today is friday january 12th of 2000 and seven and we're doing an
interview for the living history video project of the Arizona State
University retirees Association? And we're here today at the community
services building at the A. S. U. Campus and my name is pam Stephenson
doing the interview. And Manny Garcia is our videographer and I'd like to
have to give us your full name. Matthew joseph Bets. Okay, we'd like to
start at the beginning with a little bit of background. So at the
beginning, where when and where were you born born in Chicago in 1932 and
went to Uh school various schools throughout Chicago and the suburbs,
graduated from Elgin Academy in 1950
at that point went out to caltech for a couple of years and then came back
and went to Northwestern where I got my degrees, Let's go back to your
growing up. You skipped a lot of um what what did your parents did your
father do for a living? Um My father was a milliner. He had factories that
made women's hats back when women wore hats. My mother was a school
teachers, speech correction teacher, parents were working as you grew up.
You know, my mother was had was pretty much she got a health, which is a
retirement situation or else was not what it should be. And so she retired
early. So she was basically at home most of the time you have brothers and
sisters
only. Only. Only son of an only son. So when anybody asked me, hey, I know
somebody named bets, are you related? I can just say no,
what, where did you grow up in Chicago or near Chicago? What
Through, about the 6th grade, we actually lived in Chicago first on the
south side, then on the north side, then we moved out to Barrington
Illinois and then the folks moved back into Chicago and we moved out to
Glenview, which is where the last place they lived.
So I don't know, I was just a young kid. I went where I was, where I was
taken,
what was Chicago like back in those days. Um,
it was a very interesting city, very dynamic.
When I was young. If you wanted to do almost anything, you went downtown.
Uh, there was, I can remember later on when the, I think one of the first
malls was built up in north northern Chicago near Evanston's. Uh, but
prior to that, if you wanted a suit or you want to go see a good movie, no
matter what you wanted to do, you went downtown. So a lot of people
traveled by the elevated subway system and the busses obviously and you
could do that as a child. He didn't, you didn't have to drive.
Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Um, and a lot of the neighborhoods in Chicago are
sort of ethnic of one group or another. Did you live in some of those kind
of, not really, not really. Uh, we lived in Rogers park for the most part
and it was a mixture of german and italian jewish
but not a well defined, even though Chicago is known for, its well defined
ethnic neighborhoods. This was not one of them
interviewed jerry Colangelo who grew up their italian right.
Um, well as a boy going to school and you're a good student, I think I was
, yes. Did you know what you wanted to be when you grew up? Um, not early
on, not early on. Uh, in fact, when I went to college, I thought I was
going to be something other than I ended up being. So, uh, no, not early
on. I knew I was good in math and science and it didn't go any farther
than that. Did you ever work for your dad in the military business? Yes.
Part time. Yeah. What did you do everything from packing hats to trimming
brims, too little jobs like that? You didn't want to take over his
business? No, and he didn't want me to uh, he realized it was a dead
industry and it, and it is um, you know, we had a small factory and we did
over 100 dozen hats a week. So you've got, you've got to have at one point
he had a factory that was doing 100 dozen hats a day. So he was well aware
that between the modern automobile and the catholic church, it was dead
people still wear hats are not the same. Um, most women don't wear hats
anymore. Uh He was right, the car's got lower, he couldn't wear comfort to
get in and out of the car with a big hat on and then the church said well
women don't have to wear hats on sunday anymore. And that was that was a
big market gone immediately. He must have been quite a businessman to run
that big factories. He was a good businessman, good salesman, good
businessman, good manager. Right. And you learned a lot from him? Yes. Yes.
So when did you decide that you were going to go to college?
I don't know that I ever decided I wasn't going to go to college. It was,
my mother had been it was a teacher. Um
It was just kind of assumed that I would go to college if if I had if I
was qualified. And so I don't think there was a a point in time where I
actually thought about it or or a decision was made. The question was
which college and what you want to do, but then how did you decide which
college to go to? The most prestigious college which would give me a
scholarship and that was caltech.
And in fact I turned down a scholarship from M. I. T. To go to California.
So is caltech. They were they were on a par and they were completely
different. Um even today I think m. I. T. Is is much bigger and broader
has more different things caltech really is a technical school, it's
engineering and science And when I went there was only about 600 students
,
undergraduate students. It's a long way from Chicago. Yes. Yes but I from
my earliest days I enjoyed traveling and we had been in California a
couple a couple of times that we were in California uh when the japanese
bombed Pearl Harbor that day. Um I had an uncle who was Austrian by birth
and he took me and my the family I think about three different summers. He
had a ranch outside of in colorado in a place called the University of
Colorado. And so we went in the late 30s and early 40s we went out there
and so either by train or by car and so I caught the travel bug early.
So so you were may be influenced to choose caltech over M. I. T. Because
it was in California probably. But I I thought it would be a better place
for me. Yeah. And so what were your goals when you went to college? I was
going to become a nuclear physicist And I changed my mind after about one
year and it's hard to say why I changed my mind. I think I changed my mind
basically because
the people I met there, the professors I had with a couple exceptions the
ones that were in the engineering field were more interesting people than
the ones who are in the scientific field. Um The one exception was Linus
Pauling the famous rebel who talked freshman chemistry believe it or not.
Um but yeah, it was a lot of was on personalities and as I got into the
subject matter, it just appeared to me to be more hands on. And so I made
it made the change become a civil engineer.
I want to ask you, you said you were out in California when the japanese
bombed Pearl Harbor. I liked, yeah. What was it like? Well it was, it was
interesting was sunday if you, you won't remember it. It was a sunday and
my dad was an avid loved horse racing and they had horse races in Mexico
on sunday, they didn't in California. So we were in fact down in Tijuana
after the races, we walked into a little restaurant and we had ordered
dinner and the guy came in with headlines about this big us at war. We
never got the dinner, we just headed for the border. It was a long, I
remember not a lot of it was a long line remember it was difficult to get
across the border because of everybody trying to get out at the same time.
And we, we had driven to California. So we stayed in san Diego for
several days, maybe a week or more. And then we drove back. The only thing
I really remember about that was at that time a lot of the big military
plants had big glass roofs on them with you know, small panes, glass roofs
without sunlight and they were busy painting and black. I remember that.
But that's about all I remember of it interesting.
What do you remember about the war years after that young boy? Yeah, not
much. We followed it. Um,
kept scrapbooks of what was going on. That was seemed to be a big thing.
And uh bye. Kids I associated with and also in our schools. Mm hmm.
Remember the rationing member a cards and see cards and gas rationing
victory gardens. And we had a victory garden and things of that nature.
Nothing, nothing spectacular. But it was certainly different than it is
now. I mean it was shoes were rationed, sugar was rationed. Gas was
rationed and God knows what else was rationed And you had a card for each
one.
Mm We're getting back I guess to, you're going out to college. What was
that first year like getting away from home and you know, going to
California jasmine. It was,
it was almost normal. I mean it, there was nothing particularly strange
about it. Um, I wasn't particularly lonely or anything. First of all you
worked like a dog at caltech, you worked Probably about 12, 15 hours a day
every day on your on your classwork. Uh, so it wasn't a lot of time to
feel sorry for yourself. Um, lived in, they had like how they weren't
fraternities but they were called houses, but they were kind of like
fraternities, but they weren't greek letter lived in one of those, so all
your food and everything was taken care of. Um
other than that, there was just a lot of studying, that's uh that's about
all I can remember about it. And when did you decide that you didn't want
to be a nuclear at the end of my freshman year? So I started looking
around. Um and I've finally decided to come to Northwestern for several
reasons why I could live at home and it would be a lot cheaper. Uh They
would give me a scholarship. And uh, but the thing that really attracted
me is in those days if you wanted to be an engineer at Northwestern, it
was a five year program, not a four year program and it had a mandatory
cooperative program. So after your freshman year, you went to school three
, they were on the quarter system, went to school one quarter, you worked
in an industry a quarter, you went to school a quarter, you worked in the
industry a quarter through the five years. So by the time you graduated,
you had, I think it's a year and a quarter, a year and a half of
experience and I was actually doing basically engineering work by the time
I graduated. In fact that at one point I was heading up, I was the chief
person on a subsoil investigation bridge that traveled all over the Middle
West digging holes in the ground. So I really like that? Of course it made
it made the financial situation a lot better too because you got paid a
professional salary. It was not an internship, but it was, it was
employment. So those quarters that you asked that you worked, you worked
full time. And did you, nope, I worked for,
I guess three different organizations. I worked for this company that did
soil investigation. I worked one summer one quarter for the Portland
cement Association which had their national labs in Skokie, which was
right next door. And the final place I worked was a place that did traffic
and transportation engineering, which is the area I finally went into. So
did you choose the place that you worked on the basis of what you were
interested in?
