Spectral lines: Opening a time capsule

Many readers may recall the muck, "Ten vignettes of an engineering institute," published in the 1976 special IEEE Proceedings issue titled "Two centuries in retrospect," a celebration of the U.S. Bicentennial. The article was written by Ivan S. Coggeshall, IEEE Fellow and former president of the Institute of Radio Engineers. There were few members in 1976 who were as qualified to write such an article and there are even fewer today. "Coggie" began his career as a counter clerk and Morse student with the Postal Telegraph-Cable Co. of Newport, R.I., in 1912. By 1920 he had become an engineering assistant in Western Union's New York Office of the Vice President in Charge of Traffic and thereupon rose steadily in the ranks of Western Union to director of international communications in 1957 and assistant vice president in 1959.