{"id":203818,"date":"2016-08-18T15:52:18","date_gmt":"2016-08-18T15:52:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/d45h139.public.uconn.edu\/sites\/news\/?p=22631"},"modified":"2024-11-27T11:23:01","modified_gmt":"2024-11-27T16:23:01","slug":"a-centennial-look-back-james-d-bowen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2016\/08\/a-centennial-look-back-james-d-bowen\/","title":{"rendered":"A Centennial Look Back: James D. Bowen"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Heidi Douglas, Director of Engineering Alumni Relations
\n James D. Bowen (B.S., Electrical Engineering, \u201950)<\/strong><\/p>\n

As we celebrate 100 years of engineering at UConn, we\u2019d like to share the stories of alumni who have made the school great.<\/em><\/p>\n

Seventy years ago, a self-described na\u00efve young runner from Newtown, Connecticut came to school with a Ford Model A Blue Beetle and a slipstick or slide rule to pursue his lifelong dream of becoming an engineer. His impressive record as a high school track star assured Jim Bowen a spot at Storrs where he quickly learned that Dr. Timoshenko, the humorless department head of electrical engineering, \u201chated\u201d athletes; he also didn\u2019t care much for women. Bowen was careful to never wear his varsity letter to class, sneaking onto the stairs of Castleman on a Saturday to have his photo taken sporting his sweater.<\/p>\n

After graduating from UConn in 1950, Bowen joined a consulting firm in New York City. He began attending Columbia University at night, and was promptly drafted for the Korean War.\u00a0 Misclassified by an interviewer as a locomotive engineer, he was assigned to a transportation corps in Virginia where they insisted that he operate a train. Fortunately, as he was an hour away from being shiped out to Korea, the failed train driver found his way to an R&D group where he spent his remaining service working on power for a secret project.<\/p>\n

After being discharged, Bowen started his career. He earned a master\u2019s degree at the University of Delaware\u2019s evening program, married Carolyn, had four children in four years, moved back to Connecticut and ran a Raytheon company. In 1968, he moved to Southern California because he was \u201cattracted by (the) weather and other things.\u201d For a few years, Bowen ran a few small companies in Southern California before receiving an offer in 1972 to join Fairchild Camera and Instrument in the nascent heart of Silicon Valley. As Corporate Vice President, Bowen ran four companies in the Fairchild semiconductor equipment business. He was the driving force behind several trailblazing ventures.<\/p>\n

Under Bowen\u2019s direction in the 1970s, Fairchild Test Systems became the number one producer of Automated Test Equipment (ATE) worldwide. ATE quickly confirms whether devices work and detects defects, saving manufacturing costs and preventing faulty devices from reaching market. For his contributions and leadership in the ATE industry, he received the prestigious 2016 SEMI Sales and Marketing Excellence Award.\u00a0 His efforts facilitated development of early product marketing and sales methods that broke the $1 million barrier for semiconductor equipment prices. Bowen was honored during January ceremonies at the SEMI Industry Strategy Symposium in Half Moon Bay, California.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In preparing his acceptance speech for an audience of 500 guests, Bowen asked his wife of 63 years, \u201cIn your wildest dreams, did you ever think that I would receive this award?\u201d\u00a0 Carolyn deadpanned, \u201cYou were never in my wildest dreams.\u201d\u00a0 Retired and living at a summit on the Pacific Coastal Range in bucolic Los Gatos, California, Bowen fondly describes his time at Storrs as classic and says he had a wonderful time. It was \u201chard running indoor and outdoor track and attending engineering school.\u201d\u00a0 If he had it all to do again, he says that he would have stretched his undergraduate coursework over five years, because he \u201chad to stay up half the night [studying].\u201d<\/p>\n

Jim and Carolyn Bowen wish to come back to Storrs for a visit, perhaps the UConn engineering centennial Gadget Gurus Gala<\/em> in November.\u00a0 This time, he can have his picture taken on the steps of Castleman wearing his letter sweater – regardless of the day of week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As we celebrate 100 years of engineering at UConn, we\u2019d like to share the stories of alumni who have made the school great.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":221939,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1866],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2110],"class_list":["post-203818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engr"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-07 04:42:31","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203818"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":221941,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203818\/revisions\/221941"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/221939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203818"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=203818"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=203818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}