JANUARY 2008 CLASS NOTES

In 1942, while in the Navy, Dick taught Radar at Corpus Christi, TX. He was a member of our class and also received a Master’s Degree in 1951 (Course 6A – Electrical Engineering).

Since 1977 he owned his own company; worked in the aerospace industry, designing systems for military training devices, Dragon Missile, helicopter engines, and power simulations. Dick developed energy conservation equipment and hi-tech lighting systems. As a consultant, he worked with Lockheed-Martin and for the University of Central Florida as instrumentation and control advisor on the Free-electron Laser.

He was responsible for interviewing candidates for MIT admission as a member of the Educational Council.

Katherine Campbell Lesser

(contributed by Richard Lesser, Class of 1950)

Richard & Kate, Thanksgiving 1952

I would like to report that my wife of 52 years, Katherine Campbell Lesser passed away in January 2007. On the off-chance that there may be some MIT’ers out there who may remember Kay Campbell (as she was known then), I should like to provide the following historical information. I met Kate while I was a Course XVIII undergraduate student taking Numerical Analysis from Professor Zdenek Kopal in Building 20 where she was employed as a technical typist in the Numerical Analysis Lab. She must have liked me as she typed my undergraduate thesis on Fourier Transforms, of which I still have a copy, (and do not today understand a word). Technical typing, as those of you from that era may recall, was a significant endeavor, requiring great patience, perseverance and care.

Kate later worked at the Barta Building with responsibility for supervising the operators on the Whirlwind Computer. After graduation, I was hired by Frank Verzuh to work at the Office of Statistical Services and Scientific Computation, providing computing on an IBM Calculating Punch, Type 602-A (there was no MIT Computing Center at that time). I left Tech in 1953 to serve (for 11 years) as founding director of the Computing Center at Cornell University. Kate and I were married in May of 1954. After moving to Ithaca, Kate worked as Administrative Assistant to the Dean of the College of Engineering at Cornell. She was a wonderful wife and mother to our three children and is very much missed by us and her host of friends.

Some additional information from Richard

I was only at Tech for 2 years, as I started out at Wharton school, class of 1946, joined the service after 1 semester and spent over 3 years in the Air Force. I then went to Williams for 6 semesters straight before transferring to Tech in 1948.

SUNNY SAN DIEGO REUNION UPDATE – SUNDAY AND MONDAY, MARCH 30TH - 31ST

by Mel Gardner

The Coronado Island Marriott Resort, across the bay from San Diego, has been selected as the venue for our March, 2008 reunion. Please see the resort's web site: http://www.coronadomarriott.signonsandiego.com It is an attractive, well located place to stay, easily accessible to San Diego and La Jolla, and close to the Coronado downtown area with lots of interesting things to do and see.

There, we will have a pre-dinner reception, and dinner on Sunday and breakfast the next day.

At our classmate Hank Simmons' suggestion, on Monday late morning we will take a two hour San Diego harbor cruise. See http://www.sdhe.com/san-diego-harbor-tours.html . After the harbor tour, we will have lunch together at a restaurant still to be selected.

As I have written before, for those of you who plan on arriving in San Diego early, the San Diego Opera, http://www.sdopera.com or 619-533-700 is performing Cavealleria Rusticana and Pagliacci on Friday, March 28th.

On Saturday night, the San Diego symphony, http://www.sandiegosymphony.com , 619-235-0804, is presenting a concert of pieces by Shostakovich, Beethoven, and R. Strauss. Several of us have already booked seats for this performance.

Incidentally, the concert is part of the Jacobs' Masterwork series sponsored by Irwin and Joan Jacobs. He received a PhD in EE from MIT in the mid-1950s, taught there for some years and moved to UC San Diego. He founded and is Chairman of Qualcomm and founded several other companies. They have been generous supporters of cultural and educational institutions largely in the San Diego area, but I understand that they recently made a $30 million contribution to MIT.

There are many interesting, fun things to do in and around San Diego besides visiting with your classmates.

Please contact me at melgardner@alum.mit.edu if you would like to join in on this special class get-together.

