Rosenberger Principal Design Engineer Reflects on his Career

“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them, said Shakespeare. Bob Hosler is all three greats!” said Nicole Kreider, Applications Engineer at Rosenberger North America (RNA).

Bob Hosler, a Principal Design Engineer at RNA, started his time with the company in 2012 as a Design Engineer. As part of a submission for National Engineers Week this past February, Hosler reflected on his 39 years working in the industry.

Hosler graduated from the Dauphin County Vocational/Technical in 1973 after studying Drafting and Design.

“As I look forward to retirement at some point in the future, I can truthfully say that my career began as a drafting student at a Vo/Tech school and with the inspiration of my teacher, Mr. Lindsay, is what lead me on to the career path I have today,” said Hosler.

After graduating, Hosler worked as an intern for AMP Incorporated. After a year, he joined the military. In the US Navy, Hosler dealt with air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles.

“I was always intrigued with their construction and the electronics that made them work,” explained Hosler. “I also worked on the flight deck, and I was able to see the take off and landings of the aircraft. It amazed me as to how much stress the landing gear could take during a landing. I believe these were fundamental foundations that led me into the mechanical engineering field.”

Hosler then went on to graduate from Penn State University’s Harrisburg campus with a BS in Mechanical Engineering Technology. From there, he began his career in the RF industry.

After graduating, Hosler went back to AMP Incorporated as a Product Engineer 1 and was assigned military and commercial products, such as the SMA, BNC and TNC product lines that meet MIL-STD-348 interfaces.

After a year, he was promoted to Product Engineer 2 and was assigned the multiple mated coaxial contact lines which dealt with Size 8, ARINC and AMP’s coaxial contact lines, micro-miniature, subminiature and miniature RF products.

Hosler then went into RF coaxial design as a Development Engineer 2.

“At this point in my career, I met a fellow engineer, Bob Fisher, that trained me on the electrical analysis of coaxial connectors,” said Hosler. “It was his inspiration that gave me the boost I needed to stay in the RF coax field. Not only are RF connectors mechanical, but they also are electrical devices and frequency dependent. Also, RF connectors have multiple interfaces which make them uniquely different from other interconnect devices.”

Hosler’s mechanical background and Fisher’s electrical background led to many designs and patents. They have worked together for over 30 years at various companies collaborating on various designs.

To add to this, Bob Fisher, Senior Project Engineer, said “As Bob noted, he and I have worked on and off (mostly on) together for a very long time, with several different companies. We have cross-trained each other on the others discipline, and still confer when I have a mechanical engineering question, or when he has an electrical engineering question. His design insights were always extremely valuable, and we have several patents together as co-inventors. I think we learned a lot from each other over the years, and I have always valued his advice and opinions.”

“I’ve probably known Bob longer than anybody here (RNA) except Bob Fisher,” said Jac Havener, Test & Measurement Senior Product Manager. “I first met him when the three of us worked together in the RF group at AMP Incorporated for Jihan Mohammed – 25 years ago! Bob is a straightforward, hardworking guy who really likes to help anyone out, and is a terrific mentor to young engineers.”

After a period of 15 years at AMP, Hosler worked at other companies before finally landing at Rosenberger.

“I remember when Bob first came on board as a designer,” stated Ted Toth, Senior Technical Advisor. “The connector design engineer before him gave the info to Bob to aid in the designing of connectors but would not share any of his prior knowledge about how he calculated and developed the actual designs. Bob persisted, and little by little, acquired the design knowledge. Now Bob is one of the most knowledgeable RF design engineers I know in the industry.”

A year after Hosler started at Rosenberger, Mohsin Peeran, RNA’s Military & Aerospace Vice President, joined the company.

“Together Mohsin and I started the fundamentals of what the Mil/Aero department now is at Rosenberger North America. With Mohsin’s knowledge base of the customers, and my designs, we slowly made progress in the industry,” Hosler said. “Rosenberger was not an established name in the Mil/Aero industry here in the US. We have been privileged to have participated in supporting programs of national importance. These programs and platforms required innovative engineered solutions to complex problems. Over the years, we have established a strong relationship with our defense customers and Rosenberger is now known in the industry as the company to go to for innovative solutions.”

Hosler describes his time at Rosenberger as the greatest experience of his career. Along with encouragement from Peeran, he has developed many RF connectors that are being utilized in military programs.

“I’ve worked with him on a lot of projects,” stated Havener. “The most memorable projects are where the design challenges were unachievable. Everybody said it would never work, even Bob said it wasn’t going to work, and somehow, he got them to work.”

Bob Hosler now has 18 US patents. One of those patents being with Lockheed Martin, and he’s confident this list will one day soon include patents from Rosenberger North America.

“We have tackled some of the most demanding designs,” said Hosler. “Some of these designs are difficult to manufacture, but with the team we have at Rosenberger, failure is not an option.”

Hosler will be celebrating his 11^th anniversary with Rosenberger in June of this year.