IAS Gerald Kliman Award
The IEEE IAS Industrial Power Conversion Systems Department Gerald Kliman Innovator Award was established in 2005 to honor innovators who contributed to the technical areas of this department. The award may be presented annually to an individual for meritorious contributons to the advancement of power conversion technologies through innovations and their application to industry. The technical field for this awrads includes, but is not limited to Elecrical Machines, Electrical Drives, Power Electronic Systems and Power Electronic Devices. This Award is named in honor of Dr. Gerland Kliman, in memory of his many contributions and innovations to these technical areas. This award is sponsored by General Electric through the IEEE Foundation.
The 2021 IEEE IAS Industrial Power Conversion Systems Department Gerald Kliman Innovator Award was presented toRobert Guenther at the 2021 IAS Annual Meeting/ECCE conference Award ceremony.
Bob Guenther
Robert N. Guenther, Jr., is a 1974 graduate of Lehigh University. Upon graduation, he worked for NWL, a privately owned company specializing in power converters and magnetic components for industrial applications. During the next 46 years, Guenther led numerous design efforts for power converter products for high-voltage (HV) television transmitters; multi-tapped thyristor converters for polycrystalline production; HV, high-frequency resonant frequency power supplies for electrostatic precipitators; capacitor charging; and electron beam applications. Other successful products include a current-fed, medium frequency silicon carbide (SiC) based solution for the desalinization of oil. Recent work include designs for a medium-voltage SiC based converter for large megawatt photovoltaic renewal energy sites and for an interleaved SiC-based, 400-kW pulsed, HV converter for advanced medical imaging.
During the course of his career at NWL, Guenther rose from an entry-level electrical engineer to senior vice-president focusing on new product development opportunities. At the end of 2019, Guenther retired from NWL and started his own company, GPEM LLC. Guenther is an IEEE Life Fellow and has been active with the IAS for many years.
Previous Gerald Kliman Award Recipients
| 2020 | Vladimir Blasko |
| 2019 | Alex Qin Huang |
| 2018 | Fei "Fred" Wang |
| 2017 | Richard Lukaszewski |
| 2016 | Jih-Sjeng (Jason) Lai |
| 2015 | Manoj Shah |
| 2014 | Jan Abraham Ferreira |
| 2013 | Fang Zheng Peng |
| 2012 | Thomas Habetler |
| 2011 | Leo Lorenz |
| 2010 | William Peterson |
| 2009 | John MIller |
| 2008 | Ira J. Pitel |
| 2007 | Bruno Lequesne |
| 2006 | Kaushik Rajashekara |
| 2005 | Russel J. Kerkman |