I felt that I had outgrown the Winnipeg tech market, so when Michael Miller contacted me to consider working at GE-Multilin in Markham, Ontario, I jumped at the opportunity. I moved to Markham, lived 3 blocks from the plant, and walked to work most days. It was a fantastic experience!
I met a lot of great people at GE-Multilin, many of whom I am still in touch with today.
I was lead hardware engineer on the flagship transmission level protection relay, the URplus. Originally developed as a replacement for the venerable and popular UR relay (“UR” meaning “universal relay”), the URplus could not displace the UR in the hearts and minds of customers, so it was moved upscale into a higher end niche. Part of that niche was the development of its Process Bus capability, through the incorporation of the recently-developed Process Card. I did a significant amount of work to shepherd the Process Card through the various development gates, into production, and then into shipment to customers, culminating in the introduction of the B95plus product to the marketplace.
Since then though, GE-Multilin’s product family has been pruned, and the B95plus is the only member of the family under active development. All other applications are actually migrating back to the now-revitalized UR product line.
Although there were lots of good people, and the work was challenging, I missed Winnipeg, and moved back in anticipation of significant opportunities there.