Since it was mandatory for all engineers, not just civil. Uh, and they had
a good sized engineering, but they had a large office that did nothing but
managed the cooperative program. So you had, if you were civil there was,
you know, a list of companies interested in hiring you. And so you go,
they would interview you or sometimes you go interview them and that's the
way you made your decision. It's unusual for a college to do that. It was
very unusual. And you know, and they have some, I think they still have
the program, but it's no longer mandatory. It's now optional, which has
decreased its importance considerably. But they were given in the, when
was it? probably in the late 30s, a massive endowment by
a railroad magnet. Who said if you want these millions of dollars, which
built the whole build all the tech buildings, you will have this program
and you will have it for, I think it was about 15 or 20 years and then you
can make an optional if you want. And so they took the money and the
program was mandatory. And it was a good program. I never, never have had
a bad feeling about that program. A lot of people say it took you five
years and say, well, yes, five years. Looking back on it, there's nothing
, it might have seemed a lot at the time, but the advantages just for were
much greater than any possible disadvantages.
And so by the time you got graduated from there, did you have an idea than
what you wanted to do? Yeah, I, I knew I wanted to go into transportation
part of civil engineering. There was no transportation academic program at
Northwestern at that. When I graduated. Um, right after I graduated, they
started a master's degree program basically with part time people because
there were a lot of transportation consultants in the area. And so we did
have some excellent teachers, but they were basically consultant. So that
, that's when I got used to going to evening classes. What was it you
liked about transportation? What made you choose that? Um I don't know it
was a new area, very new area. There were very few, there were almost no
universities in the country that offered it as a degree program. The place
that had the closest thing was Yale University and they had a a one or two
year program, but it was a diploma. They would not give you a degree, They
gave you a diploma. Um So when Northwestern decided to to decide decide to
stay on there, what what sort of transportation were you talking about?
Road building or asked to answer
various times? I've done everything, even designing a canal for central
Oklahoma. Um But it was mostly, yeah, it was,
you know, by this time the interstate bill was about to be passed. And so
it was mostly highways oriented. What year was it that you graduated 1955
?
So you didn't end up with the korean war years? Right. No, I was a student
deferment.
So what graduate and go out to work? You know, I actually went right back
to, so I went out to work for the summer and then they started this
program. So I went right back to school for my master's degree. So 55, I
did my masters degree. 57
56,
was probably the most influential year in my life. Um The man who, it was
probably my best mentor, he in fact, he wasn't in transportation. He was
in what is now called environmental engineering was a man named john Logan
and he had an interesting background and that he was a man who eliminated
, he was in charge of the Rockefeller brothers program to eliminate
malaria from the island of Sardinia. And they did it. And so he came to
northwestern and at that time we were approaching the 60's and the
Rockefellers came to him and say we want to do something. Um how they came
up with the program, I don't know, but they wanted to do something with
him. And what they decided to do is to establish an exchange exchange
program with the University of Khartoum in the Sudan. And to make a long
story short, I was the first person to go over on that program in 1956 57.
So I was in in Khartoum in 56 57. How did that come about that you were
the first person to cook because I applied.
And it came about for a strange reason because I was actually the number
two candidate, The # one candidate was married and they thought that it
would be better to sing a married man over there than a single man. Well
it turned out he had other commitments that he had the meat and so he had
to turn it down and they sent me instead, which is I told him later, you
know, cartoon in those days was an interesting place, but not a place
you'd want to take a young wife. I mean it had no sanitary system. You
know, we had what equivalent of fancy outhouses, what we had and that was
university housing. Mm hmm. So and everything was, it was just a very
interesting but not an easy place to live. And why did you want to go with
it? Oh again, it goes back to my uncle, the one who had the, the ranch in
colorado. He always had National Geographics around and I had gotten to
really become fascinated with africa. So when the opportunity came, I
wanted to go as simple as that. And what, what did you do there taught
civil engineering, taught strength of materials, taught surveying. This
kind of thing.
Was that just a one year, just one year. Try to get a second year, but
they said no, the policy is No two years, just one year. So what did you
do? Then came back to north, came back to Evanston's or Glenview where my
folks were living, took a job with the company that I had last worked for
, which was at that time growing very rapidly. Um, what company was that?
It was George martin and Associates later became Barton Ashman. They were
big planners and transportation people
After about six months. I guess it was northwestern hired um, Donald berry
from Berkeley I think it was. And so he became the professor now a real
professor full time of engineering. And I guess part of the deal was that
Northwestern would start a doctoral program. So after about another three
months I decided I would apply for that and I was accepted. And at that
point I had a teaching assistantship. So I gave up my, my professional
engineering job and I was told that the man who told me this I had great
respect for it was George Barton. He did a lot for me. I started with him
when his offices were in the Upper level of a three car garage and on the
campus. And he later ended up with a firm of 100 engineers. So I'm not
sure I made the right decision financially. But um, but he told me an
interesting thing when I told him I wanted to go back and do a PhD and he
said, I think you should, he said of course you realize you'll never be
able to work for this company again because professional organizations
would not hire a PhD in civil engineering to over overqualified.
Overtrained. Um, and this was 57 or 58, something like that. Why did you
want to get a PhD to teach? That was, that was part of the, of the
Sudanese experience. Uh, I found that I really wanted to teach and
preferably to do research that would help countries like that? God knows
they need it kind of more today than um So how long did you work on
getting your PhD?
Let's see. I got it in 61 started. Really 57.
So about 3.5 years after the masters. Yeah. And part of that was spent
back in the Sudan again. How does that work? Oh I wanted to, I wanted to
develop planning techniques for transportation, for economic development
and I was lucky enough to get, they have very strong African studies
program and still do at Northwestern. And uh there was a man there, famous
African, his name, Herskowitz and he and Logan got their heads together.
And so I was allowed to sit in not for credit but sit in on Herskowitz
seminars which brought the leaders of Africa through every, you know,
almost every head of state or soon to be head of state came through that
program to give a talk once a month. Um And in the end the African studies
program gave me a travel grant that allowed me to go back and collect data
on rail. Mostly I was getting information on rail, some on roads from both
the Sudan Nigeria and Ghana. So that was, that was 67 months trip over
there and came back wrote the dissertation
and came to the rescue that must have been quite an adventure to travel
through all those countries. It was it was Nigeria was still a colony. It
wasn't even a free country when I went there and Kruma was the head of
Ghana and it was just barely a new country. Sudan was about four or 5
years old. And yeah it was great fun. How did you get around over there?
Um It depends on which, which time you talked about. Um And the first time
I was over there I was mentored and guided and helped by a medical for a
professor in medical school, Dean smith who actually later became Dean. So
he was Dean Dean smith. But his name was Dean and he, it was always
traveling when it was time to travel. So over christmas we went down to
the southeast southeastern part from cartoon. Uh an area called ingesting
the hills. And we're a town called rose areas where they later built a dam.
Then in the summer he he also took some of his students because he wanted
to get his students out the medical students out in the countryside in the
summer of one of his students, his wife and his daughter and there scotty
and he, he and I got into two jeeps and we traveled all the way from
Khartoum all the way down to the Uganda border all the way down the Nile.
And part of that we got caught in the rains. And so we had to put the the
chiefs on the Nile steamers that we're running in those days to get
through the big massive stood, which is a one of the world's largest
swamps, which apparently now has oil under it. Um,
so we traveled by car by and by by steamer the second time I was there, I
travel mostly by rail Because I was in time the rail headquarters of a
town called at Bar 150 or so miles north of cartoons. So I went up there
by rail and basically I could get around by rail, got across africa by air
obviously. And
was it dangerous to be over there? I didn't think so at the time. No, I
don't think so. It was not a dangerous part of the world in those days.
No, not even for a woman
that was a little bit before some of the big revolutions. Yeah, it was a
time of, of independence for most of those countries and so that, that had
a great effect on people's attitude. Um, the only, I didn't, I didn't get
to that that time I didn't get the countries that were starting to have
some problems like South Africa and kenya with the mau mau. I was not
there those times. Um, so the three countries I visited were basically,
but this one was still a colony obviously, but they were basically
peaceful
and what was it, you found it interesting about Africa that you kept
wanting to go back.
It's just a fascinating place, fascinating people, fascinating cultures,
fascinating wildlife.
In fact, I will be going back before the week next week is out too, not
well to africa technically, but back to the Nile. I'm going to eat you for
a couple of weeks, my birthday present to me.
So when you did all that study and you came back and got your doctorate,
what did you do after that? Came there as you, how did that come about?
