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Today's Featured Biography

 
Kenneth Struve

After HS graduation I attended Brigham Young University one year, then spent two years on a Mormon mission to Berlin, Germany. On return I returned to BYU and switched to a major in physics. In 1969 I married Susan Ajax, an Olympia HS and BYU graduate, and elementary school teacher in Beaverton, OR. I continued school at BYU and got a BS and MS in physics in 1971 and 1973, respectively, as well as a commission in Air Force as a 2nd Lt. We served at the Mt. Hebo AFS in Oregon (south of Tillamook) doing satellite and missile tracking. We left Hebo in 1975 and I enrolled in graduate school with the Univ. of CA at Livermore, CA, completing a PhD in 1980 in Applied Science, specializing in plasma physics. After graduation I stayed with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory working on electron beam propagation for weapons applications. In 1988 we moved to Albuquerque, taking a job with a defense contractor, but working primarily with the Sandia National Laboratories on Star Wars projects and with high current accelerators in support of fusion energy research and nuclear weapons validation. In 1998 I switched employment to Sandia, and have had the opportunity to work as an accelerator and pulsed power designer, manager, collaborator with the British, French, Israeli, and Russians on joint fusion experiments, and to coordinate with various universities for student development in high energy density, pulsed power programs. I have especially enjoyed collaboration with Russian scientists who work in comparable fields, and have traveled to various Russian labs many times in the past decade. I am still at Sandia working on high-power, high-current machine design and related physics experiments, and serve as a senior editor for the IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science (those HS English classes finally became very important.)

Susan and I have five children, and eight grandchildren. Our oldest, Brooke, is a civil engineer with the Federal Highway Administration and specializes in freeway-to-freeway interchanges. Kristopher is an F-16 pilot with the Air Force, a Lt. Col., and currently commander of the 13th Fighter Squadron in Misawa, Japan. Erin is married to a computer software designer from Scotland, and mother of four children, the first of which was born in Edinburgh. Bryan is a mechanical engineer, former Marine, and works on nuclear weapons at Sandia. Scott also works at Sandia, but is an MBA working in program management.

Susan and I have had the opportunity to travel extensively, and are enjoying the grandkids. But we both miss the Northwest and may move back in retirement, which we anticipate in several years. We will miss the reunion because of other commitments, but would love to hear about other FVHS alumni.

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