MIT Class of 1963 Class Notes
November 2001
MIT
Class of 1963, Class Notes for November 2001 issue of Technology Review:
Last issue I wrote about seeing Frank Shu quoted in an astronomy book I was reading. Two days after I submitted that column to Tech Review I learned of another honor that Frank recently garnered. He was awarded the year 2000 Danie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics by the American Institute of Physics. The citation read "For shaping our current understanding of star formation, for his research on an unusually large array of topics including the origin of spiral structure in galaxies, stellar dynamics, the evolution of close binary stars, planetary rings and composition of meteorites, and for his contributions as an educator and leader of the astronomical community." Congratulations Frank! And, best of all, a bit later I received an E-mail from him with some personal notes, and information about other classmates. Frank and his wife, Helen, live near Stanford. Helen works in Menlo Park, so Frank commutes to UC Berkeley. The Shu's saw James Tang in Hawaii last May on the occasion of James' 60th birthday celebration. Jim's son, Andrew, arranged the party. And Frank says he occasionally hears from Leonard Ferrari.
For many years Lenny was a faculty member at UC Irvine, two miles from where I'm sitting now. We spoke on the phone several times and talked about getting together for lunch. But like people who live their whole lives in New York City and never visit the Empire State Building I figured there would be plenty of time to get together. One day my wife, Barbara, brought home a UCI newsletter in which there was a note about Lenny moving to Virginia Tech. So much for "plenty of time." For an update on what Lenny is doing these days I looked on the Web. I learned that on September 29, 2000 our classmate was named Vice Provost for Special Initiatives at Virginia Tech. The site gave Lenny's professional history. "Dr. Ferrari previously served as the Department Head of the Bradley Department of Electrical Engineering, which he joined on July 1, 1995. He came to Virginia Tech from the University of California, Irvine, where he was a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, with joint appointments in the Departments of Information and Computer Sciences and Radiological Sciences. He served as Chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department for three years, and served as Director of an NSF Center for High Speed Image Processing. Ferrari’s specialty is in image processing. He joined the faculty of the University of California in 1980, as a researcher in the Radiological Sciences Department of the College of Medicine, then joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in 1985 as a full-time faculty member. He served as Department Chair from 1990-1993. He has taught courses in circuit design, communications, digital signal processing, image processing, computer algorithms and computer graphics. Ferrari has more than 12 years experience in industrial research and development, and has authored more than 40 patent disclosures. Early in his career he worked as a researcher for Polaroid Corporation. His work with Dr. E. G. Land, the founder of Polaroid, led to a human vision model and a joint patent. In 1969 he moved to the Bell and Howell Research Laboratories as director of the group responsible for corporate research in video systems, magnetic and optical recording, facsimile systems, airborne entertainment systems and electro-optical products. In 1974 he returned to school and received a Ph.D. degree from the University of California, Irvine in 1980. He earned his MSEE degree from Northeastern University in 1967, and his BSEE degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1963." The only thing they left out was Lenny's stint as a guard on the MIT freshman basketball team of 1959-60. (I've still got the team picture.)
Maybe they left out the basketball info because we were pretty bad that year. We had a 1-14 record and the varsity wasn't much better. Our starting five was Lloyd (Dave) Sikes, Bob Beach, Jeff Paarz, Kent Groninger, and center Bill Weber (who I believe graduated with the class of 1964.) Jeff and Kent were the stars, and went on to play on the varsity, which did quite well in the next few years. Lenny, a guard and a great shooter, was often the first sub off the bench. Harold Branson, our other big man (at 6'2"), started some games and got plenty of minutes. Don Day and Gary Palonen were our other forwards, but they were injured during the season. Yours truly was a lowly sub. I occupied the end of the bench with Bob Gilbertson, Bill Jessiman, Alan Bell and a few others whose names I can't remember. We back benchers usually got into games in "garbage time," the last few minutes or seconds when we were so far behind that we couldn't make things any worse. Kent was a spectacular shooter, and Jeff, who was only about 6' 1", was a great jumper. I remember the stunned look on much taller opponents when Jeff soared above them to control a jump ball. If any of you see your names here send me an E-mail and let me know what you're doing today. Are any of you still playing ball?
the Freshman Basketball team of 1959-60
Back row: Assistant Coach Dick Howell, ??, Dave Sikes, Mike Bertin, Harold Branson, Bill Weber, Gary Palonen, Kent Groninger, Don Day, Coach Scotty Whitelwaw
Front row: ??, Bob Beach, Lenny Ferrari, Bill Jessiman, Bob Gilbertson, Jeff Paarz
[Ed. Note: For update see April 2002, Class Notes.]
Well, if you've read this far you've figured out that I
didn't have much real news this month, and I had to make up some. So make my job easier (and your reading more
interesting) by sending me some news.
By the time you see this it will be November – happy Thanksgiving!
You can reach me at: 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.
Menu
Site Map | Advanced Search
http://alumweb.mit.edu/classes/1963/ notes.shtml
There have been 802 visits to this web page since Thursday, June 6, 2002.