Came about because two of my friends who are also doing doctorates there,
uh one was bob Kirsten who I think at that time had already been hired as
the chair of civil out here
and he was instrumental and convinced me to come out. Yeah, it was charlie
Newland and Kirsten actually got charlie to come out first because charlie
finished his degree or sooner than I did and then when they were both here
, they encouraged me to come out and take a look and come and join them
building. That happened when I was in cartoon cartoons, climate is very
much like phoenix, it's a desert and it's kind of a scrubby desert and
temperatures are about the same. People claim it's a little hotter there,
but I don't know in the summer. Um, but I did love the dessert. So that
was, it was just a natural fit, but the reason I came here was basically
because of bob Kirsten and charlie Newland,
was there any particular thing that they said to convince you that you
wanted to come out to this university? Um
I think what attracted me a the fact that it was new Um you know it was
this was 61 so it's only been a university for three years.
They had just had PhD programs approved in 61.
And bob asked me to come out and establish a graduate program in
transportation. So I had a yeah uh kind of a blank sheet of paper to work
on and that was inviting
because although those were basically things the the opportunity, the area
, I like the I like the geology and geography of the area and just a great
opportunity.
What was it like when you first came out here? What was it like? Can
people in a small town? Um The university was about 12,000 students I
think if I remember at least other people can give you better numbers.
Probably um
Engineering was basically just kind of getting off the ground. A wing was
built and the B. C. D. E. Brings the laboratory rings built. That's all it
was. Our office is my office. I shared an office with charlie Newland and
Phil borgo who taught surveying and we had one office, good size office uh
not as big as this room but three of us in there out in one of the wings,
I can't remember which I think it was the wing but I'm not sure and a lot
of the faculties of civil faculty had their offices out in the in kind of
on the ends of the, of the laboratory areas? Um It was convenient because
the parking lot right outside and the lab was right there and so it was a
small department. Everybody knew each other, basically. Everybody got
along together. And and it was it was an experience that I have to tell
you, it was experience sharing an office with Phil borgo charlie and I
both smoked at that time but Phil treat tobacco.
And so he had the opportunity office
and he was very popular, taught surveying and he was very popular with the
students. So we're in this relatively small office and he just has a
continual stream of students coming in day and night, you know whether to
ask him about their love life for surveying or anything else. I mean he
was he was their godfather, so to speak. So that was interesting. And what
was your first job? What were your responsibilities When I first came I
was teaching kind of general civil engineering courses. I taught strength
materials, thought statics. I taught a materials court, excuse me, the
materials course for architects because at that time architecture was part
of the engineering college. And so uh the strength of materials and how
Materials Act two loads and stuff. Um They use civil engineering faculty
to teach the architects. And so that's one of the things I did. Um and
then started one x one developing graduate courses in in my specialty so
that within a year we had
the basic
pieces of a master's degree. And and do you remember how much you were
paid when you first came out here,
$60 $200
nine months?
And your title was Assistant professor.
Mhm.
Who was the president?
What was he like as president? An assistant professor really didn't know.
Probably didn't care because they were too busy doing their own things. I
got to know whom Durham a little bit later but never got to know him. Well
, by the time I got into administration, he was he was gone. Uh he had a
good reputation. I think that he he was well thought of. But as a as a
young professor and you know, I had other fish to fry.
And that was in the sixties. You were out here with some of the Vietnam
protest. Yes, yes. I remember
uh what was his first name? Duffy anyhow? Duffy was head of security.
Remember the day when there was demonstration around the flagpole out by
the administration building. I remember that very well. There was also
demonstrations up. But what was the ROTC building. So yeah, we had a few
demonstrations, but none of them, I think too large to be because of
Duffy's
approach to life and approach, he loved the students. And so there was
never any violence, but he could keep them calm.
You know, they want, as I recall, I may be wrong on this, but as I recall
, they wanted to lower the flag. And he finally said, okay, lower flag and
or they're flying. He said, all right now put it back up and I did. And
that was the kind of guy he was, he was he was the right guy for the right
time for this campus when we needed somebody, just every campus needed
Duffy. Now, we were lucky to have one for engineering students involved
not to minor. I don't know. They may have been, I don't know why the
liberal arts students. Um I think with students from across the campus, I
I you know, you have to have somebody in the broad said, I I really don't
know.
Yeah. The people you work with, who was the dean of the engineering,
what was he like?
He and I didn't always see eye to eye, but that's alright because his goal
was one thing and my goal was something else. My goal was to establish
graduate study and research. His goal was to build the best undergraduate
program he could because you gotta remember, he's he started from nothing
at 58 And I think he may have been higher than 57, but he basically
started from nothing. So his main goal was to build a quality, fully
accredited uh undergraduate program. And he did that. He did a very good
job of it. And I'll say this for him when, when uh Kirsten hired people
like me um
that was fine with Thompson, I didn't, he kind of let us do our thing just
if we could do it, go do it if you can't do it well. Okay. But his his
focus was the undergraduate program and is, was the absolute appropriate
focus at that time
because if that had failed, everything else would have been nonsense too.
And it sounds like you were teaching quite a few divers courses. Uh five
courses a year. Um three courses a quarter semester, That was a typical
load, 3, 3 courses. Uh people used to say it was a reduced load from four.
And did you develop the content for those courses or was it given to you
? Uh and some of the earlier, of course, when I, like when I was teaching
strength of materials and and the regular civil engineering courses. Yeah
, there was a syllabus for um of course as I was developing, obviously I
developed the syllabus. How did your career progress from there? Well, I
guess the next big occurrence was in, What would it be about 60 for?
I got a telephone call one day from a doctor Jim rafferty at at Lockheed
Aircraft International.
He said he wanted to come over and talk to me. So I said fine, well it's
the Sudan again, it follows me throughout my life. Lockheed at that time
was in the forefront of the applications of what they were calling.
Systems analysis was some of the first really sophisticated analysis of
systems as a whole rather than bits and pieces. And they had gone to the
State Department and said we'd like to try this somewhere.
And at that time, relations with the Sudan was fairly decent. And the
story goes, i this is all 2nd, 3rd and 4th hand story goes that they said
, well like he said, well give us a country to do something with and the
and the state of my heart and said, fine, you got the Sudan
And so rafferty, obviously I wanted to find out what I knew about the
Sudan and we talked and we had several meetings and finally it came down
to that. We would get a subcontract
to do the field work to collect basically soils and information on
geological situation, soils, aggregate availability, water availability,
all the bits and pieces you needed to design roads. And then we would come
up with some road designs and cost them out and give that two Lockheed,
which they would put in their in their systems analysis thing. Um Now they
were doing all forms of transportation. We were just doing roads, they
were doing rail, they were doing air, they were doing water,
I'm not sure that we're doing water.
So we put together a team that went over there for about 18 months,
traveled throughout all of the northern central part of the Sudan
gathering data. We did not go into south boxes and by that time there was
a conflict between the south and the north, which was only, you know,
solved a couple of years ago. Um so we couldn't get into the south, but we
did do all of all over the north and central part of the country all the
way from. Mhm names wouldn't mean anything but throughout Kordofan Darfur
and all the way up to the Egyptian border all the way to the coast um
came to a kind of strange end Because the 67 war broke out in the Middle
East and
the Sudanese misjudged what the americans do when you cut off diplomatic
relations. Their experience had basically been with the british when they
cut off diplomatic relations with the british. This happened several times.
It happened in the original Suez crisis when I was over there the first
time
the british ceremony city, the ambassador ceremoniously lowered the
british flag, gets in his limousine drives to the airport, gets on a
british military aircraft and flies away.
The people in the embassy raise a danish or Norwegian or some other flag
and they are the british section of the Norwegian embassy. So really
nothing happens except the ambassador goes home. Well they did. They
figure that's what the americans would do. So they, they broke off
diplomatic relations with us and the americans just said we're pulling
everything out where there was a full load of wheat in a boat on the ship
on the high seas that was turned around there was a group doing uh
constructing the first paved road without a cartoon. They contractors were
all given like a week to get out of the country, luckily we had finished
our work but our people were still there so they were airlifted out. Some
went to some were taking Nairobi somewhere taking the malta I think and
then got home from there. The unfortunate part was that the locking people
had just about six months before set up their office. So they were like
two years from finishing their part of the job and they were yanked out.
So the project was just kind of closed down. Lockie state department
allowed us to finish what we were doing and pay us for that. But the
information was never released.
So did you come home? And then from there Yeah I wasn't there at that time
I was here but well I was over there for several months over the 18-month
period but I wasn't there at the end.
So then you just continue your career here issue.
When did you? Yeah. Change or move up in positions at A. S. U.
Well by the late 60s I was a full professor.
People they move fast in those things
in 60 nine. I was called by
the Dean of the graduate school
to see if I wanted to come and be an assistant dean in the graduate
college. Um that was Bill Burke. He was he was vice president and dean. Um
, and I did. Um,
if you're gonna ask me why I did. I don't know. I guess I just wanted to
do something different at that time. By that time I had finish the Sudan
project, I had ongoing research with a dot that other people could do. We
had two or three people now. Faculty members and transportation. So I was
not superfluous. But I mean nothing would happen if I moved over. And part
of my agreement with with Bill was that I would continue at least teach
one course. Um which I did throughout my career until the end of it. I
always taught a course this semester in the department.
