WEBVTT

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 today is friday january 12th of 2000 and seven and we're doing an

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interview for the living history video
project of the Arizona State

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University retirees Association? And
we're here today at the community

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services building at the A. S. U.
Campus and my name is pam Stephenson

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doing the interview. And Manny Garcia
is our videographer and I'd like to

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have to give us your full name.
Matthew joseph Bets. Okay, we'd like to

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start at the beginning with a little
bit of background. So at the

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beginning, where when and where were
you born born in Chicago in 1932 and

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went to Uh school various schools
throughout Chicago and the suburbs,

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graduated from Elgin Academy in 1950

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at that point went out to caltech for
a couple of years and then came back

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and went to Northwestern where I got
my degrees, Let's go back to your

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growing up. You skipped a lot of um
what what did your parents did your

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father do for a living? Um My father
was a milliner. He had factories that

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made women's hats back when women wore
hats. My mother was a school

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teachers, speech correction teacher,
parents were working as you grew up.

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You know, my mother was had was pretty
much she got a health, which is a

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retirement situation or else was not
what it should be. And so she retired

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early. So she was basically at home
most of the time you have brothers and

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sisters

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only. Only. Only son of an only son.
So when anybody asked me, hey, I know

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somebody named bets, are you related?
I can just say no,

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what, where did you grow up in Chicago
or near Chicago? What

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Through, about the 6th grade, we
actually lived in Chicago first on the

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south side, then on the north side,
then we moved out to Barrington

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Illinois and then the folks moved back
into Chicago and we moved out to

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Glenview, which is where the last
place they lived.

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So I don't know, I was just a young
kid. I went where I was, where I was

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taken,

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what was Chicago like back in those
days. Um,

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it was a very interesting city, very
dynamic.

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When I was young. If you wanted to do
almost anything, you went downtown.

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Uh, there was, I can remember later on
when the, I think one of the first

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malls was built up in north northern
Chicago near Evanston's. Uh, but

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prior to that, if you wanted a suit or
you want to go see a good movie, no

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matter what you wanted to do, you went
downtown. So a lot of people

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traveled by the elevated subway system
and the busses obviously and you

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could do that as a child. He didn't,
you didn't have to drive.

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Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Um, and a lot
of the neighborhoods in Chicago are

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sort of ethnic of one group or
another. Did you live in some of those kind

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of, not really, not really. Uh, we
lived in Rogers park for the most part

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and it was a mixture of german and
italian jewish

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but not a well defined, even though
Chicago is known for, its well defined

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ethnic neighborhoods. This was not one
of them

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interviewed jerry Colangelo who grew
up their italian right.

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Um, well as a boy going to school and
you're a good student, I think I was

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, yes. Did you know what you wanted to
be when you grew up? Um, not early

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on, not early on. Uh, in fact, when I
went to college, I thought I was

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going to be something other than I
ended up being. So, uh, no, not early

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on. I knew I was good in math and
science and it didn't go any farther

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than that. Did you ever work for your
dad in the military business? Yes.

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Part time. Yeah. What did you do
everything from packing hats to trimming

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brims, too little jobs like that? You
didn't want to take over his

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business? No, and he didn't want me to
uh, he realized it was a dead

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industry and it, and it is um, you
know, we had a small factory and we did

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over 100 dozen hats a week. So you've
got, you've got to have at one point

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he had a factory that was doing 100
dozen hats a day. So he was well aware

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that between the modern automobile and
the catholic church, it was dead

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people still wear hats are not the
same. Um, most women don't wear hats

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anymore. Uh He was right, the car's
got lower, he couldn't wear comfort to

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get in and out of the car with a big
hat on and then the church said well

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women don't have to wear hats on
sunday anymore. And that was that was a

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big market gone immediately. He must
have been quite a businessman to run

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that big factories. He was a good
businessman, good salesman, good

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businessman, good manager. Right. And
you learned a lot from him? Yes. Yes.

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So when did you decide that you were
going to go to college?

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I don't know that I ever decided I
wasn't going to go to college. It was,

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my mother had been it was a teacher.
Um

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It was just kind of assumed that I
would go to college if if I had if I

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was qualified. And so I don't think
there was a a point in time where I

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actually thought about it or or a
decision was made. The question was

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which college and what you want to do,
but then how did you decide which

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college to go to? The most prestigious
college which would give me a

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scholarship and that was caltech.

