Class of 1970

Dan Stubbs

Address: 16320 154th St N.
Marine on St Croix, MN 55047

It has been a busy year for us. We have had all three of our children get married in the past year. All three are now teaching. One is teaching in a private elementary/junior high school. Another is teaching French at St. Thomas Academy in St. Paul. Our son is a chemistry professor in Maine. I am still working at Imation, a 3M spinoff. Presently, I am getting Imation's HD DVD-R manufacturing process up and running. I had a chance to see some of the Carleton physics folks at Bruce Thomas' retirement dance last spring. It was nice to catch up with the Thomases and Noers.

Class of 1971

Larry Alquist
Email: lalquist@emh.org

Happy Holidays to all. After a deep breath, Patti and I launched our 3rd child into the private liberal arts college stream. With three in privates we're testing the credibility of the Collegeboard financial aid calculator, experiencing the mercy of financial aid offices, and pondering a return to the Bohemian lifestyle.
Erik is a junior physics major at Gustavus, and Ingrid is considering physics (her 1st physics course at Bowdoin uses Thomas Moore's book). Greta is a senior in geography (Macalester), but considers James Gates a string-theory "rock star". Although I really like what I'm doing in radiation therapy physics in Bangor, working less would be nice.
This story could help keep physicists humble and life interesting.
ONE DAY during his tenure as a professor, Albert Einstein was visited by a student. "The questions on this year's exam are the same as last year's!" the young man exclaimed.
"Yes," Einstein answered, "but this year all the answers are different."

Jim Wooldridge
Email: jwooldri@compuserve.com
Address: 20 Hillcrest Way
Basking Ridge, NJ 07920

Last year we moved back to the East Coast (Basking Ridge, NJ) from the San Francisco Bay. We just couldn’t stand the weather out there – too much sun. I continue to work for Oracle USA in the Systems Engineering group, telecommuting to Redwood Shores, CA from my office at home. We are pleased with our move back to the East.

Class of 1972

David Davis Van-Atta
e-mail: ddavisva@acs.carleton.edu
address: 13 Bunday Ct., Northfield, MN 55057
phone: 507 663-1715
URL (office): http://apps.carleton.edu/campus/ira/

I am (still) Director of Institutional Research for Carleton, a position that I certainly never thought I would hold (either in title, or being back here!). And yet, it is now the position I have held for longer than any in my life. I think it is one of the very best positions in the college. (Except, perhaps, getting to teach Physics!) And Northfield has been a wonderful place for kids to grow up.

Other goings on of late: our oldest son (Carleton, ’99) graduated from law school and is working in DC. Our middle son graduated from undergraduate school in London, and our 3rd, and youngest son graduated from high school. That three-way coincidence won’t happen again. So we had a great graduation party bash in the backyard on a beautiful summer afternoon last June. My youngest son is a freshman at Pomona this year, something about which both we and he could not be happier. He’s having a great time. He’s my one scientist of the three. Heather and I celebrated our 25th anniversary with a trip to Martha’s Vineyard this fall, only the 2nd time in our lives that we gone to this place that we love. Very special!

It may be that as one gets older we do return to our roots. At least to some of them. I have found myself increasingly interested in topics in quantum physics, somewhat so even before I sat in on Bill’s QM course going on 3 years ago now. I enjoyed it greatly – it was wonderful to be back in a real class, and especially one on such a good topic. But, if I got half of it, I was lucky! I was surprised, and disturbed, at how much of the math involved in QM I had forgotten. This experience has stayed with me, and I have embarked on first retaking some math courses, and I hope then some of the physics. I took Lin. Al. this past fall! For real. It was challenging, but I did better at it than I did as a student. The most difficult part was finding/making the time for the work. It is tough to fit 1/3 of a Carleton student’s life into life today. But with my last son off to college, I have some time to devote, and this was my choice for it. Back to my roots! Emboldened by this, probably foolishly, I now plan to take ODE and then PDE in the coming winter and spring terms. Check the newsletter next year to see how it worked out.

Other things I enjoy: cycling – I still ride a lot. Gardening, including building a large water garden system in the backyard (see some pictures of it here: www.flickr.com/photos/DDVA1/). And generally living outdoors as much as possible. For the past three summers or so, I want you all to know that Nelson has played shortstop on the softball team where I’ve played second base. And he’s really good!

Class of 1973

Michael Lauterbach
Email: Michael.Lauterbach@lecroy.com

My wife has finished her first year as Dean of the Yale School of Nursing. In January I transitioned from a 100% travel schedule to 50% in my job for LeCroy Corporation. I am sure a lot of people think of 50% travel as being a lot but I am really enjoying being home two weeks per month. We still have our vacation home in Vermont and try to spend one weekend per month up there. It feels like our blood pressure drops about 10 points when we cross the Vermont border. I spend more time now at Yale events than I could in previous years. A group of us are going up to Cambridge for the Yale/Harvard game in November. Hope this message finds all of you well.

