Oregon native John Howard went from being a disinterested math scholar to taking part in a necessary position in creating the USB (Common Serial Bus), attributing a lot of his profession alternatives to his reference to Oregon Tech. John grew up in Beatty, Oregon, a small city east of Klamath Falls. As a scholar at Bonanza Excessive College, John was a mean scholar. He and his brothers have been extra thinking about taking part in sports activities, so proper out of highschool, John enrolled at Oregon Tech to play soccer. After one 12 months on the Klamath Falls campus, he observed most of his buddies have been working, getting cash, shopping for automobiles, and doing the issues John needed to be doing. John left college and joined his high-school buddies working for a logging railroad for just a few years. When the logging trade skilled monetary points, although, John grew to become sad with the evolution to “part-time” employment. John returned to highschool, influenced by a good friend who was graduating from the pc sciences division at Oregon Tech. That good friend was Calvin Caldwell, who grew to become a professor at Oregon Tech and nonetheless teaches there at present!
John returned to Oregon Tech at age 21 and enrolled within the Laptop Software program Engineering Know-how program. After his break from faculty, the primary couple of phrases have been tough, however John was decided to focus and reconnect. As John jokingly explains, he “was not the sharpest pencil within the field,” however he persevered with the assistance of professors and classmates. One among John’s professors really helpful him for an internship as a technical author at Tektronix in Vancouver, WA the summer time after his junior 12 months. That internship not solely assured him a job after commencement, however the firm additionally paid for his senior 12 months of faculty. John feels that Oregon Tech’s sturdy status helped that develop into a actuality.
After graduating from Oregon Tech in 1985, John labored at Tektronix for a 12 months and began his grasp’s diploma in Laptop Engineering on the solely establishment providing graduate levels in laptop science on the time, Oregon Graduate Institute of Science and Know-how (a part of the OHSU academic system). Many OIT alumni went by means of the graduate program collectively on the similar time. Fellow Oregon Tech alumnus John Keith was working at Intel on the time. By this connection, Intel employed John as a software program technician to work on a collaborative undertaking known as the Gemini Venture between Intel and Siemens, doing groundbreaking work, creating a very new fault-tolerant laptop system. After that undertaking, John transferred to Sequent Computer systems as a firmware engineer earlier than returning to Intel. He credit his alumni connections at Intel for the chance to return, this time as a {hardware} engineer on the primary era reminiscence controller for the P6 (Pentium Professional) processor.
A couple of years later, John was recruited to work on a brand new undertaking at Intel, creating the USB, one thing he has labored on for a few years. John’s work on the USB has earned him many patents. His service with the trade consortium that labored on the USB (Intel and 6 different corporations) offered him expertise with technical management of trade requirements working teams. He collaborated with top-notch laptop architects from throughout the trade on USB {hardware} and software program, led workgroups, created processes round equity and voting, and extra. John has been lucky to contribute to all generations of USB (they’re as much as USB4 now). John designed the {hardware}/software program interfaces for the primary two generations of USB host controller (UHCI and EHCI) and was the technical lead for the software program stack for the primary commercially accessible USB merchandise primarily based on the UHCI. John additionally co-led the software program group creating the USB compliance instruments. He was the lead architect for Licensed Wi-fi USB and developed the protocol structure used within the definition for Media-Agnostic USB. For USB 3.0, John authored the structure chapter within the specification and transitioned to a mentor position for the technical workgroups and continues to take part in USB associated requirements actions.
At the moment, John works on enter/output (I/O) initiatives as an I/O Architect for Intel. As a senior technical chief, he enjoys spending a few third of his time mentoring junior engineers. When describing his colleagues and the initiatives he works on, he says, “I can’t consider I receives a commission for doing this! It’s simply enjoyable!” Whereas John acknowledges the challenges and studying curves all through the years, he additionally completely enjoys the method. He ponders the concept of educating after retirement on this subject that he enjoys a lot.
When not working, which is seldom, John enjoys spending time together with his spouse, Oregon Tech Civil Engineering alumna Kim Roske ‘85, and their collegiate son and daughter. He advises Oregon Tech college students that “arduous work and integrity take you a great distance within the trade.” He additionally explains that “each job that I’ve had in my profession has been both immediately or not directly attributed to alumni from OIT. Alums are essential!”
In recognition of his accomplishments creating the USB, John was not too long ago awarded the 2022 Scientific Achievement award at Oregon Tech. Congrats to John! We’re proud to name you and your spouse alumni of Oregon Tech.
