Class of 1941

Fred B. Riegel

Address: 1049 200th Street, Dresser, WI 54009

Phone: (715) 755-3804

The impracticability of continuing in Astronomy prompted me to go to summer school at the University of Minnesota to pick-up premed requirements and follow my father and brother in the study of medicine.

Class of 1944

Frank Chen

Email: chenfwhome.com

Continuing in retirement activities, I managed to help four American friends get connected to some powerful people in North China. The four of them (one Ph.D. in material science, one M.S. in environmental engineering, one B.S. in chemistry, and a B.S. in mechanical engineering) went on an adventure trip in October. On arrival in Beijing, they went sightseeing at the Ming Tomb and walked two miles up the Great Wall. Not one of them could manage more than six hurriedly learned expressions in Chinese. But the taxi driver communicated with them through sign language and a large wristwatch.

At the destination city of Dong Ying on the Yellow River Delta, a good interpreter made a difference. They were wined and dined in style so their Chinese hosts could size them up for advantage. A survey tour of the Delta and three days of intensive discussion led to an agreement in "hopes". Both sides would go back and work toward the setting up of a private enterprise joint venture. Its mission will be to provide science and technology planning for the Delta's many ecosystems needs while the city moves on with rapid economic development. If this thing gets to the working phase, I can see that physics, chemistry, biology, and environmental engineering will all come into play.

The Delta is home of a major Nature Reserve, coastal habitat, and stopover point of migratory birds traveling annually from as far south as Australia to the northern reaches of Manchuria, and back again. As luck would have it, fully one half of the region is also home of China's second largest oil fields. With wetlands being such a precious resource there, the government wants the wetlands converted to a new forest and plant trees for pulp and paper production. Instantly, two principal sources of pollution are in the making. When I saw these coming, it didn't take much imagination to motivate our little band of folks to go and lend a helping hand in a far off ecological region. We may not be doing well for the Chesapeake Bay, but onward we must go to work at the Bohai Bay. Why do advancing societies always intrude on good things from nature?

I will keep your readers posted on how this venture may play out a year from now. Best regards.
Class of 1948

Joseph Jester

Enough of the procrastination you warned against in your October 16th request. Here is my story!

I enrolled at Carleton in 1941 with no clear-cut vision of a major or life work. I was (am) mechanically inclined, so favored science and math courses. Physics seemed a likely prospect. When WWII beckoned, I finished 2 years plus a summer school at Carleton before joining the Navy U12 Program and spending 2 semesters at St. Mary's College, Winona before active duty (Amphibious Forces in the Pacific) as Lt. J.G. with discharge in 1946. I returned to Carleton for a degree--having 6 1/2 semesters of assorted credits but far short of a major. I considered transferring to engineering until I visited Ames (where my family had gone) and discovered they would accept my liberal arts credits as a second-semester freshman. I thanked them and returned to Carleton to complete physics major (and meet and marry the present Mrs. Jester) in 1948.

Frank Verbrugge was department head and tolerated my marginal academic performances. Frank passed me along. I always felt an obligation NOT to embarrass Frank by applying for graduate school. Upon graduation (and marriage) in the summer of 1945 I went to work for Honeywell Inc. in Minneapolis as a sales trainee. I spent the next 40 years with Honeywell in technical sales, sales management, international management, and retired in 1987 as a vice president.

My 40 years working in a technical environment never caused me to regret my physics background at Carleton. I dealt with engineers my entire career and was able to more than hold my own with a better understanding of the why of things than most.

Your newsletter was fascinating to read of the accomplishments of so many Carleton grads in the world of academic physics. I don't envy them, but certainly admire them.
Class of 1949

Jim Dorman

E-mail: dormanjmidsouth.rr.com

Address: 142 Walnut Creek Road, Cordova, TN 38018

Phone: (901)-757-2021

In July, Sally and I went to places in Alaska that I visited in 1953. Most of Alaska is the same today, still very beautiful. The reason it has not been ravaged already has little to do with banning oil drilling; it is because most of Alaska is unsuitable for cattle grazing.

When I saw the intense blue light shining from crevasses in the toe of Exit Glacier near Seward, it reminded me of the blue light I saw when walking along the bottom of a Greenland crevasse in 1955. It's like looking up from 50 ft underwater. Why is the light blue? That's a physics problem! Exit Glacier and almost all Alaskan glaciers are wasting rapidly, maybe the clearest evidence so far of global warming. The trouble is, we are not sure why it's happening.