Donald Heirman: standardization is not invention, printed exactly

1940–2020 · THE DISTINCTION THIS LEG OWES THE RECORD

The distinction: One Mishawaka name stands in the People and Halls of Fame legs at the highest honor size this build gives, and this section's duty to him is a distinction, not a claim. Donald Nestor Heirman, born in Mishawaka on 16 August 1940, a Uniroyal foreman's son, spent more than thirty years at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey and became the world's standards authority in electromagnetic compatibility — president of the IEEE EMC Society and of the IEEE Standards Association, chairman of CISPR and of the IEC's advisory committee on EMC, holder of the IEC's Lord Kelvin Award and the IEEE's Steinmetz and Emberson awards. The People leg carries that record whole. What this section prints is what his achievement was, in the vocabulary of this section: standardization — the writing of the measurement methods and limits by which the world's electronics are kept from interfering with one another. A standard is not a patent, and no letters patent stands at the center of Heirman's record in the record reached for this section; his instruments were committees, drafts, and adopted texts, and their authority is of a different kind from an inventor's — in its reach, arguably the wider of the two, since a standard governs every maker in its field rather than one firm's product. The entry exists so that the distinction is on the record in both directions: this section does not borrow Heirman's honors to swell an invention ledger he did not keep, and it does not diminish a standards career by measuring it with a patentee's ruler. He died 30 October 2020 and is buried at Arlington; the honors, and the halls question they raise, are the other legs' to carry.

Sources:

1. The People section of this history (banked) — Heirman born 16 August 1940 in Mishawaka; the Bell Laboratories course; the IEEE, CISPR, and IEC offices; the Lord Kelvin, Steinmetz, and Emberson awards; the Navy commander's retirement; the death of 30 October 2020 and the Arlington burial — from the ANSI memorial notice and the IEEE record as cited there.
2. Negative statement, in the text: no letters patent stands at the center of Heirman's record in the record reached for this section; his documented instruments are standards and offices.