Class of 1964 Class Notes - Volume 2

Your class correspondent, Spice Conant, has nothing to report. Instead, he and Bob Liebermann wish to invite you to join the e-mail list of the Caltech Class of '64 Land Mines Round Table. (Also to be known by the unforgettable acronym CC64LMRT.) You probably know that there are millions of land mines scattered all over the earth, waiting to be stepped on. What you may not know is that in 1998 the standard way of clearing an area is to insert a 52-inch rod at a 40-degree angle at one-inch intervals. CC64LMRT will try to suggest clever, Tech-y ways of improving on that slow process.

Thc CC64LMRT e-mail list is now being compiled. There will be no physical meetings. Only e-mail back and forth: ideas, challenges, and information. CC64LMRT has a good contact with the landmines clearance program at the United Nations in New York City. We will be in regular communication with them, feeding to them for consideration any good ideas that pop up. The CC64LMRT needs to be multi-disciplinary. We need you! Drop a note to your class correspondent.

Steve Green e-mailed some thoughts to me from the department of biology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida. "I've been doing real biology (intact animals in their native habitat) since 1966, when I went to Uganda for the first time. Since then, I have studied the behavior and ecology of tropical forest animals (mostly monkeys) in Asia and Africa and have designed game reserves that are functioning in India and Sierra Leone to protect endangered species. Recently, I began some conservation work on whales and dolphins in the Caribbean. Although the field research produces publications, the associated conservation work is more fulfilling. It also adds some diversity to my professional activities in that I've encountered and arrested armed poachers, trained game wardens and rangers, been vilified in the press, received death threats from illegal timber harvesters, and been held at gunpoint by police and soldiers. This helps put into perspective the occasional unpleasantness with a student or the pitfalls of faculty politics. At Miami, I am professor of biology and currently [don't ask why!] chairman of the faculty senate. There I am called sgreen@umiami.irmiami.edu. Karen and I have also grown two daughters Rebecca, who starts a Fulbright Fellowship in Turkey this year, and Mara, who is just starting college."

Leon Thomsen reported that he and his wife, Purnima, are doing well in Houston, where Leon has been with Amoco for 20 years. Leon recently served as Distinguished Lecturer with the Society of Exploration Geophysicists. More recently, he was elected chair of SEG's research committee, and he has also addressed the Houston Caltech alumni on the topic of "A Caltech Education at Work: Industrial-Strength Geophysics."

How about opening a class of '64 Web page? Anybody know about that stuff Which reminds me of this: I [Spice] am a disabled person with brain damage and heart disease. There will have to be a new '64 class correspondent soon. Who will volunteer? It's easy, and has compensations beyond belief. Take the letter I got from Dennis Kodimer '69, who "fell asleep with the Caltech News on my face, and when I woke up I found gro.tnanoc@ecips imprinted on my nose. So I went to a mirror and found that Spice's e-mall address is Spice@Conant.org. Does anyone ever come to the Washington, D.C., area? Marilyn and I live in a distant, woodsy suburb on the fringe of Washington, with many deer, cats, cows, trees, and birds of many feathers; plus 'coons, chipmunks, bears, fishing, easy livin' and good ol'boys. All classmates are hereby invited to visit!"

Barry Moritz wrote, "I am in forced semiretirement (can't work even close to full time due to a physical disability), and I'm living a stone's throw from the Atlantic beaches here in Virginia Beach. Got my PhD in physics/math from the University of Maryland and, with the exception of a few years of postdoc NSF grants just 'a bit' off my specialty, never worked in the field again. Computer systems and I seemed to get along, though, so I kept ends meeting and got my kids grown and educated before I was hit with the medical thing. I even got to play at being president of a small high-tech firm! Now I simply do some musical things in my home studio and play at being grandpa. If you come this far east, drop on in - though my beer consumption has been significantly curtailed, I still do a wicked iced tea."

Fallbrook, California, is home to Lee Peterson aka lpeter3619@aol.com "Since graduating I have spent most of my years working at TRW in Redondo Beach and San Diego. TRW funded my PhD studies in environmental engineering at Caltech under Wheeler North, king of the kelp beds. My work at TRW has varied from spacecraft engineering and avionics to environmental database management for the California Coastal Commission. Now I am taking up proposal management services. My lovely wife, Andrea, and I have been married 24 years and have a daughter living in New York and a son who's still at home. Andrea manages our specialty produce farm here in Fallbrook. I have run two marathons in the last five years, though I admit to a bit of walking along the way."

