Class of 1960

Ben Brabson

Email: brabson@indiana.edu

Address: 169 Big Horn Ridge Drive NE, Albuquerque, NM 87122

Phone: (505) 856-6916

Dear Carletonians, what a pleasure writing to you from Bloomington Indiana where Cynthia and I continue to teach. My physics research is related to long-term temperature records in Europe and the world. The rate of global warming continues to increase, as you know. I certainly hope our present administration and all drivers of SUVs get the message that we are all to blame.

June Matthews

Dear Carleton physics friends, my professional life continues much the same as last year, only more so! I am in the middle of my third year as Director of MIT's Laboratory for Nuclear Science, and sometime during the next few months I'll have to decide whether or not to accept another three-year term if it is offered. Although my administrative duties keep me very busy, I do manage to find some time for research, both at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center and at the MIT-Bates Accelerator laboratory. I continue to enjoy collaborating with fellow alum Bill Franklin.

To the faculty: please send some of those 19 senior and 16 junior physics majors our way! MIT could use more good graduate students; I would be glad to correspond with anyone who might be interested in any area of physics at MIT.

On the personal side, it's the same house (in rural Lincoln, MA), same cat, same music groups, all of which bring pleasure and sanity to my life.

Class of 1961

Robert Althauser

The academic year 2001-2 was my last sabbatical year, mostly taken "at home" on various projects but fortunately, taken in part abroad. It began in May 2001 with our first of (so far) two annual May trips to Lesvos, a wonderful Greek island, and the town of Molyvos for two weeks of yoga, dining and hiking. Then in January, I spent 4-5 weeks at the University of New South Wales as a "guest" of their Industrial Relations and Org Behavior School This was really grand. Time to read, write, think--free of distractions awaiting me at home. This was at the tail-end of a grand trip to the South Island of New Zealand. The West side of that island was as wet as anything I've ever been in--two unremitting days of hard rain. The result, apart from just getting off the coast in time, were spectacular waterfalls tumbling down the high canyon walls of places like Arthur's pass and Milford Sound. We also drove out of Christchurch to the wonderful forest that was used in one of the early forest scenes of the first Lord of the Rings film. I can foresee that the joys of travel will continue as long as health permits.

Class of 1962

Howard Apple

Email: hpappleaol.com

URL: http://wwwapple-medical-incubator.com

Ashamed to say this is my first response ever. A Physics/Liberal Arts major has served me well through the years. Went to Case Institute of Technology in Electrical Engineering and, just emerging, Biomedical Engineering. Got a Ph.D. and became a faculty member. Worked on cybernetic systems for the disabled and patient monitoring in surgery and anesthesia. Joined Johnson &Johnson (Critikon) in Tampa, FL, and worked on noninvasive blood pressure instruments and intravenous catheters. Significant side trips into management and organizational behavior. Worked at J&J Corporate Office of Science and Technology while getting an MBA at Columbia. Left J&J and worked at two companies on laser vision correction.

Semi-retired now and living in Winter Park, FL. I am working on vision screening for preschool children via NIH SBIR grants plus consulting for multiple medical start-ups. Lots of interesting machine vision stuff.

More importantly, happily married with one son who is a senior in English at Carnegie Mellon.

Most recent failure was not completing the 100-mile bike ride in Titusville, FL. Tried to stay with the 23+ mph triathletes and bonked badly at 70 miles. Sometimes, I overdo it a little.

Stephen Johnson

Email: prairieev1.net

I am taking early retirement Nov. 1 so I can enjoy some personal projects (maybe physics) while I can. I got a severance, which will support me for a while and give me some freedom. I thoroughly enjoy my work for BP and hate to give it up, but I am the next to oldest geoscientist in the company! Fortunately, after 2 years of trying, I was able to noticeably improve the seismic image for a billion barrel Gulf of Mexico sub-salt oil field before I left which gives me great professional satisfaction. BP customarily hires back retirees as consultants after 6 months, so there is that possibility if I get bored. By then the imaging group will have 7 terraflops of computing power, which would be thrilling to use. Searching for oil around the world is always exciting and was an ideal application for my physics and geology interests.

In June, Joan and I attended the 40th class reunion in Northfield. While there, I had a chance to browse the physics hall library and leaf through some well-done senior theses. My son's first child was born 5 days ago so now we have 2 grandchildren on the West Coast. It is likely we will be traveling west soon!

Class of 1963

Timothy Barnum

Email: Timothy_Barnumyahoo.com

Address: 806 Creek View Rd, Severna Park, MD 21164

Phone: (410) 421-9522

I've been retired 2 years now, and haven't missed work at all. Initially, I did a bit of consulting but really found it got in the way of the reasons for retiring.

