Silicon Valley Engineering
Hall of Fame for 1997

Sam Cristofano is a registered Civil Engineer in California and Colorado. After receiving his B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Colorado in 1952 he worked for the City of Englewood, Colorado as Water and Sewage Superintendent and as a sanitary engineer in the California Department of Public Health. In 1957 he became an employee of the City of Santa Clara serving as Street Superintendent until 1963 and as Director of Public Works until his retirement in 1986.

As Director of Public Works for 23 years, he was responsible for nearly every aspect of the fast growing City of Santa Clara’s infrastructure including the planning, design, construction and maintenance of transportation and parking facilities, storm drainage, solid waste management, and other capitol improvements. Demonstrative of Mr. Cristofano’s capabilities were the industrial and commercial development north of Highway 101 and the rerouting of El Camino Real around Santa Clara University.

In 1974 he received an M.S. in Public Works Administration from Santa Clara University where he later taught graduate courses in Solid Waste Management and Public Works Administration and an undergraduate course in Transportation Engineering. He has also served as a long time volunteer judge at Santa Clara University’s Senior Engineering Design Project. Mr. Cristofano has authored numerous articles on infrastructure planning and design.

Mr. Cristofano continues to be active in numerous professional societies and civic organizations including the American Public Works Association, Santa Clara University Board of Fellows, and the Engineering Alumni Board. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for the California Transportation Foundation and the Mission City Community Fund. He has received many honors including four prestigious awards from the American Public Works Association.

Dr. James F. Gibbons

James F. Gibbons, currently Dean Emeritis of Engineering at Stanford University, received a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from Northwestern University and his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. He joined the Stanford Electrical Engineering faculty in 1957, was named the Reid Weaver Dennis Chair in Electrical Engineering in 1983 and was named Frederick Emmons Terman Dean of Engineering at Stanford in 1984. In 1996 he became a Special Assistant to the President of Stanford University.

As an educator, Gibbons has distinguished himself as the writer of a widely used undergraduate textbook Semiconductor Electronics (McGraw-Hill 1966, revised 1982), as the author of nearly 300 scientific and technical papers and monographs, as a pioneer in ion implantation in semiconductors, and as the originator of the Tutored Video Instruction, widely used at Stanford and elsewhere for continuing education of engineers.

As an academic administrator, during Gibbons tenure as Dean of Engineering, his insistence on the highest quality of faculty appointments led to a major rise in Stanford’s School of Engineering’s national ratings, with three departments ranked first in the nation and all departments in the top seven, according to the most recent National Research Council rating of graduate departments.

Gibbons has also applied his tutored video instruction concept to pressing social problems, including the education of the children of migrant farm workers (in the 1980’s) and to anger management in at-risk teens (in the 1990’s), primarily through SERA Learning Technologies, a company he founded.

Gibbons is the recipient of many awards, and has been elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has served on committees advising the Presidential Science Advisor in the Nixon, Reagan, Bush and Clinton administrations.

Dr. Bernard M. Oliver

Bernard (Barney) M. Oliver, a native of Santa Cruz, armed with an undergraduate degree at age 19 from Stanford, a Ph.D. from Caltech, and twelve years at Bell Telephone Laboratories entered employment at Hewlett-Packard in 1952. He became Director of Research and later Director of the Hewlett-Packard Laboratories where he had ultimate responsibility for research and development. In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s Dr. Oliver the leader in the design of the HP-9100, the most advanced programmable desktop electronic calculator of its time, and the HP-35, the world’s first hand-held electronic calculator. His opinion became the court of last resort for HP’s advanced development. David Packard called him “one of the greatest applied scientists of this century.” To Bill Hewlett, Barney Oliver was “one of the truly great engineers of his time.”

After 28 years at Hewlett-Packard Dr. Oliver retired from full-time duty there, but continued part-time as Technical Advisor to the President of HP. In addition, his interests turned to other matters: supervising the design of future very large radio-telescope arrays for NASA, biologic controls for agriculture, and search for extraterrestial life with the SETI Institute. Dr. Oliver held over 60 patents and was author of many technical papers. He was thoroughly engaged in these activities until the day of his death on November 23, 1995.

Dr. Oliver was a true Renaissance man who greatly enjoyed art, music and literature. He served with distinction on the Palo Alto School Board for twelve years and at one time was President of IEEE. He received many honors. In 1986 he received the National Medal of Science for translating physical science into electronic systems that have enriched the lives of all Americans.