IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - September 2021 - 88

" Bottles " of Champagne. " All the first
ten presidents [5], and others, were
present for the celebration. It was the
beginning of a grand journey; for all
of us.
PELS is one of the fastest growing
societies of IEEE. For more than twenty
years, PELS, and its members, have
been a corner stone enabling the development
and innovation in power electronics
technology. The ability to re -
condition and restructure the voltage
and frequency of electrical energy with
smaller and more efficient devices, has
contributed to the exponential growth
and availability of new electronic de -
vices and power drives. In1988, the
IEEE Power Electronics Council was
elevated to a Society. Additionally, two
technical events, the Power Electronics
Specialists Conference, (PESC), and
the Applied Power Electronics Conference
and Exposition, (APEC), added to
the growth of the society. PELS is dedicated
to promoting and supporting the
vital scientific and educational aspects
of power electronics and its applications.
One of its primary goals is keeping
its members around the world up to
date on the state-of-the-art technological
developments and advances in
power electronics research. Power
electronics is the enabler, the middleman
between " the source of electrical
power " and the " load using it. " It processes
and, reconditions battery, solar
cells, wind power, diesel generator and,
utility power sources and supplies it to
computers and, telecommunications
equipment, mass transportation, industrial
and commercial systems, medical
devices and, space vehicles and more.
FIG 3 2 February 1988, Prof. John G. Kassakian talking to late Prof. Tom Wilson and
a member of the Power Electronics Council during a break from CPES conference.
Source: Pierre Thollot.
FIG 4 An astronaut invited to speak at the 1976 PESC conference banquet dinner.
88 IEEE POWER ELECTRONICS MAGAZINE z September 2021
PELS Conferences:
PESC and APEC
The IEEE Power Electronics Magazine
has published two history articles on
the evolution of PESC and APEC [3],
[4]. Anyway, my recollections take me
to my early years at NASA. During
those days researching for up to-date
information was a challenge. In the
early to mid-60s, engineers and academics
came together to make it easier
for those working in the field to find
each other and to share each other's
work and results. Two of these early
visionaries were Henry Oman of Boeing
and Thomas Wilson of Duke University.
Prof. Wilson had been working
with NASA's Goddard Space Flight
Center on research for lightweight
spacecraft power systems, and Oman
was working on power systems for aircraft
at the Boeing Company. Both
these futurists were active in the IEEE,
Prof. Wilson was with the IEEE Magnetics
Society and Oman with the IEEE
Aerospace and Electronics Systems
Group. As fortune would have it, I was
working at NASA Lewis Research Center
in Cleveland, Ohio at that time. So, I
contacted Prof. Wilson several years
later and negotiated a separate grant
for Duke University. Getting to know
and working with him for some 30
years thereafter. He was the professor
who granted Fred Lee his Ph.D. Prof.
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