Daryl J. Eigen

Picture
Daryl was awarded 3 purple hearts during
different battles of the Vietnam War. He
participated in 12 plus combat operations
mostly around the DMZ culminating in the
battle (siege) of Con Thien. He did a full
combat tour and then some.
 Shortly after Daryl’s release from service, he attended college and received a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee with the GI bill, several scholarships, and grants. He invented a cluster analysis algorithm for NASA and is one of the first to have created a software implementation of a neural network. He received Ph.D. in Engineering from Northwestern University under a Bell Labs scholarship. He joined Bell Labs as a member of technical staff and later as supervisor of technical staff where he created telephone services such as Calling Card Service and the partial automation of collect service with voice recognition. He worked on other inventions in his career, including a new  measurement element for the Intelligent Network, the first integration of voice and data on the PC and fault-tolerant optical switches to name just a few.

 Daryl has authored more than fifty technical publications. He enjoyed a corporate career and held a number of senior positions such as Senior Vice Pesident of the international division of a Fortune 100 company and CEO of several venture-funded high-tech startups. 
After his corporate career he obtained a master’s degree in Transpersonal Psychology from the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, CA, and a 500-hour registered yoga instructor certification from Mount Madonna Center in Watsonville, CA.

For several years he contributed his time, training, and efforts to DePaul, a low-income alcohol and drug rehabilitation center in Portland, OR that serves vets. He has traveled the world extensively and has been to more than eighty-five countries. His highest accomplishment was marrying Lucy Burwell Eigen, a beautiful, smart, and loving woman. Daryl is the proud father of Tony (wife, Lori) and Molly (partner, Sarah), and grandfather to Amelia, Sophia and Zoe. 

Daryl was honorably discharged from the USMC on November 15, 1968. But this was not the end of his experience of Vietnam. Exposure to violence and Agent Orange has reverberated throughout his life.