Dave Seib has lived in Costa Mesa and worked for Boeing (nee Rockwell) in Anaheim for 20 years. He manages an R&D group that is involved with the development of very long wavelength infrared sensors for defense and astronomy applications. "My wife and I have nearly succeeded in raising three children. Two will be EEs (there must be a strong gene here somewhere!). I enjoy hiking and backpacking in the local mountains and the Sierra Nevada, visiting the Southern California beaches, woodworking and watching water polo games with my son playing for Harvey Mudd and drubbing the Caltech team I used to play for."

Dave Hammer sends this news. "Married, two children, aged 13 and 16. Twenty years at Cornell, as professor of EE. In recent years, I've run into Bob Liebermann, Dick McGehee, and Ed Lee.

Theodore Tarby is an MD and PhD, living in Paradise Valley, Arizona, a lovely community near Phoenix. Steve Gorman is in Houston and can be reached at stephen.a.gorman@ jsc.nasa.gov.

"In the years since Tech," says Malcolm Morrison, "most of my professional work was fair, some good, none excellent, but my last job interview was in 1969 so my bosses put up with me well. Personal and family life were great. Some days I don't want to work, but no days do I want to retire. When my boss wises up, I'll move to a backwater, do some volunteering, and watch my sun set. Hopefully sooner rather than later."

In Stony Brook, New York, Bob Liebermann is chair of the department of geosciences at SUNY His research specialty is in the field of mineral physics and in particular the study of the properties of Earth materials at high pressure and temperature. After managing for 20 years to avoid any administrative positions, he succumbed to an appointment as chair of the newly constituted department of geosciences in 1997. He and his family have been living for the past 22 years on Long Island. His wife, Barbara, teaches French at her high school alma mater. Bob and Barb have raised a family of three - Karen is in Vermont working as an Audubon Camp director; Erica works at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Boston and will soon return to graduate school in nursing; and Mark is completing his senior year at NYU.

Bockett Hunter lives in Riverton, New Jersey, and can be reached at hunterjb@acm.com. And, at 601 Van Ness in San Francisco lives Larry Gowen, who is called vux@logx.com (or is it yux@logx.com, Larry?) Guthrie Miller is in Los Alamos; Tom Krueger is in Kirkland, Washington; Rod McCalley is in Palo Alto; Ralph Young is in Rochester, New York; and my own backpacking companion Mike Lambert is in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

Bob Ching wrote from Shanghai, China, "Back in '64, I tried in vain to send an announcement of my graduation to a newspaper in Shanghai, my home town. I am now here masquerading as a practitioner in enterprise and economic reforms. I surprise myself how often I reach back to my physics background to help communicate my ideas."

Reverend Jim Arenz, SJ, is another far flung classmate. "After 30 years as a professor of mechanical and aeronautical engineering and sometime dean at three Jesuit universities, I have retired from the full-time faculty. Now at Loyola Marymount University (Los Angeles), I handle occasional engineering courses and over the past two years have collaborated on research of nonlinear mechanical behavior of polymers at the Center for Experimental Mechanics at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. An interesting side opportunity was to present a paper on the relation of physical science to the Bible at an international scripture conference there. As a Catholic priest, I am also active in religious ministry to the Loyola Marymount community and on weekends to nearby parishes when in Los Angeles. It might be called active retirement!"

Firmly in place in ol' Pasadena and doing very good things, as I hear by the grapevine, is Bob McEliece. "Here at Caltech I have remained (absent a few years here and there) since '64! " says Bob.

Classmates: We have a lot of catching up to do. Don't wait for a postcard to drop me a note about your activities during the last 30 years! There has been a delay in getting all class notes published, due to your class correspondent's hospitalizations. I still have some of your nice notes from almost a year ago, but space is limited. Still, send along your news, and I'll be catching up. Forgiving me for this delay, Dave Hammer wrote, "It is difficult to offend me, especially by leaving me out of a newsletter. I'll keep on donating to Caltech anyway and continue to be proud of having graduated from (survived?) the place."