The Association of Public Radio Engineers has chosen two recipients for its 2014 Engineering Achievement Award.
Bud Aiello, director of engineering technology at NPR and Gray Frierson Haertig, owner and principal engineer of Gray Frierson Haertig & Associates, are this year’s award winners.
The APRE award recipients are nominated by their peers. Aiello’s nomination noted his work on NPR’s new technical facility where he served as the architect for the overall systems. “From the early days of designing, to climbing in the construction hole to check the contractor’s welds of the grounding grid, to wrestling into submission multiple vendors” Bud’s work proved to be invaluable, the group said.
Aiello’s fellow engineers wrote on the nomination form that Aiello “has a keen eye for detail, uncanny instincts for problem solving, and is a gifted arbiter of where to take advantage of new technologies and where to avoid risks with designs he has reason to doubt will bear the tests of time.”
The nomination form submitted for Gray Haertig pointed to his “prolific presence” on the Pubtech listserv that “has educated and mentored a significant number of engineers still on the steep side of the learning curve of radio engineering.” Also noted was his work with “numerous new noncommercial radio facilities including those stations serving indigenous populations” for which he provided RF engineering services that were needed to build, remodel, or improve.
The awards will be presented at the annual APRE/PREC Engineering Awards Dinner on April 4.
