Lee J. Nelson: Embedded Systems Industry Expert Remembered

I met Lee Nelson in the mid 1980’s when we were both working at Gould DeAnza selling image processing systems. At that time every lab doing any type of real research had to get an image processing system to add to their collection. Just as a few years before the research community stocked up on mini computers and array processors groups in the mid 80’s saw image processing as a status item. Companies such as Pixar, Vicom, Grinnell, Recognition Concepts, 3M/Comtal, Spatial Data Systems, Ramtek, and MegaVision among others were supplying these massive and expensive systems into a variety of research applications. With the exception of the medical imaging market, oil exploration and the printing industry it seemed there were no real OEM opportunities. Who could complain though when the ASP was 100 K and Real Time Video Disks went for 40 K.   Lee and I were sales managers working opposite ends of the country. He was focusing on the D.C. Metro and government markets while I handled the west coast aerospace and southwest oil business. I was always impressed with Lee’s overall solutions oriented sales approach. In the days before the internet customers depended on salespersons who knew how to solve applications and suggest the correct configuration including cameras, data acquisition and storage devices. I know Lee was well liked by his customer community and peers.  Who could have predicted that in less then five years customers would be ditching their basketball court sized labs full of technology that was bigger then a small refrigerator and replacing it with microwave sized workstations containing plug in “trick” cards that did all the things the big boxes did for a quarter of the price. Lee must have been clairvoyant in seeing the change coming and left the corporate sales game to focus on a successful consulting and writing practice. You may have read some of his thoughtful articles concerning various image processing application areas in publications such as this journal: http://www.advancedimagingpro.com/publication/bio.jsp?id=6 . Having been a long time gastro intestinal patient I especially enjoyed a recent article covering Advances in Endoscopy using small micro sensors that can then be disposed after the procedure. Some great artwork on this type of application can be seen at. Here’s hoping Mr. Nelson continues to publish articles relevant to the changing times in image processing as we move from the expensive lab based systems of the 80’s through the ho hum workstation era of the 90’s to perhaps a golden era of truly human helpful deployed imaging applications that will improve daily well being and perhaps reduce some of the price pressures we are all feeling.  Lastly find a cool and timely discussion of alternative power and area that will be addressed in depth on this blog because it is now more than ever a national security concern.

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