048 Harlow, James
James H. Harlow
Perhaps the place for me to start is in the 10th grade. I’ve always considered myself to be fortunate to have decided at that early age what I would want to do as a life career – be an electrical engineer. After LAHS, I attended Lafayette College and graduated in 1960.
Whoops, I’m already way ahead of myself. Classmate Bob Peirce introduced me to my future bride, Pat, (Thanks, Bob!) in 1957 and we were married in1959. A little arithmetic says we’ve been married now for 46 years – oh, I’m ahead of myself again.
After graduating from Lafayette I served in Uncle Sam’s army. That was an experience I’d do again, but I’d also get out again after the two years. Then I moved to Milwaukee where I started a career of 28 years with Allis-Chalmers. After several twists and turns Allis-Chalmers was acquired by Siemens, the huge German conglomerate and supplier to the electric power industry. As is often the case with the staff of such companies, we moved around the country--in our case from Wisconsin to Alabama and then to Mississippi. I left Siemens in 1984 to take a position with a much smaller company in Largo, Florida. In all of these locations I was involved with management of product design and development. I also earned an MBA and MSEE degrees at night school. In 1996 I hung up the day job in favor of independent consulting. Now I’m not retired; I’m not even semi-retired; I’m semi-working.
So what else? Of course you all remember my prowess on the LAHS track team. What!! You don’t?? Well, it was somewhat less than stellar, if you consider that I never so much as placed in the first three in any race. So I’ve done penance ever since as a lifelong jogger. I had one trophy in-hand in a 10K race but promptly lost that to an error in scoring. I figure I’m 0 for 100 in running awards. Ho-hum.
Career wise, I’ve been very active in professional activities. My line has been heavy electrical power apparatus, such as that used in utility substations. For me the pinnacle was serving my professional society as Vice President of Technical Activities. I was also chairman of the committee which writes the national standards for transformers, ranging from the largest in substations down to those on the pole or pad in front of your house. Don’t let me catch you mumbling that they’re ugly – they are beautiful! Any of you who have $90 will want to buy my book: Electric Power Transformer Engineering. Go for it.
Pat and I are very proud of our three children and six grandchildren. We’re the old ones in the upper right of the picture. We moved back to Alabama four years ago, but still have a condo for winter in the Tampa Bay area. In Alabama we are adjacent to a National Preserve where I now enjoy long-ish day hikes – no more jogging. Life and health remain good.