SWE - Winter 2009 - (Page 47) them — 20 years later. They are a large part of why I am up here today. Making it work Just as everything seemed so perfect, along came a base realignment and closure. Army laboratories were being consolidated. I just had my daughter after 17 years of marriage. My husband’s career was soaring. And they wanted me to move. Once again, my husband said, “It’s okay, we’ll make it work.” My move was down to the Washington, D.C., area with the Sensors and Electron Devices Directorate. I knew there was an ARL materials directorate in northern Maryland, and my husband said to me, “I can commute two hours, but I can’t commute four.” With this in mind, I interviewed at ARL’s materials lab and was very lucky; they welcomed me with open arms. I sold myself as a transmission electron microscopist, with the argument that everyone needs someone to look at materials — materials need to be characterized — and they hired me. They actually held the job for two years while I waited for my transfer. And we moved to northern Maryland. When I took the position in the materials directorate, I thought in terms of electronics materials. When I got there, I realized they did a lot in structural materials, in armor and soft materials. This wasn’t my training; it wasn’t my background. So once again, I had to define a job. And I looked around. They had programs on the electromagnetic gun and hybrid vehicles. I had done a lot of work designing metallization for wide-band-gap semiconductors, and this was a key technology for realizing the high-power electric switches required for both the hybrid vehicle and the electric gun. I developed and worked on the program for two years, designing metallization for wide-band-gap semiconductors. By now management didn’t know quite what to do with me. But they were okay with it, as long as projects were moving forward. And then I had a good opportunity with the group that was working with bulk ferroelectric materials to enable electronic scanning antennas for on-the-move commu- Sharing a moment of family pride, from left, Dr. Cole, daughter Alexandria, and husband Bob. Once again, my husband said, “It’s okay, we’ll make it work.” nications systems. My training was in thin films, so I thought I could take this technology into the next generation by making these bulk materials into thin films so that we can have much lighter antennas, higher-performance antennas, and lower-powered antennas. And basically, again, I defined a program. I had overwhelming support from my management in doing this. Trust me, they went through a lot. It was hard. I was working in a materials directorate that wasn’t supposed to be doing electronics, but here I was, doing electronics. That’s usually not the way things go very happily, but it ended up working. And I think it worked because of those three things I told you in the beginning of my talk. First, there are going to be negative motivators. You have to turn them into positives. Second, you’ve got to get over the bad stuff. If you sit and worry and get upset about every bad thing that happens, you are going to be a very unhappy person. The third point is, you should never, never, never give up. I think if you do all these things — and a lot of you women have done it — you will be on that road to happiness and success. You are going to love every day of getting up in the morning and going to your job. As I said, I think you can have it all. But you can’t have it at the same time. I think I am a living example. I got married at the wrong time; finished school at the wrong time; I had my child after 17 years of marriage. But the best thing is — it doesn’t matter how you get there. My unconventional path led me to here, and I wouldn’t change a single minute of it. And I just want to thank you all so much for letting me be here tonight and share my story with you. I am so very honored to receive this award. I thank you so much. I I think you can have it all. But you can’t have it at the same time. SWE WINTER 2009 47
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