I spent my career in research development and engineering after going to Columbia University on the 3-2 combined plan program (do they still have it?). Physics and math were a struggle for me at Carleton but I found that I enjoyed studying it more than other subjects. Robert Reitz's encouragement kept me going when I got too discouraged.

My Carleton prep made engineering very easy for me. I tried going to work with my B.S. but found I was a flunky, but I was able to get a fellowship for a Ph.D. However, I had probably reached my level of incompetence and didn't have good guidance after graduate school. I was laid off and became a development engineer, and eventually a program manager.

The Carleton physics taught me not to fear working in areas in which I wasn't an expert and that anyone can ask good questions.

Now I am pursuing oil painting as well as small boat design and building. It is very satisfying to have complete control of a project from beginning to end. This summer I built a 12x18 work shed and found it also very satisfying.

I note that the number of majors is still a small percentage of class size. I hope you will encourage those who may not be the brightest in physics to pursue it and consider engineering or other avenues. (Does Carleton have a computer science major?) With technology being so much a part of the world, it is important that everyone be exposed to some level of science. We were required in my day to take 2 years (crammed into three 5-day a week semesters) but only one course in baby physics was required. I hope this has changed.

David H. Current

Email: Currentphy.cmich.edu

Greetings to all, as usual, I put off doing this until the very end. I'm still in the same place, doing the same thing, etc. To be specific, the place is Department of Physics at Central Michigan University, and the thing is teaching undergraduates (mostly). Recently they have ranged from physics majors to students in a beginning course designed for elementary education majors. Carleton has nothing even remotely resembling the latter!

Everything is fine here at home. We plan on being in Northfield in June for 40th reunion. Hope to see some of you then.

Class of 1964

Alan Fiala

E-mail: fialaalanearthlink.net

This has been a pretty quiet year. I'm still working on the solar eclipse/solar radius project, and have also committed to revise a couple of chapters of the Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac. Other than that, my primary activities have been beekeeping, civic activities, and genealogy.

Bill Sipfle

Email: sipfleaol.com

Address: 811 Palmer Road

Ashland, OR 97520

Phone: (541) 482-2933

Happily nothing has changed since last year. I am still retired in Ashland, OR. I plan to attend the next class of 1964 mini-reunion and the next campus 5-year reunion.

Diane Wallingford McCarthy

Email: dennis_mccart57hotmail.com

Address: 2432 Riviera Drive, Vienna, VA 22181-3121

Phone: (703) 938-4096

This year has been better than 2001. Since June 30, 2001, when Dennis fell four or five feet from our ladder and landed on his right heel, he has improved greatly. The incision from his third surgery in September 2001 finally closed last December. He was in intensive physical therapy from mid-January when he took his first steps until mid-April. He continues to do about one hour of special exercises daily. He walks without a limp unless he is tired, but has not tried running or dancing. We expect healing to continue, but don't know if his foot will ever be as it was before the fall. Dennis is in his 37th year at the U. S. Naval Observatory and is considering retirement in late 2003.

Duncan (34) is in his ninth year with the National Imagery and Mapping Agency. He does R&D contracting. Deirdre (30) will soon complete six years at the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Offices. Her multiple sclerosis, diagnosed in May 2000, has been fairly quiet since she began weekly self-injections with Avonex in October that year. So far, she has not missed any work due to MS. She and her boyfriend of 11 years, as well as Duncan, live nearby. We see them often.

I maintain the home front, teach four eight-week terms of ballroom dancing for the county park authority, and have an additional new part time job. In February Dennis was declared his widowed mother's guardian. She is 86. We moved her to an assisted living facility two miles from us in May. I see her daily and provide many personal services that we hope improve her life. I also do church and volunteer work. I still take a ballet-modern jazz class for exercise and performed with my class in the annual June recital, but am thinking of not performing any more.

Paul Zitzewitz

Greetings to everyone! Very little is different this year. I am in my second (and last) three-year term as chair of the Natural Sciences Department at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. My teaching is concentrated almost entirely on inquiry-based courses for future elementary school teachers (although I will also teach part of the advanced lab this winter). Our positronium decay rate research is advancing, with a new publication coming in the next few months. My part has been mostly Monte Carlo simulations of the experiment. The next edition of my high school textbook will consume next summer, although I hope to have the involvement of co-authors for the first time since 1996. Barb and I plan to be at the class of '64 mini-reunion next February--hope to see some of you there. Best wishes to everyone for a happy holiday season.