Um,
it was something different to do. I guess it was a challenge. And he was a
nice guy. So what did you do when you moved over to the graduate college?
Basically just general administrative stuff. There was at that time he had
one assistant and it was than me. We had two assistants. Harold Honeycutt
was, his Bill was vice president for Research and Dean of the graduate
college. So Harold Honeycutt took care of the research end of it. And I
kind of took care of the administration of the graduate college. So it was
all kinds of stuff. We ran our own at that time. And they may still be
true. I guess graduate college had their own admissions office separate
from the regular admissions office. How large was at college?
You mean a number of students? Mm hmm.
I don't remember low thousands I think because there was always, education
is the biggest college for graduate programs because that was our historic
background. They had a doctoral program longer than anybody else. Um,
everybody else was kind of getting up and I imagine it was in the little
thousands and a couple of 1000 maybe, but I don't really remember.
So how long did you stay with that? Seven years? Seven years.
I guess the most,
I took one year off to go to kenya, the National Science Foundation grant
to teach at the University of Nairobi applied for it.
Um, why did you want to do that? Um,
because I had gotten very close to kenya, um, when I was in the southern
part of the Sudan and just read a lot about it and heard a lot about it.
It was a nifty place and it was relatively compared to Sudan, relatively
easy living from what I understood and it was
someone over there and taught, taught for a year. Where were you? What
part of Nairobi is the University of Nairobi? And the other reason I think
the reason I got the award was that a road research lab in Britain was
just finishing up a relatively extensive program when the first programs
in the world to try and actually measure and document variation and road
user costs by kind of roads, you're on the kind of vehicles you're driving
, how you drive them. And I happen to know a couple of the people who were
on that project. So I kind of attached myself and said part of my job was
to interact with them and see how that was going. But my real job was to
teach at the, at the university. That was a good year, same thing. General
civil engineering, I, I thought one highway court, but the rest of it just
general civil engineering, including surveying what was that? They were
independent. Yes. Joma kenyatta was head of the country and head of the
university. Um,
again, it was a great time for kenya and things were relatively peaceful
bomb, all things have been cleared off. Um, it was, it was a good time. It
was
73 I think.
Oh yeah, yeah, I'm married now. And a little girl went to school over
there for a year. She was in, I think the 3rd grade and uh, it was an
interesting experience for her. It was a little school run by a Scottish
lady Mrs Sharples
the first time in her life she had to wear a uniform. Also the first time
in her life she had to ride a horse because mr Sharples had horses, so
everybody learned to ride a horse complete with the little black helmets
and everything. Um, in this country when she had not all of the writing,
virtually all the writings she done been printing, walked in the first day
in doggy school and she started print something Mr Sharples said no we
don't print in the school. We write cursive. That was probably the most
dramatic for both her and us for a while. So she had to write everything
in cursive. But it was it was a great experience for her because we had to
get to the school every day. I drove her out in the morning Julia and I
and we walked we drove right past the Nairobi game park out back every day.
Of course at any time. We it was a it was a good game park. Didn't ever
need elephants which was at this point but it was right virtually in the
city almost. But it's several 100 square miles. I mean it's not it's not a
zoo. Um But it was it was it was great. Life was, life was good. And we
still, we lived in university housing which was The unit we lived in was
four uh We call them small town houses, Common walls, two stories high,
two bedrooms Kitchen, living room down kitchen, living downstairs, two
bedrooms upstairs And there were four families. Ah We still get together
with three of them. Uh We're spread all over the country, one in we're all
retired now but once in New Mexico ones in texas. And I'm here and we're
planning another get together for next year. God willing. Yeah. Yeah, it
was the 4th person. The 4th professor was Indian. He was good too. But he
just, we lost track of him after we left.
And they were all on longer contracts than we were, we were just there for
a year and they were for a good three year contracts or your five year
contracts. How did the graduate college today issued get along without you
? They said they missed me.
Mhm. Um by that time uh building hired a second assistant, I became
associate and I was an assistant so that they got along. And so the
termites, I lost 100 volumes of books because termites got into my office
over in, oh the one that used to be a dorm. It's our, the,
I've lost the name. It's where the America's colleges now.
Wilson call Wilson hall. Yeah. Well tell me about how did termites get
into your books? I came up through the walls and and had a bookshelf right
against the wall. And of course it was an old building and there was lots
of termites on the campus in those days and they just got in and I came
back. I didn't notice anything for about a couple of days, pull the book
off the shelf and there was nothing but the binding and the and the covers
, all the pages were gone.
That sounds like a serious termite problem. That was a serious termite
problem. Do something to get rid of them. I think they did, yes,
if they want any precious first edition books.
How long were you located in that office?
Seven years?
I was a graduate college for seven years. And so then where did you go
after the graduate I went over to, I was asked to go over to the Academic
Vice President's office. The reason being is that when I was in graduate
college, one of the first things Bill Burke did for me was to send me to a
winter, a summer workshop for new graduate deans. I said Bill don't even
qualify him an assistant dean. He said, forget it. So he sent me off, I
think we're in Wisconsin for about a month and
talked to a lot of other new graduate deans and some were putting on the
workshop who were experienced of course. And I came back and I said, you
know, what's what's up bill? And said we've got to start evaluating
graduate programs. It's the wind of the future. I talked to a number of
genes are either doing it or they're about to implement it. And at that
time there was no nobody
um did any evaluation other than their own internal evaluation of graduate
programs. Um the professional, like for example in Engineering, the
Professional Crediting Organization doesn't accredit graduates. And then
in that time graduate graduate programs just undergraduate programs. Um so
the only time they ever even looked at was when we go through North
central accreditation, which is the whole university in all programs at
one time. So I convinced Bill that we ought to get going on this and in
about two years we had gotten it started um with some degree of conflict
because you were dealing with deans and department chairs who really
didn't like the graduate college coming in with two people to, to evaluate
how they were doing in their graduate programs. And uh, but it got done
and uh, and I think it was beneficial.
Um, we used people from around the campus who had kind of associate
concerns that the particular department would have. We also brought people
in from outside, usually at the people they would recommend. And it went
very well. I think it was, it was good. Well to make that long story short
Nancy had been about mid 70s, I guess
the winds of change actually hit the board regions
and the border regions took the position that all programs will have
external evaluation, which meant all undergraduate programs.
And since I was about the only person on campus that had any experience,
Carl Dana felt talked to Bill Burke and Bill said, how would you like to
work for Carl Dana felt he did you were there to get give the mandated
regions mandated evaluation program going. So I went over there and spent
another seven years evaluating programs all over campus initially but
doing all kinds of things.
I worked there through
carl's latter years and that page Mulholland through page you've got much
more involved with regions, policies, planning, budgeting, that's where I
learned that part of it,
the administration building
just down the right next to the president's office ever. The business vice
president,
academic vice president and the president all had their suites of offices
there on the second floor of the administration building and then later
the research vice president, accounting office up there.
So it sounds like you got around campus a lot then you know people
everywhere. Yes. Yes, yes that was and that was really what I loved about
the job that that's what I really thank Bill Burke for. I got to know what
a university was because to me prior to that university was something that
had an engineering school and it really gave me it was just very exciting
, very rewarding for me to really start understanding at least to some
degree, the various aspects of the university. So have you ever, you never
really had studied like the university administration?
No. Did it? The hard way?
Mhm. Did you enjoy that job? Yeah. Yeah, I did. I think I've enjoyed most
every job I've had in the issue. Yeah.
Is there anything special you remember about that part of your career,
there was lots of things special and we've talked about the a lot of time
was was spent on getting the evaluation programs going, keeping healthy.
Um,
I also remember being involved with the computer people who were kind of
new at that time and the registrar who was probably the third most
influential man on the campus, including the vice president. Um, and
trying to get the registrar two mm hmm. Computerized the registrar's
office that went on for a year
until we find well went out for longer than that. It took us almost a year
to get an agreement.
Ah and I was given the job of seeing that it got, seeing the agreement got
made, which means I was the one that was between the computer center
director and the registrar and the registrar later became a good friend,
but he was a reputation. It was al thomas, he had a reputation of really
being tough and he was tough and if you read it as if you run a
registrar's office, you've got to be tough because everything's gotta be
accurate in those days. Everything was paper done. So you had to have a
group of individuals who were absolutely dedicated, careful and accurate.
