Aubrey Kagan

I was born and raised in what was then Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and have moved around a bit since then. I completed my electrical engineering degree at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology followed by an MBA at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa.

I immediately started working in electronics and was fortunate in being around as microprocessors made their first inroads into industry. I was mainly involved with designing controllers for industry and mines with projects encompassing coffee packaging machines, railroad communication controllers, hydrological data monitors, automatic calorimeters, and diamond sorters. The isolation (geographically, economically and later politically) of South Africa allowed me a wide range of experience with many aspects of the industry, not only with analog and digital circuitry design, but also the use of PCs including the use of spreadsheets to gather data and the early use of CAD.

I now live in Canada. Originally I worked on the specifications for the Canadarm 2 (the remote control arm on the International Space Station), but I was involved with far less grandiose projects involving industrial signal conditioners and some custom controllers.

I have often felt that some of my solutions are original and I would like to share them. This led to a number of design ideas and articles, one of which launched my book "Excel by Example". I hope the breadth of my experiences enriches the many different ways that Excel is employed in the book.

After retirement I started processing my late mother's papers and following an earlier suggestion of hers, started writing her biography. My newest and first non-technical book "A Tourist from Petach Tikva" is the result.