{"id":9407,"date":"2023-12-06T18:41:27","date_gmt":"2023-12-06T18:41:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ecm.eng.auburn.edu\/wp\/emag\/?p=9407"},"modified":"2024-05-20T19:21:27","modified_gmt":"2024-05-20T19:21:27","slug":"the-burches-of-auburn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ecm.eng.auburn.edu\/wp\/emag\/?p=9407","title":{"rendered":"The Burches of Auburn"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Senior mechanical engineering lecturer Tom Burch (left) and assistant electrical engineering professor Hunter Burch.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This is an Auburn story. It begins in 1974 at the University of Alabama.<\/span><\/p>\n

There he was, 17-year-old Tom Burch from tiny Moulton, Alabama, walking around an engineering building \u2014 it was a recruitment day type thing \u2014 pondering the course of his life. As far as he knew, Tom had never met an engineer. But folks began telling him he might make a good one some day, that his natural abilities \u2014 he could fix any machine on the neighbor\u2019s cattle farm he worked \u2014 seemed aligned with that sort of thing. <\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, that meant going to college, which wasn\u2019t exactly a tradition for graduating seniors at Lawrence County High School at the time. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat just wasn\u2019t really expected,\u201d Tom said.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 10th grade, he signed up for the HVAC course his dad taught. High school in the morning, technical school in the afternoon. Graduate, get a job. To Tom, it seemed like a plan. To his dad, it didn\u2019t. If Tom wanted to learn air conditioning and refrigerator repair, his dad told him he\u2019d be happy to teach him. But only after he\u2019d taken all the math and science he could, only after a mind and hands like his had weighed all their options. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s when,\u201d Tom said, \u201cI started thinking I might go to college.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Just not the one he was touring two years later. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey had some display \u2014 a water faucet hanging in the air with two wires and water running out. But what they really had was a glass tube running up the middle and water running back down over the glass tube. It was a trick display. They made out like they were condensing water out of the air and they thought I\u2019d be stupid enough to buy it,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t buy it. <\/span><\/p>\n

Tom started at Auburn University that fall. He declared mechanical engineering. It was hard work. He loved it. <\/span><\/p>\n

He got a job every break, saved everything, and to his dad\u2019s delight, paid every dime of tuition himself.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Tom Burch, center, as pictured in the 1979 Glomerata, his senior year at Auburn.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Four and a half years later, Tom was a mechanical engineer. He was fluent in the language of the principles he\u2019d grown up grasping instinctively, now with a knack for the higher level stuff. His professors took notice.<\/span><\/p>\n

When Glenn Maples learned that the only student to get an A on his thermodynamics of power systems final planned to immediately enter the workforce, he told him to think again.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDr. Maples told me I was going to grad school,\u201d Tom said. \u201cHe said \u2018we\u2019re going to hire you to work on a Department of Energy contract. You can take one course a quarter, get your student debt paid off and finish up your master\u2019s.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Tom pinched himself.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cComing from my background\u2026 well, it took me a while to realize I was good enough to compete,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Auburn, he said, gave him that confidence \u2014 and opportunities to use it. Maples, as it turned out, owned an energy conservation consulting business with mechanical engineering professor David Dyer. They began farming out some of the work to Tom. It paid well. <\/span><\/p>\n

He started making enough to start thinking long term about an Auburn graphic design student he\u2019d met named Patti. Regionally, nationally, even internationally, Tom started making a name for himself. Want an energy audit your company could really use? <\/span><\/p>\n

There was an Auburn man who\u2019d do you right. <\/span><\/p>\n

Things went according to plan. He earned money. He earned his master\u2019s. Then it happened all over again. <\/span><\/p>\n

Maples told his brother, an engineering professor at LSU, that they ought to give one of their Alumni Federation Fellowships to the Burch boy he had working for him.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before he knew it, Tom, former aspiring HVAC technician, was Dr. Tom Burch.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then Maples and Dyer made him an offer \u2014 bring that doctorate back to town, we\u2019ll make you a partner. That sounded fine. Business was booming. He and Patti, knot tied, were planning to start a family. Tom had said yes to Auburn for 15 years. <\/span><\/p>\n

No reason to stop now. <\/span><\/p>\n

No reason to stop ever.<\/span><\/p>\n

THE PRACTICAL-MINDED PROFESSOR<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Teaching was never really mechanical engineering senior lecturer Tom Burch\u2019s intention. It just happened. It was 1990 or so. Tom picked up the phone. It was John Goodling, head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019d heard I was back,\u201d Tom said. \u201cHe said \u2018we need some help teaching a thermo class.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Tom hesitated; he traveled a lot. Goodling kept pressing \u2014 they\u2019d work around his schedule. Just try it. <\/span><\/p>\n

One quarter turned into two. One course turned into two. Somehow along the way \u2014 he\u2019s still not sure how \u2014 he became an Auburn Engineering faculty member.<\/span><\/p>\n

