By: Jody Allen
SAS Corresponding Secretary
Our June Featured SAS member, David Dubiel lives with his wife Karen, also a member, in Racine where he has recently retired. Karen and David joined the society because he shares a unique scenario with SAS members Vince Milewski and Morganne McDonald. Like Vince, David is Polish and as luck would have it, he married a lass with Scottish heritage, just as Vince did. But what makes this pair even more unique is that both Karen and Morganne are members of Clan Donald, with Karen being the State Commissioner of Clan Donald and David inheriting the position as her assistant.
David and Karen are also Harley riders and have rode their bikes in all 50 states and 9 Canadian provinces. But their love of riding Harley doesn’t top there, they have also rode their bikes or other Harleys in: Australia, Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, as well as our beloved Scotland. They have an unwritten rule not to visit a place more than once, but broke that rule when they first visited Scotland--Karen’s ancestors hail from the Outer Hebrides--in 2014. They returned again in 2018 and Karen chauffeured David around Islay visiting many of the whisky distilleries. They then joined fellow SAS members, Vince and Morganne, at a castle for the Macski’s wedding anniversary celebration.
David’s career as a research engineer has been long, extensive and interesting. Rather than try to summarize here are his own words:
“I have worked in safety research my whole life, starting as a Laboratory Assistant in a Co-op job with The Dow Chemical Company where I characterized new chemical compounds (dusts, liquids, & solids) for flammability, ignitibility, and explosibility. My career of 33 years was with Underwriters Laboratories Inc. (later UL LLC) 22 years in electrical safety research and 11 years in fire safety research. During those years, I researched various safety aspects of many different products including electrical conduit, electric clothes, dryers, microwave ovens, garage door openers, wire nuts, arc fault circuit interrupters, ultraviolet (UV) toothbrush sanitizers, UV paint curing lamps, and many others. During this time I became UL’s international subject matter expert (SME) for non-solar optical radiation safety measurements – focusing on UV radiation (UV-A, UV-B, and UV-C). I set up and operated UL’s first UV radiation measurement laboratory and created additional measurement and safety requirements for products that generated UV radiation.
Later in my career, I had to learn several new skill sets that had nothing to do with my Electrical Engineering background. I analyzed gas (identification and quantification) and smoke (particle size and concentration) effluent from burning residential and commercial products. I designed and conducted various fire safety research projects both internal UL and for external clients. My responsibilities included constructing, operating, and maintaining mobile Fourier Transform - Infrared (FT-IR) extractive gas and Open Path FT-IR spectrometer systems and smoke particle spectrometer systems. I also collected and created calibration libraries for the FT-IR instruments. According to our FT-IR manufacturer’s application engineer, there were few college professors who knew more than I do when it came to my knowledge of FT-IR instrumentation and analysis – this made me very proud to be employed (and consequently educated) by UL. A large portion of this time was spent with smoke alarm detection improvements. Specifically, detecting different types of smoke signatures including cooking fires (essentially oils) and smoldering (not burning) polyurethane foam (essentially furniture padding). UL now has a smoldering foam apparatus (my name is 1 of 3 on that Patent – both U.S. and European). My fire safety time included setting 8’ square pans of Heptane (think gasoline) on fire and then moving them (without spilling) under electric vehicle battery packs – which then also caught fire. These were quite large and spectacular fires and all them were conducted indoors before I left, I had to learn how to setup, operate, troubleshoot, and calibrate a Gas Chromatograph – Mass Spectrometer (GC-MS) and finally analyze fire effluent gas samples with it.
When asked why he and Karen joined the society, Dubiel said it was their friendship with the Macski’s and their similar heritage connection and how the society worked to better the community, that he could enjoy a wee dram or two all the while not wearing pants; “I was in.” As an active member both he and Karen have attended many of our in-person events: Burn’s Banquet, the Tartan Ball, countless Highland/Scottish Games, Irish Fest, the SAS Kirking and sponsoring a Kirking of the Tartans in Kenosha. As a member of clan Donald they both attended the annual Clan Donald AGM with Karen’s parents, Smith family (picture).
He and Karen have attended both in-person and Zoom members meetings and though they miss the friendship of in-person meetings, they have enjoyed not having to drive into the city for weeknight meetings and appreciate attending on Zoom instead. But clearly David has really enjoyed the Whisky tastings both in-person and on-line. After acquiring his first bottle of 14 year old independently bottled Laphroaig on his first trip to Scotland in 2014, with help of the SAS Whisky masters, his preference for the boldly peated whiskies has grown. Yet, he also credits the knowledge he has gained at these events for his enjoyment for non-Islay malts: single, vatted, single cask, grain and pure malt varieties.
The St. Andrew’s Society of the city of Milwaukee would like to wish David happy journeys in his retirement with Karen on their Harleys and his growing his tasting and love of Scottish Whiskies.