R. Paul Drake is the Henry S. Carhart Collegiate Professor of Space Science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He has worked as a research physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and had visiting professorships at universities around the United States. He was featured in the BBC’s documentary Hyperspace (2001) and the Discovery Channel’s How the Universe Works (2009). Currently, Dr. Drake is also Director of Center for Radiative Shock Hydrodynamics at the University of Michigan.
Kaizen: How did you become interested in science as a kid?
Drake: I am not sure. I have been interested in how things worked and in doing things connected with understanding and assembling things as long as I can remember. I remember avidly playing with an Erector set, the mechanical precursor of LEGOs. And I remember doing things with a chemistry set at ages when I don’t have a lot of other memories; so for me, it was those kinds of things were interesting to me from the start. Some people have an experience where they get turned on to something that becomes their future. I don’t have that in my background.
James M. Lapeyre, Jr. (Jay), is President and CEO of Laitram, LLC, a diversified global manufacturer of industrial equipment. He is also Board Chairman of ION Geophysical, a NYSE company that provides seismic technology services and solutions to the global energy industry, and past Chairman of the Business Council of New Orleans. After Hurricane Katrina, the Business Council has been a driving force in reform efforts such as consolidating the Regional Levee Boards and the Orleans Parish Assessors, establishing an independent Inspector General, and supporting efforts to improve flood safety, charter schools, and criminal justice.
Kaizen: You grew up in New Orleans?
Lapeyre: Yes. I spent four years in Europe when I was a kid and four years away at college. Otherwise, I’ve lived in New Orleans.
Kaizen: You’ve lived in interesting times, as they say—hurricanes, oil spills, Louisiana politics, and other challenges.
Lapeyre: Those are just the local disasters [laughs]. We also had 9/11 and the economic crisis. But a lot of good things too: the Internet and the fall of the Berlin Wall, so the world is dramatically better today.
In a humorous and inspiring piece in The Wall Street Journal, Scott Adams (creator of the popular Dilbert comic strip) writes that most college students should learn the skills needed to run a business, which will prepare them for post-graduate life. Mr. Adams touches on several of his clever entrepreneurial ideas as a student that allowed him to master “the strange art of transforming nothing into something,” and he gives some excellent advice to burgeoning entrepreneurs.
Also featured in Kaizen are student essay contest winners Sarah Boykin, Shelly Wenzel, and Bethany Borgmann, and guest speakers Michael Strong and Magatte Wade.
A PDF version of Kaizen is available here. We will soon post separately the full interview with Mr. Stack.
If you would like to receive a complimentary issue of the print version of Kaizen, please email your name and postal address to CEE [at] Rockford.edu.
Robert I. Sutton, Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford’s Engineering School, illustrates two “weird ideas that work”. This presentation is based on his book Weird Ideas That Work: 11 1/2 Practices for Promoting, Managing, and Sustaining Innovation, of which a preview is available here.
R. Paul Drake is the Henry S. Carhart Collegiate Professor of Space Science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He has worked as a research physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and had visiting professorships at universities around the United States. He was featured in the BBC’s documentary Hyperspace (2001) and the Discovery Channel’s How the Universe Works (2009). Currently, Dr. Drake is also Director of Center for Radiative Shock Hydrodynamics at the University of Michigan.
