How Wally Hersom, The Most Powerful Man In Bigfoot Made His Money

Wallace N. Hersom, or Wally Hersom is the man behind the scenes. He has funded the BFRO and is credited with getting the organization off the ground. According to reports, Hersom pays the salary of Matt Moneymaker, the BFRO’s director. Hersom has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars outfitting the BFRO with expensive thermal imaging cameras, video recorders, and night-vision devices.

He has sent dozens of trail cameras to the Olympic Project, a wildlife surveillance program organized by founder Derek Randles. Their purpose is to place cameras along "predatory travel routes" throughout the Olympic Mountains in order to capture Bigfoots in their natural habitat.

Hersom also funds the Bigfoot DNA Project headed by Dr. Melba Ketchum. It's not clear how long he has been funding Dr. Ketchum's project or whether the funding has stopped completely.

We would like to thank Wally Hersom for doing this short biography for us. It's a little technical in nature, but we hope you enjoy it anyway:

Wallace N. Hersom was born January 6th 1935 in Compton California. He was raised on a small family farm in Compton which was purchased by his grandfather in 1903. Mr. Hersom graduated from Compton high school in 1952. He attended California state university at Long Beach and graduated in 1957 with a major in music. His principle instrument was the clarinet.

He was drafted into the US army in 1958. He was stationed at the Presidio in San Francisco and performed in the sixth army band where he was promoted to the position of concert master.

Mr. Hersom was discharged from the army in 1960. He enrolled back in school part time to continue his education to obtain a teachers credential. He also obtained a job at Ford Aeronutronics in Newport Beach, California. Mr. Hersom worked in one of the research labs. This was his first exposure to the fascinating field of electronics. He decided to change his career path and learn more about electronics. He took all the electronic courses he could at the local junior college. After working for Ford Aeronutronics, then Packard bell computer and then Wanlass electric (a small power supply company), Mr. Hersom and three of his friends decided to start a power supply company called Power Devices in 1969. Through mismanagement and underfunding this company failed after about a year.

During that year with Power Devices Mr. Hersom was able to work on an idea he had for a "off line switching power supply". He built a working prototype of a 5V 50 amp. power supply. The salient features of this design was that it was about 1/5th the size and 1/5th the weight of any conventional power supply on the market at that time. It also had an overall efficiency of 85% where conventional designs were only about 40% efficient.

The design concept was to eliminate the large 60 Hertz transformer that was used in conventional designs. This new design concept eliminated the 60 Hz transformer by producing a DC voltage directly from the line voltage by rectification and filtering.

This DC voltage could then be "chopped" at a high frequency to drive a high frequency transformer and provide isolation from the AC line. The voltage was changed to a low voltage, for example 5 volts DC. This was a common voltage that was used to power most of the electronics in computers in those days. A frequency of 20 kHz was used as the conversion frequency as this is above human hearing.

Through a chance meeting Mr. Hersom met Dr. Lawrence Y Lee, a medical doctor. When Mr. Hersom explained his idea of a new power supply concept to Dr. Lee he became very interested in it. Dr. Lee and Mr. Hersom formed a new company together called LH Research.

With Dr Lee's backing Mr. Hersom was able to work by himself on the design concept over the next year to try and make it into a viable product for manufacturing.

A larger organization was put together for manufacturing. Mr. Hersom at the time had no interest in management and became Vice President of engineering. The product was very well accepted and was getting designed into many OEMs (original equipment manufacturer). Other power supply companies were also coming out with their versions of this "off line switching power supply"-- LH Research was well known as the leader in this field.

By 1983, LH Research reached a level of over 40 million dollars in annual sales. Dr. Lee had taken over as president of the company and wanted to expand the product line and make the lower power units aimed at the now growing PC market. Mr. Hersom knew that this would be a high volume market but also knew it would be a "cut throat" market as the imports were already getting established with some good low power designs.

Mr. Hersom resigned from LH Research in 1983 and formed a new company called HC Power. Mr. Hersom hooked up with his long time friend and very talented engineer Frank W. Colver. Mr. Hersom was president and CEO and Mr. Colver was VP of engineering. The plan was to make power supplies of 500 watts and higher. The new start from scratch design was a 1000 watt 5 volt 200 amp. design. There were new design concepts and components used that made this the most state-of-the-art high power switching power supply on the market.

