René Smeets decided to be an electrician when he was a 10-year-old boy, gawking at the smoke pouring out of a busted circuit breaker panel in his home. Later, after studying physics and obtaining a PhD, he amended his plan slightly, opting instead to research industrial-scale electrical transmission systems. He currently serves as director of innovation at
KEMA Laboratories, a division of the consulting and certification company
DNV GL, where he oversees the stress-testing of circuit breakers and other components designed for ultrahigh-voltage transmission networks. He is an IEEE fellow and author of a
book about switchgear.