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And in fact I turned down a
scholarship from M. I. T. To go to California.

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So is caltech. They were they were on a par and they were completely

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different. Um even today I think m. I.
T. Is is much bigger and broader

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has more different things caltech
really is a technical school, it's

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engineering and science And when I
went there was only about 600 students

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,

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undergraduate students. It's a long
way from Chicago. Yes. Yes but I from

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my earliest days I enjoyed traveling
and we had been in California a

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couple a couple of times that we were
in California uh when the japanese

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bombed Pearl Harbor that day. Um I had
an uncle who was Austrian by birth

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and he took me and my the family I
think about three different summers. He

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had a ranch outside of in colorado in
a place called the University of

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Colorado. And so we went in the late
30s and early 40s we went out there

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and so either by train or by car and
so I caught the travel bug early.

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So so you were may be influenced to
choose caltech over M. I. T. Because

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it was in California probably. But I I
thought it would be a better place

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for me. Yeah. And so what were your
goals when you went to college? I was

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going to become a nuclear physicist
And I changed my mind after about one

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year and it's hard to say why I
changed my mind. I think I changed my mind

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basically because

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the people I met there, the professors
I had with a couple exceptions the

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ones that were in the engineering
field were more interesting people than

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the ones who are in the scientific
field. Um The one exception was Linus

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Pauling the famous rebel who talked
freshman chemistry believe it or not.

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Um but yeah, it was a lot of was on
personalities and as I got into the

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subject matter, it just appeared to me
to be more hands on. And so I made

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it made the change become a civil
engineer.

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I want to ask you, you said you were
out in California when the japanese

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bombed Pearl Harbor. I liked, yeah.
What was it like? Well it was, it was

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interesting was sunday if you, you
won't remember it. It was a sunday and

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my dad was an avid loved horse racing
and they had horse races in Mexico

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on sunday, they didn't in California.
So we were in fact down in Tijuana

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after the races, we walked into a
little restaurant and we had ordered

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dinner and the guy came in with
headlines about this big us at war. We

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never got the dinner, we just headed
for the border. It was a long, I

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remember not a lot of it was a long
line remember it was difficult to get

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across the border because of everybody
trying to get out at the same time.

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And we, we had driven to California.
So we stayed in san Diego for

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several days, maybe a week or more.
And then we drove back. The only thing

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I really remember about that was at
that time a lot of the big military

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plants had big glass roofs on them
with you know, small panes, glass roofs

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without sunlight and they were busy
painting and black. I remember that.

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But that's about all I remember of it
interesting.

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What do you remember about the war
years after that young boy? Yeah, not

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much. We followed it. Um,

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kept scrapbooks of what was going on.
That was seemed to be a big thing.

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And uh bye. Kids I associated with and
also in our schools. Mm hmm.

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Remember the rationing member a cards
and see cards and gas rationing

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victory gardens. And we had a victory
garden and things of that nature.

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Nothing, nothing spectacular. But it
was certainly different than it is

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now. I mean it was shoes were
rationed, sugar was rationed. Gas was

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rationed and God knows what else was
rationed And you had a card for each

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one.

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Mm We're getting back I guess to,
you're going out to college. What was

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that first year like getting away from
home and you know, going to

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California jasmine. It was,

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it was almost normal. I mean it, there
was nothing particularly strange

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about it. Um, I wasn't particularly
lonely or anything. First of all you

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worked like a dog at caltech, you
worked Probably about 12, 15 hours a day

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every day on your on your classwork.
Uh, so it wasn't a lot of time to

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feel sorry for yourself. Um, lived in,
they had like how they weren't

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fraternities but they were called
houses, but they were kind of like

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fraternities, but they weren't greek
letter lived in one of those, so all

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your food and everything was taken
care of. Um

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other than that, there was just a lot
of studying, that's uh that's about

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all I can remember about it. And when
did you decide that you didn't want

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to be a nuclear at the end of my
freshman year? So I started looking

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around. Um and I've finally decided to
come to Northwestern for several

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reasons why I could live at home and
it would be a lot cheaper. Uh They

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would give me a scholarship. And uh,
but the thing that really attracted

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me is in those days if you wanted to
be an engineer at Northwestern, it

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was a five year program, not a four
year program and it had a mandatory

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cooperative program. So after your
freshman year, you went to school three

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, they were on the quarter system,
went to school one quarter, you worked

