Paul Michael Skarstad (1942-2017)

摘要

Paul Michael Skarstad died peacefully at his home of more than 40 years in Plymouth, Minnesota, at age 74. He joined ECS in 1977 and was an emeritus member and a member of the Battery Division. Born in Grafton, North Dakota, he spent his childhood exploring nature in and around Fargo and Mandan, North Dakota. After graduating from Moorhead High School in 1961, he attended the University of Minnesota, graduating with a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1965. He received his PhD in chemistry from Cornell University in 1972 and did post-doctoral work at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and worked at the U.S. National Bureau of Standards in Gaithersburg, Maryland, for one year. In 1976, he joined Medtronic in Fridley, Minnesota, from which he retired in 2006 as a senior director of energy systems. While there he set the highest standards for excellence in scientific discovery, innovation, and mentoring. At Medtronic he helped shrink the size of pacemakers and other medical devices by designing smaller, more powerful batteries that lasted much longer than their predecessors.