News
In Memoriam: Richard "Dick" Ephraim Saeks
It is with deepest regret that we learned that Dr. Richard Saeks, a past president of the SMC Society passed away on October 12, 2009 at the age of 67 years.
Dick was born in Chicago on November 30, 1941, to Morris George and Elsie Saeks. He was preceded in death by his parents and his only brother Jerrold Saeks. He is survived by his sister-in-law, Joyce Saeks; a niece, Abby Markowitz and a nephew, Lorne Saeks, all of Chicago, Illinois.
He was educated in the Chicago Public Schools and went on to obtain his BS in Electrical Engineering from Northwestern University, MS in Electrical Engineering from Colorado State University and Ph.D. from Cornell University.
Dr. Saeks was the Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Accurate Automation Corporation in Chattanooga, Tennessee. For the past 17 years Dick developed advanced systems for the government under grants and contracts from the Department of Defense (DoD), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and National Science Foundation (NSF). He was a world-class electrical engineer who was an expert in control theory, fault diagnosis, neural networks, systems theory and plasma physics.
As an international authority on control, large-scale systems, fault analysis, and mathematical system theory, Dr. Saeks held three patents on ion doping, sensor fusion and tiperon control systems. Professor Saeks also wrote four technical books on Systems Theory and was the author of over 300 academic papers. His most recent work dealt with the use of neural networks to control remotely piloted boats of the type being used to combat piracy off of Somalia.
Prior to his work at Accurate Automation, he taught electrical engineering for 25 years in a number of distinguished universities, serving as Dean of Engineering and Motorola Professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Professor and Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Arizona State University, and Paul Whitfield Horn Professor of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, and Computer Science at Texas Tech University. He started his academic career at Notre Dame University in Indiana.
Dick was a member of the IEEE for more than 40 years and was an active member of both the SMC Society and the Circuits and Systems Society. He was a strong contributor to the growth of the SMC Society in which he held various positions as an officer, including Treasurer, Vice President of Long Rang Planning & Finance, and President of the SMC Society during 2000-01. Dick was elected an IEEE Life Fellow in 1977 for contributions to circuit and system theory and a Fellow in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) for contributions to plasma physics. He was recipient of the Norbert Wiener Award of the SMC Society, and in 2004 received the Joseph G. Wohl Oustanding Career Award, the highest honor of the SMC Society. He also received numerous honors including the IEEE Millennium Award, the SMCS Oustanding Contribution Award. He received two Tibbetts Awards from the U.S. Small Business Administration and the Inc 500 Award.
Dick had purchased flight tickets and made arrangements to attend the SMC annual conference in San Antonio during early October. Unfortunately, he was not able to do so because his health deteriorated and he passed away one week later.
I am honored to regard Dick as my friend and colleague since the 1970s. We served on the SMCS AdCom and standing committees of the SMC Society during the past 20 years. He encouraged me to run for the SMCS AdCom again in 2001 and in 2003 supported my candidacy for Society president. I frequently called Dick for advice on Society issues and he was always ready to help.
Above all, we will remember Dick Saeks as a tireless supporter of the SMC Society, the IEEE, and the electrical engineering profession.
Contributed by
Bill Gruver
Sr. Past President
IEEE SMC Society
December 15, 2009