I received my Ph.D. from the University of Nevada at Reno in 1972. My doctoral research was in the area of surface physics, using the tools of field-ion microscopy. After one year of post doctoral research and teaching at U.N.R. I went to Michigan, where I taught at Southwestern Michigan College for 10 years.

Since I'm from Washington, and my wife from California, we wanted to get back to the West Coast. I'm currently a professor of physics at Eastern Washington University, where I've been teaching since 1983.

Although my three children are all grown and have left home, my wife Donna and I still have our home in Cheney. Around 1996 my wife took a temporary job in Germany. I spent all my holidays and summers with her there and we got to see a good deal of Germany and Europe. I also spent a one-quarter long professional leave there to work on my program Fields and Potentials. She stayed there about a year and a half, but is happily now back in the states, where we can visit our four grandchildren. It August of 2005 I purchased a Prius hybrid, it now occupies much of what little spare time I have. Eventually, I plan on doing a plug-in conversion following the work done by Norm Dick.

My e-mail address is mckinstr@dmmsw.org.