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in an industry a quarter, you went to
school a quarter, you worked in the

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industry a quarter through the five
years. So by the time you graduated,

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you had, I think it's a year and a
quarter, a year and a half of

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experience and I was actually doing
basically engineering work by the time

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I graduated. In fact that at one point
I was heading up, I was the chief

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person on a subsoil investigation
bridge that traveled all over the Middle

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West digging holes in the ground. So I
really like that? Of course it made

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it made the financial situation a lot
better too because you got paid a

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professional salary. It was not an
internship, but it was, it was

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employment. So those quarters that you
asked that you worked, you worked

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full time. And did you, nope, I worked
for,

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I guess three different organizations.
I worked for this company that did

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soil investigation. I worked one
summer one quarter for the Portland

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cement Association which had their
national labs in Skokie, which was

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right next door. And the final place I
worked was a place that did traffic

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and transportation engineering, which
is the area I finally went into. So

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did you choose the place that you
worked on the basis of what you were

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interested in?

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Since it was mandatory for all
engineers, not just civil. Uh, and they had

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a good sized engineering, but they had
a large office that did nothing but

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managed the cooperative program. So
you had, if you were civil there was,

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you know, a list of companies
interested in hiring you. And so you go,

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they would interview you or sometimes
you go interview them and that's the

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way you made your decision. It's
unusual for a college to do that. It was

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very unusual. And you know, and they
have some, I think they still have

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the program, but it's no longer
mandatory. It's now optional, which has

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decreased its importance considerably.
But they were given in the, when

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was it? probably in the late 30s, a
massive endowment by

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a railroad magnet. Who said if you
want these millions of dollars, which

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built the whole build all the tech
buildings, you will have this program

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and you will have it for, I think it
was about 15 or 20 years and then you

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can make an optional if you want. And
so they took the money and the

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program was mandatory. And it was a
good program. I never, never have had

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a bad feeling about that program. A
lot of people say it took you five

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years and say, well, yes, five years.
Looking back on it, there's nothing

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, it might have seemed a lot at the
time, but the advantages just for were

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much greater than any possible
disadvantages.

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And so by the time you got graduated
from there, did you have an idea than

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what you wanted to do? Yeah, I, I knew
I wanted to go into transportation

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part of civil engineering. There was
no transportation academic program at

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Northwestern at that. When I
graduated. Um, right after I graduated, they

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started a master's degree program
basically with part time people because

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there were a lot of transportation
consultants in the area. And so we did

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have some excellent teachers, but they
were basically consultant. So that

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, that's when I got used to going to
evening classes. What was it you

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liked about transportation? What made
you choose that? Um I don't know it

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was a new area, very new area. There
were very few, there were almost no

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universities in the country that
offered it as a degree program. The place

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that had the closest thing was Yale
University and they had a a one or two

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year program, but it was a diploma.
They would not give you a degree, They

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gave you a diploma. Um So when
Northwestern decided to to decide decide to

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stay on there, what what sort of
transportation were you talking about?

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Road building or asked to answer

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various times? I've done everything,
even designing a canal for central

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Oklahoma. Um But it was mostly, yeah,
it was,

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you know, by this time the interstate
bill was about to be passed. And so

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it was mostly highways oriented. What
year was it that you graduated 1955

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?

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So you didn't end up with the korean
war years? Right. No, I was a student

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deferment.

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So what graduate and go out to work?
You know, I actually went right back

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to, so I went out to work for the
summer and then they started this

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program. So I went right back to
school for my master's degree. So 55, I

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did my masters degree. 57

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56,

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was probably the most influential year
in my life. Um The man who, it was

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probably my best mentor, he in fact,
he wasn't in transportation. He was

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in what is now called environmental
engineering was a man named john Logan

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and he had an interesting background
and that he was a man who eliminated

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, he was in charge of the Rockefeller
brothers program to eliminate

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malaria from the island of Sardinia.
And they did it. And so he came to

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northwestern and at that time we were
approaching the 60's and the

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Rockefellers came to him and say we
want to do something. Um how they came

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up with the program, I don't know, but
they wanted to do something with

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him. And what they decided to do is to
establish an exchange exchange

00:17:54.039 --> 00:17:59.407
program with the University of
Khartoum in the Sudan. And to make a long

00:17:59.440 --> 00:18:04.756
story short, I was the first person to
go over on that program in 1956 57.

