Sept/Oct 2000

I’m down to the last class notes items that I’ve carefully doled out in recent issues of Technology Review. From now on you’ll have to supply me with fresh news or risk seeing my travel stories in this spot.

Back in February I saw in the MIT Club of Southern California newsletter that Bob Johnson was the new Santa Barbara liaison for the club. An E-mail or two confirmed that Bob had indeed relocated to the west coast after many years in the Boston area. As usual he continues to be active in MIT activities. The current president of our local club, Mark Wang ’87 (a classmate of my daughter, Amy Candell ’87), has been very active in organizing new types of get togethers. One of these was a west coast all-years Baker House Reunion. Unfortunately that March weekend I was away, visiting my daughter Laura and her family at Duke University, so I missed the gathering. Mark told me that Laughlin Andrew Campbell had attended, and asked after Frank Model and me. During our tenure at Baker House Andy was a bridge and double deck hearts player extraordinaire, as well as a renowned mathematician. Now he’s putting those skills to work at the Aerospace Corporation in Los Angeles.

Don Joseph wrote that he resumed playing basketball at age 47 after a decade off. He played five years in a league formed by the fathers of sons who also played in a league. During that time he enjoyed returning to MIT to play in the Alumni basketball game, and be coached by his old mentor, Jack Barry. After this five year run Don’s cardiologist ordered him to retire. But it was great while it lasted. Pradeep Rohatgi is currently serving as Wisconsin Distinguished Professor and Director of the Center for Composites at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Norm Peterson is the volunteer president of Santa Monica Protective Associates, a group of 1144 households that hires patrols that cooperate with and support the Santa Monica Police Department. Norm says the program is very effective, and that this wife is the volunteer CFO. John Brach informs us of the exciting event that occurred on Sept 11, 1999 – his first grandchild arrived! Congratulations, John. The new family member’s name is Cameron Ashby Hinton, and he sees his granddad often. Since John’s retirement from the Transit Authority in the Atlanta area he has been consulting on a part time basis for Urban Engineers, with some travel about the U.S. He enjoys building houses with Habit for Humanity and doing some bass fishing around Georgia.

Travel department: Ron Alpert and his wife, Judy, had a great time in Scotland in June ’99, during and after a fine research conference in Edinburgh. The Alperts particularly liked the Isle of Skye for its beauty and the wonderful hospitality of the residents. Ron says he is a bit too old for the excitement of driving on the left side of the road with oversize tour buses coming toward you on a curve. He also was amused by the signs on single lane roads that said "Road Narrows Ahead." Dave Johnson accompanied his wife, Lyla, on a professional trip to England in October ’99. While there he had the pleasure of seeing Larry Beckreck for the first time since Larry’s family visited him when Dave was living in England in 1978. Larry has fashioned a happy, comfortable and meaningful life for himself and his new family. Dave says that Larry’s contentment gives him encouragement while he is deciding what he wants to be when he grows up. Dave and Lyla celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary in 1999, and would like to know if that is the class record. The only couple he knows who might be close to that number are Pat and Harley Jordan. Are there any of you out there that can equal or best this impressive record?

A sad note. A letter from MIT informed me that Lee McGuire passed away in the early part of this year. I have no details, but if any of you kept in touch with Lee please let me know something about his post MIT years so I can publish them here. As a class we are getting to that age where we are vulnerable, and more of us are going to be appearing in this part of the column. I’d like to put something more in this section than just the simple fact of a classmate’s passing, and I need your help for that.

How I spent my summer vacation department: Although this column is being written in May 2000 about news from June 1999 to March 2000, I can tell you some news that happened more recently. During late July Barbara and I rented a house on Lake Sunapee in southern New Hampshire, not far from Dartmouth. Sunapee is away from the tourist crowds found in the White Mountains and the Lakes Region around Lake Winnipesaukee. The Sunapee area of New Hampshire is very pretty, but quiet. There are many lovely little towns to visit and some nice "off the beaten track" sights to see, near Sunapee and along the Connecticut River on the border with Vermont. The house was right on the lake, and it came with a canoe, so I could get up early and glide around the shoreline in the quiet hours just after dawn. Our children came to visit with the grandkids. It was a great vacation.

Finally, Class President Larry Krakauer sent me an article from the Boston Globe titled "High Tech Boom Giving MIT the Edge in Rivalry with Harvard." To make a baseball analogy, those of you who live in two-team areas know that the local press always favors the San Francisco Giants over the Oakland A’s, the Dodgers over the Anaheim Angels, and the Cubs over the White Sox. So it is with the Globe in reporting about Harvard and MIT. But in this article our alma mater was given its due. The article quoted one high achieving member of the high school class of 1999 as saying "Harvard’s allure is its prestige, but MIT is where the real stuff is happening." This student chose MIT. The article goes on to say that Harvard has always overshadowed MIT, described as a "clunky compound where whiz-kid engineers hunch over arcane gadgetry." But, the Globe continues, "the ascendancy of ‘geek chic’ throughout society has given technology based research universities such as MIT a cachet once reserved for Ivy League schools supported by blue-blooded benefactors." Hey, classmates! We’ve got chic. Who cares what kind of chic it is. The only problem is that my back is killing me from hunching over all that arcane gadgetry.

Best regards to you all. You can reach me at: Mike Bertin, 22 Gillman St, Irvine, CA 92612. E-mail: MCB1@aol.com. If you want to schmooze, call me at (949) 786-9450.