Talking with David Bennett is a great way to jump-start a day. His enthusiasm for his job and the story of his recent life overhaul is enough to make one consider a midlife career change as advantageous.
Bennett's career shift began when he discovered the realm of scientific visualization while attending an open house at UIUC's Beckman Institute in 1988. Viewing computer images created by Donna Cox and Ray Idaszak started a mental journey that culminated with Bennett quitting his job as a business systems director at an extended care facility and going back to school---at age 41. (Cox is NCSA co-director of SCMS and UIUC professor of Art; Idaszak, manager of High Performance Technology at the Information Technology Division of MCNC, was once a scientific visualization specialist at NCSA.)
Bennett's timing could not have been better. Parkland Community College was initiating a curriculum in visualization computer graphics. He became one of the first to enter the program. (Parkland now offers an associate in applied science career program in visualization computer graphics.)
After two years of full-time study, part-time work, and an internship with NCSA industrial partner Motorola, Bennett was ready to re-enter the work force.
All accomplished just short of three years---which is not surprising as you listen to the enthusiasm and obviously innate curiosity that comes from Bennett's voice and choice of words: ``I have this sort of hunger. And because of that, I want to find out about new things. I go out, absorb as much as possible, and get a good overview.... Finding out what is going on in the world has led to lots of other interesting developments [here at the center].''
One such development is the AVS '93 Conference held in May 1993 at Orlando, FL. As coordinator of the conference, Bennett invited NCSA Director Larry Smarr to give the keynote speech. ``When I did the introduction,'' Bennett reflects, ``I thanked him. Without his blessing of the [Parkland] program---as well as Donna Cox's---I would probably still be out there selling shoes, or pumping gas, or no telling what. So I was really pleased that NCSA was willing to open their doors to a bunch of students who did not know what the heck they were doing, on some totally innovative program that had never been tried anywhere else. [NCSA and Parkland] had no idea whether it was going to succeed. This is the sort of thing that your kind of center should be doing---promoting those leading-edge innovations. Taking them forward, and then at some point passing the gauntlet on for others to carry forward.''
Smarr's conference address focused on metacomputing and AVS. ``AVS is typically thought of as a stand-alone workstation visualization tool,'' says Smarr. ``This limits the size of datasets one can fit on a workstation, as well as the turnaround time being limited by the speed of the workstation.'' He suggests that by using AVS as a client-server, one could utilize the National Metacenter's HPCC machines as nationwide visualization servers.
This fall, Wake College will offer its first associate degree program in scientific visualization, which filled up just weeks after the announcement. If David Bennett is an example, graduates can expect a career that will only be limited by their own dreams.