High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Forrest M. Mims III is an amateur scientist and magazine columnist and the author of the popular Engineer's Mini-Notebook series of instructional books originally sold in Radio Shack electronics stores. Mims graduated from Texas A&M University in 1966 (major in government with minors in English and history) then became a commissioned officer in the U.S. Air Force. Although Mims has no formal academic training in science he has a successful career as a science author, researcher, lecturer and syndicated columnist. For instance, his series of electronics books for Radio Shack sold over 7 million copies. Mims edits The Citizen Scientist the journal of the Society for Amateur Scientists and is also the Chairman of the Environmental Science Section of the Texas Academy of Science. He also teaches electronics and atmospheric science at the University of the Nations, an unaccredited Christian university in Hawaii. Mims is widely regarded as one of the world's most prolific citizen scientists.