00:18:04.789 --> 00:18:09.836
So I was in in Khartoum in 56 57. How
did that come about that you were

00:18:09.869 --> 00:18:13.847
the first person to cook because I
applied.

00:18:13.880 --> 00:18:18.976
And it came about for a strange reason
because I was actually the number

00:18:19.009 --> 00:18:24.576
two candidate, The # one candidate was
married and they thought that it

00:18:24.609 --> 00:18:28.627
would be better to sing a married man
over there than a single man. Well

00:18:28.660 --> 00:18:32.447
it turned out he had other commitments
that he had the meat and so he had

00:18:32.480 --> 00:18:37.536
to turn it down and they sent me
instead, which is I told him later, you

00:18:37.569 --> 00:18:43.266
know, cartoon in those days was an
interesting place, but not a place

00:18:43.299 --> 00:18:46.836
you'd want to take a young wife. I
mean it had no sanitary system. You

00:18:46.869 --> 00:18:52.697
know, we had what equivalent of fancy
outhouses, what we had and that was

00:18:52.730 --> 00:19:00.730
university housing. Mm hmm. So and
everything was, it was just a very

00:19:01.160 --> 00:19:06.076
interesting but not an easy place to
live. And why did you want to go with

00:19:06.109 --> 00:19:12.226
it? Oh again, it goes back to my
uncle, the one who had the, the ranch in

00:19:12.259 --> 00:19:17.657
colorado. He always had National
Geographics around and I had gotten to

00:19:17.690 --> 00:19:23.107
really become fascinated with africa.
So when the opportunity came, I

00:19:23.140 --> 00:19:27.367
wanted to go as simple as that. And
what, what did you do there taught

00:19:27.400 --> 00:19:32.236
civil engineering, taught strength of
materials, taught surveying. This

00:19:32.269 --> 00:19:35.427
kind of thing.

00:19:35.460 --> 00:19:39.976
Was that just a one year, just one
year. Try to get a second year, but

00:19:40.009 --> 00:19:45.217
they said no, the policy is No two
years, just one year. So what did you

00:19:45.250 --> 00:19:50.226
do? Then came back to north, came back
to Evanston's or Glenview where my

00:19:50.259 --> 00:19:54.967
folks were living, took a job with the
company that I had last worked for

00:19:55.000 --> 00:20:02.506
, which was at that time growing very
rapidly. Um, what company was that?

00:20:02.539 --> 00:20:06.187
It was George martin and Associates
later became Barton Ashman. They were

00:20:06.220 --> 00:20:13.407
big planners and transportation people

00:20:13.440 --> 00:20:20.026
After about six months. I guess it was
northwestern hired um, Donald berry

00:20:20.059 --> 00:20:24.407
from Berkeley I think it was. And so
he became the professor now a real

00:20:24.440 --> 00:20:29.776
professor full time of engineering.
And I guess part of the deal was that

00:20:29.809 --> 00:20:35.167
Northwestern would start a doctoral
program. So after about another three

00:20:35.200 --> 00:20:42.707
months I decided I would apply for
that and I was accepted. And at that

00:20:42.740 --> 00:20:48.447
point I had a teaching assistantship.
So I gave up my, my professional

00:20:48.480 --> 00:20:54.617
engineering job and I was told that
the man who told me this I had great

00:20:54.650 --> 00:20:59.256
respect for it was George Barton. He
did a lot for me. I started with him

00:20:59.289 --> 00:21:05.097
when his offices were in the Upper
level of a three car garage and on the

00:21:05.130 --> 00:21:10.687
campus. And he later ended up with a
firm of 100 engineers. So I'm not

00:21:10.720 --> 00:21:14.137
sure I made the right decision
financially. But um, but he told me an

00:21:14.170 --> 00:21:17.397
interesting thing when I told him I
wanted to go back and do a PhD and he

00:21:17.430 --> 00:21:21.246
said, I think you should, he said of
course you realize you'll never be

00:21:21.279 --> 00:21:24.957
able to work for this company again
because professional organizations

00:21:24.990 --> 00:21:29.296
would not hire a PhD in civil
engineering to over overqualified.

00:21:29.329 --> 00:21:37.236
Overtrained. Um, and this was 57 or
58, something like that. Why did you

00:21:37.269 --> 00:21:41.447
want to get a PhD to teach? That was,
that was part of the, of the

00:21:41.480 --> 00:21:46.717
Sudanese experience. Uh, I found that
I really wanted to teach and

00:21:46.750 --> 00:21:51.836
preferably to do research that would
help countries like that? God knows

00:21:51.869 --> 00:21:57.796
they need it kind of more today than
um So how long did you work on

00:21:57.829 --> 00:22:01.806
getting your PhD?