So yeah, he was tough. Um, also I'm not sure he liked computers either,
but that's, that's beyond the point. But he was, he himself was an
interesting man. He himself, one reason I first got to like the first time
I went to his office, he had a huge office over in Wilson Hall that wasn't
all in more building and
it was a very large office, you could use it as a conference and all the
way around the rim had ink drawings of all the Saudi Arabian cheeks. It
turns out which I felt when I first got a, he was, he was sent to Saudi
Arabia to develop their their educational system. B he was an artist and
so he done these paintings, drawings of all these sheikhs and he had them
, they're all black and white all the way around his office. And I guess
it was at that point we started to have a little bit of good dialogue
between us and as I said, by the time he, I retired, he retired by the
time he retired, I considered to be a good friend. Ah but there were a
couple, there were several hard years there. That was one thing another
positive things I think we did is when a page came we initiated the first
competitive
research grants for interdisciplinary research on the campus and actually
ran the grants out of the academic vice president. So I guess it was the
provost office at that time, there was a time of switch between academic
vice president and provost as a title, but the office was the same. Um,
that was interesting. So yeah, there's always all kinds of interesting
things.
We encourage, we just let people know if you want to get together with
some colleagues outside your own discipline, right? As a reporter or a
research proposal and we had a small committee that reviewed them,
selected winners, there wasn't a lot of money. Well there's a lot of money
at the time. I think it was like $5,000. Which there's still a lot.
There's enough to get some research done. Not if you wanted to go hunt
elephants in Africa or something, but
stayed close to home. It was, it was good money. Yeah. Mhm.
Okay.
So that's a good place to change to
get your water ready to go
when you're talking about getting the registrar computerized. You were
here when the whole computers came on campus. What was that like? How did
that change the university? Well,
I think it just made us more efficient. We had to do it because our
graduate students needed computer knowledge. And
my, my first PhD student, you know, I had at that time we had everything
was punch cards. So he'd walk around with these big trees and punch cards
fearing that he'll drop them.
And so it was really, you know, from an academic standpoint, it had to be
done to remain current for, for graduate students from administrative
standpoint. Since the university is growing fast, there was growing a lot
and this was an answer to being able to handle some of that growth? Just,
just mechanically and nothing else. Just keeping records and and things of
that nature. So what do you remember what the first computers were that
you got and how big they were
they belong to?
Was it Motorola
somebody even when I came out there was a whole half of a wing in
engineering that had the computer in there. One computer my desktop
probably got more power than that thing had but it went on and on and on
and big reels of tape and special air conditioning to keep it cool and
yeah.
And uh that was the first computer. Well, I did wanna so just to sort of
put it in context for me, 1962. The first time I registered at A. S. U. I
stood out on the football field in the sun with my cards. Right, okay.
When did that change? It was a while
I think we were still registering people in the more building with cards.
Ah Pushing about 1970. I think people still had cards because I vaguely
recalled my first year or so. In the graduate college we were over there.
I was over there helping hundreds, massive numbers of people sitting at a
desk. And you have to take your sociology card to sociology and your
engineering. Card engineering. And then if one didn't have that class you
were dead because nothing else would work. Nothing else works. You know?
But they were punch cards. I mean
mm hmm. So you sort of saw computers get smaller and more of them? Right.
By the time you were trying to actually computerize the registrar's office.
How large were the computers then?
By that time the computer center had been developed, computer science had
been created and I don't remember exactly what computers they had, but
they had, they had plenty of capability to to do that. They were still
bigger than the desktop.
They still, they weren't running, we're running on tape still. Um, they
were running tape, not punch cards. They were running tape
kind of learning curve I think for anybody that was starting to use them.
Yeah. Yeah. I guess the biggest breakthrough for most administrators is
when they got the profit system and it was, it was kind of like an
internal email system. And
prior to that, I think most of prompts kind of, and let's say we're in
this area, I didn't use them very much. The graduate students did, but
they didn't, I didn't use computers much until the profit system. I mean,
I had other people using them, but I personally didn't use them very much.
Oh gee, I don't know. Again, I'd say early 70s,
maybe mid seventies.
Mhm. So let's talk about a little more about your career, you know, where
did you go from? Okay. Left.
Let's see, that would have been about 70 85, I guess
at that point we had an interim provost, um, who happened to be rolling
Hayden, who had been dean of the engineering school?
He knew me and I knew him, but more administratively because all I was
doing during his tenure in engineering was trying to encourage people to
do to research but not doing much myself and teaching one course a
semester
anyhow. He was over as kind of an interim provost
and one day he called me over he said I've got it challenge for you.
No he was not in the public, he was in he was in engineering. He called me
over and he said he wanted the value, he had conceived an excellence
program with five areas of excellence and I can't remember what they all
were but obviously one was computers ah and one happened to be
transportation. So he said I want you to start a transportation research
center in engineering. Are you willing to come back and do that? Well I've
been in the provost's office for about for about seven years at that point
I, Okay, that sounds interesting. Uh And he said I'll support it. He said
I'll do whatever I can to support it financially. So we got some lab space
up on the third or fourth floor of the new G wing and office space up
there. And the first thing we were able to do even just before I moved
over he and I work with a doctor and came they were getting a space crunch
and they had a small ah research operation of their own which basically
administered federal research money coming in.
Great. You can edit this one out. Okay, turn it off. Yeah, I might do it
again. Where were we? Uh Let's see. You were explaining about this new
relationship with a dot. Well, yeah and
so we came to an agreement because we we had some space uh in the wing
because it was new. And so we made an agreement that would move there and
research arm
in the g wing from downtown
and they'd be on the same floor. Well, that was a tremendous advantage
because I could walk over to the Director of eight hours research and we
just have coffee discussed things. So we ended up getting, doing a lot of
work for eight hours over those five year, five years. I was there all
kinds of work um We started a materials lab because we didn't have a
really good one. Higher materials ah professor um did a lot of work on
traffic operations so that and the number of faculty that we had in
transportation kind of kept growing. It was at its height, it was 5-56.
If you count the materials person, six faculty members, which made us one
of the largest programs in the country in terms of faculty science. Um and
we had this advantage of having this pipeline kind of into into it was all
competitive,
but it was an advantage having the people, there was advantages throughout
the research effort because you could the person who was overseeing your
research, if you had problems, you go talk to him and said, what, what do
you guys really need? This is what we're thinking of doing. So it's just a
lot more communication because everybody was just across the hall from
everybody else. So that worked Throughout the five years. I was there. It
seems like an interesting career move though when you were in
administration, overseeing a lot of the whole university to go back to the
engineering department where it seems like you were kind of in line to
move up in the administration. Um,
not really.
Um, I had been told and I won't say by whom, but at least two people who
knew that an engineer would never be academic vice president at this
university. And just because that's the way it was, that was politics. And
other than later when Roland was interim vice president for a couple of
months, that's the only case I ever know. So far, we still haven't had a
vice president who was an engineer. Um,
even though I had a lot of administrative experience and I knew a lot of
people,
there was just this gulf of, of understanding or misunderstanding or lack
of understanding and so I've been told that, so I knew, I knew that was
not in the cards. And so this was the first time, I, I guess you can say
when I first came, I had a blank sheet and I could do what I wanted to do.
But this is the first time I could do what I wanted to do with his money
there. So, and the ability to hire colleagues and so that was, that was
that. And uh, great fondness and admiration for Rolling Hayden. He's, he
was a good deed. And you also, we're going back to your academic field,
which I really had never left but going back to work full time.
Did you do more travels? An international things during that?
No, not really. I went to a couple of conferences, one mm hmm.
And out of the country. But no, Arizona. Yeah. We did. One of the things
we started was what was called the technology transfer program and we
developed Short courses, some of them as long as a week, but mostly to
three days
basically for county engineers because a lot of the county and engineers
some, well, I guess they were all quote engineers at that point, but
nobody had really been do anything for him. So we just started a program
and instead of bringing them to us, we went to them. So in the course of 2
, 3 years, I guess I was in probably every county in the state and
sometimes we had to bring it to them when we gave the short courses and
how to do what to do with computers. And by that time we had little
computers, they had to come here because that was where the computers were.
And uh I'll never forget one time I was we had a bank of about 10
computers, 10 county engineers in there. We just got done with our spiel,
we told Mark and I'll try and do what we we said, there's one chapter I
was sitting there
just looking at this, just sitting. So finally walked over, I said
no problem. He said yes. I said what's the problem? He said, how do you
turn it on for those who remember the on off switch was always in the back
of the computer, never in the front. So he'd been sitting there looking at
the computer and figuring gotta be somewhere to turn this.
So yeah, we we started with bare bones stuff but that was fun. We we did a
lot and we did we did workshops on maintenance and our materials and all
kinds of stuff. Those weren't apples where they were the apple computers.
