Class of 1964 Class Notes - Volume 1

Hello, Hello, Hello! Well, friends and acquaintances of oh so many years ago, Welcome Back! The class of '64 class notes are off and running. Yet another new epoch in communications has begun!

In Minneapolis, Frank Rhame is a physician and research director of Clinic 42, at Abbott Northwestern Hospital. His e-mail address (frank@muskie.biostat.umn.edu) seems to suggest that perhaps he gets in a bit of fishing in all those lakes. True, Frank? Do the muskles really take precedence over the biostat? Also in the Midwest, Willes Weber reported in from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Feel free to give us more details whenever you have a moment, Willes.

Canadian Wayne Cooper has worn two hats during these 33 years. First: "From graduation until 1979, I served in various engineering positions in the aerospace branch of the Royal Canadian Air Force. My tours included project engineer for a procurement program and work on a development test with the USAF (Flight Dynamics Lab, Wright-Patterson)." And then, Wayne continues in his note from Bloomfield, Ontario, "In 1979 I started my second career as an investment advisor and am currently with RBC/Dominion Securities. My wife, Flo, and I would like to hear from Jim Barnes and Mitsuri." Jim, are you listening?

Bill Stwalley is "entering his fifth year as physics department head at the University of Connecticut and is enjoying research on gaseous atoms, molecules and plasmas at temperatures below one mK." He lives in Mans-field Center, Connecticut, and sends all you classmates his best wishes.

Alan Hindmarsh, too, sends us a friendly note on his postcard: "Probably unlike most of my classmates, I have stayed in the same locale since graduation--the San Francisco Bay Area. Levan, my sweetheart of Tech years, became my wife in 1965, and we have a daughter (age 20 and a student at UCSD) and a son (age 16). After a PhD from Stanford I came to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as a mathematician, and am still here--mostly developing math software for ODEs and related problems."

Canada, the Midwest, Connecticut, the Bay Area. But, sad to say, some poor souls seem to have never escaped the Techish magnetic fields of Pasadena. Witness: Jack Beauchamp is "currently professor of chemistry, Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, at Caltech. Spouse Patticia Beauchamp designs 'Sciencecraft' at JPL. Three children out of college and number four (Ryan) just recently out of diapers. Research turning toward biochemistry, mainly protein sequencing and chemical microscopy. I share a love of flying with Pat, and recently served on the White House Commission for Aviation Safety and Security." Jack suggested that we establish a Class of '64 Web home page. How, guys? Does anybody know about all that fancy modem stuff??

Bob Diller is in Pasadena, too. Greetings, Bob. Please do send us other details whenever they occur to you. Straying a bit more fearlessly off campus, Dave Holtz has made his way all the way to Northridge.

From New Hampshire, Kevin Carey reports that "after leaving Pasadena, I spent two and a half years with the U.S. Geological Survey in Wisconsin. Now I'm close to wrapping up my working career after over 30 years with the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in Hanover, New Hampshire. For fun along the way I spent four years as a Honda-Suzuki motorcycle dealer. In 1991 I spent a few days at Caltech at a magnificent conference on sustainable development, but the strongest emotion the visit raised was, 'Thank God I'm not a student here anymore!'"

Okay, everybody: please scratch out some-thing about yourself on a postcard sometime. We will cheerfully incorporate your information in a future edition of Caltech News. Thank you very much for anything you care to share.

I recognize that it may be a bit much, for some of our classmates, to encapsulate 33 frantic years on one postcard. Should that happen to be the case for you, feel free to be less than comprehensive. You might mention a couple of items from your past (an additional degree, a scientific contribution, a massive failure) or you [fright mention some things that are current in your life ("My wife, Zeta, and I just love living in San Pedro, and our kids, Beta and Gamma, are now 25 and 28 years old respectively. Beta recently became an Eagle Scout.")

More seriously, you might tell us how you have been personally affected by some profound life experience during those 33 years. And I hope that some classmate will chuckle at the whole idea and report that he is quite satisfied just to have made it through those years somehow.

For me, personally, it's nice to have been given the chance to talk to you. If you are ever in the Washington, D.C., area, please consider yourself invited to come out to our pleasant home in the mountainous woods of nearby West Virginia.