Lionel S. Goldring, Ph.D., V, '50

Lionel was born and attended public school in Los Angeles. His parents were born in Eastern Europe, they came to this country as children around the turn of the century, and had only elementary education. A mediocre student until adolescence Lionel was a voracious reader often reading a half dozen books a week. Lionel had a variety of scientific and linguistic extracurricular activities, 5 majors and was valedictorian of his class of over 600 while providing significant support for his father's janitorial service. A geology club, founded and lead by a schoolmate and lifelong friend, took him on many trips into the wilds of Southern Calif., where Lionel began his interest in the outdoors and landscape photography with a box camera. While a senior Lionel won the scholarship contest of the Southern California Section of the American Chemical Society but was unable to take advantage of their half tuition scholarship to Cal Tech.

Lionel entered UCLA in 1940 with a major in chemistry and a minor in physics. Lionel worked a variety of part-time jobs and was not only self supporting but contributed to family support . Several of these jobs were academic contributing substantially to his education: as a lab tech first in the chemistry department and then in the agriculture department, Lionel used the first commercial UV-Vis pectrophotometer and was the first person to measure the ionization constant of cyanic acid, which has a half life of a fraction of a minute. In the ag department Lionel learned the meticulous attention to detail necessary for trace element analysis. With wartime academic acceleration, Lionel received his AB (with honors) in Oct. 1943 and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.

Lionel left immediately for Oak Ridge and worked there in the fission product section of the Chemistry Division under Charles Coryell, a UCLA faculty member, who joined the MIT faculty in 1946. The work there consisted at first of uranium purification and then characterization of the chemistry and radiation properties of the products of uranium fission. After a few months a group of about a dozen was selected to work in the "Hot Lab" on the isolation and purification of barium-140, which was utilized in the trigger of the atomic bombs of that period. Working six-day, 60-100 hr weeks did not allow for much recreation but Lionel and several of his co-workers did manage to hike in the Smokies and along the edge of the Cumberland Plateau.

Entering the chemistry dept. of MIT in Feb. 1946, Lionel again held a variety of part-time jobs: Lionel purified cyclotron targets for the Radioactivity Center, proof read for Academic Press, and consulted for Brookhaven National Lab. on the design of their Hot Lab. Some major improvements were made on the design used in Oak Ridge. Lionel was partially supported by the Office of Navel Research and subsequently an AEC pre-doctoral fellowship. Lionel received his Ph.D. in physical chemistry for a photometric measurement of the ionization constant of nitric acid in 1950; Prof. Charles Coryell was his research supervisor and George Scatchard was chairman of his committee. One of the most useful things Lionel learned at MIT was how to sail, an activity in which Lionel has participated for nearly 50 years; Lionel was also a member of the Outing Club, where among other things Lionel learned to use chop sticks. Lionel received no offers of employment from the chemical industry and has never worked for a chemical firm.

With his only job offers from Los Alamos and Brookhaven, Lionel opted for Long Island. Lionel spent 2.5 years at Brookhaven, working in their hot laboratory on a supersecret analytical problem. His son, Michael was born there in Dec. 1952, his last month at the laboratory. Lionel then spent seven years with a small consulting firm which gradually grew to be part of a major nuclear business. The work there was highly varied; it ranged from writing a radiochemical analytical manual, to design review of hot lab and critical facility experiments, to design studies for anti ballistic missile weapons. Although the company was deeply involved in a variety of far-fetched military reactor studies, Lionel managed to avoid reactor design. Lionel attended an "Atoms for Peace" conference in Geneva and combined it with a vacation tour of Greece, Switzerland, and France; on the side Lionel taught Nuclear Chemistry at Stevens Institute of Technology.

In 1960 Lionel left the nuclear business (and the government feed trough) for a job in the Central Research Laboratory of AMF, a diversified manufacturer of a wide variety of industrial and recreational products. This work became extremely varied but, initially, it was involved with development of membranes used for chemical operations and fuel cells. AMF manufactured ion-exchange membrane for General Electric for use in the Gemini program. From the ion-exchange membrane the Laboratory went on and developed improved processes for reverse osmosis production and then membrane filters. This was highly successful but the business unit involved was not interested in the commercial exploitation of the process at that time. The product was introduced about ten years later but by then the market had grown many-fold and was dominated by Millipore. With something like 18 operating divisions as Director of the R & D Lab, travel both in the US and Europe was extensive. Recreational travel included trips to Mexico, the Caribbean, Italy and Holland.

On the side Lionel first designed a vacation cottage, which was built in Woods Hole; bought his first sailboat, returned to academic studies, received an MBA from New York University and, later, taught their course on Management of Technology and Innovation. During this period Lionel began MIT Alumni activities with some local solicitations. In 1978 Lionel returned to Cambridge to work for Orion Research, a relatively small firm in chemical instrumentation. Initially in charge of contract instrument development, Lionel became director of Advanced Product Development. There, Alumni activities were intense and Lionel participated in several telethons. In 1981 Lionel began work on electrochemically based medical instruments in Wallingford, CT and became active in the Alumni Club of New Haven, becoming a Board Member and in 1986 President. His interest in bird watching developed there. He and his family took a birding-archeological trip to the Yucatan in Mexico. Lionel worked at a subsidiary in Wales for a year and a half traveling widely in the British Isles and to Spain, France, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, and Finland. Bird watching in the British Isles was extensive and spectacular. His family also acquired a Bouvier des Flandres in England and she has been a constant and faithful companion. Upon the family's return from Wales in 1988, Lionel retired for 8 months, utilized the time for travel in the US, purchased a cottage in Florida and then began work for a Seattle firm, Spacelabs, first in Southern Calif. and then in Kirkland, WA on the development of an electrochemical instrument for clinical analysis. Lionel retired again on his 70th birthday in 1992 and settled in Florida. In 1993 he and his family satisfied a long pent-up desire for European travel with a four month, heavily photographed (55 rolls) camping trip of Western Europe from Amsterdam to Italy and Spain to Austria.

When the Alumni Association decided to reactivate a Club in Orlando in 1994, Lionel was volunteered to lead the start-up because of his experience in New Haven working with Janet Serman in the Alumni office. Also in 1994 he and his family began the design of a four room addition to their cottage in Cocoa. It was completed in mid-1995 and provides comfortable space for cooking, computer, and sewing hobbies. Lionel has been chief cook and baker since the mid-seventies and bakes all the family's bread as well as the few pastries they eat. They continue to bird watch with trips to Merritt Island, the Everglades and the Keys. Of course living on the bank of the Indian River they see plenty of birds, dolphin, and an occasional manatee. Lionel maintains a vegetable garden and nearly a dozen citrus trees, which are (this year) giving them an abundance of oranges and lemons.