How did America rise to global dominance in technology, and what happened since then?
What feeds technological advancement and the economic growth it brings? What factors contribute to today's worrisome trends, and who is responsible?
What can be done now to avoid or diminish the impact of a decline?
The author draws on his forty years of experience to answer these questions in an organized and thoughtful manner. He outlines the role that technology has played in the economy of the United States and explains how theory evolves into products. Describing how technology gets developed, he explains America’s rise to global dominance in technology and salutes its golden age with an overview of many breakthroughs that improved our standard of living and lifted every boat. Then, illustrating how the current decline began, he delineates the impacts this decline may have on America's future and highlights the strategies that can help us now.
Dr. Lynn G. Gref’s career spans four decades as a developer, manager and consultant in research and development applied to defense, space and intelligence needs.
As manager of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s non-NASA business, he oversaw a wide-range of technology developments including the active-pixel CCD at the heart of today’s cell phone cameras.
Earlier, as a lead investigator on an effort for the Director of ARPA, he provided landmark recommendations on the disposition of the ARPANET that eventually led to the INTERNET.
He has served on the Army Science Board, a panel member of several studies of the Naval Studies Board of the National Academy of Sciences and a member of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (C3I)’s 2000 Joint Senior Advisory Group. He is currently on the Board of Advisers of the College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, University of California, Riverside.