We all have our doctrines, those sacred cows of our professions that cause us to march lockstep through the workday.

If you change tires, this is where you start. If you transplant hearts, this is how you do it. If you write stories, start here. If you re a teacher, you follow the guidelines you re taught in college, and if you bake pies then you follow the recipe.

Day after day after day after day: this is the way you do it.

Then there s Jeff Baxter.

He s a former member of Steely Dan, ex-member of the Doobie Brothers he was the long-haired, beret-wearing dude with the big muttonchops who sat down while he played and one of the most in-demand session guitarists of his era who also just happens to be a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense.

Baxter knows power chords and he knows nuclear defense. He talks enthusiastically about energy management algorithms, Aegis missile systems and nurturing creativity. Or he can go on about how he joined Steely Dan, his new solo album, or playing with his friends, many of whom are rock royalty.

His entire career is based on doing what he wants, which means helping his country defeat the Soviet Union or defend itself against terrorists while leaving time to jam with buddies like Nils Lofgren. Tomorrow in Toledo he ll be wearing the engineering hat, speaking at the Engineers Week Banquet at Gladieux Meadows.

His message: stop doing the same thing, the same way, every day. Look for nontraditional solutions and apply your creativity to problem-solving.

I just see threads of logic and how to apply that across that whole spectrum that maybe people at first don t see, he said in a telephone interview from his California home.

Explaining to an engineer in his own language how to see beyond doctrinal problem-solving is kind of fun. Once you let people use their creative abilities and in many cases much of that creative ability is suppressed based on doctrinal approaches to problem solving once you free that up, it can be truly amazing.

Baxter s life from the time he was a boy has been based on a potent mix of happenstance, discipline, and creativity. When he was 10 he wanted a bike. His parents gave him a guitar and it just sat there.

I was really [angry] and I kind of ignored it for awhile, he said.

Then he started playing and something happened.

It was one of those moments where I realized that something about this makes perfect sense. And then I did what I think every kid does, which is shred for hours, and join every band you can.

He was self-taught for the most part another Baxter theme and became known for his technical prowess and ability to infuse everything he played with both finesse and emotional weight. Over the years he s played with Ringo Starr, Sheryl Crow, Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Barbra Streisand, Dolly Parton, and the list goes on.

One of the things I ve always taken some pride in being a studio musician for 45 years is the idea being that it s kind of like being top gun. Whatever needs to be done, you do, but you also do it with quality and feeling. Music without feelings is cookies without sugar, I guess.

Always interested in technology, Baxter became involved in missile defense in the 1980s, specifically the idea that the Aegis anti-aircraft system could be modified into a platform that would protect the United States against a Soviet nuclear attack. He wrote a paper on the issue and it landed in the office of Republican California Congressman Dana Rohrabacher.

Impressed, the congressman discussed Baxter s ideas with the Department of Defense and he was given security clearance and, in addition to his music career, became heavily involved in working for the government. His work is credited with being an important component in President Ronald Reagan s Strategic Defense Initiative, aka Star Wars.

For Baxter, the ideas he came up with, while highly sophisticated, also represent his unconventional thinking. And the fact he s a musician who is adept at improvisation helps him understand problem solving.

A musician will look at improvisation as an analytical process, which it is. A musician who is improvising is concerned with pitch, tempo, time and feel ... tonality, melody, situational awareness, and a theme of some kind, which in the analytical process is a problem to be solved.

So if you look at that it seems like there s a tremendous amount of commonality in the entire process.

Baxter said he s proud of his work with the Department of Defense, some of which involved developing new and classified means of combating terrorism, but he s planning to concentrate more on music now, including releasing his first solo album ever.

He noted that it was long thought that once rock and roll came to the Soviet Union, it would begin helping tear apart the authoritarian society. Combined with Reagan s Strategic Defense Initiative, which helped bankrupt the country, Baxter feels like he caused a few frays in the Soviet system.

I suppose in some ways I feel a little bit vindicated because there were two ways to bring down the Soviet Union, both of which I have a deep and enduring connection with, he said.

The Engineers Week banquet is from 6 to 9:30 p.m. Thursday at Gladieux Meadows, 4480 Heatherdowns Blvd. Baxter s talk is open to the public, but reservations are required and admission is $35, which includes the meal. For reservations, call 419-530-3436 or e-mail tst@eng.utoledo.edu.

Contact Rod Lockwood at: rlockwood@theblade.com

First Published February 18, 2009, 9:23 p.m.