That was 31 years ago. He\u2019s loved every second of it. Or at least every second of the good stuff.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Tom Burch has taught at his alma mater for more than three decades.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The teaching \u2014 for Tom, that\u2019s where it\u2019s at. No neckties. Greasy hands. The real world. The practical world.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of times, in other places, anything practical is frowned upon,\u201d Tom said. \u201cWriting papers, doing fundamental research \u2014 that\u2019s not enjoyable to me. But I very much enjoyed the teaching. I think, for some students, I\u2019m pretty good at it. I\u2019m pretty good for them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The decades, he said, have taken a toll on the next generation in the fundamentals department. And that, more than ever, is where Tom feels like he\u2019s made a difference. Want to learn about quantum mechanics? Fine. First, take his fluids class and learn exactly how a hot water heater works. <\/span><\/p>\n

Or go with him to Bolivia.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s actually what\u2019s meant the most over the years, he says \u2014 his advising role with Auburn\u2019s chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB). There\u2019s nothing more demonstrative of the Auburn Creed \u2014 and Tom\u2019s loved the Creed \u201csince before I even knew what it was\u201d \u2014 than EWB. You can\u2019t condense clean water out of thin air with a couple of random wires stuck to a Tuscaloosa spigot. But you can get it down a Bolivian mountain \u2014 if you know the fundamentals, and how to apply them. The looks on the faces of the families they help? That\u2019s better than a 4.0.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Tom Burch, senior lecturer in mechanical engineering, poses with a Bolivian family during a 2016 trip to Bolivia with the Auburn chapter of Engineers Without Borders.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cYou gain a lot of insight into physical principles by physically working with things,\u201d Tom said. \u201cI had a group of EWB students at my house the other day testing for an irrigation system we wanted to build in Bolivia, and there was a girl who said \u2018this is the first time I\u2019ve ever held a tool in my life.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Thanks to Tom, it won\u2019t be the last. <\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s what he likes to imagine as his legacy \u2014 students with the knowledge and skills to get the job done. Students like Hunter Burch.<\/span><\/p>\n

PRUDENTIA SIMPLICITATE<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

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Hunter Burch, a 2014 electrical and computer engineering graduate and thisyear\u2019s Outstanding Faculty Member for the Department and Electrical andComputer Engineering, is the younger half of Auburn Engineering\u2019s first father-Hunter Burch, a 2014 electrical and computer engineering graduate and thisyear\u2019s Outstanding Faculty Member for the Department and Electrical andComputer Engineering, is the younger half of Auburn Engineering\u2019s first father-son faculty colleagues.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Electrical engineering assistant professor Hunter Burch, a 2014 electrical and computer engineering graduate who got an A in Tom Burch\u2019s thermodynamics class, has a funny theory about how things all worked out. But he\u2019s not entirely joking. <\/span><\/p>\n

One of his many hobbies? Genealogy. He\u2019s traced the Burch name back to the Saxons, found the family heraldry. <\/span><\/p>\n

The family motto? \u201cPrudentia Simplicitate.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBasically, it translates to \u2018simply prudent,\u2019\u201d Hunter said. <\/span><\/p>\n

Prudent: Wise in practical affairs. The first line of the Auburn Creed, basically. <\/span><\/p>\n

Not that all Burch family affairs were perfectly practical. <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard for Hunter to keep track of how many crazy projects he and his younger brothers Harrison, \u201917 electrical and computer engineering, and Hayden, \u201922 mechanical engineering, did with dad growing up. After fixing things around the house and changing brake pads, they\u2019d get to the fun stuff that expanded Hunter\u2019s appreciation for the possible. They never sucked water from the air with wires. But a leaf blower-powered hoverboard, a chainsaw-powered bike? Sure. They turned a disposable camera into a taser, built a steam engine. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOh,\u201d Hunter said, \u201cand we made a snow machine.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Included among the many father-son projects in the Burch household? A homemade snow machine.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In March 2020, he heard that his dad, his brother Hayden and one of his dad\u2019s former students, mechanical engineering assistant professor Michael Zabala, spent the first weeks of COVID-19<\/a> in the garage converting a CPAP machine into a working ventilator as a pandemic mitigation effort. To Hunter, it sounded like just another Saturday on Springwood Drive. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d have an idea,\u201d Hunter said, \u201cand dad would say, \u2018OK, how do we do it?\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Hunter takes the same practical approach in class. But don\u2019t suggest electromagnetics isn\u2019t practical. He doesn\u2019t like that.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI want my students to look at the world how dad taught me and apply it to something that\u2019s much less tangible,\u201d Hunter said. \u201cTo take that very mechanical engineering mindset of this is a practical, physical world, but apply it to a more theoretical field. Maybe you can\u2019t grab it and shake it and make it tell you what it\u2019s doing, but can you build an antenna and say \u2018if the field is doing what I think it\u2019s doing, then here\u2019s what I\u2019ll get out of this antenna\u2019?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The approach seems to be working. Back in April, Hunter was named Outstanding Faculty Member in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), in his first semester as a tenure-track professor. It was a big day. Even bigger when Auburn University President Chris Roberts walked up to shake his hand at the awards reception.<\/span><\/p>\n

