TCNJ

22 The College of New Jersey Magazine In 1971, Allen Katz was tapped to help launch an ambitious new engineering program at Trenton State College that merged hands-on learning with rigorous technical training. There was just one hitch: The program's budget didn't quite match its big dreams. But the young electrical engineer- ing professor — a self-taught amateur radio enthusiast who'd been building his own transmitters since he was 13 years old — was undeterred. The lack of funding was less a problem than a puzzle to be solved. Over the next few years, Katz sent out stacks of grant applications and collaborated with colleagues to rewrite the curriculum to fit a new vision. He arranged for students to use the machine labs at Mercer County Community College, sometimes driving them over himself. And he dreamt up inspired hacks to conduct high-level classes, once instructing students to solder together empty tin cans collected from the dining hall for a lesson about radio waves. "Engineering is making things work and solving problems and figuring out how to put the pieces together," Katz says. "It's exciting if I can take some- thing that is already there and turn it into something that is more valuable." More than 50 years later, TCNJ's School of Engineering is defined by the innovative thinking that Katz modeled for his earliest students. With six majors and an immersive capstone project, the school educates roughly 700 students a year and propels grad- uates toward careers in academia and elite destinations such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and NASA. Katz, who is now TCNJ's longest serving faculty member, resists any credit for the program's success, deflecting praise instead toward cher- ished colleagues across every decade. "We have some really special fac- ulty here," he says. "All along the way, they've been important contributors. The school wouldn't be where it is if it wasn't for them. One person doesn't make it." But Katz's impact on TCNJ is undeniable. Since arriving on campus, his ef- forts to support student success have extended well beyond the walls of his classroom. In 1976, he cofounded what would become the world's first and longest running computer fes- tival to help raise money for TCNJ's burgeoning engineering program. The Trenton Computer Festival, which remains a source of scholarship funds, drew 13,000 visitors to campus at its peak and once featured Bill Gates as keynote speaker. In 1991, Katz invited a handful of students to help him produce elec- tronic components that would allow data to more efficiently reach space satellites. They built early models in the basement workshop of his West Windsor, New Jersey, home and later launched Linearizer Technology, Inc. The company — recently sold for $49 million to Macom, a Massachusetts- based supplier of semiconductor products — has been a vital internship and employment pipeline for TCNJ students and alumni, and has donated more than $285,000 to the School of Engineering. "He's incredibly devoted to TCNJ," says Andrea Welker, dean of the School of Engineering. "He was there from the beginning and helped build the department from nothing. To me, that's his legacy. He took that risk and that opportunity to build something that was long lasting. He stuck with it and here it is." On campus, Katz is an iconic figure, easy to spot in the signature black beret embroidered with his ham radio call sign (K2UYH) that he wears for every occasion. Over the years, he has taught roughly 2,000 students, not only leading them through his notoriously difficult circuits lab, but also hosting ham radio lessons at the On campus, Katz is an iconic figure, easy to spot in the signature black beret embroidered with his ham radio call sign (K2UYH).

• Cover