September, 2000

It appears that some faculty are real gluttons for punishment. Or perhaps they have a penchant for standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the instance of Professor Al Pisano, maybe it's a little of both. Why? This summer Al Pisano accepted a five-year appointment as the Director of the Electronics Research Laboratory (ERL) with an effective starting date of 16 August 2000. The ERL is the largest organized research unit on the UCB campus, with a total annual budget of nearly $57 million and a total annual payroll of over $3.4 million. But is Al abandoning his research life at the Berkeley Sensor & Actuator Center? Definitely not. Read on to find out why!

The ERL is one of the nation's prestigious research organizations with over one hundred and ten affiliated faculty and over five hundred graduate student researchers, all distributed over nine different campus departments. The ERL has seen a great deal of growth over the past few years with a near doubling of its total annual budget from 1992 through 1999. As one might imagine, such growth causes institutional "growing pains" and Al is sure to be busy helping to alleviate them.

The mark of a well-run research administrative unit is for its function to be smooth enough that it is not perceived by its research sponsors. And so it probably surprises Al's research sponsors (the industrial members of BSAC and several government program managers) that the famed Berkeley Microfabrication Lab, as well as BSAC itself, have the ERL as their parent organization. In fact, BSAC staff are actually ERL employees. Even the BSAC students are paid through the ERL payroll.

The ERL has five main divisions, of which BSAC is one of the largest. Aside from the Berkeley Sensor & Actuator Center (BSAC) there are the Berkeley Wireless Research Center (BWRC), the Giga Scale Research Center (GSRC), the Berkeley Northside Research Group (BNRG) and the Micro Systems Group (MSG), as well as several support divisions for grant administration, payroll and purchasing. The ERL bears federal audit responsibility for all contracts and grants. Should NSF or DARPA audit a contract, it will be Al himself, along with ERL Management Services Officer Renate Valencia and ERL Business Manager Noel Nice, (backed by a staff of seasoned and able ERL administrators) who will face the auditors -- not the faculty listed on the grant as the Principal Investigator.

The Director of the ERL enjoys a broad perspective view over a wide range of research efforts. This makes for great education and much excitement, and so Al feels that there is substantial reward for shouldering the administrative responsibilities placed on the ERL Director. To manage the ERL workload, yet keep his research active, Al has partitioned his day. Most mornings, typically from 7:00 a.m. through Noon, are spent at ERL in the Directors office in 253 Cory Hall. Afternoons are typically spent in the Etcheverry Hall office, formulating research strategy, advising graduate students and thinking of all things BSAC.

It may be a bit of a marathon, but Al gets superb help along the way. The ERL Director has staff dedicated to running ERL and managing both Al's schedule and correspondence. The quiet of Al's research office, secluded in Etcheverry Hall is conducive to the scientific and technical innovation required to keep Al's research program alive and well.

Al feels he can't play any favorites among the divisions of ERL and grant BSAC any particular favoritism over the other divisions of ERL. But is should help BSAC nonetheless to have someone who experiences the administration from both sides. Al will get to experience (as a BSAC researcher) both the positive and negative ramifications of Al's decisions (as the ERL Director) regarding administrative policies. Al's colleagues at BSAC are all pleased to have Al at the helm of the ERL. The BSAC industrial members are all welcome to congratulate (as well as offer condolences to) Al. Let's all wish him good luck in this endeavor.

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