I forget what they were. The apples were weird to turn on. I don't know if
you remember that, but they had a couple of no, no, these are these were
uh huh ibms of some kind. Yeah. Although it is interesting that that's
probably the The one generation who had to as adults and learn how to use
the computer for kids today. Know what three on? It's a whole different
world. Right. Was there any other experiences during that period that she
could remember that stand out?
Because of my my own professional work. I had always been in, active in a
group for international and a transportation research board, a group on
low volume roads. And
they have an international conference every four years. And since I was
with some kind of in the early years we sponsored the second, I think it
was one here in temple, the palms hotel had just been built.
That was that brought a fair amount of notoriety. What are low volume
roads roads with small traffic volumes? So the low volume road
constituency is made up of three groups of people give you a global volume
roads. 101. What are people like myself who are interested in building
roads for economic development In 3rd world countries
to our county engineers. That's what they have a low volume roads and most
of them and three you would never guess the U. S. Forest service. And they
do some of the best research of all three groups and they have some of the
most interesting problems of all three groups. I remember sitting through
them one day and make a long time to make a long story short. And the
problem they were discussing was building logging roads. Now when you
build a logging road it's got to be able to be strong enough, they don't
pay them, it's got to be strong enough to carry the heaviest loads and
loads heavier than allowed on interstates, big logging trucks. Alright
then once they've logged it out Then they put the road to sleep for 20
years
And they want to be able to come back 20 years later and open it up again
without too much colder now, how do you do that now? There's a problem and
that's a, that's some of the kind of work they do, some of the work they
do is just and they've got some good people and good laboratories. But it
was, even though I was in the business kind of before I got involved with
this low volume roads committee, that was good. I had never even thought
of, I would never have thought I was such a group. I mean usually you
think of traffic as dealing with congestion. Right, right. But I guess
that's the whole other side of it, interesting one interesting modern side
like to that is that this june july The 9th conference, remember there are
four years apart is being held in austin texas and we're finally getting
some of the Sudan information published for the first time. So you've
stayed working on Sudan all these years. Uh yeah, in the back pocket kind
of not working on it because there was nothing no work to do and there was
no money to fund anything. But yeah, I'm a student of the city and I guess
you said and I think the reason it was accepted as we had done work in
Darfur and the part of the project that we're publicizing is what we did
in our four. And of course that's a huge public thing. Now
if I if I if I said we wanted to do it with Upper Nile province, nobody
would care and they wouldn't public. I don't think anybody heard of Darfur
until last year. Not many, not many. It must be sad for you to see what's
going on. Yeah. Yeah. Said yes. Um but they are making progress and I
don't want to get into a long political discourse. People forget there was
a long decades long war between the north and South and that solved. And
people always say um doesn't do anything with the U. N. Is down there and
they're the peacekeepers between the North and South and when the vice
president, the north has a president, two vice presidents. When the Vice
president, head of the Southern and the agreement is that in six years
from the time of the piece, which is about five years, 4.5 years now, the
South wall can succeed succeed if they wish. So that's going to be
interesting to see, especially since some of the newly discovered oil is
down there. Mhm. That always, yeah, it certainly made it certainly made
the Sudan and a country of interest to other countries in the world where
it wasn't before when I was there, they grew cotton. Probably more roads
to get that oil out of there or at least pipelines.
So how long did you work on this? Um, the transportation project? The
center, I was director for five years. Um, we were fairly successful. My
last year there we completed, we actually build $1 million dollars worth
of research, which is good to do. And we had another million dollars under
contract. And I got another call from Roland Hayden, this is, I was wrong
before I was ahead of myself and this time he was the acting provost. It's
okay Roland, what is it? He said, come over, I want to talk to you about
something. He wanted to, there had been no real institutional strategic
planning or much of any kind of planning in the university. So he wanted
to create an office of Strategic Planning. Well, in fact he had, he had
hired a planner and so we talked about it. He said there's one other thing
, nobody's going to respect this planning office and I have some teeth.
And he said, what people respect around here,
administrators,
maybe faculty too, maybe faculty to is money. So what I want you to do is
I want you to be vice provost in charge of planning and budgeting. So I
had this new office of Planning that had two or three people in it and the
budget office and I said that sounds like fun.
So, so that's what I did basically for another five years until I retired
from a strange idea of fun. Why would that be fun. Um
Because it's something new for the university. They were interesting
people to work with. Ah
And uh again you're trying to put units together for the benefit of the
institution ah which really kind of is often seen as diminishing their
bone bailiwick in this case it was the budget office. The budget office
was one of the strongest offices in the university because they control
the budget and they control the expenditures and they control all of that.
Um
In fact, but you have to know what the budgeting process was like. At
least after page Mahan was here. A lot of those decisions got made at
other levels and so the budget office. Yeah I had the responsibility for
it and did have a lot of of interaction with the regions and the
legislature
but they didn't really make the decision of whether Department X got This
$100,000 or not. That was that was another one. Um But it was a powerful
office and all of a sudden it was under a new all of a sudden it no longer
for a time it actually reported that the President's office now they're
reporting to and vice provost for goodness sake Along with an office that
had three people. So yeah it was fun and and it worked out didn't it? We
we did some good some good work was done. Some of the first long range
planning for the university was done. We did a physical plan for a
university which never came about.
That must be frustrating. Tell me no, tell me. How did you do with
physical plan? We had consultants in to look at the whole campus, tried to
, we did uh an estimate of how much the campus would continue to grow. We
had just bought
Tempe Center.
Um so we had some professionals come in advisors. Um too cute stories
about that. The first, the first day they were here they got a ticket
because they were coming up College Avenue across the patch in of course
it was one way that way
and they said that's your main interest of campus. We thought that was the
main interest campus and it's a one way street going out. Just crazy. So
they, what they, what they envisioned in which I don't think we'll ever
come about remember where it was taking the, what would be, it would be
the the corner of Kempe center where the restaurant was. Was that north?
The north corner and putting them making that a major entry cutting right
across what Tempe center was a major entry into the campus. Your bride
kind of like boulevard like entry if you've been down in your hand. I
think you go in there, it's kind of a grand entrance. I never give up but
that was a good good idea. What did come about was we also had a
professional come in and make
estimates of future population of the campus
and this was my Probably about 85 six. And at that time the estimate was
that we would be on the main campus,
45,000 students in 15, 20 years. I had the honor of presenting that to the
border regions.
I won't say they were, I won't say they laughed me out of the meeting. But
that was kind of tone of it. It was just that whole population estimate
was just kind of ignored because it was so unreal. Of course it came. It
was right on. It was it was spot on in terms of what really happened. Um
but so planning can be an interesting thing if you if you push it too far
, nobody believes you, If you don't touch it far enough, you're not doing
your job. But I'm still involved with in my community with planning. And
it's just, it's the same thing if if everybody agrees with you, then you
haven't done your job because you haven't pushed it far enough. And uh and
if nobody agrees with you, you've gone too far. Maybe not. Maybe you were
right on. Yeah, but that was just one thing we were we did get other
things through.
It seems like it was an interesting move for you. Do you think the
budgeting office would be run by accountants,
didn't run the office Director of budget office from the office? I was his
boss.
So you didn't have to be didn't have to be. I had I was because of my
other work over the years with university budgets, I was familiar with
budgeting but I'm not an accountant. You don't need to be account to
decide who gets the money. You need to be an accountant to keep track of
the money.
So how long did you do that? Five years, five years until 93?
Is that when the planet came about for CSU East during that time? That was
probably the of of what I did. That was probably the most important thing
I did because there were only three of us involved in that Brent Brown
check back I said engineering and myself probably the only three people on
the campus who were even
mhm disposed to the east campus. But it was such an opportunity, it
couldn't be turned down. So yeah, we worked, we worked that through and I
guess one of the highlights was one we convinced the president that he
should take it to the regions that we should accept There's hundreds of
acres and 300 homes.
What what was the opportunity that came about? The opportunity came about.
The federal government decided they would close the airport and close the
facility, the whole thing Williams Air force base. And so what do you do
with it? So I think it was, it was,
I'm not sure who actually came originally hated the idea. It may have been
Brent brown
um because his, his, he's got a brother is still in the legislature I
think maybe retired this year but quickly because it was planning it
landed on my desk. Um The person in engineering who was entered was chuck
backers who later became provost of that campus and we just started
working it working basically with the feds.
And there was a whole, the whole thing was kind of put out who wants to do
what and It ended up the two primary
organizations
that really kind of got the base was asked, you came as you east and city
Mesa. They wanted the runways and they wanted the runway buildings as you
know they're flying and they're flying commercially out of there now. So
they wanted that part and there was also beyond the runways. There was a
couple, there was hundreds of acres. I can't remember how many that was
just undeveloped and I think the long range plan and maybe it still is, is
to industrialize that kind of like Scottsdale Airport.