Mal Green writes:

A successful Class of 1950 Holiday luncheon was held on December 8th at MIT’s Endicott House. Forty-two classmates and guests attended, setting a new record. Four attendees came for the first time, prompting the observation that as we get older maintaining contacts with long-time friends becomes more important. Although all classmates were invited the attendance was made up by those within driving distance, some coming from as far as southern Connecticut. Those attending are pictured below:

Photo by Jack Mohr

Front Row: Stan Marshall, Mal Green, Jack McKenna, Phil Byrne, Carroll Johnson, Pete Palmer

Second Row: Hans Stern, Karl Ahlstrand, Bill Murphy, Hollis Gray, Ed Sheldon, Harry Foden, Jack Mohr, Ed Chatterton, Paul Berger, Bob Snedeker

Back Row: Paul Zorn, Phil Pearson, Jim Lydon, Bob Cesari, Dave Levington, Rey Graunas, Bill Webster

Continuing a tradition, Mal conducted a pop quiz to highlight some current information about MIT. Some of the questions, with answers in red are below:

1.What is the current student enrollment? 10253

a. Undergraduates 4127

b. Graduate students 6126

2. What percent of freshman applicants were offered admission? 13%

3.What is the total annual fee for tuition, activity fees, and room and board? $46,350

( Tuition $33,400 Activity fees $200 Room, board $9950 Books, personal exp. $2800 )

4. What percent of undergraduates received financial aid? 64%

5. How much is the average need-based financial package ? $27,800

6. What percent of undergraduate students are women? 43 %

7. What percent of graduate students are women? 29 %

8. What percent of undergraduates are minorities? 45%

( 6% African American 27% Asian 11% Hispanic 1.5% Native Amer. )

9. How many foreign countries are represented in the student body? 113

10. What discipline receives the greatest percentage of funding from the govt.?

Health and Human Services 34 % ($195.6M)

11. What is the average starting salary for grads entering industry?

a. Bachelor’s Degree $59,648

b .Master’s Degree $80,318

c .Doctor’s Degree $96,258

d. MBA     $109,478

12. What sector employs the most MIT grads?      Surprise! Finance (24%)

13. How many members of the MIT community have won Nobel prizes? 62

(Seven are currently on the faculty)

The answers to the questions came from the booklet “MIT Facts 2007” A show of hands indicated almost all the classmates are on the internet and read the Class Notes regularly on our web page.

John Kocher has uncovered some embarrassing information about one of your secretaries. Here is the whole sad story, as set forth by John:

Tom, here's your chance to write about a classmate as well as yourself. Great story. Bethlehem Steel Lackawanna was a major customer when I was zone manager in Pittsburgh with Airco, incidentally. We had an Oxygen plant on site and supplied all their welding and cutting equipment and supplies. All gone now.

For the benefit of others, Art Wolters lives in Savannah and is the '50 guy in the MIT Club of SC and Coastal GA. I joined the club a year or so ago during our annual Hilton Head Island stay, but had lost touch and asked Art for an update. He's been very helpful.

In a message dated 11/14/2007 5:09:48 PM Eastern Standard Time, John Kocher writes (about Tom Keane): “Just discovered that he knows you very well from both MIT and DuPont days. 

Art replies, "And how!”

Art Wolters writes (to John): Tom and I initially had no close contact, because he was a commuter living in Brookline, and I lived on campus -- for freshman year in the infamous Building 22.

Somewhere around our junior year we took Industrial Stoichiometry (10.29, I think) with Professor Gilliland, one of the big four gurus of the Chem E department. Anyway, there was this quiz, and the class average was 17. (Right, 17%) I got 85, and I learned Tom got 100. (Right, 100%) The whole quiz centered on figuring out that the flue gas data indicated an air leak into the flue between the furnace and the sample point. Without that key, everything was wrong!

Then, in our Grad year in Course X-A (School of Chem Eng Practice), Tom and I were part of a ten-man group that did two-month stints at Hercules Powder (Parlin, NJ); Bethlehem Steel (Lackawanna, NY); and Eastern Corp Paper (Bangor, ME). That was 24 hours a day together for six months -- working, eating, sleeping, writing reports. Each location had a full-time professor who assured that we were going to school and not just doing odd jobs for the company. Let me see, there was Tom and I, Bill Proctor, John Ryan, Paul Thistleton, Jim Calkins, Ev Lawrence, Mal Lipson, John Malloy, and Eph Miller. (That's how close -- how many ten-person groups can you name after 57 years.)

