Lonnie Edelheit
DR. LEWIS S. EDELHEIT
Retired Senior Vice President, Research & Development
General Electric Company
Schenectady, N.Y.
Dr. Lewis S. (Lonnie) Edelheit retired from General Electric Company in December 2001 after a successful tenure as GE’s Senior Vice President, R&D.
Under his leadership, GE introduced numerous new leadership products, including digital X-ray and advanced ultrasound medical imagers, high-efficiency turbines for power generation, advanced lighting and electronics-based appliances and weatherable plastics to name a few. Other highlights of his tenure include significant advances in the introduction of high-technology into GE’s services businesses, Internet applications and Corporate R&D’s leadership of the Design for Six Sigma quality and e-Engineering initiatives throughout the GE businesses. Also under his leadership, Corporate R&D vastly expanded its global resources with the development of new technology centers in Bangalore, India, and Shanghai, China.
Dr. Edelheit began his professional career in 1969 as a physicist at the GE R&D Center, where he made significant contributions to fast-scan, "fan-beam" computed tomography x-ray systems. He helped to pioneer that major advance in computed tomography, both through his own technical work and through his leadership of engineers and scientists from a wide range of technical disciplines.
In 1976, Dr. Edelheit transferred to GE Medical Systems in Milwaukee, Wis., where he helped to move GE's radically new form of computed tomography x-ray scanner quickly to the marketplace. He formed and managed a new Applied Science and Diagnostic Imaging Laboratory and later rose to such positions as general manager of engineering and general manager of the Computed Tomography Programs Department, where he held marketing and profit-and-loss responsibility for GE's worldwide computed tomography scanning business.
In 1986, Dr. Edelheit left GE to become president and CEO of Quantum Medical Systems, a venture capital-backed company that pioneered color flow ultrasound for vascular imaging. He continued in that position after Quantum was acquired by the Siemens Corporation. He returned to GE in 1991 as manager of the R&D Center's Electronic Systems Research Center and in 1992 assumed leadership of Corporate R&D.
A native of Chicago, Dr. Edelheit earned a B.S. degree in engineering physics and an M.S. degree and Ph.D. in physics from the University of Illinois in 1969.
Dr. Edelheit is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the Industrial Research Institute (named as the 2003 Medalist), and a Fellow of the American Physical Society, who selected him as the recipient of the 2001 George E. Pake prize. He was a member of the Board of Trustees of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY from 1995 until 2002. He was also a member until 2003 of NIST’s Advanced Technology Program. He is on advisory Boards of both the Physics and Bioengineering Departments of the University of Washington, Harvard Medical and Beth Israel Deaconess Research and Education Institute in Boston, and the Human resource Committee of the Providence Health Care System. He is also on the Board of Directors of two public Corporations, Silicon Graphics, and Sonic Innovation and two private corporations. He is Chairman of the Advisory Committee of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. In 1995, he received the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign College of Engineering Alumni Award for Distinguished Service. He has numerous publications and presentations.
He lives with his wife on Mercer Island, Wa.