We got the the, because there was a lot of instruction going, we got the
instructional buildings, there was a big simulation lab where they had
wonderful simulation machines, you can learn to fly an airplane that
became part of ours. We also got stuff we didn't quite know what to do
with like as I remember 250 single family dwelling units which were all
the officers.
Um We also got dormitories where the cadets lived and we've got a brand
new The year that they gave it to us. They completed a 50,000 square foot
administration building. Brand new.
Um Bless the federal government. Um So yeah that was exciting and I think
it's going to be important to their future. What is your vision for what
that can become?
I don't really know. It's there it's gonna be called polytechnic campus.
Whether they'll ever whether they'll ever convince engineering to move
out there. I don't know um That will depend on what happens on the main
campus. The main campus is stuck for land and as you can see most of
what's going up is going up vertically. Um So I I don't know whether that
become a stronger polytechnic. I don't think it will become a liberal
liberal arts college. We learned I was involved in the very beginning with
the concepts of branches. It was played some role in the creation as you
west. We made a mistake there into what we tried. What we developed. It
was kind of like a small a. S. U.
And it causes some heartburn over the years because the first couple of
people we hired to direct it were hired from outside and of course their
incentive was gee if I could make this a freestanding university, I can be
president of my own university and there were people on the west side who
were not opposed to it and there are legislators on the west side who were
not opposed to that. Um
and it took a while to to work through that problem a couple of decades,
over a decade. Um I think one of the things that as you east did was too
set a new pattern first of all to really establish these, you were gonna
have real branch campuses. Now. We had a small branch downtown at the Mark
Otto, but it was kind of an enemy Skype. There were no permanent faculty
down there, that as I recall, but we had that little downtown thing and we
had west which was getting to be fairly decent sized what as you east did
as well as providing a great opportunity for technology and agriculture
and the people that moved out there was to solidify the concept today as
you was in fact going to be going to have branch campuses
and that kind of took the wind out of independence for the west side. I
think that's a personal opinion. The other thing we did, which was which
we should have done on the west side, but we didn't have the foresight to
do was to move whole units out. So in the east campus, technology and
agriculture moved out there. If you want to take technology to ask you,
you go to these campus, it doesn't exist on the main campus. That was the
smart, intelligent thing to do and I think we'll be doing the same thing
downtown because that's when 10 years I guess since I've retired more than
that. But my understanding is they're going to move the whole college of
nursing down there. They're not just going to put a branch down there. So
that's the way I think that's the reason some of the reasons issue East
was important. It solidified the branch campus concept and it gave us a
new way of building branches that you don't have to build a small
university. You build specialized units where it's medicine, nursing and
the whole that whole research area downtown
or what's on the world is that So I don't know what what we'll do in the
future but we'll do something because the campus the the only thing that
it would really help the campus. And this was something I used to kid some
of the administrators about was it if if A P. S. Would just close down
there peeking operation and we could get that whole a ps piece of property
we'd be in, we'd be in heaven. Of course they never have. But someday they
will and they issue I hope we'll get that property.
So you were really involved in the very beginning with a issue from the
very beginning the first time we hired uh consultant we hired was called
Edo cause I remember there were consultants and it was basically them and
bacchus and Brown and myself. Mhm. Talk again about, you said you took
this idea to would you take it to first to the President? President who
was the President? Let me go over by the time we got that far and then
from there to the regions and what did they think of it? Hey something for
nothing. They were there they were I think they were there was some
concern that they were getting into something. They didn't know what how
much it was costing in the future. But I think the idea that they were
getting it for nothing which was literally two I think we paid a dollar
for it um and be that we were taking stuff that they were already paying
for on the main campus and moving them out there so that they there was no
immediate a burst of budget requests Now they came because we had to build
some more buildings, we had to rehab some of the buildings and they knew
all that but there was no it was not like you were going to go out there
and hire 50 600 faculty members. So it was it was a relatively easy sell
to the regions and it wasn't a cotton field or a vacant piece of land like.
And uh I always admire laddie ay I remember going in there and laying it
out, he said you know most of the people on the campus are not for this. I
said I know that president sure he said but I think you're right and we're
going to do it. I said I wasn't that convincing. Why are we going to do it
? He said if we don't do it people 20 years from now, I don't think we
were stupid
and he was absolutely right. I mean you don't turn down something like
that. If you're if you're a growing institution with with a grand vision,
how was lady cora to work with?
I like him very much with a lot of different presidents.
Most of them let me go was the first one. Well I didn't get to know harmer
that much which was the first one you really got to know
I get some water
wanna um of course larry core very well. Russell nelson, Russ, nelson.
Yeah, yeah. What was he like
for us? I would kind of characterize as a businessman, he was a student
and he wasn't academic but in many ways he wasn't, I think he he was at
the University of time when he needed to be there and it was a time when
budgets were damn difficult. Ah I remember when I was in provost office
the year the budget got cut and you know that that's not fun. So they were
tough times. Both of those presidents were in in growth times but times
when growth was tough it was there was if you weren't here you just in the
word in in kind of on the battlefield, you don't realize just how fierce
the competition was between the S. U. And U. Of A. And it wasn't all on
the football field, it was in the legislature, it was in the regions,
it was all over the budgets being cut. It was a uh bad, bad year for the
state. Everybody's cut, budgets were cut and it's just one of those years
,
yep, there was only one year, but next year we're about two years. We were
back to normal year. Maybe in a year. We're back to normal, back to normal
but it was hard in a place that had never had a budget cut to deal with it.
But it went all right. I think everybody's no it was just a shortfall for
a short period of time and that the state wasn't going into bankruptcy or
what year was that? I really don't remember it.
I would have been in the academic Vice president's office but I don't
remember which year was, it was not when I was in charge of the budget
office and it was before that,
oh overall, looking back at that your career here, are there any
particular um challenges that stand out for you
particular challenges?
I don't know everything was a challenge. It was all but it was all fun. I
mean it's, somebody once said to me busy people are happy people and I've
taken that as my mantra and I think it's, it's, it's true and I also think
people who are doing something new are happy people.
So particular challenges.
No, not really. I mean just, I think one of the challenges going back
early on was when I was in the graduate college and I did most of my work
was involved with the liberal arts because they had more of the graduate
programs um,
to convincing them that I knew something uh, and maybe even knew something
about maybe their discipline was willing to learn and that and that I owe
all that to uh, to Bill Burke who just would back me and uh, who's himself
as a chemist. So he was from the block of course the NFL was historians
and it went on like that. Um, but that, that's all,
no, no, no. Great overwhelming challenge. Keeping up with the growth of
the institution I think was a the day to day challenge.
What about achievements? Are there anything that you're particularly proud
of that you achieved during here? Um,
Yeah, I think the creation of the east campus,
I'm proud of a lot of the things that were very important at the time but
have either become routine or been forgotten. Such as evaluation of
graduate programs. I mean that's, that's routine, nobody don't remember
that nobody really cares about it anymore. Who did everyone did it
probably the thing that the maid interestingly enough that has lasted the
longest with me has been to Sudan project because as I said a few months
it will be the first time I would have had a chance to stand up before an
audience and talk about it and people are still interested in because it
was it was the kind of work that doesn't change, soils don't change, the
water doesn't change geology doesn't change. And so the data that was
collected is still valuable to that country and to anybody who works there.
Um How much lasting I think a lot of things I had lasting value but
certainly I won't be remembered for them. What do you think you'll be
remembered for? Um
I don't think anybody's remembered after about two generations. Um
I think a lot of my colleagues will remember me for my work with the
retirees association after I after we graduated in my third term layer was
president. Um I started this project, it was my idea. Um
I don't know but as I say, I don't think you're in anybody's unless you're
a president, you've got your name on a building. Nobody or there's not
much Membranes after about one or 2 generations. And even then people have
to remind them what what's that building called that? Yeah, that's true. I
went to the rededication of the more building and nobody quite knew who
who whose work. Right.
Mhm. Are there any particular memories of your time at issue that you want
to talk about? Good or bad or? Funny? I think I've covered covered most of
them? I think
The one man I worked for who I haven't mentioned
um
was Dick peck who was academic vice president provost for a while.
Dick is a writer, he writes plays and novels. He's continued to write
since he retired. He was just, he was a good guy to work for and I never,
I appreciated him, but I think I never appreciated him more than when he
left. And that's this is the story he left here to become president of the
University of New Mexico
At that point, I hope New Mexico's ever want to listen to the state. But
at that point, University of Mexico had a revolving door for presidents. I
think they've gone through six, I'm in 10 years or some obscene number
like that. Um And it was rife with politics. The legislative, especially
the both Washington legislation and the legends were immensely, and I
remember sitting down with Dick when he told me he was taking a job. I
said, why, why that place is, it's chaos.