Class of 1974

Dayton Jones
Email: dj@sgra.jpl.nasa.gov

Greetings to all. We're still alive, still busy, and happy most of the time. I'm still working at JPL after more than two decades, and Debra ('79) is writing short stories (one published in the Evansville Review this year) and working on finding an agent for her first novel. (Anyone know any literary agents?) Our daughters Alice (14) and Ellen (12) are a source of continuing joy. I'm starting to think about early retirement in a few years, so Debra and I can do things while we are both still healthy enough to enjoy it. We'd like to live someplace less crowded than the LA basin (shouldn't be difficult!), where the landscape is greener and the neighbors are out of earshot. If you had a choice, where would you retire? We hope that all our physics friends and teachers have had a good year. Cheers.

Bob Nelson
Email: Rtnelson52@comcast.net
Address: 11281 Hastings St. NE
Blaine, MN 55449

Sheila and I are now in our second empty-nester year. We are slowly getting used to all the quiet. We downsized to a one level townhome almost 4 years ago but now it seems too big!
Professionally, I am still doing software development and support. I am now working at a small startup company (Compellent in Eden Prairie, MN) in the storage array business. We are doing OK so far so it should be an interesting 2007. I now find that I am one of only two 50+ year olds in the group. Everyone else looks like a kid!
Best Wishes to Bruce Thomas in his retirement!

Class of 1975

Tim Brunner
Email: brunner@snet.net
Phone: 203-431-3011
Address: 27 Westmoreland Road
Ridgefield, CT 06877

Another milestone: two weeks ago our oldest daughter Emily was married. She graduates from medical school this spring. Our oldest son Max is taking the train into NYC each day to work at a stock trading firm, and I get to play volleyball with him sometimes. Theo continues at UC Santa Barbara, and is captain of the volleyball team there. Lydia loves Columbia, and her acting exploits provide great excuses to visit her in the city. Sally continues to teach middle school chorus, and has taken on additional responsibility as senior teacher and local union representative. I am still at IBM playing around with methods to keep Moore's Law marching along.When I started in this field, I certainly did not envision that it would become a 25-year career. If you find yourself in NYC area, give a call.
p.s. Bruce Thomas rocks!

Mark Jaeger

How time flies when you are having fun. I am still working for Oracle, fixing bugs, and just passed my 10-year anniversary there. My kids are globetrotters, with Elizabeth in Guatemala and my son having spent a semester in Cameroon. The advantage, of course, is that sometimes we get to visit them or at least enjoy it vicariously through their travel blogs. Best regards to all.

Kathleen Rempel Krafft
Email: kkrafft@sciencecenter.org
Phone: 607-273-0675
Address: 10 Snyder Hill Court
Ithaca, NY 14850

Greetings all! First thing that comes to mind to share is that I've been to Carleton twice this fall-- once to get my youngest daughter, Jennifer, settled in as a freshman, and again for Parent's weekend in October to see her and my middle daughter, now a senior! I got to see Bill Titus-- the physics department is full of mostly new faces, but seemed vibrant and busy as usual.
Both kids applied early decision, which speaks to the special qualities at Carleton, and both are very pleased with their decisions.
I took Jennifer to visit 10 different top liberal arts colleges, and altho' she liked many of them a lot (Pomona, Middlebury, and Grinnell were other tops) she felt strongly about Carleton -- both the classes we attended were excellent with lots of engagement with well-prepared students and professors, and she found the students were particularly interesting and quirky and friendly. I noticed a few things that were different from so long ago-- there is a lot of support for students and many take advantage of it (math help, writing center, computers, etc.), the Health Center is reasonably well-regarded (mental and physical health), and there are many international students.
Jennifer started Japanese this fall which has been a lot of work and really fun, also loves Spanish and linguistics, but is interested in just about everything, so we'll see what her major(s) turn out to be. My middle daughter, Caroline, is a senior with two majors-- Classics (Latin & Greek) and Sociology/Anthropology. She did a fabulous semester-abroad program in Morocco Fall 2005, living with a family and learning Arabic. She wants to get involved in working with non-profits next year, then apply to MBA programs.
To complete the family news, my oldest daughter, Victoria, graduated from Harvey Mudd College in May 2005-- for graduation we stayed with Patti and Larry Sparks and family, and got to see Dayton Jones and Debbie Grubb and family! Victoria lived at home last year to do a one-year Masters of Engineering degree in Computer Science at Cornell University that was an intense and very worthwhile program for her. She's now out in the real world and very much enjoying it, working for Lockheed-Martin (only an hour away) developing software for networks and security applications.
Work-wise, I was just in Orlando, Florida to set up a new traveling exhibition called "Too Small To See" at Innoventions at Epcot.. so if you go there anytime in the next 6 months be sure to check it out. It's about nanotechnology-- you can manipulate atoms, build molecules, crawl amongst carbon nanotubes, walk thru an infinite crystal, stretch apart an RNA molecule in an interactive video theater, and more. You can see a pdf of our rental flier at
http://www.sciencenter.org/exhibits/d/tsts_rental_flyer.pdf
As usual we've got many projects going on, and a busy and successful museum to keep running as well. One new project I"ll be working on a lot involves earthquake engineering, with two different shake tables. I also spend a lot of time supporting the various exhibitions we have touring around the country-- we have a strong national reputation for interactive exhibits, and have had exhibitions everywhere from San Diego to Alaska to Florida, and this winter one exhibition will be in Nova Scotia. You can check out what exhibitions are where at:
http://www.sciencenter.org/exhibits/d/sc_exhibition_rental_schedule.pdf