This design was very well accepted by engineers and was designed into a lot of "start up" companies that were called mini super computers. These companies were backed by a lot of venture capital money. The basis of these new mini super computers was to parallel thousands of PC computers in one system. These computers were the size of a desk to the size of two or three refrigerators side by side. One thing that these computers needed was a lot of 5 volt power!

By the year 1989, virtually all of these companies went out of business. What happened was the rapid development of the personal computer technology. "Moores law" had become well established (and still is) with Intel being the leader. The personal computer got so powerful and cheap that there was no place for these "mini super computers".

HC Power changed its marketing efforts and became more involved in industry (power for lasers) and medical. The cell phone industry was starting to grow so HC targeted the power requirements for the cell sites. HC power units were designed into many cell sites for Motorola and many others including Nextel. These designs had to be changed to meet these new requirements. Basically the power supplies became 48 volt battery chargers. The concept is that if AC power were lost, the cell site would run on battery power until AC power is restored-- Just like your laptop does now.

In 1995, HC Power decided to go after the telephone central station market and the Internet infrastructure. The telephone companies are hard to change. They have been using the same old power technology for the last 50 years. The Internet infrastructure companies were not so conservative and wanted to go with the switching type of power.

It is amazing how much power is used for the internet. It is estimated that 5% of our power consumption is used to drive the internet infrastructure. Most of the power is used to drive the lasers that push all the data through the fiber optics. Lasers are typically only about 5% efficient. Every 50 miles or so this power has to be boosted again because of loses.

HC Power developed a power plant that would produce 10,000 amps at 48 volts. This power plant was made up from 5000 watt modules that could be all operated in parallel. These modules could be "hot swapped". A technology developed by HC Power. If there was a failure, the module could be removed and replaced without affecting the power plant. This power plant was to never go down. The status of the power plant would be sent to a central monitoring station.

These power plants were used in locations called “pops” (This stands for "point of presence"). This is a place where all the fiber comes in and the data is processed, stored etc. A typical POPs would be a building of about 50,000 square feet and packed with electronics. This would require up to six 10,000 amp power plants. Each power plant would charge a 48 volt battery bank made up of 24 2 volt 4000 amp/hr lead acid cells. POPs were installed in every major city in the country.

HC Power rode the wave of the tech bubble. HC Power was sold to Power One, Inc (PWER on NASDAQ) on February 29, 2000. Mr. Hersom became president of the telecom power division of Power One. Mr. Hersom retired from his position with Power One in January of 2001.

In December 2007, The Baltimore Sun wrote the following piece on how Mr. Hersom got into Bigfooting:

Hunters of Sasquatch undaunted by failure

Mcclatchy-tribune

December 16, 2007

DEVIL PEAK, EL DORADO NATIONAL FOREST, Calif.

Wally Hersom is an intuitive man, with an instinct for when opportunity might knock.

It's not knocking now.

The soft-spoken, white-maned Hersom is standing in the dark on a remote mountaintop in Northern California listening to the eerily quiet rustling of leaves.

"It's too quiet," he says. "It doesn't feel right."

Below him in the pitch-black hollows of this remote forest area, groups of men and a few women sit crouched, pointing $9,000 thermal imaging cameras at the darkness.

Every so often, one of them emits a blood-curdling shriek.

They are searching for a monster.

Hersom, 72, is the reason why. Over the past year, the part-time resident of San Juan Capistrano, Calif., (Hersom's primary home is in Henderson, Nev.) has pumped tens of thousands of dollars into the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, an Orange County-based group of Sasquatch-hunters.

Hersom pays the salary of Matt Moneymaker, the BFRO's director. He has outfitted the group with 10 thermal imaging cameras, as well as video recorders and night-vision devices. Total cost: more than $100,000.

In the process, Hersom hopes to change the popular conception of Bigfoot believers from wooly-eyed weirdos to heroic hominoid hunters.

Hersom, like the more than 2 dozen people who have joined him on this expedition to the El Dorado National Forest, believes that Bigfoot is a yet-undiscovered species of immensely strong, craftily intelligent and highly elusive great ape.

"I think the timing's right," Hersom says. "In the next 12 months, this thing is going to break wide open."

