A dad with a talent for math and a passion for women.  A bookish mom.  When I write fiction as Urno Barthel, I borrow those qualities for the character Evan Olsson.  Many of the situations Evan faces are true, and happened to me or to close friends.

I grew up in central Texas and wanted to be a scientist since I was a kid.  After a BS degree in physics from UT, I moved to California for a PhD in theoretical physics from Caltech.  I’ve worked at five R&D organizations, four of them in Southern California, and have been a teaching assistant, research scientist, research manager, program manager, business unit head, chief technical officer and research lab president.  I have retired from science and now I am an author, no pun intended.

Halsted Aeronautic Laboratory is an invented place that borrows details from several labs I have known.  My fiction is based near Malibu, California, where I lived most of my adult life. Now, my wife and I live in southeast Michigan, with additional roots in Maui, Hawaii and Long Island, New York.

A science lab is a special place, a unique environment dedicated to the exciting and wonderful discovery of new things.  However, someone has to pay the freight for all that fun — frequently, an organization that wants to protect its image and its privacy.  Because HAL is a totally imaginary laboratory, I write under the name Urno Barthel so as not to invite comparisons with any “real” labs.

Art Chester has published many scientific papers and edited technical books (see Amazon or Goodreads), but Urno Barthel writes only fiction.  I hope you enjoy reading these short stories and will want to read the novels as well.