To: Search Committee Faculty Dean in Electrical Engineering,
Hereby I express my interest in your vacancy Dean of the Faculty in Electrical Engineering, advertised in May 2011 in IEEE Spectrum. A 4-year contract would suit me while working in a new country gives me little surprises.
Educated in Electrical Engiineering myself, I have regularly renewed my focus in a curiosity-driven style. This broadness seems required to manage your broad faculty, though my tendency would be to bridge to disciplines in other faculties regularly. Though I have not performed as Dean before, I have experience in leading & participating in such bureaucracies, for instance at Rijksuniversiteit Groningen as chaired Professor and as member of the Faculty Scientific Board and chair of the Departmental Education Board.
Most of my academic life, I have built things from scratch, spin-off companies, research lines as well as educations. Setting them free into the world has shown to be easier than integrating them into the existing structure, especially when the success comes fast. Consequently I bring a lot of positive ánd negative experience for the task at hand. From the attached "Management Strategy Proposal" it shows that I prefer to take on a coaching role that motivates inside and represents outside the organization.
Actually I prefer to have clear quantifiable targets if we combine our journeys. To eliminate false expectations, especially for a 4-years stretch, clear and transparent goals make things more manageable. At this moment, I do not have obligations left to LTH but am primarily involved with one Dutch and two Swedish start-ups in making the technology visible to the investors and the market, in that order. I am also active in expanding the Vision Lab at the Northern University of Applied Technology in the Netherlands. Part of an eventual move to Prague may imply that some of such contracts need to move with me and be delegated within the EE Faculty.
Attached you can find my CV over the past years. In case of any further interest, a complete CV and references are available on request.
Groeten / Greetings, Lambert (Ben) Spaanenburg