The day before, Roberts, former dean of engineering, had been installed as the university\u2019s new president at the Gogue Performing Arts Center. You could hear a pin drop as Roberts articulated his vision for the university, talking about family, hard work, the human touch \u2014 Creed stuff. <\/span><\/p>\n

With anyone else, it might have sounded cliche. Not with Roberts. The Creed is what convinced Roberts to accept the chemical engineering faculty position in the first place 20 years earlier. <\/span><\/p>\n

Plenty of places talked about excellence, he said; none set the pursuit of it in stone. The Creed, Roberts said, was \u201cthe real differentiator\u201d for Auburn. It was what earned Auburn the right to dream big.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hunter couldn\u2019t give a bigger \u201camen.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

When he heard about the opportunity in Gakona, Alaska<\/a>, for example, he didn\u2019t hesitate. Most folks taking advantage of the resources at the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program are engineers at the huge national labs, or professors and graduate students from some of the blueblood engineering schools. Hunter signed up an undergraduate student who was interested in heating up the ionosphere\u2019s plasma with huge radio waves, made the trip, slapped Auburn\u2019s name on the reservation board in the middle of the big boys, and even carved \u201cWar Eagle\u201d into the radio spectrum \u2014 spectrum painting they call it \u2014 as an exclamation point.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAuburn shouldn\u2019t have a mindset of, \u2018oh well, we\u2019re just Auburn.\u2019 We should be \u2014 and will be \u2014 competing on the world stage,\u201d Hunter said. \u201cThe academic world should be aware of that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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From left, Hunter Burch, assistant professor in electrical and computerengineering and Taylor Lindley, a senior in wireless engineering, spent two weeksin August 2023 studying properties and behavior of the upper atmosphere at theFrom left, Hunter Burch, assistant professor in electrical and computerengineering and Taylor Lindley, a senior in wireless engineering, spent two weeksin August 2023 studying properties and behavior of the upper atmosphere at theHigh Frequency Active Auroral Research Program in Gakona, Alaska.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Samford Hall couldn\u2019t have put it in any better. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAt the reception, I told Dr. Roberts that I was proud of him,\u201d Hunter said. \u201cThen he told me he was pretty sure me and dad were the first father-son teaching team in the college\u2019s history.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As if returning to Auburn hadn\u2019t felt charmed enough for Hunter.<\/span><\/p>\n

He\u2019d gone to the University of Florida for his master\u2019s degree and doctorate, traveled the world, Antarctica included (twice) \u2014 the poles are pretty good for electromagnetic experiments \u2014 and planned to make his mark in the field in\u2026 San Francisco maybe? Maybe Huntsville? Anywhere but the hometown.<\/span><\/p>\n

But as dissertation day approached, so did \u2014 somehow \u2014 the feeling. <\/span><\/p>\n

His dad told him it might happen \u2014 that it had certainly happened to him. Eighteen years in Moulton. Eight in Baton Rouge. The rest at Home. Hunter knew the story. And suddenly he felt like he was living the sequel. <\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe it was the new dad in him, the first-hand knowledge that he and his Auburn High School sweetheart turned wife, Margaret, couldn\u2019t ask for a better place to raise their son, John Thomas. <\/span><\/p>\n

Whatever the reason, when he saw an ECE opening at his alma mater, he reached out. Just to see. Just to say he had. Department Chair Mark Nelms said he was happy to hear from him, but the position was for someone specializing in controls. Oh well. If by chance something in electromagnetics opened up, he\u2019d let him know. <\/span><\/p>\n

Half an hour later, Hunter\u2019s phone buzzed.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLloyd Riggs just walked into my office and told me he was retiring,\u201d Nelms said. \u201cLet\u2019s talk.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

NO PLACE LIKE HOME<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cDr. Burch the Elder and Dr. Burch the Younger.\u201d That\u2019s what Hunter dubbed them his first history-making day on the job in April 2022 partly as a joke, partly to help the students they now share.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cComing back really almost felt like destiny, like I was claiming an inheritance, that this was set apart for me,\u201d Hunter said. \u201cAlmost as if dad held it for me until I could grow up and come claim it. It\u2019s not as if he got me the job \u2014 it\u2019s like he did all the things that led me to be able to claim that role. Everything I want out of life, it\u2019s here at Auburn.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Tom feels the same.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe important things that have happened in my life \u2014 I didn\u2019t make them happen. But I was in the right place for them to happen,\u201d Tom said \u201cSo, if you want to call this an Auburn story\u2026 well, it is an Auburn story.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Could it have been told somewhere else, though? Could it have been told at another school? <\/span><\/p>\n

Hunter is close to saying no; that\u2019s how strongly he believes Auburn is special in ways other places aren\u2019t, in a way you have to experience to understand. <\/span><\/p>\n

Tom is more diplomatic. He supposes there are other schools that can get in your blood so thoroughly you commit your life to the place and pass the same devotion on to your sons, a place that just won\u2019t let you or your family go. Technically, he supposes it\u2019s possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

But what Tom will say is this \u2014 as far as the Burches go, he knows one place it absolutely couldn\u2019t have been. <\/span><\/p>\n

He looks off and shakes his head. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, that faucet thing just ticked me off.”<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n