About Ken Freed

I've always had an interest in electronics and computers, and I programmed my first mechanical Digicomp computer in the 1960s.

I programmed my first electronic computer, an IBM 1130 in Fortran, as a junior in high school back in 1971.

During high school I became interested in photography (which has long since branched off into today's interest in computer graphics), and I particularly liked darkroom work. My interest in chemistry led to a one year clinical (hospital) lab tech training course after high school, and I received my ASCP-CLA certification in 1973.

Owing to the recession at that time, lab tech jobs were hard to find. I became an apprentice in a machine shop for the next 2 ½ years, helping to make blow molds, injection molds, and some compression molds.

The machine shop experience fostered an interest in engineering, and in 1976 I started college, planning on becoming a mechanical engineer. College awakened my previous interests in chemistry, electronics and computers however - and I wound up getting degrees in chemistry (with a third of the Masters degree coursework completed, concentrating on organic chemistry), chemical engineering and a (near) minor in electrical engineering (concentrating on analog and digital circuits).

During my last 3 years in college, I switched from picking up Saturday machine shop work, to working the weekend shift and holidays as a lab tech at Riverside Hospital (now St. Clare's) where I had trained to be a lab tech a few years earlier. I also took a semester and summer off from college between chemistry and chemical engineering degrees to work for GAF Corp, as a chemical engineering co-op.

After college I joined IBM (in what would eventually become the Microelectronics division) as a way of using both chemical and electronic backgrounds. After a year as a chemical engineer, in 1982 I transferred to IS and went on to become an expert at writing tool interfacing applications to address production and engineering needs. Although my primary focus was on getting the data out of machines and correlating it to (good and bad) product so engineering could figure out what was wrong, the time spent in the lab and machine shop helped give me insight as to the types of things that can easily go wrong in manufacturing. As a result, the software I developed was sought after by manufacturing production operators and managers alike, and wound up branching out into such areas as AGV (automated guided vehicle) robotics, embedded tool control, CAD data preparation for 2D circuit board image photolithography, and MES (manufacturing execution system) software.

After 14 years with IBM manufacturing (during which time I completed a Master's Degree in Computer Science) and 3 years with Applied Materials (as the sole Ion Implant embedded software support engineer in the US), I spent 2001 through 2008 as an automation engineer with Cypress Semiconductor in Round Rock, Texas.

I've been interested in web technology and computer graphics for some years now. Since the Cypress Texas plant was shut down at the very end of 2008 (it was an older 6 inch wafer fab, and production was moved to China), I've been working on improving my skills in these areas, and have completed various courses in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, PHP, Adobe Flash, Illustrator, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and Autodesk 3DSMax.