Jeri Ellsworth: Race car-driving, roller-derby skating, self-taught designer
Take one race car driver, give her a roller derby jersey with the name “Rectifier IN34″ and access to some components, and who do you get? Jeri Ellsworth.When Jeri took the stage this morning at ESC Silicon Valley, keynote comparisons were made between Woz, the Tuesday keynote presenter, and her. The basics are that they are both nerds who were bullied, they both had amazing dads who encouraged them to become electronics kids, they both dropped out of school (Jeri out of high school, Woz out of college), and they are both very much self taught. Unlike Woz who went back to school after starting Apple, Jeri did not. In fact everything she’s done - and it’s a lot - is self taught.
But that’s about where the comparison ends. Woz, of course, became rich, whether he wanted that or not ; excelled in corporate environments, whether he wanted to or not; and is a household name, again, whether he wanted that or not. Meanwhile Jeri is not rich, noted HR dislike with her lack of a degree, and is best known in underground geek circles.
I had very much been looking forward to Woz’s keynote and when making my ESC travel plans thought Jeri would be great to see, too. Turns out that while I enjoyed Woz immensely, the stories Jeri shared were tremendous - funny, smart, sharp, and relatable.
Some of what she shared was heartwarming, especially the stories of her dad, struggling to make ends meet but finding the money for computers and always being the one she ran to when things went wrong with the devices. (Jeri, if you are reading this, we hope you are no longer sticking forks in electronics). How he set up a box in his station garage to collect customers’ broken electronics so she could tear them down. How he, like a really great dad, fought with her when she was a teenager hanging with the bad crowd, trying to steer her back onto a better path.
Some of her stories were heart breaking. Being bullied, beaten up, and degraded in junior high and how that pushed her “off the rails” and toward the bad crowd. Being pushed out by a business partner later in life. Struggling to make ends meet when she started a new computer store to compete with her ex-partner, so much so that she lived in the back of the store and was warned by the police that she would be fined if she continued to dump her garbage in other shops’ dumpsters because she couldn’t afford garbage pickup.
She is defined in ESC notes as an “entrepreneur” and that’s very much true, even though she said during the keynote that being an entrepreneur has always been her “fatal flaw.” In between laughing and getting choked up/angry for her during the keynote, you could see that her successes are her own and did not come easy, despite her natural talent.
She admitted to often asking herself, “What the hell am I doing?” when she struggled with her business and to being told when she wanted to be a designer that she “was crazy because you had to go to college for that.” Yep, I’d say she proved them wrong.
Her best known device is probably the Commodore 30-in-1 Direct to TV, a Commodore 64 emulator within a joystick that was found under a lot of Christmas trees during the 2004 holiday season. But she’s constantly tinkering and coming up with new designs. She’s now working with Element14 and Adafruit to produce videos.
Jeri repeatedly credited mentors for her successes. When asked about getting more women into engineering, she noted that we need to “be active with girls [in engineering mentoring]” and to “treat them with respect.”
It seemed like she could probably name every person who has helped her out along the way. This is a good quality; too many people are not grateful once they make it.
And, hey, I’d say being on a speaker list with the designer behind the Apple I at one of the industry’s premier conferences is making it. By the way, Jeri admitted that when she was down financially, she would sneak into ESC and other shows like DesignCon because she couldn’t afford to pay. “It’s a big honor to be here at a show I used to sneak into,” she said. Then she promised to pay back the stolen admission fees. Given the full house she pulled in today, I think it’s even.
I tweeted live from the keynote via the @EDNmagazine feed. Our last tweet was: Thanks for the awesome ESC keynote, @jeriellsworth! You rocked it #esc_events. If you at the keynote this morning, what did you think? Is she one in a million or do you really need to go to school for this? Share your thoughts below.
Mikey commented:
Hats off to Jeri! I, too am self-taught. In high school, I was finished with the book 3/4 of the way through the semester without trying hard. I found out what books were used in college and studied from them. In junior high I was doing college physics work on my own.