Tom started at DuPont at Niagara Falls Research Lab; I was a production supervisor there by that time, as I did not have a two year stint in Korea. We went to Memphis at the same time to work on a pilot plant, and lived about a block apart. I could go on but you get the idea. Tom and Maria, and Pat and I still get together at least once a year.

John, I looked you up in Technique and didn't recognize your picture. I guess MEs and ChEs didn't mix much -- maybe in Physics 8.01?

Happy Thanksgiving, Art

PS: Flying to Boston tomorrow so we see two of our g/kids for the holiday. Our younger son lives on the Cape (He's a service/outsourcing manager for Hewlett-Packard, covering the whole damn world).

Mel Gardner wrote on November 27th:

Joe and Tom, Attached is a "thank you" letter from my oldest grandson who is a recent graduate of MIT, Course III, Materials Science (formerly, in our day known as Metallurgy) with a concentration in environmental impacts of materials reclamation. Due to transient medical problems in his last semester, he was not able to complete his thesis in time to graduate with his class but received his degree in October. An aunt of his, one of my daughters, and I were with him to celebrate his achievement.

Jonathan is spending this year before heading to graduate school working on the coordinating team of the Vehicle Design Summit, an exciting international multi-university effort to create new, cost-effective, energy-efficient cars.

Here is a picture of Jonathan holding his degree in front of one of the Building 10 columns.

 Mel Gardner

Jonathan’s note follows:

November 1, 2007

Dear MIT Class of 1950, Looking back on my 4 years as an undergraduate at MIT, I wonder—and doubt—if I will ever appreciate those times to the extent that I did while I was immersed in them. As time goes by, I have already begun distilling the experiences down into a sequence of core events, cross referenced with some key themes & defining concepts. Events like pledging my fraternity, making my first ever “C” on an exam, falling in love for the first time, and completing a significant piece of research served as important way-points on my journey into adulthood.

Themes that emerged from these experiences have become much more like defining characteristics, like my commitment to environmental sustainability —something that I hope to consume my professional life; and affirmation of the importance of music in my life—although I rejected conservatory for MIT, my musical life at the Institute was a seminal part of my experience.

But maybe all of this is of secondary importance. Maybe it is the friendships I have forged and the communities I have both joined and formed that not only define my MIT experience, but also the world I have just entered. A strong community, after all, can make all the difference, as yours has to me. Support from the MIT Class of 1950 Parent Loan Plan was very helpful to my family and me in allowing me to fully appreciate my time at the 'Tute. An active and supportive alumni class—the friends and family that are brought together in the MIT community—is forward to being a part of as years and decades begin to separate me from my undergraduate memories.

I realize this note of recognition comes four years later than it should have. However, I believe that I am now able to appreciate this gift in a much more meaningful way than I could have as an incoming freshman. So, at long last, thank you so much for this gift. I am very proud to have joined your ranks as an alumnus, and I look forward to the opportunity to cultivate bright, young MIT aspirants the way you did for me.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Krones MIT Class of 2007

There is more to this story. Mel Gardner called to our attention a New York Times article, entitled “The People We Have Been Waiting For”, in which MIT is prominently discussed. The Vehicle Design Summit is the one in which Mel’s grandson Jonathan is involved. The article is at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/business/coll02friedman.html . As mentioned in the article, you can learn more about the Summit at their website at http://vds.mit.edu/

Hi Joe,

I have enjoyed reading the contributions of our class who took ROTC and then served in the military, especially one by one of my fellow chem engineers, Jordan Loftus. When this is complete perhaps the class officers could consider contributions by WWII veterans. I'd especially like to hear from combat veterans, although I know they often don't like to talk about their experiences. I do remember several fascinating stories told to me by one of our classmates when we got to know each other at Tech in 1947. I won't mention his name, but if he reads this he'll know who I mean, and perhaps like to contribute some of his experiences. And after the combat veterans' contributions you might call on the rest of us WWII vets. I know I'd like to read about what my classmates did, and would like to contribute if you wish. Keep up the great work on the Class Notes; I really enjoy reading them every month.

Sincerely, Gerry Lessells, Xb bths44mit50@earthlink.net

Thanks for the kind words, Gerry. And we’d love to hear from our non-ROTC veterans. Our next contributor has gotten us off to a great start

A Winner in our December Photo contest:

John Kern writes on Dec 1

Without batting an eye I recognize Hank Sharp. And he still looks much the same! I had to think a little more to remember Carl Mellin's name, but both these guys I know/knew well.

