Engineer William E. Harris featured on Close Up Radio

Close Up Radio featured retired Texas engineer William E. Harris in a July 28 interview, spotlighting a 40-year career that spanned chemical plants, Hewlett-Packard, NASA and defense-related technical work. The profile underscores how Harris built a reputation for solving difficult problems across physics, electronics and aerospace.

Why it matters: - William E. Harris’ career spans chemical plant operations, aerospace instrumentation, defense-related microwave systems and NASA’s space shuttle program. - The profile highlights a rare career path that moved from hands-on plant work to highly technical engineering roles tied to major government and industrial systems. - Harris’ story shows how cross-disciplinary skills can carry from one field to another, from physics and electronics to aerospace and diagnostics.

What happened: - Close Up Radio featured Harris in an interview with Doug Llewelyn on Tuesday, July 28 at 12 p.m. Eastern. - The segment aired as a recent profile of Harris, who is now retired and lives in Texas. - The interview focused on Harris’ engineering career and the unconventional path that led him there.

The details: - Harris began as a teenager threading pipe at a Texas chemical plant. - A math teacher told Harris he was not cut out for physics, and Harris later proved otherwise. - Harris taught himself trigonometry with a slide rule so he could take high school physics without the prerequisite, then earned an A. - At the University of Houston, Harris split his studies between pre-med and engineering. - Harris revived a dormant IEEE student chapter and helped write its student council bylaws. - Harris led a five-person team that built a microprocessor from scratch. - IEEE’s Spectrum Magazine and a local Houston newspaper covered that project. - While working in a university physics lab to help pay tuition, Harris redesigned faulty wire-wrap electronics into a working printed circuit board. - Professors and researchers across departments began requesting Harris’ help because of that skill. - Hewlett-Packard recruited Harris after graduation. - At HP training in California, Harris took an entrance exam without reading the prep material and scored the highest grade in the class. - Harris’ early HP work included automated testing for IBM production lines. - Harris earned the nickname “the plotter guru” after diagnosing repeated field failures and redesigning a mechanical component from aluminum to titanium. - HP implemented the fix company-wide and featured it in an internal design publication. - Harris later received one of HP’s most technically demanding assignments in microwave instrumentation. - That work required Fourier analysis, Smith charts and precise calibration processes. - Harris also joined NASA’s Johnson Space Center and contributed to the space shuttle’s Wake Shield program. - Harris is a founding-era member of the National Corvette Museum. - Harris has also restored cars and researched family history tracing back to German farmers, coal miners and a Revolutionary War soldier. - Harris remains outspoken on topics ranging from food science to emerging aerospace technology. - Harris is now retired and working on long-delayed home projects, including replacing all 35 windows in the house he has lived in for three decades.

Between the lines: - Harris’ career is framed less as a straight engineering resume and more as a series of problems solved in unfamiliar settings. - The profile presents practical curiosity, self-teaching and persistence as the traits that mattered most. - The recurring pattern is simple: Harris kept moving into more technical work after proving he could handle the last challenge.

What's next: - Harris said he plans to keep tackling home projects and stay engaged on engineering and science topics. - The podcast interview and linked social posts extend the profile’s reach beyond the radio segment. - More information is available in Harris’ LinkedIn profile and the podcast links shared with the interview.

The bottom line: - Harris’ career turned early skepticism into a long run of technical wins across industry, academia and NASA.