I wish to offer my heartfelt condolences to the family of Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith will always be MR. Smith. He is without a doubt the single most influential person in helping shape my life. I came to the Parkland Micro Precision program in 1975 after serving six years in the USAF working on ICMBs. Mechanics had been my first love, and the program at Parkland completely captured my heart and attention. Mr. Smith treated everyone with great respect and had a way getting the most and best out of each student. He was a leader by his example of hard work, intense study, unparalleled skills and the mindset that anything is possible.
I went on to have a 35 year career in computer hardware engineering. My specialty was in the design and fabrication of micro miniature magnetic recording transducers. I routinely worked with dimensions in the micron and submicron range, and with tolerances of under one millionth of an inch. I got to operate machines costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. I traveled to Japan, Singapore and China to teach them the tools, techniques and processes to make the new designs. I was involved in the design of over 15 generations of magnetic recorders, and along that path, we shipped over $2 billion in new products. By these products, we were able to create hundreds of jobs in the USA, and thousands of manufacturing jobs in Asia. I was always building the next new thing, which means I was building what we did not already know how to build. I was often asked to help fix problems in other areas of the product or business, often because of the way Mr. Smith had taught us how to find the true source of the underlying problem. The world of the small and very small is a wonderful place, and Mr. Smith will live on through all the doors that he opened to me and to his other students. Well done Mr. Smith. You will be missed.
Richard Milo,
Six Sigma Master Black Belt
Six Sigma Master Black Belt of Design
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