Before clicking on the December Class Notes, I remembered I had not looked at November's. So I did, and though all the discussion near the start seemed to be about ROTC experiences, they got me to thinking a little about my own military preview to MIT. I went directly into the service in the Summer of 1943 after graduating from high school; trained in the Army Infantry (of all Branches!) in the Southeast and South, ending up with the 84th Infantry Division (Railsplitters) at Camp Claiborne, LA, before heading off to Europe. Our Division was declined by MacArthur twice for shipment to the Far East as we had the lowest AGCT (IQ) average score in the entire U.S. Army, and the highest illiteracy rate. The Army, in its own distinctive way, solved the problem by bringing in 5,000 ASTP students from their college programs in the Fall of 1943 to up the average, which then made us eligible for overseas duty! You perhaps can imagine the interesting times we had melding college guys (or slightly younger kids like me with a high AGCT) with those less fortunate kids from Louisiana, New Mexico and Arizona who mostly were illiterate. I requested transfer from being a squad leader of all illiterate but nice tough guys in the Ammunition and Pioneer Platoon of the 335th Infantry's 2nd Battalion Headquarters Company over to the Communications Platoon after it was filled with all former ASTP guys. There I caught up with what they were doing learning International Morse Code (which I never then used in combat), RT Procedure, Message Center codes, etc., and ended up once we were in action as the Battalion Commander's radio operator, map carrier, message center chief, etc., the all-in-one non-com with a really hot West Point grad BC. Was glad to leave my M1 in my jeep and carry on my back the just-received in the Fall of 44 Motorola 2-way FM SCR-300 which saved my life a couple times absorbing shrapnel and bullets in the rather large and heavy battery case. I got through the war with quite a hike and ride through Europe (including the Battle of the Bulge amongst others) all the way to the Elbe outside of Berlin. At the end of hostilities there, we started talking about what we'd be doing after we returned, IF we didn't get sent off to join in the landings expected on Japan. The guys I had fallen in with were all from New England, and told me I should go to MIT. I replied it appeared too formidable and I had been accepted from high school at Stanford University, but they pushed me to try. I wrote a letter, got a Mimeograph response advising we vets had been out of school too long so if we were interested in applying to MIT we'd have to take the College Boards upon our return to civilian life. After getting a job as a lab assistant in a chemistry research lab early in 1946 on my return, I went to night school to cram for the test, and took it I believe it must have been in May, 1946. As I came from work on June 30 in my Model A Coupe, around the bend in the road leading up to my parents' place, my Mom waved an envelope --- reported she couldn't wait for my return to open it, and that I had been accepted! I dropped my dorm deposit at Stanford and headed East the first of September by train, glad to be out of that never-finished clean-up routine I'd had at the chemistry lab. And as the cliché goes, the rest is history. I became a member of the one and only Class of 1950. And the GI Bill paid for all but the last couple of months of my undergraduate tuition.

 Omaha Beach and Normandy Beach, 10-06 

Our Class Mini-Reunion in France in October 2002, which too few classmates took advantage of, had a pre-trip 4-5 days in Normandy, and my wife Anne and I along with just two other classmate/couples, signed up. It was the first time since the summer of 1944 that I stood on Omaha Red Beach where I had landed with my unit. What a contrast that was. I've enclosed two photos taken on that trip, if you post this rambling and care to include them.

All the best, JOHN

Thank you very much, John, for the interesting and inspiring recollections. It would be great to hear from more classmates about their service days – not just the ROTC stuff. There may be more stories like John’s.

Harry La Towsky also correctly identified the pictures one day later:

Tom- On the left is Hank Sharp and on the right is Carl F. Mellin. Both of them were fraternity brothers with me at Delta Tau Delta. Looking forward to our 60th class reunion. Audrie and I moved to Givens Estates, a life retirement community, in Sept 2005 here in Asheville, NC where we came to retire in early 1991 from NJ.

Best regards, Harry LaTowsky

Mel Gardner wrote our classmate Dick Holmgren, who lives in Bainbridge Island across the bay from Seattle. Mel wrote to find out how they fared in the storm about which we have been reading, and this was his reply :

Hi Mel.......

Thanks for the note about our storms. We appreciate your concern.

