DSC) measuring equipment.  The basis for the patent was the autosampler's technology that allowed it to know how much force to apply in picking up aluminum foil sample pans the diameter of a pencil eraser as well as heavy, half-dollar sized lids for covering the DSC sample chamber.  DSC measures temperatures and heat flows associated with thermal transitions in materials.  DSC finds application for investigating, selecting, and comparing the performance of research, quality control and production materials. Properties which can be measured by DSC experimentation include glass transitions, "cold" crystallizations, phase changes, melting characteristics, crystallization, product stability, cure times and cure kinetics, and oxidative stability. DuPont later sold the division which now is known worldwide as TA Instruments.
	As a result of his activities with the Wilmington & Western Railroad Bob wrote a definitive history of the Red Clay Valley.  The Wilmington & Western Rail Road was chartered in 1869 in both Delaware and Pennsylvania and connected Landenberg, Pennsylvania with Wilmington, Delaware.  Later the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (now part of CSX Transportation) purchased the line and it became known as the Landenberg Branch.  When the branch line was filed for abandonment after a steady decrease in freight traffic, Historic Red Clay Valley, Incorporated purchased the 64-acres of right-of-way in 1982 continuing their steam tourist railroad operations which occurred on weekends since the early 1960s.  As Delaware's 10th most popular tourist attraction Red Clay Valley Rails tells the story of the many industries that were along the Red Clay Creek in the 1800s.

BACK         FORWARD

© 2004 www.StanleyMotorCarriage.com