"I found in Quantum Mechanics an exciting continuation of the mankind quest started by the Greek Philosophers: what is the true nature of things…"

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Ramon Hernandez

Born in Barcelona, Spain, 1955
M.S. in Telecommunications Engineering

Polytechnic University of Barcelona, 1980

When I was 11 my assignment was to reshape and coat the soldering irons that my mother used to wire TV circuits at home. My father worked in industrial automation and it is there that I had my first contact with photocells and remote controls. Then Santa dropped a game called Electrical Engineer, made by Phillips. It contained a perforated cardboard, spring clips to hold the components, and a bunch of resistors, capacitors and transistors (Germanium). It was great to be able to build my own radios and amplifiers. The game contained a booklet describing the operation of each device, with clear and intuitive images, and that was my first introduction to electronics. I discovered a true passion, because I only needed parts, an iron and solder to build anything. And parts were always available from scrapped radio and TV sets.

Later my father changed jobs to building Public Address systems, and I worked during summer vacations building speaker columns, amplifiers, designing printed circuit boards and making installations.

Of course I had to join an EE school. The Telecommunications school was the best ranked in Barcelona and there I went. Curiously, it was my teacher of chemistry who gave me the hint for Science. I found in Quantum Mechanics an exciting continuation of the mankind quest started by the Greek Philosophers: what is the true nature of things; who are we and where are we going to? But I remained a practical guy willing to "do things". Close to radio amateurs and with my own experience in audio, I was allowed to teach the laboratory classes in electronics and transmission systems to my classmates. In 1977, I went to work during summer for the Turkish Railways as an exchange student.

Once I had finished my military service I looked for a job and found in Schlumberger an opportunity to go abroad working in the oil field. It was a complete change of subject and made me familiar with reservoir properties, fluid analysis and mechanics. After two years in the field I moved to a headquarters position in France for a job more in line with my background, and today I am back to a Telecommunications environment in the Telemetry group in Austin (and what a revolution in Telecommunications there has been in these 20 years!)

Schlumberger has allowed me to succeed with an international career in a multinational environment. And I find it very exciting to have today, through the evolution of computers, the tools to put to practice the theoretical techniques that I learned 20 years ago.