According to this biography, Leo Beranek was an acoustician, technology pioneer, and living example of the American dream. Born in Iowa in 1914, he experienced the Great Depression as a teenager, and worked to pay for his studies. Using his entire savings ($400, withdrawn from the bank the day before it went bankrupt), he was able to study as an undergraduate at Cornell while also working at Collins Radio on the marketing of sound systems to funeral homes, to provide music during services.

A fortuitous encounter with radio pioneer Glenn Browning, who young Leo helped in fixing a flat tire, brought him to apply to Harvard University in 1935, where he was granted a full scholarship to cover his graduate studies. At Harvard, he began to address the acoustic impedance characteristics of materials, a field that soon brought him to lead research on sound, vibration control, and communication in wartime aircraft, managing government grants equivalent to $40 million in today’s currency.

At the end of the war, he joined MIT as a tenured professor of communication engineering, and co-founded the acoustic consulting firm Bolt, Beranek, and Newman (BBN). BBN soon grew in reputation to become known as “Cambridge’s third university,” managing projects such as the sound system for the General Assembly building of the United Nations, or the world’s largest muffler at NACA’s (now NASA’s) research center in Cleveland.

The procurement of the first computer in 1957, soon followed by a DEC PDP-1, marked the entrance of BBN into the digital era, with research on time-sharing performed by scientists of the caliber of Marvin Minsky, and the acquisition of contracts from the National Institutes of Health to develop hospital information systems. As president of BBN, a seat he held between 1958 and 1971, Beranek was responsible for assembling the software group that invented ARPANET, the precursor of the Internet.

In the 1970s, Beranek expanded his interests to television, investing his lifetime savings in Boston’s Channel 5, which he developed into one of the country’s best after a nine-year legal battle, only to sell it in 1982 for the highest price ever paid for a broadcast station up to that time. Since then, he has continued working as an acoustics consultant all over the world, advising on the construction of concert halls and opera houses, and has received awards, including the National Medal of Science, presented by the President of the United States in 2003.

This is just a short glimpse into the experiences and achievements described in this personal account of Leo Beranek, Renaissance man, “scientist, professor, engineer, business leader, inventor, entrepreneur, musician, television executive, philanthropist, and author.” This easy-to-read, enjoyable book will be a source of inspiration to students and practitioners alike; I highly recommend it.