Appendix C
Jesse from many points of view
The following is a reproduction of Jesse Yoder’s homepage, which appears on the Flow Research website at http://www.flowresearch.com/. You can see updates to this homepage by visiting this website.
Contents
Work Information
Job Description
I work at Flow Research, where I serve as Research Director. Flow Research is a market research company dedicated to researching flow and temperature products. We look at existing products and evaluate them, along with the companies that make them. We are also researching new methods of sensing and measuring flow and temperature. To do this, we use the flow and temperature lab, which is located onsite at Flow Research.
Key responsibilities
As Research Director, I am in charge of selecting market research topics and writing custom and off-the-shelf studies. My first study for Flow Research, on temperature sensors and transmitters, took a year to write. My next study was a worldwide infrared study. I am also the liaison for Flow Research with Ducker Worldwide, the market research company we are partnering with.
Department or workgroup
Key divisions at Flow Research include:
·
Off-the-Shelf Studies
·
Custom Studies
·
Flowlab
·
Marketing
Favorite Links
Contact Information
E-mail address
Web address
Current Projects
Marketing the Temperature Sensor &
Transmitter study
Marketing the Worldwide Infrared Study
Doing research for the Worldwide
Flowmeter Studies
Further developing circular geometry
Researching new methods to measure
flow & temperature
Setting up the flowlab to begin a
series of tests on primary elements
Writing articles for publication
Biographical Information
I was born in Grantsville, Maryland, a small Mennonite
community near Cumberland, Maryland.
When I was five, I moved with my parents to Harrisonburg, Virginia. I lived there till I was 18, attending grade
school, then Eastern Mennonite High School (EMHS). In high school, my favorite subjects were math, history, and
journalism. I was on the high school
tennis and ping-pong teams.
After graduating from high school, I moved with my parents
to Washington, DC. Before starting
college, I worked at 1730 K St. NW in Washington DC for AT&T as a mail
clerk. I left this job in 1968 to work
fulltime in the McCarthy for President campaign. I served as office manager of the national McCarthy for President
campaign office at 815 17ths. St. NW in Washington, DC.
Beginning in 1969, I attended the University of
Maryland. While attending school I
worked for two years as a research assistant to Senator Eugene McCarthy. I graduated in 1973 with Honors in philosophy. In college I spent most of my time studying
philosophy, and took 62 out of 120 hours in philosophy course credits. I also learned to play handball.
After graduating from U. of Maryland, I attended Rockefeller
University in New York City for two years.
I was in the philosophy PhD program.
There I studied with Donald Davidson, Saul Kripke, Joel Feinberg, and
Harry Frankfurt. I also attended
courses at Princeton University. I left
after two years when the philosophy department was closed by the university.
After leaving Rockefeller University, I took some time off
from graduate school. I spent some time
working for Maryland Action, a consumer organization in Maryland that promotes
lower utility rates. After that I
attended Computer Learning Center in Springfield, Virginia. I took a fulltime 6 ˝ month computer
programming course, learning Cobol, Fortran, Assembly, & RPG.
Beginning in 1978, I relocated to Massachusetts, where I
transferred to the philosophy PhD program at the University of Massachusetts
Amherst. I spent six years at U. of
Mass. Completing my PhD. After 2 ˝
years of course work, I moved to Boston to work fulltime. I completed my dissertation in three years
while working fulltime at Commercial Union Insurance Cos. and Wang Labs. I wrote my dissertation in philosophy of mind, proposing a new
solution to the mind-body problem. I
received my PhD in 1984.
After receiving my PhD, I continued working at Wang Labs for
another year. In 1985 I left Wang Labs
to teach technical writing in the English Department at Northeastern University
in Boston, Massachusetts. I also served
as coordinator for the graduate level technical writing certificate program.
In 1986, I left Northeastern University to start my own
company, Idea Network. I started Idea
Network as a copying and wordprocessing company. This lasted about six months.
After six months, I began doing contract technical writing for Siemens
Energy & Automation in Peabody, Mass.
I worked for Siemens for 3 ˝ years, until they moved down to Alpharetta,
Georgia. During this time I wrote
technical manuals and training guides for Siemens’ process control products,
including their programmable logic controllers (PLCs).
