Biography of Les Earnest les at cs.stanford.edu |
||
Les is more A web search shows about fifty Les Earnests in world history. Ten are Lesters, including my late father and me, and the rest are Leslies or similar, some male and some female. Happily there have been no More Earnests. Marian’s and my merged family has five children, seven grandchildren and five great grandchildren so far, being various combinations of European, Yup’ik Eskimo, Filipino, African and Puerto Rican. |
The importance of being Earnest My patrilineal
great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather John Wilhelm Ernst migrated from |
|
Academic 1988-present Senior Research Computer Scientist Emeritus, Stanford University 1985-88 Associate Chair, Computer Science Dept., Stanford University 1966-80,’85 -88 Lecturer in Computer Science, Stanford University 1965-80 Executive officer, Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory 1960 MS in EE, MIT 1956-57 Staff Member, MIT Lincoln Laboratory 1953 BS in EE, Caltech Corporate 1991-present Chairman, Board of Directors, GeoGroup Inc., Menlo Park, CA 1980-85 Founding President and Director, Imagen Corp., Santa Clara, CA 1958-65 Subdepartment Head, Mitre Corp., Bedford, MA & Arlington, VA Professional 1994-present Member, ASTM International F08.53 Standards Committee (Headgear) 1964-present Member (now Life), IEEE 1955-present Member, ACM 1991-93: Member, Organizing and Advisory Committees of first three Conferences on Computers, Freedom and Privacy 1988-96 Member, American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Z90 Standards Committee (Helmets) 1980 Treasurer, First National Conference of American Association for Artificial Intelligence 1974-76 Chairman, ACM Special Interest Group on Artificial Intelligence (SIGART) 1973-77 Local Arrangements Chair and Secretary-Treasurer, International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence 1960-80 Member, Sigma Xi |
Innovations ROUT, the first search engine, 1961. First spelling checker, 1961. First successful cursive handwriting recognizer, 1962. Hand-eye robot: initiated experimental system using computer vision to control a mechanical arm, 1966-68. Autonomous road vehicle: initiated creation of vehicle with TV camera for visual guidance, 1966-69. Computer networking: member of ARPAnet startup committee, 1967-68. Created Finger, the first social networking program, which also allowed individuals to post what are now called blogs, 1975. First computer-controlled vending machine, called the Prancing Pony, which sold on credit and offered buyers “Double or nothing”, 1973. Modernized bicycle racing rules of U.S. Cycling Federation, 1978-99, and FIAC, 1999-present. First desktop publishing system using laser printers: founded IMAGEN Corp., 1981. Bicycle racing drug control: wrote first regulations for USCF, 1984. Bicycle racing helmets: introduced USCF strong helmet rule that has since saved many lives, 1985. Modular software distribution: invented cryptographic scheme, U.S. Patent 4,888,798, 1989. First
roller skating helmet standards: Family Married to
former high school classmate Military Service 1953-56 U.S. Navy Aviation Electronics Officer & Digital Computer Project Officer, Naval Air Development Center, Johnsville, PA. Consulting 1982-present Consultant and expert witness on the history of computer technology and bicycle racing rules. |
Athletics 2004-present Executive Director, Federation of Independent Associations for Cycling (FIAC) 1933-present Avid cyclist, 1973-2000 Licensed racer. 1999-present Founding member, Director of FIAC 1995-96 Founding Director and Secretary of USA Cycling 1984-99 UCI National Commissaire (bike race official) 1984 Director of the Road, Olympic Games, Los Angeles 1980-85 Delegate to U.S. Olympic Committee from USCF 1979-99 Director and sometimes officer of U.S. Cycling Federation 1973-present Bicycle race official for local, national and international events 1950-52 Caltech football offensive tackle & defensive guard (All Conference, 1951) 1947 &
1949 Cross-country runner in Hoover
High School, 1946-49
Basketball manager in high school,
Film Actor Appear as a bike race official in American Flyers (1985), co-starring with Kevin Costner for 2.3 seconds. Community
Service Mostly in the Town of Los Altos Hills, CA 2012-present
Traffic Safety Committee 2008-2011 History Committee 2003-2006 Pathways Map Committee 1998-2000 Member & Chair, Santa Clara County/VTA Bicycle Advisory Committee 1997-99 Member, Santa Clara County Interjurisdictional Trails Committee 1993-99 Member & Chair, Pathways Committee 1986-97 Director & Chair, Mid-peninsula Chapter of ACLU |