Class of 1965

Kenneth Alvar

Email: alvarlanl.gov

This April I was selected as the group leader of the Safeguards Science and Technology Group, NIS-5 at Los Alamos National Lab. I had been acting Group Leader for 1.25 years and Deputy Group Leader for 1 year. The group is involved in international and domestic safeguards, which means that we develop instruments for quantitatively measuring uranium and plutonium in all of its forms. For example, we are working with the IAEA in developing and installing a system to continuously monitor the movement of spent fuel at Chernobyl as it is moved from wet storage through repackaging to permanent dry storage. We are also providing instruments for safeguards measurements for the Japanese nuclear industry and parts of the Russian nuclear complex. The group is now providing technical assistance and prototype systems for monitoring and detecting radiation sources related to homeland security needs. This has been a very busy and challenging year. This coming spring the group will move its lab equipment, about 100 personnel and over 600 radioactive sources of all sizes and intensities to a new building after over 35 years at its present location.

The summer continued a 4-year dry spell with more forest fires around Los Alamos. We finally have had some rain and snow this fall, but need much more. The forest around the town site is slowly recovering from the Cerro Grande fire of May 2000, but it will take decades to be anywhere as green as it was.

Bob Henry

Email: rmh.dcbverizon.net

Address: 6006 Welborn Drive, Bethesda, MD 20816

Phone: (301) 229-4936

Still enjoying retirement here in the Washington DC area and traveling whenever the wanderlust strikes. We spent four weeks on Martha's Vineyard, and in New Hampshire this summer, and three weeks in Italy this autumn. (This was not a Carleton sponsored trip as were the China trip in 2000 and the Greece trip in 2001--both of which we thoroughly enjoyed and were very well lead by Carleton faculty.) My son is having a great time at Pomona College in Claremont, CA, (I lost the battle to get him to go to Carleton even though he was accepted) and my daughter is a senior in high school soon to have the college decision effort.

Richard T. Karon

Email: karon2cox.net

Most of my professional efforts during 2002 were focused on managing and planning the company funded technology projects for Raytheon's Naval & Maritime Integrated Systems Division. Tactical technology needs are relatively straightforward. However, there are many views of what the term Strategic Technology means. Is it the technology we need to support our Strategic Business pursuits? I welcome any suggestions! As we are closing on another year, Raytheon is reorganizing many of its businesses. My role will undoubtedly change (to be determined), and our technology planning will broaden beyond the needs of our Naval programs. Meanwhile, I am continuing to oversee our Engineering mentoring program and revitalizing out patent and technical paper activity. Over the past 2 years I've become active in the local chapter of Toastmasters International. After completing the CTM level, I'm over half way to the first Advanced TM level. This organization is a tremendous resource for professional and personal communications skills and training, and is well worth active participation for people of any experience level.

I made another winter trip to my favorite ranch in Jackson Hole, WY. Great XC skiing, snow shoeing, and dogsled trekking. Unfortunately, Yellowstone is overrun with undisciplined snowmobilers … pollution so bad that the park rangers wear breathing masks! Linda and I continue to enjoy Rhode Island and our frequent visits with our first grand child (Sadie). At 19 months Sadie is talking up a storm, and looks forward to her weekly music and swimming group activities. Several of my contemporaries at work have talked me into taking up windsurfing. Talk about a 6-DOF problem! But I won't follow their lead and windsurf all winter long.

Best wishes to everyone for a terror-free, healthy, and prosperous 2003.

Barbara Levi

Email: bjlaip.org

You may see a few less news stories from me in the pages of Physics Today this year. I'm cutting back on my duties for them in order to spend more time with my multi-generational family (from 91-year-old parents to 2-week-old grandson!). I wish all of you a wonderful year.

Class of 1967

Jim Beckett

Address: 3806 Brookfield Dr, Arlington, TX 76001

Phone: (817) 561-4893

Big changes since I last wrote. I "retired" from National Semiconductor here in Arlington, Texas, in June of 2001. This fall, I taught a general physics course at TCU in Fort Worth, Texas, and will be doing a physics and music course in the spring. I had wanted to leave industry for some time and now have the opportunity to try teaching and academia again. I have enjoyed the class and the students very much. But preparing the class from scratch has taken an awful lot of time. After leaving National, I worked at cleaning up the put off projects from when I was working full time and thinking about what to do next. I am really glad I had this opportunity to teach this fall and spring. It confirmed that I was looking at a path that would fire up my interest again. Hopefully, I can find the right academic environment near Austin or San Antonio in the next few years.

Bob Hanson

E-mail: hansonucolick.org

I'm a Research Astronomer at Lick Observatory, University of California, Santa Cruz, where I have worked since 1980 on several large programs to measure the motions and distances of stars in our Milky Way Galaxy. This year I've been compiling a new catalog of 230,000 stars, to complete a 50-year project representing the work of three generations of Lick Observatory astronomers. (Stars are very far away, and it takes a long time for their motions to accumulate to a measurable size.)

My wife Nancy took a new job this fall as Department Manager in UCSC's Theater Arts Department--quite a change from 20 years' working with scientists!