Hersom is the former owner of HC Power, an Irvine, Calif.-based company that manufactured power conversion equipment for cell phone towers and industrial facilities. The company flourished, Moneymaker says, in large part because Hersom foresaw the importance of gadgets like cell phones and computers and created technologies to serve them.

"He's an engineering genius, and ... he's got this almost spooky sense of when it's the right time to do something," Moneymaker says.

That sense convinced Hersom to sell his company in 2000, before the dot-com bust. He reaped $110 million and decided to indulge a lifelong fascination: Bigfoot.

"My broker - when I told him what I was doing he couldn't stop laughing," Hersom says. "He thought I was crazy. But I think we have a unique opportunity because nobody believes us. Once [it's] proven that Bigfoot is out there, ... I think this is going to be the biggest discovery of the century."

Hersom stumbled on Moneymaker's BFRO Web site, one of many such sites that track and list Bigfoot sightings around the country. He went on an expedition in Wisconsin.

Nothing happened.

Hersom tried again on a second expedition. This time he says he heard howls in the night and had rocks thrown at him - typical Bigfoot behavior, according to Moneymaker.

"I heard three distinct steps near my tent," Hersom recalls. "I thought 'Oh, my God, here it is.'"

The experience sold him. He joined the BFRO and went on four more expeditions. He collected photographs and plaster casts of 15-inch-long Bigfoot tracks, which he displays in his stately San Juan Capistrano hilltop-home. He bought cameras and other equipment in hopes of generating photographic proof for the naysayers - and lucrative film footage for himself.

Moneymaker and Hersom speculate that Bigfoot has a nocturnal animal's acute night vision. The key to "discovering" Bigfoot, if such a creature exists, is to mimic that ability.

"The only way we're going to [prove] it is if we can film in the dark," Moneymaker says. Hersom has enabled the BFRO "to bring some technology to bear that has been out of reach of Bigfoot researchers."

On the mountain, Hersom stands silently while Moneymaker and his group of volunteers put the equipment to use. Through the camera's glowing scope, the darkness transforms into a silvery landscape. But there is no Bigfoot to be seen.

Moneymaker tips his head and emits a piercing scream. Over the radio, the scattered group of BFRO members is instructed to do the same and to knock baseball bats against trees. The screams and knocks are meant to mimic the alleged noises of a "real" Bigfoot. The hope, Moneymaker says, is to trick the creatures into coming within filming range.

Does Hersom ever feel ... er ... a bit ridiculous?

"I'm just going to play it by ear," Hersom says. "I'm going to go as long as it feels right for me."

Hersom says he has only heard Bigfoot, but many within the group report more intimate encounters. They describe a giant apelike creature that walks on two feet and appears to have its own language (called "Samurai" for its sing-song resemblance to un-dubbed ninja warrior movies).

Bigfoot also is, some say, capable of projecting a paralyzing telepathic feeling of fear that stuns humans and animals alike. Moneymaker uses the term "infrasound" and calls the experience being "zapped."

Why then, would anyone pursue an encounter?

Moneymaker describes the discovery of Bigfoot as a "historical prize." But for many members of this (mostly male) group of enthusiasts, the quest is the lure.

"Part of me really like the mystery of it - the not knowing, the seeking," says Robert Leiterman, who works as a park ranger in Humboldt County, Calif.

Leiterman is one of a half-dozen past and current Orange County residents who have joined Hersom and Moneymaker on this expedition to Northern California.

Among the group: two employees from an architectural design company, an advertising executive and the director of security for a hotel.

"I just have to know the truth," says Kathy Lammens, 43.

Lammens is on the expedition with friend and office-mate, Brooke Sharon, 54. Like many members of the BFRO, they are captivated by their obsession and capable of laughing at it.

"I am one of these people who have an open mind," Sharon says. "I love the idea of Bigfoot, of UFOs, of Nessie. Why not? Who's to say it's not true?"

Does it bother BFRO members that nothing will come of this night spent in the cold mountains of California - or the next two nights to follow?

"I'm a little bit discouraged that we didn't hear anything," Hersom says. "They're not everywhere all the time."

Good timing is Hersom's stock in trade. But even he acknowledges that "there's some luck involved."

"Some people say: Bigfoot will find us, we can't find Bigfoot," Hersom says.