I was kept out of electronics in industry because I was partially color-blind... red-green. I went into computers in the Army, finally, but came back to electronics again. I've worked with and designed quite a few products.
I, too was kept from the work I loved in electronics, but like Jeri, I found that if you have the ability and drive, nothing can stop you.
You CAN have a college-level understanding of all the sciences without college indoctrination. After all, the instructors may teach, but the student still has to learn.
Jeri, go get 'em. Other people wanting to take this path, start at the very basics and don't skip anything. Bricks upon bricks, like a wall.
Doug McClelland commented:
This is a note from one of the original, but not too old hacker/ non-degree engineers. My hats off to Jeri and her success, but her success is a one in a thousand for non-degree engineers. When I first ran into Jeri at the vintage computer fest in NJ, I had to chuckle a little, as my engineering career track has been an exact copy of Jeri, except that mine occurred 20 years earlier and started in 1967. I too had an insatiable curiosity to know every little detail about electrical engineering. When I was 13, I was knee deep in a operational amplifier math model and ran across some mysterious math. My father ( a chemical engineer ) would tell me that was differential calculus. So Ok I would just go get a book on calculus and learn it in a couple of days. See the insane drive here. I would fix old tv's and damn near electrocute myself on 20,000 VDC. In a earlier post John John hit upon a key element, and that is the study of the mother of all sciences Physic !! Early in my career, I realized that if you knew the basic principles of physics, it was the key to all the other sciences. Non-degree engineers are constantly and highly discriminated against in the formal engineering community. Their is this weird logic that some how the only place you can pick up an engineering book is in college. Their still is this prime-evil thought that if you did not study for 4 years in a college, you are not permitted to call you self an electrical engineer ?? I could not do the designs I do without my equivalent of 3 PHD's work experience and education of 30 years of work I can only get contracts if I can talked to the engineers in a company and am often hired on the spot. The IDIIOT HR departments will instantly chuck the resume in the trash, without a BSEE. In my early days as a NASA engineer at Goddard, I had no time to spend 8 months to a year in college beer drinking and eventually learning circuit design. I would have a GOES satellite launch in one week on Friday and I had just 3 days to learn it all, or I was fired !!!. So you see my everyday work was my unforgiving mentor.
John John commented:
Einstein was self taught man. There was not much physics in ETH by then. She is wonderful, yet can she make an invention (say in VLSI) to make a real difference in technology ?. How.
This calls for deep understanding of real physics, chemistry and design plus test. I doubt this can be achieved with high school education. I also doubt with PhD studies from most of universities. One needs to add years of industrial work and observing problems in his domain of work. Certainly MBA wont help either.
It is hard to be innovative in a big company either. Thanks. John John basiabasia2003@gmail.com
Pete commented:
A question to Jeri. I have read an article by a seller who claims to be able to convert a standard gasoline sedan to an electric car. How this can be done , to me seems impossible. It may have been a spammer looking for some quick money. What do you think, is there a way to do this?
Muhammad Ali Akhtar commented:
She really is my idea. Jeri, If you are reading this, please do understand that your life story gave me an IMMENSE MOTIVATION, and I am really thankful to you for that. I really wish that you create much more beautiful things. Don't ever think that your career is over. You are at middle and GREAT SUCCESS waits for you.
Regards
Muhammad Ali Akhtar
Islamabad, Pakistan
strglg entp commented:
Great story not all brilliance comes out of college. Many highly intelligent people don't fit the norms of public education and many fall in to bad crowds (truly a loss)more cases like this may give them another way. Go Jeri!
Joe commented:
A woman that can lay-down a good weld bead!
Now that's hot.
I love it when a non-formally educated designer is successful, keeps the bull of higher education from getting out further out of control. Me with my bachellor and two masters, sometimes I wonder, if it was all nothing more than a "ticket punching" exercise.
BobCat commented:
Totally wrong about her only being a race car driver! She designs and build cars from scratch, too. :) Her welds are masterful. Check out her youtube channel "jeriellsworth" to see all her experiments and hacks!