Our kids continue to grow up. Bobby, 24, still an aspiring musician and part-time college student here in Santa Cruz, has been on his own for several years now. Katie, 18, is a freshman at UC-Davis, intending to major in Languages and/or International Relations.

I plan to retire in a few years' time. Nancy is younger and healthier and may hold on a little longer. We'll probably stay in the Santa Cruz area. Our many travels have never found a nicer place to live year-round.

Greetings to any of you old alums who might remember me!

Duncan McBride

E-mail: dmcbrideNSF.gov

Address: 4608 Tara Drive, Fairfax, Virginia 22032

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Chuck Wilson

E-mail: jwilsondu.edu

URL: http://www.engr.du.edu/aerosol/index.htm

Dear Carleton friends, I have tried in years past to submit to the newsletter but have not been able to make the deadline. So this year I will respond early.

Joan (wife), Sam (son, age 7), Clara (daughter, age 4) and I (age 57) live on a nice mountain in Golden, Colorado. The subdivision was built 40 years ago by faculty from the Colorado School of Mines and the houses have amenities like clothes chutes that are very useful when kids are young. The life saving aspect of our house is its altitude (6000 ft) and proximity to open space. Only a 100 meters from our door is the boundary of a preserved patchwork of open spaces that extends for 20 km into the Front Range. So we have a nice trail, frequented by mountain lions and rattlesnakes and a pleasant road for biking. Both wind from our altitude up to the top of Lookout Mountain. They invite exercise and reward it with a look at the continental divide. Elk are unafraid of the lions and of us. This year they reduced our corn and beans to roots and very short stalks but left the watermelon and tomatoes to freeze prior to harvest. (We are new at vegetables at this altitude.) Deer are eaten by lions and are a hazard to bikers, even old ones who come down the mountain with brakes squealing the entire 5 miles.

Sam is a reader and a writer and a director of movies. Clara is a force of nature. Joan thinks it is time go back to work as a psychologist. I am seeking a referral to one of her colleagues who might be able to help me understand why I have accepted the chairmanship of Engineering at the University of Denver. We offer accredited programs in Mechanical, Electrical and Computer Engineering along with Masters degrees and the Ph.D. We have only 16 faculty slots&endash;that works out to one degree per faculty member when all the combinations with business and computer science are included. But, as Chair, I should stop telling jokes about this and try to do something about it. I haven't a clue what to do, so I treat it more as a boundary condition than a solvable problem.

Research continues to be a pleasure. We have studied stratospheric ozone depletion on high altitude aircraft from 70 S to 90 N and from New Zealand in the west to Russia in the east. This has gone on for 15 years. I have really loved this work with NASA and scientific colleagues from all over. We go back to Sweden this winter. In 1999, we started flying in the troposphere (for long periods instead of only at the beginning and end of flights) with NOAA and have reopened some old interests of mine concerning aerosol production. If you are concerned about air quality and exposure to particles, then it is useful to know what sources are most important. NOAA's P-3 is an extraordinary flying laboratory with wonderful chemical capability and our aerosol measurements. Some exquisite studies carried out by the NOAA Aeronomy Laboratory are answering questions about point versus distributed sources, natural vs. anthropogenic hydrocarbons and long-range transport (like from China). NSF funds the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder and we have developed inlets for their aircraft that were used in studies of evolution of Asian dust plus pollution as it is advected from China across Korea and Japan (and in one spectacular case, to Colorado). The C-130 is also a low altitude platform compared to the U-2s. We spent last July in Key West flying in a 6-plane study of water, cirrus and radiation. We had a package on the NASA WB57f that was operating from 40kft to 50kft in and around cirrus anvils and another on a Navy Post-Graduate School Twin Otter flying on the deck. I am overwhelmed at my good fortune. We have developed technology and applied it to atmospheric questions that are really interesting. And it is all classical physics to me. Take a B.A. in physics from Carleton, add a little fluid mechanics and life can turn into a constant seminar in atmospheric chemistry, radiation and dynamics taught at the edge of what is known by incredible people.

Class of 1968

Jeff Hoel

Email: jeff_hoelyahoo.com

Address: 731 Colorado Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94303

Phone: (650) 323-1223

I'm retired and living in Palo Alto, CA.

Palo Alto is thinking about implementing a municipal information utility, i.e., fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) system, and I have been researching options and cheerleading. If you have any advice, please contact me!

I have also been trying to patent an idea I had about a technique for manufacturing semi-custom integrated circuits that use a certain kind of dual-damascene process. This is the first patent I've had to pay for myself, which is an eye opener. It's not clear whether I'll break even.

I also sing in the Stanford Early Music Singers. ("Early" means 16th century mostly.) It's great fun.