We have contacted numerous ex-cadets from the fifties through to the new millennium and plan to feature them in the coming months to give readers a chance to catch up with names and faces from each of the respective CMCs. If you would like to contribute to this column, please feel free to email me (Ken Eady) at s25247@rmc.ca
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Seven of the twelve Chemical Engineers to graduate in 1969…
Forty Years Later
Reunion Weekend 2009
(LtoR) Bill Andrews; Harry Mohr; Bob MacLeod; Fletcher Thompson; Ken Malyon, Brian Fritsch and Bill Gard
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– 7164 Micheal Evans ( CMR RMC 1967)
I went into RC Sigs and ended up being posted back to St Jean to study French again and then to 3R22eR in Valcartier to do winter warfare and occupy Montreal during the civil disturbance of 1969.
I got out and went backpacking in Europe but like a good cadet I had done some prior planning and the qualification tests for MBA, law, and grad school so when that palled I came back to Queen’s to do an M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering. I considered switching into computing science but decided there was no future in it and switched instead into medicine at Queen’s.
In medicine I couldn’t decide between neurology and psychiatry so I ended up doing them both, finishing up neurology and then doing a fellowship in europhysiology at Baylor in Houston, Texas.
I was interested in evoked potentials which are essentially the electrical engineering of the nervous system. The older electroencephalography is passively recording brain electrical activity. It’s like trying to figure out what’s wrong with a car’s engine by listening to it without opening the hood. With evoked potentials you stimulate a particular pathway in the nervous system, say with an electric shock to a nerve, and evoke an electrical signal that moves up the spinal cord to the brainstem and brain while you record it at each level. You can do the same with sound and sight stimuli. You can actually record and measure simple memories and decisions.
I moved to the Tampa Bay area of Florida where I did clinical neurology, ran a neurophysiology lab doing evoked potentials, and taught neurology at the University of South Florida.
I went into private practice with a multispecialty medical clinic in Largo, Florida. We built that up from a fifty to a hundred-and-fifty doctor group and then sold it in 1995 to a large national corporation. We then became part of the Wall Street medical management bubble of the late 1990s when our corporation was in turn acquired by another corporation which was about to be acquired by yet another corporation when the bubble burst and the deal collapsed. Eventually we bought the clinic back.
Evoked potentials began to be used to monitor brain and ear and back surgery. Instead of doing them once to see if the pathway worked we started doing them hundreds of times during the course of a surgery to make sure the pathway wasn’t damaged. The internet made it possible to look at the data remotely in real time and turn this minor academic technique into a telemedicine business. Four years ago I joined a company like this. Now I sit in my home office in Dunedin, Florida, and look at six computer monitors with brain waves sent over the internet from patients on operating tables all around the country.
Mike can be contacted at mbevansmd@hotmail.com
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– 9098 Ken Hague (CMR RMC 1972)
Remained in the CF for 28 years following graduation. Service included commanding 2 RCHA, Deputy Base Commander at CFB Gagetown, a tour with UNPROFOR in Croatia, and Commandant RMC. Retired to Vancouver in 2000 and became involved with United Way of the Lower Mainland as a volunteer for the 2000 fundraising campaign and hired in April 2001 as a fundraiser. Retired from United Way in July 2008 as Vice President Resource Development. Currently living in Abbotsford, BC on the 6th hole of Ledgeview Golf Course with wife Wendy and dog McDuff, and golfing full time.
Ken can be contacted at golfers236@shaw.ca
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– 14413 David Deere (RMC 1984)
After RMC grad and earning his wings in ‘84, David served 5 years flying the CF-18 with 441 Tactical Fighter Squadron in Cold Lake and Desert Cats during the ’91 Gulf War. This was followed by 3 years with 419 Tactical Fighter Training Squadron flying the CF-5 Freedom Fighter. His career in the CF was capped by serving 2 years with 431 Snowbirds Air Demonstration team. David left the Air Force via the FRP program in 1996 to begin his civilian flying career. Extending the air show circuit, he flew an unlimited class Extra 300 for 2 years with the Northern Lights Aerobatic Team throughout Canada, USA, China and Thailand. In 1998 he elected to settle in one location and joined the airline industry. He began as a First Officer with Canadian Regional on the Fokker F-28 and then moved to his present company WestJet in 2000. David is now a seven-year Captain with WestJet and has accepted a senior standards position in the Flight Operations Technical department. He is presently responsible for managing Communication, Navigation and Surveillance issues between Flight Operations and the Nav Service Providers and state regulators (Nav Canada, Transport Canada and FAA). In addition, David flies regular test flights and manages the RNP (Required Navigation Performance) program – an advanced high performance GNSS technology in which WestJet is the world leader. He resides in the Alberta foothills with his wife Kristine and two young children. David spends most of his recreational time in the mountains biking, hiking and running through the trails.
David can be contacted at ddeere@westjet.com
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