Joe Saloom

Joseph A. Saloom received his B.S degree in Electrical Engineering in 1949 and his PhD degree in 1951, both from the University of Illinois.

He joined Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J. In 1951, engaging in work on the design and development of electron beam focusing systems for traveling wave tubes. In 1956 he was promoted and transferred to Allentown, P.A. and was placed in charge of an engineering group concerned with development of microwave tubes.

In 1959 he left Bell Laboratories and founded a new company sponsored by Varian Associates, named SFD Laboratories. The company was engaged in the research and development of crossed field microwave tubes. He served as its president until 1965 when he was named a corporate vice president and placed in charge of the Eastern Operations of Varian that included various divisions engaged in microwave semiconductors, microwave circuits and electron tubes.
In 1975 he joined M/A-Com, Inc. as a Vice President of Electron Devices was engaged in R&D related to a wide variety of microwave products, including Solid State devices and circuits. In 1980 he was named a Senior Vice President and Director of M/A-Com?s Technology Center that supported all the divisions of the company. He left M/A-Com in 1990 and has since been engaged as a Consultant in Technology mostly for the U.S. Naval Operations at Crane, Indiana.

He served as the Chair of the Working Group on Microwave Devices for the DoD Advisory Group on Electron Devices (AGED) from 1986 to 2006.
In 1986, he was named Chair of the Coalition on Advancing Industrial Technology (CAIT) which was a group consisting of Universities, Industry, and trade associations concerned with the treatments of R&D expenses in the tax code. He has also served on the Engineering Advisory Board the University of Massachusetts and the Georgia Tech Research Institute. He also served as a member of the Board of Trustees off Middlesex Community College. In 1987 he was named the Founding Chair of the Council of Research and Technology (CORETECH), which was established to encourage a national commitment to basic and applied research. CORTECH represented a broad cross section of the American research and development community and had Corporate, University, Research Institutes, and association members.

He is a fellow of the IEEE, and served on the Administrative Committee (ADCOM) of the Electronic Devices Section. He has published papers in the Journal of Applied Physics, the Bell Systems Technical Journal, and in the Transactions of the IEEE, He is a member of Sigma XI, Eta Kappa Nu and Pi Mu Epsilon and was named a Distinguished Alumnus of the Engineering School of the University of Illinois.

He was the presented with the IEEE IVEC award in 2005 with the citation “ For pioneering contribution to the development of high power traveling wave tubes and visionary leadership within the vacuum electronics industry.”

John R. Pierce Award for Excellence in Vacuum Electronics 2005

For pioneering contributions to the development of high power microwave tubes and for leadership within the vacuum electronics industry.