Beginning in 1986, I taught philosophy at the University of
Massachusetts Lowell. I taught more
than 20 philosophy courses there from 1986 – 1994, including Introduction to
Philosophy, Philosophy of Science, Philosophy and Technology, and Logic. During this time I served as coordinator of
the technical writing certificate program at the University of Massachusetts
Lowell. I also taught in the graduate
level technical writing certificate program.
During this time, I also approached the Society for
Technical Communication (STC) and the University of Massachusetts Lowell to
jointly sponsor a technical writing conference. They agreed to do this, and we decided to call it the InterChange
Conference, a name that Olga Lauterbach came up with. The first InterChange Conference was held in 1989, and I served
as coordinator. This conference was a
big success, and future conferences were even more successful than the
first. I continued to serve as
coordinator through 1994, after which the conference continued on without
me. In 2001, I have decided to once
again get involved in this conference, in its thirteenth year.
Beginning in 1990, I became bored with technical writing and
switched to market research.
Unfortunately, market research didn’t pay as well at first, but I found
it much more interesting and exciting. I decided to build on my knowledge of process control, writing my
first study on distributed control systems (DCSs). I wrote this study for Market Intelligence Research Corp. of
Mountain View, California. I wrote
three more studies for MIRC, including test equipment and process control. After this, I wrote a study for Frost &
Sullivan on nondestructive test equipment.
As part of this study I hand-tabulated 691 questionnaires received as
part of an enduser survey. I concluded
this study about the time that MIRC bought Frost & Sullivan, retaining the
Frost & Sullivan name but not the methodology. Unfortunately, MIRC did not retain the Frost & Sullivan
analysts.
After leaving Frost & Sullivan, I approached Find/SVP
about doing a series of studies in process control. They agreed to do this.
My initial study was called The World Process Control Market, and was
published in 1994. After this, I wrote
a study of the World Flowmeter market, the World Intelligent Field Device
market, and the World Controllers market.
The worldwide flowmeter study was the best and most successful of these
four studies, and included an extensive enduser survey. After publishing the flowmeter study, my
wife Vicki and I moved to Erwinna, Pennsylvania to be closer to New York City,
where Find/SVP is located. I continued
working for Find/SVP until 1996.
In 1996, I moved back to the Boston, Massachusetts area and
began working for Automation Research Corp.
I was hired in 1996 as a senior analyst in flowmeters and other field devices. While at ARC, I wrote a series of studies,
including European Pressure Transmitters, Worldwide Vortex, Worldwide
Ultrasonic, and Worldwide Pressure. I
also did a series of custom studies in gas flow measurement and published a
number of journal articles in flow and related topics.
I enjoyed working at ARC, and especially like the opportunity to discuss my ideas and study topics with other analysts. I gained a new respect for the practice of serious market research. In addition to this, I made some very close friends at ARC.
I left ARC in 1998 to start a new venture in market
research. I approached a number of
companies with the idea of supporting a series of studies in process control
and instrumentation. I found a
receptive audience in Ducker Worldwide of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. After five months of discussion and
negotiation, Ducker agreed to support a series of off-the-shelf studies in flow
and temperature topics. At this point,
I formed a new business called Flow Research.
I decided on Flow Research rather than Idea Network because it is more
focused on what I really do. I found an
office in Wakefield, Massachusetts and opened up on February 10, 1999.
The first project for Ducker Worldwide was a temperature
transmitter study. After about a month,
I decided to expand this to include temperature sensors and make it a double
study. This required a great deal of
additional work. While there are only a
few dozen temperature transmitter companies, there are hundreds of temperature
sensor companies. Research continued
through December 1999, requiring over 250 supplier interviews. Ducker also did an extensive enduser survey. In the end, I wrote a 640-page study.
With the temperature study behind me, I next wrote a
worldwide infrared study. This study
was completed in November 2000. I am
currently working on a series of six worldwide flowmeter studies. I am also doing some custom work, and am
writing some articles for publication in InTech, Control Engineering, Control
and other magazines and journals.
Personal Interests
·
Circular geometry
·
Philosophy of mind
·
Duonyms
·
Politics
·
CNBC
·
Racquetball & Squash
·
New York Yankees & Washington Redskins
·
Jennifer Anniston