We actually did not have many problems at home , although we received a huge amount of rain. Our place is about 7 to 8 miles as the crow flies north of Bremerton, and the rain gauge there measured a little over 12 inches of rain in the 24 hour period of last Saturday!! The "official" rainfall for the area was at Sea-Tac airport, which only got about 3-1/2 inches in the same period. So we got a little more than our share.

A few of the drainage systems at our place got plugged up, but nothing serious., Credit the extraordinary hydraulics engineering training at MIT for this success.

The worst remaining issue now is the 20 mile stretch of I-5 freeway about 50 miles south of Seattle which is still closed due to flooding in the Chehalis area. This is the main highway between Seattle and Portland, and is very heavily used for not only Portland/Seattle traffic, but also for most of the Washington/California traffic. They hope to open it tomorrow, but are afraid of sinkholes in the same area, due to the extensive flooding.

The only good route left to Portland is to drive through the mountains over to Yakima, then go south across the Columbia River and come into Portland from the east. About 150 miles further.

Loretta and I have a meeting in Portland on the 12th, so hope all is well by then.

The only two "good news" items for us during the deluge were (1) it was very warm...about 55 degrees during the main part of the storm, and (2) the power stayed on except for a brief outage of about 10 minutes. We are sort of out at the end of the power grid, and usually at times of power outages we are one of the first to go dark.. We do have a 25kw diesel generator,, so we can function OK, but carrying around 5 gallon containers of diesel is getting harder and harder.

Once again, thanks so much for the inquiry, and we're looking forward to the San Diego meeting in March.

Dick................

 Mel Gardner wrote on 12/707

Here is a picture of Loretta and Dick Holmgren taken in Coronado, CA in March 2007 when they, Paula and Joe McCluskey, Carolyn Lack and I met for a delightful reunion lunch. You might want to add this to Dick's report of the recent storm in the Northwest.

Mel

Holmgrens, March 2007

Joe wrote in reply:

Dear Dick,

12 inches in 24 hours is enormous. I read where the river came up 25 feet in 24 hours. Your comments will be in the January notes. I have an emergency generator in both my NJ and FL homes but fortunately we have a gas connection and don’t have to lug fuel around. In Jersey it is a direct connection to the gas main but in Florida I get a refill on my gas tank before I leave for NJ. So far so good. They go on very well but all we've had is short duration outages

Joe D'Annunzio

Falling Tree

 Mel Gardner was notified of a serious incident involving our Class Tree near Baker House. On Saturday, December 1, high winds caused a branch to fall and injure a student. The event is reported in The Tech at http://www-tech.mit.edu/V127/N59/bakertree.html As this is written, we do not have further information about the ongoing condition of the student, Wei-Hsuan “Jessie” Ho ’08, but we will update this note as additional information is received.

12/21/2007 11:23 AM Bob Garvin wrote

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you from all of us. On Dec 17, had lunch with Guy Bell, who has graciously agreed to be my back-up, even while my brother and his wife kept talking about the Delaware Valley club.

Bob G

Sally & Karl Eklund wrote the following just before Christmas:

Merry Christmas!

Usually a Christmas email isn't justified because nothing much exciting happens here in St. Vincent, and you can read about what does happen on my St. Vincent blog at [http://svgb.karleklund.net]. But this year is an exception.

On the morning of November 29th I was sitting watching the TV with a cup of coffee and I had a strange feeling. As it got stronger I saw the whole house was rocking and rolling and it kept doing that for about 30 seconds. I heard a small crash, which turned out to be a pile of books destined to be a donation to the local library. Sally and Veronica (our household helper) were in different places in the house and when they could let go of what they were holding on to, they rushed into the living room. We decided it was clearly an earthquake, but was it La Soufrier, our volcano?

I rushed to the computer and eventually found it was a 7.4 earthquake 18km below the sea between Martinique and Domenica, where some noticeable damage was done on both islands. The attached picture is the cathedral on Dominica. The earthquake was the strongest recorded since the 1700s, but the shocks weren't sharp and sudden so it didn't do a lot of damage. But it was interesting--on the east coast of the US we don't get very many serious earthquakes and I had never felt anything like that.

Earthquake near Martinique, 11/29/07

Oh, and our volcano is still quiet. Otherwise, we did our usual doctor visits this summer and we continue to be in reasonable health for the old f#rts we are. So have a Merry Christmas and we'll all hope for another Good Year.

With love, Karl Eklund    karlek@mac.com.

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