Hey! I'm Pat Dougherty, also known as the "Duke of Nuke!" I'm a professional windsurfer and a mechanical engineer. I live in Hood River, Oregon, where the winds often blow so hard that they're called thermonuclear winds. That's when I love to windsurf, so people started calling me the "Duke of Nuke..." I've been the vice president of a small windsurfing design company, I've run many windsurfing clinics here and in Aruba in Central America, and right now I'm a lead engineer for a small research and development (R&D) company here in Hood River. I love what I'm doing!

First, let me tell you that where I live is important to me. I really like Hood River, and I've been very fortunate to find or make opportunities right here in town. I'm not the kind of person who would follow a job from place to place; I want to stay here in the Pacific Northwest. I went to high school in Boise, Idaho, and I went to Boise State University and University of Idaho for my B.S. degree in mechanical engineering. I learned to windsurf in high school and it was a favorite hobby of mine through high school and college.

When I graduated from college in 1986, I interviewed for the more traditional engineering jobs like everybody else, although I concentrated on prospects in the northwest. At that time the sport of windsurfing was very new and still evolving on a daily basis. The limits of performance for equipment were not clearly defined, and prototypes were making huge advancements. The two hot spots for all the new research and development for windsurfing designs were in Hawaii and Oregon. A friend of mine whom I had met through windsurfing was trying to start a company in Hood River, and he asked me if I wanted to be a partner. It would be a challenge, and the money and success would be uncertain, but it would be hands-on work on something that I personally loved. So I took him up on his offer over the more traditional jobs that I had been offered. I figured, if you can't take a chance when you're young and everything you own (mostly windsurfing equipment!) fits in the back of your pickup, when can you?

What a ride it was! For 10 years I was the vice president of Gorge Technology, Hood River, Oregon, a company that built windsurfing equipment. I was responsible for designing and testing prototypes, and I did a lot of marketing and sales along the way. The company was awarded one patent and I was awarded another patent for two of our best designs that we built and marketed. Our first big product was the speed inducer. This piece of equipment allowed a windsurfer to rig the sail closer to the deck of the board so that the wind couldn't pass under the sail. The aerodynamics and efficiency of the sail were improved and the windsurfer sailed much faster! Our second big product was the downhaul cleat, for which we were awarded a company patent. It was a huge step forward for windsurfing equipment. It allowed people to stand up and go much faster even in small winds. This was a huge success, since most places don't have a lot of wind like Hood River does. It's much more fun to blow by someone than to be blown by!

At Gorge Technology, we were improving the sport and selling the technology. We designed accessories for wind surfing, the booms (the bar you hold the sail with), bases (where the sail is attached to the board), and cases (so you can travel with your equipment!).

I turned pro in the sport of windsurfing, and worked with many companies doing research, development, and testing for their equipment. In return, the companies would sponsor me in races, supplying me with equipment and money. I tested fins (on the bottom of the boards), sails, boards, masts, booms, wetsuits, harnesses, speedometers, and even shoes for Nike! I started running clinics, the Duke of Nuke Wind Clinics, to teach people to windsurf and to improve their skills. In the winter time, I ran several clinics in Aruba, near Venezuela in Central America! It was a great ride while it lasted. The sport has matured, however, and the big companies started manufacturing overseas. We couldn't compete; the production costs were killing us. So, we had to shut down the business.

I looked around for a new job as an engineer. I knew I wanted to stay in or near Hood River. I decided that I needed to update some of my skills, so I went back to school and got certified for running AutoCAD programs. At this same time, a professor in aerospace engineering from MIT in Massachusetts got tired of the rat race on the east coast and decided to move his family out to Hood River and start a small research and development company doing contracts for the government. He brought several other Ph.D.'s with him, but he needed some hands-on engineers for the building and testing phases. He advertised and I applied. My title is Project Engineer, but since this is a small company and relatively unstructured, I'm several people! On some projects I'm the lead engineer, on others I'm the manager, and on some of them I'm just another worker.

My work is typically a balance between building and testing prototypes. It's a lot of hands-on work; we often need to build and test something quickly, and then we need to explain what it is we're doing. I see this job as a true definition of a R&D company - we have two groups, the Ph.D.'s and the hands-on engineers. The Ph.D.'s do the documentation, explanations, and the proposals, and the engineers do the building and testing. The design efforts are shared by both groups. I find it interesting, though, that the scribbles and doodles of the company owner for ideas to pursue generally hold up through the whole process and dominate the company! Right now I'm working on the ATMA - the active tuned mass absorber. It's a project for an instrument that senses and absorbs vibrations to reduce noise on comercial aircraft.

Will I be doing this for the rest of my life? Maybe... I like what I'm doing. I've always wanted to figure out why things work. I like building things and seeing if they work. I like to be an inventor. My dad was a big influence when I was growing up. He liked to work on things, taking them apart and fixing them. I'm also an identical twin, and I'm dying to be original! When I was in little league I wanted to be a mailman, but in high school I was encouraged to go into engineering since I liked to figure out how things worked. I worked for a boiler company during high school, and I got a lot of hands-on experience that really helped.

I went to Boise State University for 2 years then transferred to the University of Idaho. I joined my brother at U. of I. for the last couple of years of our degrees. He's a mechanical engineer also. Together he and I spearheaded a group of engineering students to design and build a baja buggy to compete in a national competition for all colleges. It was the first time a team had been formed from U. of I., so we started from ground zero. Mike (my brother) and I had a lot of experience racing motorcross, and we used some of the concepts from our motorcross bikes to design the go-cart. We worked hard the first semester to collect money and resources and finalize the design. Over Christmas and throughout the second semester we built, tested, and refined the buggy. We drove down to El Paso, TX, to compete with other college teams. The University of Texas at Austin and California State at Los Angeles had been trading the first place title back and forth for years, and here we were, an unknown team trying to break in. Everyone kept saying, "Idaho? Where's that?"

The competition is a 2 day event, and we were 3rd overall after the first day of judging. The first day, judges evaluate all the carts and the accompanying reports and study the results of the performance tests. These tests look at the acceleration of the cart, the hill climbing abilities, maneuvering capabilities, the brakes, and the safety features. Our standing put us in the second row for the 2nd day of competition: the endurance race! The endurance race is 3 to 4 hours long over a motorcross track with bumps, hills, and tight turns. By the first turn, we were in front of the pack, and we led the entire race. We had the only buggy to not break down, and we rolled over the bumps. Mike and I had modelled the suspension after the ones on our motorcross bikes, and the whole team had worked hard to test the cart before the competition. Everyone on the team took turns driving, and those of us not driving were comparing notes about the course. Our motto was go fast, but be first! We took the 1st place trophy home with us to Idaho... It was a great experience I'll never forget!

Questions for Pat:

Do you have any aviation-related hobbies?
No, not really, although I'm doing some consulting for a company that is designing radio-controlled airplanes to fly into clouds for atmospheric data.