From reservation to worldwide engineer

Jacab will share his highlights of a fascinating life and career.

While growing up on the LCO Chippewa Indian reservation in northern Wisconsin without running water or electricity, Jacob set his sights to become an electronic engineer.  By joining the US Airforce after high school, he utilized the GI Bill to obtain a BSEE and MBA and went on to a colorful career that took him to 100 countries.  While employed by GTE International,he pioneered the creation of multi-national power grids throughout South American and Southern Africa. Leading a Arthur D. Little consulting team, a leading think-tank firm,  he completed the master planning  for telecommunications for two new model cities in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. For ADL he secured the contract for the planning of the national phone systems for the country of Thailand. Launching his own consulting company, he developed a communications and information system for the Chicago Board of Trade that triggered the demise and bankruptcy of ATT long distance and launched the Competitive Local Exchange Industry, a $100 B industry. As a consultant to NATO, he led the development of the first multi-national satellite based internet system serving Eastern Europe and Central Asia known as the Virtual Silk Highway. For the Mass Turnpike Authority he developed and implemented the first fiber optic based automatic toll collection system, now duplicated globally.  Over the past 15 years Jacob has collaborated with the University of Colorado at Boulder utilizing National Science Foundation funding to develop a thin film based ophthalmic lens that enables printing lenses at the doctor’s office allowing the delivery of eyeglasses at the time of the eye-exam.