Class of 1976

George Jelatis

Greetings from Duluth, MN. I write as the father of a dodecadontic, 18-month old toddler, who drops Cheerios from his high chair in a daily test of gravity. I am certain that he will soon drop large and small simultaneously. We have not yet measured the distributions of diameter and mass, but think there’s a comestible science project or physics lab in there somewhere. My free time halves on a regular basis, but take heart that Johnny is happy, healthy and funny (all is well as long as ceiling fans and lights are on, and there are wheels to be spun).
It was wonderful to see some of you at our thirtieth reunion, and also some of my old students at their twentieth. It is equally tragic that we have lost John Soderstrum. We sat next to each other for many physics classes. He read science fiction books during class, and would just look up at the board once in a while to see what was going on, then go back to his book. For those readers that didn’t know him, he did very well, too! We miss him.
Finally, I see that I did not step backward fast enough recently, and so write this as our Class Agent. Please, please, please go online to give.carleton.edu. It’s the easiest way to donate to this year’s Alumni Annual Fund. You can even set up installments. While we set a dollar record last year for a 30th reunion, we also went above fifty percent participation as a class for the first time in a few years. Participation is really what matters. Give what you can, but do give. Thanks!

Class of 1977

Roger Johnston

Email: 2GHZ@comcast.net
Phone: 505-667-7471
Address: MS J565
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos, NM 87545

I continue to work at Los Alamos National Laboratory with the Vulnerability Assessment Team. We reverse-engineer and break into physical security devices, systems, and programs to demonstrate vulnerabilities and suggest countermeasures (the easy part), then try to get somebody to do something about it (the hard part). Our 10-person team includes students, technicians, 2 industrial/organizational psychologists, and 2 physicists. The psychologists help us better understand the human factors so important to security, while the physicists provide the essential smart-ass attitude.
I had fun putting together a paper for American Scientist (Nov-Dec 2006 issue) entitled "Tamper-Indicating Seals".
Lots of travel this year: Russia, Bahrain, OH, TX, CA, and DC to give talks; Scotland (Skara Brae & the Orkneys), MN, CO, TX, & IN for vacations and family events. Janie and I were even in Winona, Minnesota in October for the Norwegian Fjord (horse) Conference, even though we aren't Norwegian or horses. One of our 4 horses is 7/8ths Norwegian Fjord (and 1/8th Giant Ground Sloth).
Janie taught two courses as an Adjunct Professor again this year on Critical Thinking for undergraduate students. Apparently the caliber of critical thinking among students--at least at the start of the course--is pretty scary. Janie, however, is quite used to this situation, working for the government and all. She was also active in the class-action lawsuit against LANL for discrimination against females and minorities.

Class of 1978

David Johnson
Email: ds-johnson@comcast.net
Phone: 817-795-5089
Address: 2018 Stone Canyon Court
Arlington, TX 76012

We just celebrated our second wedding anniversary with a visit to the Beaches resort on Turks and Caicos. It was nice to get away and do some diving, sailing, and just relaxing. Otherwise, not much new to report. I am still the CFO of Carter & Burgess (a large architectural/engineering firm) and Ysleta is still a private duty nurse caring for elderly patients. The kids are active as usual. Madison is a senior in high school and will be going to college next year. She is the last one in the house. The two oldest kids are in college at Oklahoma University. Jessica is living with her mother in Louisville. I am still very interested in cars and car racing although I haven’t been able to get much in this year. I managed to get my BMW M5 out to the track once though and had a great time. My father passed away in August so I was up in Minnesota a few weeks this summer. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it down to Carleton. Seems like the thing I need the most these days is more time! Hello to everyone! I hope everyone has a Wonderful Holiday Season!

Class of 1979

Jon Pryor
Email: pryor001@umn.edu
Phone: 952-931-0181

A lot has happened in the past few months. In June I got my MBA from Northwestern University. This past month my daughter Emily moved back to Minneapolis, started law school at the University of Minnesota and got married. The wedding was magical. A few weeks ago I decided to quit my job as Professor and Chair of Urologic Surgery at the U of M to take a position as a consultant in healthcare with McKinsey and Company. Finally, next week I test for black belt in Tae Kwon Do. Life is great.