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Retired Corporate Vice President and 1965 Electrical Engineering Alum Donald Linder
brought a piece of technological history to Iowa State as part of the Centennial Distinguished
Alumni Seminar.
Attendees were able to get an up close look at the world’s first portable cellular telephone
--- the same phone that was used to present the technology to the US Government. Linder
was the primary designer and let a team of a dozen engineers.
“The business of portable radios, handy talkies, ones that you can carry, outside
the car, and go into a building or walk on the beach, or go to a construction site, they
were outselling mobiles about 3 to 1. So we knew there was a need for that.”
Linder spent his entire professional career with Motorola, creating the DynaTAC Portable
phone in 1972.