This year marks Sam Kirk's 30th year in Silicon Valley as a computer software engineer with over 25 years dedicated to diagnostic software and firmware engineering and to hardware test programming.
On the job, he is diligent, flexible, innovative, persistent, reliable and very curious about how things work... or don't !
Sam has worked for Sun Microsystems, Teradyne, ESS Technology, Motorola Semiconductor, Convergent Technologies, ROLM, AMD and TRW including 3 different startups. He has worked in both design engineering and manufacturing test engineering. The test programs he has produced have been released not only to fellow engineers for exhaustive prototype bring-up and to manufacturing for fast production-line testing, but also to field service organizations and customers where ease of use, replacement unit isolation and data-safe operation are paramount. His diagnostic tests have performed both analog and digital testing for comprehensive mixed-signal testing of hardware.
In design engineering he has implemented diagnostic firmware for the Power-On Self-Tests (POST) of embedded computers and controllers. He has also designed and implemented online diagnostic, I/O driver and calibration software for product use as well as offline, standalone diagnostic software for field service use only. In manufacturing, his tests have performed completely automated integrated circuit testing in final package testing and also in wafer sort. For board-level testing, he has written a lengthy series of rapid-implementation, manually-assisted testing. Both his board-level and IC manufacturing tests have been used extensively in local test houses and off-shore sites in Taiwan. The products he has worked on have targeted the data communications, telecommunications, home entertainment and automatic test equipment markets.
He received a Masters of Science degree from the University of Louisville in Systems Science and Applied Math and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from The Ohio State University.
Sam is an avid ballroom dancer primarily in Country/Western Dance. His favorite dances are West Coast Swing, Night Club Two Step, Country Two Step, Foxtrot, American Waltz and Cajun/Zydeco. He frequently dances with Top of Beardsley's in San Mateo, at The Saddle Rack in Fremont and at Robin Rebello's Friday Night Dance at The Cubberley Pavilion in Palo Alto. He attends many of the monthly West Coast Swing Dances on the weekends such as Michelle Kincaid's at the Imperial in Redwood City, The Next Generation Swing Dance Club at the Allegro in Emeryville and Mike Pyle's Lakeside Swing at the VA Memorial Hall in Oakland.
This year also marks his very first grandchild !