Senior electrical engineer, L-3 Communications Sonoma EO (Healdsburg, Calif.)

Several of us at IIT [Illinois Institute of Technology] in 1971-1975 were known as the "Very EEs." Electrical engineering had become a passion for us long before graduation; that's never changed. We'd design projects and build them. Amateur radio, music electronics, stereos, that sort of stuff.

When I got to Hewlett-Packard, they still had the "next bench" syndrome [where design ideas are passed on to the "next bench" for a colleague's evaluation]. The nice thing at HP is that we had engineering resources at our disposal that were hard to match. We'd ask for something, and the next day we got it. By '89, the pressures got more intense. With Bill and Dave gone, I'm fortunate to have left when I did.

My job can be frustrating. If it was too easy, they wouldn't be paying me this much. My raise was about 3.5 percent last year, slightly above average for our company. Considering I'm near the top of my pay grade, I'm pleased they could do it.

I care more about the educational system since my wife and I adopted four children from Kazakhstan. The second-oldest child wants to be an engineer. As a parent, I get to shape the lives of my kids. As a designer, I have even more influence over my designs and products.

I really enjoy the opportunity to create something that makes a difference, whether it's the telephone system for Indonesia or a family of test and measurement systems at HP that took back a large share of the market for them. The sensors for the unmanned Predator come from us. Performance is everything.

After 9/11, someone put up a huge American flag on the wall here. In October or November of that same year, bin Laden's second in command got a missile down the throat aimed by one of our camera systems. The now-famous videotape zooms right in on the Model 14 gimbal, with the name Versatron Corp. [a predecessor company] and our address [clearly visible].

That day and every one since, we've kept the doors locked.

— 2005 State of the Engineer "Voices from the field" are based on interviews with David Roman.