George L. Matthaei was born on August 28, 1923 in Tacoma, Washington. After three years of military service he completed a B. S. degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of Washington in 1948 and a Ph. D. degree in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University in 1952. From 1951 to 1955 he was on the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, where he was an Assistant Professor, and his specialty was network synthesis. From 1955 to 1958, he was engaged in system analysis and microwave component research at the Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation. From 1958 to 1964, he was at Stanford Research Institute where he was engaged in microwave device research. He became Manager of the Electromagnetic Techniques Laboratory of SRI in 1962. In July 1964 he became a Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he did teaching and research until July 1991. At that time he retired and became a Professor Emeritus. Since then he has been employed part time on the staff of Superconductor Technologies, Inc. in Santa Barbara. Dr. Matthaei is the author of numerous papers, co-author of the book Microwave Filters, Impedance-Matching Networks, and Coupling Structures along with L. Young and E. M. T. Jones, and a contributor to several other books. His current interests are in the area of design techniques for passive and active microwave high-temperature superconductor circuits. He is a member of Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Xi, and Eta Kappa Nu, and a Fellow of the IEEE. He was the winner of the 1961 Microwave Prize of the IEEE MTT Group. In 1984 he received the IEEE Centennial Medal and in 1986 the Microwave Career Award of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society.