00:22:01.839 --> 00:22:09.437
Let's see. I got it in 61 started.
Really 57.

00:22:09.470 --> 00:22:15.347
So about 3.5 years after the masters.
Yeah. And part of that was spent

00:22:15.380 --> 00:22:22.597
back in the Sudan again. How does that
work? Oh I wanted to, I wanted to

00:22:22.630 --> 00:22:28.107
develop planning techniques for
transportation, for economic development

00:22:28.140 --> 00:22:33.566
and I was lucky enough to get, they
have very strong African studies

00:22:33.599 --> 00:22:39.236
program and still do at Northwestern.
And uh there was a man there, famous

00:22:39.269 --> 00:22:44.207
African, his name, Herskowitz and he
and Logan got their heads together.

00:22:44.240 --> 00:22:48.726
And so I was allowed to sit in not for
credit but sit in on Herskowitz

00:22:48.759 --> 00:22:53.006
seminars which brought the leaders of
Africa through every, you know,

00:22:53.039 --> 00:22:57.357
almost every head of state or soon to
be head of state came through that

00:22:57.390 --> 00:23:02.726
program to give a talk once a month.
Um And in the end the African studies

00:23:02.759 --> 00:23:07.677
program gave me a travel grant that
allowed me to go back and collect data

00:23:07.710 --> 00:23:13.746
on rail. Mostly I was getting
information on rail, some on roads from both

00:23:13.779 --> 00:23:21.779
the Sudan Nigeria and Ghana. So that
was, that was 67 months trip over

00:23:21.859 --> 00:23:25.697
there and came back wrote the
dissertation

00:23:25.730 --> 00:23:29.036
and came to the rescue that must have
been quite an adventure to travel

00:23:29.069 --> 00:23:33.296
through all those countries. It was it
was Nigeria was still a colony. It

00:23:33.329 --> 00:23:38.147
wasn't even a free country when I went
there and Kruma was the head of

00:23:38.180 --> 00:23:44.006
Ghana and it was just barely a new
country. Sudan was about four or 5

00:23:44.039 --> 00:23:50.806
years old. And yeah it was great fun.
How did you get around over there?

00:23:50.839 --> 00:23:58.266
Um It depends on which, which time you
talked about. Um And the first time

00:23:58.299 --> 00:24:06.299
I was over there I was mentored and
guided and helped by a medical for a

00:24:06.549 --> 00:24:10.607
professor in medical school, Dean
smith who actually later became Dean. So

00:24:10.640 --> 00:24:16.776
he was Dean Dean smith. But his name
was Dean and he, it was always

00:24:16.809 --> 00:24:22.107
traveling when it was time to travel.
So over christmas we went down to

00:24:22.140 --> 00:24:29.016
the southeast southeastern part from
cartoon. Uh an area called ingesting

00:24:29.049 --> 00:24:34.907
the hills. And we're a town called
rose areas where they later built a dam.

00:24:34.940 --> 00:24:39.097
Then in the summer he he also took
some of his students because he wanted

00:24:39.130 --> 00:24:43.637
to get his students out the medical
students out in the countryside in the

00:24:43.670 --> 00:24:50.607
summer of one of his students, his
wife and his daughter and there scotty

00:24:50.640 --> 00:24:54.607
and he, he and I got into two jeeps
and we traveled all the way from

00:24:54.640 --> 00:24:59.326
Khartoum all the way down to the
Uganda border all the way down the Nile.

00:24:59.359 --> 00:25:03.137
And part of that we got caught in the
rains. And so we had to put the the

00:25:03.170 --> 00:25:07.036
chiefs on the Nile steamers that we're
running in those days to get

00:25:07.069 --> 00:25:11.637
through the big massive stood, which
is a one of the world's largest

00:25:11.670 --> 00:25:17.006
swamps, which apparently now has oil
under it. Um,

00:25:17.039 --> 00:25:23.187
so we traveled by car by and by by
steamer the second time I was there, I

00:25:23.220 --> 00:25:28.167
travel mostly by rail Because I was in
time the rail headquarters of a

00:25:28.200 --> 00:25:32.467
town called at Bar 150 or so miles
north of cartoons. So I went up there

00:25:32.500 --> 00:25:37.377
by rail and basically I could get
around by rail, got across africa by air

00:25:37.410 --> 00:25:41.207
obviously. And

00:25:41.240 --> 00:25:46.457
was it dangerous to be over there? I
didn't think so at the time. No, I

00:25:46.490 --> 00:25:53.016
don't think so. It was not a dangerous
part of the world in those days.