Well, I think it would be interesting. Well, he was there for as President
I think for 10 years before he retired, he was able to to do it. And I've
admired him probably as I said more after for what he did after he left
than even when he was here. But I like him when he's here. He's a great
guy I worked for. Did you ever think that you would want to be a
university president? And I came necklace killing that. Um I was one of
the final two candidates to become the president of the american american
university in Cairo. I was a loser. The other guy was the winner.
You didn't try again after that. No not really. Um
No that was not that many years ago and uh you can get to an age where
you're not presidential material anymore. It's not retirement age, it's
it's before that It's in your 50s probably Or at least early 60s um
you know that I had I had had connections with almost gone to university
american university in Cairo and I connect people I knew there and
and in fact had been offered the deanship of Engineering there and almost
went but that's when they blew up the american embassy so I didn't go and
well I almost went a year later and that's when the assassin assassinated
the president and that's when I didn't go. Um but when this it was
it's a long involved story but people I knew there were also uh I knew
what was going on in Cairo so when that presidency came up they encouraged
me to to apply and I did if there was a sad day in my life that was when I
didn't get that job. I would have loved that job.
It sounds like you've always been intrigued by travel and foreign working
really in that area wow. Yeah I um I'm I guess I've basically become a
student of the of the Nile Valley in the Middle East. I don't know much
about the rest of the world but
you're part of any of the exchange programs. I know students from over
there that come over here.
Yeah. In fact
my daughter was born at that time. We had a lot in engineering. A lot of
got a lot
half a dozen maybe Nigerian students and I was their advisor. I was still
in the department at that time. And so yeah normally in those years when I
was in the department, if there were forward students uh if they were
undergraduates I ended up being the advisers. If they were graduate
students they would have to be in transportation or or they would have had
another adviser. But yeah I did a lot of advising
the other job I used to do um Fran gill who who ran the admissions office
for the graduate college. We're back in the graduate. I found out that I
knew something about foreign transcripts
and so Fran had a chair next to her desk and chair straight here. It
became known as matt Doctor Betsy's chair because about twice a week I go
in there and she and I would go over all the foreign applications and that
was fun. So yeah if there's an opportunity to keep my finger in things
international, I did it. But a lot of times there wasn't
right, you know, I I knew the chap at srp who ran that program, but no, I
was never personally,
I'm trying to think, I'm trying to think of his name. He was from the
Middle East sounds fascinating, the differences and the similarities.
Um We'll talk a little bit about how you saw A. S. U. Changed from when
you came here in 1961 to today.
How do you describe it from our university? Barely out of its eggshell
to what I think is one of the best universities in the country and with a
future that she was. No, and I mean I don't know what it will become, but
it will be a great university
um unless it unless the state goes bankrupt.
Well you laugh, but that has happened to good universities before. They've
been in the wrong states at the wrong time. So it's got to be
I guess it's it's one of the roles
we've always wanted to play and not always were able to and that is in the
development of the economic development of the state. Initially the value
of the valley. Um
Going back kind of the beginning again, we used to say that the biggest
thing we lack
was a phoenix address
because for in those early years it was it was a Tempe legislators, not
the phoenix laters and we didn't have, they weren't negative, but they
weren't out there. You know, if you had after all Maricopa county's got
half the legislature, if you've got that, half the legislature pushing for
you, you can move a lot faster. And so that was one of the things we used
to say in the office. In fact, at one point I think I actually
investigated whether we could get this address. Yes,
we could have gotten a post box, but it was considered a little tacky to
do that.
Well, but yeah, it's the legislators from the metropolitan area, but I
know that's the whole county, but um it's the phoenix later legislators,
That's still him the numbers and that's what it is. It's funny thing you
learn about the legislature is numbers. So is that part of your reason for
having the downtown campus? Yes. Oh yes, absolutely, absolutely. You got
presence downtown. Absolutely. Because we had ah we had without a doubt,
we didn't know what was gonna happen to it. It never did kind of really
flourish. But absolutely.
Just to put your name on that big building down, that pretty prominent
building. Yeah, Yeah. Yeah, No, that was absolutely true.
Yeah, that was that, that was, that was a no brainer as far as we were
concerned when we got that opportunity. I know there was some toxic,
you're bailing out Governor Symington bankrupt building.
Yeah, there was such a shock then I won't come on the, not even for
history history
do you think that the university gets enough credit for it? The state,
I think it's beginning to um this is not a state that lavishes money on
education. That's one of the things that the state has to come to grips
with uh what the universities and I include all of them have done with the
mountains amount of funding that they've gotten has been spectacular. Um
If you look at any index of state dollars per full time student or per
graduate degree degree and and I don't care what index used across the
country. We're still, I don't know where we are right now but I would
guess we're still in the bottom third. Um But it's true throughout
education From K through 12. So it seems to me it's it's um it's a very
conservative state in terms of, well it's very conservative state period,
especially fiscally conservative and
maybe it made it made us better universities because we didn't have slush
money. We had to make every dollar counts. Maybe that was a good thing.
But boy, it was tough and uh so that's
that's a challenge for the state I think is the, if it really wants to
become
research or even think tank powerhouse, it's got to spend more on
education from top to bottom. It seems like the trend now is to get
private money. Yes.
It's always been, you know asked carbon Yale when the car came about, uh,
it and it's always been that before, uh, both private universities, they
had to have it, but good public universities, Penn University, penn state
Illinois. They all got lots of private money before.
Oh, you know, at various points in their history. Ah and we're just
starting that now their private money, like Illinois got a lot of money in
railroads where you've got a lot of rail, more money down there, a lot of
structural money. I remember when they built a full sigh, a full scale
full size railroad bridge to test in one of their laboratories. Um, that
was a good project. I'm not making fun of it, but that, you know, they had
the money to do it and they had the banking of backing of people of
railroad money to do it. So hopefully we'll get high tech money to do it
here or whatever the next thing is. But it's still people and brains was
going to move it forward. People with brains and education because there's
a lot of people in this world with brains and no education and all you
have to do is work in the underdeveloped world. You know that, um, we
don't have a corner on brains. We have, we have a big corner on education
in this country. We don't have a corner on brains. We can buy brains and
bring them in from other countries. Um, but we are not into, well, I don't
think we're, we are genetically smarter than anybody else, but we've got
the best education system in the world and when the state realizes they
need to have the best education system
in the west or in the country,
then we'll, we'll start continue to move forward where it's not starting
to move, we're moving forward really nicely now, but it's got to be kept
up. And so I'd like to be around 30 years from now and see what it's like.
I've been retired for what it doesn't. So I'd like to see in the next 12
, 15 years, see what, what happens.
What kind of advice do you give to young people that are just starting out
trying to choose a career,
trying to determine what you'd like to do,
but realize you may change your mind
and pet the best school you can get into and it can afford no matter where
it is, go for the best and that's what I would advise them. Um,
I guess that's what I did. I wanted to be a physicist, came away wanting
to be an engineer. I went to the best school I could get into. That's,
that's what I'd advise people who do. That's not saying they shouldn't go
to their own state University because movie, that's the best they can
either get into or movies, the best they can afford. And uh,
that's what they should do. Try and figure out what they want to do,
realize they may not do it in the end, but, but to have a a core of
knowledge,
you can always broaden. Hopefully if you get a good education, you will
continue to get a good education your whole life and your scope will
continue to broaden. So you may start out to be something that it's narrow
and whether it's an engineer accountant or a sociologist, or physicist,
mathematician, I don't care, um there'll be opportunities to change into
broaden. one thing I have
kind of change my own attitude on over the years. I used to be an advocate
of kind of broad general education
in the sense of a general education degree, a kind of a, you know,
delicatessen approach to life, but without a real specialty. Uh I'm not
sure that that is really a good idea. I think somebody should have a core
of knowledge and whether they actually exercise it or not. I think it's
the discipline of getting a core of knowledge that will carry you through
that you don't get if you're taking two hours of this and three hours of
that. So I have my own educational philosophy has changed over time.
Mhm. I think most of the questions I have for you, is there anything that
you wanted to? I didn't ask? You know, I think I told you every story I I
know my wife will tell me you told every story, you know,
that's
because she's heard them all before.
Just as a clarification right now, you can just put the clarification okay.
Story. Okay. I think when I was talking about Beirut and Cairo and about
the presidency in Cairo and that I was offered the universe the deanship
of Engineering at American University in Beirut. I think I may have said
the american university of Cairo. It was the american university of Beirut
where I was offered the deanship and was about to take it until Malcolm
Kerr was was assassinated. It was the american university of Cairo where I
interviewed for the presidency. I think it's good just having that, just
having that little bit, everybody's researching that american University,
I guess you never know what they're going to be researching. Did joon did
you have anything? You know, I'm glad you did mention about the project
that you had started with A s you are a Oh yeah, I'm so glad that you are
being interviewed as part finally. Did you have anything? No. Mhm.