Interview with Dan McMenamin

Featured Engineer

Dan McMenamin

Dan McMenamin - Telecommunications Consultant at Dan McMenamin and Associates, Inc.

How did you get into electronics/ engineering/ telecommunications and when did you start?

I began working in electronics from age 8, fixing radios and TVs with my Dad back in 1954. Then, after high school, I did a hitch in the Air Force repairing airborne navigation and RADAR systems aboard F-4 Phantom Jets, C-130’s, C-141’s and B-52’s. From there I worked as a telecommunications switching and transport systems technician for Bell of Pennsylvania, eventually working into a Network Equipment Engineer post and then a promotion to Maintenance Engineer covering power, and grounding as well as radio, video and microwave systems. After 36 years with Bell/Verizon, I retired and set up a consultancy which is now more than ten years in operation.

What are your favorite hardware tools that you use?

VOMs, Clamp-On Ammeters, Soil resistance test sets and digital cameras. Occasionally, I’ll use something more exotic.

What are your favorite software tools that you use?

Nothing special – standard business software and drawing packages.

What is the hardest/trickiest bug you have ever fixed?

I found a wiring error that caused power drop-outs that took an entire town’s telephones out of service during routine maintenance on the dc power system

What is on your bookshelf?

Dust – and a couple of airplane models – however there are hundreds of electronic reference documents, codes and standards in my computer and two basement book cases of older texts and reference material.

Do you have any tricks up your sleeve?

We tend to analyze complex power problems, lightning protection and other issues in the telecom and data center industries and explain them to folks in terms their paper-boy could grasp. There’s no special technique, it’s just experience and a frame of mind.

What has been your favorite project?

Among my favorite endeavors has been representing my clients on industry standards writing teams and this effort has evolved over the past twenty years or so. These days I do much of that work ‘on my own dime’ but still it’s worth it to participate because in doing so I get to work closely with some of the finest minds in the telecom power and stationary battery business. Anytime you get a chance to work with the finest minds in the ‘pool’ it’s a priceless learning experience. Most of the team is there for the same reason. We want credible, safe and effective standards and we get to learn from each other. No one knows it all but together we produce great stuff!

My favorite volunteer project was designing and pushing for grant money and volunteers to build a thirty station computer lab into a small school and internet access into each classroom.

Do you have any note-worthy engineering experiences?

Probably the funniest experience occurred while troubleshooting a 1,600 ampere 48Volt rectifier (battery charger), the unit ramped up into overcurrent very quickly and ‘blew’ a 2,000 Ampere output fuse. The event wasn’t very noteworthy but you just have to had seen the look on my boss’s face when I unbolted and dropped the beefy fuse on his desk and said, “Ken, I blew this fuse, do we have any spares here?”

Another funny one was a call from a switching center manager who was concerned because two new strings of large lead-acid storage batteries were being installed in his power room. These newer strings came with heavy-duty fiberglass/plastic battery stands. All his other battery stands were steel and by code, were grounded. The manager wanted to know how to ground his plastic stands after the installer had told him that these stands didn’t need a ground lead. I told the guy that the installer was correct and that there’s no reason to ground a plastic battery stand. The manager’s annoyance came through the phone like an arrow into my ear when he insisted that ‘by gosh” (OK, he said it stronger) ALL of his battery stands were going to be grounded; now how was he to tell this installer how to land a #6 AWG wire with a two-hole lug on these plastic stands! Sarcastically, I replied, “Tell him to use nylon bolts”. “Thank you”, the guy said with sincere gusto and hung up the phone.

What are you currently working on?

Traditionally, telephone companies have relied on lead-acid batteries to provide reserve power in their central switching stations known as “central offices’ around the world and their data centers. As a consultant, it’s my job to determine whether what’s ‘out there’ that could improve their network reliability, operational cost or other business parameters. There are many ‘flashes in the pan’ in telecom power and so it’s important to vet new product or technology offerings to ensure that clients make purchase or deployment decisions based on solid information as opposed to glossy marketing hype. Relatively new advances in sodium and lithium based battery chemistries show great promise in terms of improving power density to the point where valuable floor space could be conserved. In an industry seeing growth, there are opportunities for technologies that might eliminate the need for a costly building addition. At the same time, as more and more power is jammed into smaller packages, the result can begin approaching the textbook definition for a bomb. There have been some dramatic failures such as fires, with some of the emerging technologies and so it’s critical to separate reliable producers from rush-to-market guys. That’s where training and decades of experience make a crucial difference.

What are new technologies that we will see in the future with telecommunications?

The network will see dramatic bandwidth improvements and the feature enhancements that will accompany them in much the same way as people climb a ladder, one step at a time. What good is a high feature cell phone or PDA if the bandwidth connecting it to the wireless provider is slow? OK, so if the service provider makes the investment to up his bandwidth, what good is it if the companies offering media haven’t upgraded their own connections to the Internet? So, the progression I see is all of these companies between the source, transport and ultimate end user’s terminal device will be making leaps and bounds in their bandwidth, driven by intense competition.

What direction do you see your business heading in the next few years?

With telephone carriers running leaner in terms of people talent, they tend more to turn to knowledgeable consultants agile enough to be responsive.

What challenges do you foresee in our industry?

Obviously, this economy is stressing everyone and I see a strong need for the US to get back into manufacturing and to excel at it. It might take strong governmental leadership and tax incentives to make American products more cost effective than off-shore ones but we’ve just ‘gotta bite the bullet and do it.

What challenges do you foresee for engineers in telecom?

The engineer’s Operations clients want and need system reliability to ensure a viable network with minimal operating and maintenance cost. His bean-counting peers in Sourcing and in Finance are screaming for the lowest first-cost. The engineer’s job, therefore relies heavily on performing a solid life-cycle cost or “Total Cost of Ownership” study and then ‘selling’ that concept with all the gusto of a Southern Baptist preacher!