Education

Wichita’s William “Bill” Schmidt received Bethel College’s Achievement Award in 2022. The award recognizes character and citizenship, achievement in a chosen profession or profession, and work that benefits humanity.

You might say that Schmidt works as a translator. The only “languages” he translates are “human” and “computer”.

The award will be presented at the Alumni Dinner on October 9 as part of Bethel’s annual Fall Festival.

Schmidt is a Principal Compiler Engineer in the Development Software Engineering Group at Intel Corporation and joined earlier this year after 29 years at IBM.

During that time, he and his family (spouse and “college sweetheart” Lori Bolan and daughters Rebecca and Rochelle) lived in Rochester, Minnesota.

In 2021, Bill and Lori moved to Wichita to live closer to their aging parents.

Bill grew up as a “campus kid” in North Newton. “Anyone with a long Bethel history knows my parents, Hartsell and Eileen Schmidt,” he says.

“Dad passed away in 2021 at the age of 95 after living a full and humorous life. He ran BC’s business offices in the 1960s and 70s.

“My mother ran the college privately from her estate in the presence of Harold Schultz – at least that was the rumor among many students and faculty. She was a secretary and guarded the entrance to the inner sanctuary, and after Dr. Schultz left office, she held the same office for several other presidents.”

Ilene Schmidt and Lori’s father, Omar Voran, currently lives in Kidron Bethel Village in North Newton.

Bill Schmidt identified with the Bethel class of 1982, but it took him until 1984 to finish his coursework with a bachelor’s degree in two majors in mathematics and music.

“All my time at Bethel, I was torn between majoring in music or mathematics/computer science,” he says.

He and Lori married in 1982, and Bill began working full-time as a COBOL programmer at Kansas Gas & Electric, taking one class each semester to earn his bachelor’s degree.

After working in programming for several years, he decided to go back to school for his Ph.D. He received a National Science Foundation Fellowship and attended Iowa State University in Ames.

“Professor Arnold Wedel was very pleased that I chose his alma mater,” says Schmidt. “I received his Master of Science degree in 1991 and his Ph.D. in 1992. [both in computer science] I got a job at IBM in Rochester. ”

Schmidt majored in vocal music at Bethel, but after moving to Rochester began “re-engaging in some musical endeavors.”

He sang with the Rochester Choral Arts Ensemble, a 40-voice hand-picked choir, and the Rochester Aria Group, which gave recitals of operatic excerpts, and served on the boards of both organizations.

“One of the highlights of my amateur musical ‘career’ was when I returned to Bethel a few years ago and was asked to sing Orff’s baritone solo. Carmina Burana Annual Masterworks concert with the Newton Mid-Kansas Symphony Orchestra. It was a tremendous joy that I will never forget. ”

Schmidt was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Rochester Duplicate Bridge Club. “I enjoyed competitive duplication bridges for years,” he says.

“It was another skill that was born at Bethel, playing with Arnold Wedell, Richard Lempel, and other students who sometimes played at lunchtime in Arnold’s office.”

While working at IBM, Schmidt held various positions. Most recently, he was a Senior Technical Staff member and Linux on Power toolchain architect. Then, about 30 years later, he “felt the need to change the scene” and joined Intel.

As lead compiler engineer, Schmidt develops tools called “optimizing compilers” for use by software developers writing code for Intel’s CPU and GPU architectures.

“If you have a computer running Windows, chances are you have applications on your computer that were developed using these compilers,” he says.

A compiler is “a special kind of program that translates human-understandable programs into computer-understandable programs.

“People use high-level languages ​​like Java, C++, Python, Fortran, and SYCL to express what they want computers to do. But computers understand only binary numbers (0 and 1). The only encoding is the compiler, which is responsible for translating high-level concepts into low-level machine instructions.

“An optimizing compiler tries to make the transformed program as efficient as possible, usually according to a chosen metric of speed, size, or power consumption.

“What I love about this field is that the problems we solve are always challenging and require creative thinking to meet all the constraints.”

Since joining IBM in 1992, Schmidt has worked on compilers throughout his career, both proprietary and open source.

He has contributed 85 issued patents, primarily in the area of ​​compiler optimization, and was named an IBM Master Inventor. He was a member of the Core Technology Invention Review Board for many years.

Since 2006, Schmidt has been a member of Bethel’s STEM Advisory Board. In 2020, he started working on a small committee to help design his new software development major at Bethel.

When he co-taught an independent course of study with John Thiessen in January 2020, “it reminded me of how hard teaching is and how much I appreciate people who are good at it,” he said. increase.

Bill and Lori Schmidt’s two daughters, Becky and Rochelle, live in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Becky is a customer relations coordinator and part-time paramedic and fitness trainer for Kansas City-based Examinetics. Mortgage Fraud Investigator at Wells Fargo.

Bill continues to work remotely for Intel, and Lori retired as a medical administrative support staff, first at the Mayo Clinic and later at Wesley Medical Center in Wichita, while staying busy volunteering for the American Red Cross.

Bethel is a four-year liberal arts college founded in 1887 and the oldest Mennonite college in North America. Known for his academic excellence, Bethel ranks him 14th in the rankings. washington monthly List of “Best Bachelor Degrees” 2022-23. Bethel is the only designated Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Center in Kansas. See www.bethelks.edu for more information.