00:25:53.049 --> 00:25:56.107
No, not even for a woman

00:25:56.140 --> 00:26:01.627
that was a little bit before some of
the big revolutions. Yeah, it was a

00:26:01.660 --> 00:26:07.467
time of, of independence for most of
those countries and so that, that had

00:26:07.500 --> 00:26:13.016
a great effect on people's attitude.
Um, the only, I didn't, I didn't get

00:26:13.049 --> 00:26:16.717
to that that time I didn't get the
countries that were starting to have

00:26:16.750 --> 00:26:21.326
some problems like South Africa and
kenya with the mau mau. I was not

00:26:21.359 --> 00:26:28.207
there those times. Um, so the three
countries I visited were basically,

00:26:28.240 --> 00:26:31.976
but this one was still a colony
obviously, but they were basically

00:26:32.009 --> 00:26:34.306
peaceful

00:26:34.339 --> 00:26:37.697
and what was it, you found it
interesting about Africa that you kept

00:26:37.730 --> 00:26:41.107
wanting to go back.

00:26:41.140 --> 00:26:45.607
It's just a fascinating place,
fascinating people, fascinating cultures,

00:26:45.640 --> 00:26:49.006
fascinating wildlife.

00:26:49.039 --> 00:26:56.467
In fact, I will be going back before
the week next week is out too, not

00:26:56.500 --> 00:27:00.576
well to africa technically, but back
to the Nile. I'm going to eat you for

00:27:00.609 --> 00:27:07.006
a couple of weeks, my birthday present
to me.

00:27:07.039 --> 00:27:12.907
So when you did all that study and you
came back and got your doctorate,

00:27:12.940 --> 00:27:18.707
what did you do after that? Came there
as you, how did that come about?

00:27:18.740 --> 00:27:22.897
Came about because two of my friends
who are also doing doctorates there,

00:27:22.930 --> 00:27:26.687
uh one was bob Kirsten who I think at
that time had already been hired as

00:27:26.720 --> 00:27:31.207
the chair of civil out here

00:27:31.240 --> 00:27:36.367
and he was instrumental and convinced
me to come out. Yeah, it was charlie

00:27:36.400 --> 00:27:41.586
Newland and Kirsten actually got
charlie to come out first because charlie

00:27:41.619 --> 00:27:45.806
finished his degree or sooner than I
did and then when they were both here

00:27:45.839 --> 00:27:51.407
, they encouraged me to come out and
take a look and come and join them

00:27:51.440 --> 00:27:55.647
building. That happened when I was in
cartoon cartoons, climate is very

00:27:55.680 --> 00:28:01.536
much like phoenix, it's a desert and
it's kind of a scrubby desert and

00:28:01.569 --> 00:28:04.536
temperatures are about the same.
People claim it's a little hotter there,

00:28:04.569 --> 00:28:09.046
but I don't know in the summer. Um,
but I did love the dessert. So that

00:28:09.079 --> 00:28:13.167
was, it was just a natural fit, but
the reason I came here was basically

00:28:13.200 --> 00:28:17.407
because of bob Kirsten and charlie
Newland,

00:28:17.440 --> 00:28:20.197
was there any particular thing that
they said to convince you that you

00:28:20.230 --> 00:28:25.766
wanted to come out to this university?
Um

00:28:25.799 --> 00:28:33.157
I think what attracted me a the fact
that it was new Um you know it was

00:28:33.190 --> 00:28:39.006
this was 61 so it's only been a
university for three years.

00:28:39.039 --> 00:28:46.036
They had just had PhD programs
approved in 61.

00:28:46.069 --> 00:28:48.786
And bob asked me to come out and
establish a graduate program in

00:28:48.819 --> 00:28:55.276
transportation. So I had a yeah uh
kind of a blank sheet of paper to work

00:28:55.309 --> 00:28:59.306
on and that was inviting

00:28:59.339 --> 00:29:03.016
because although those were basically
things the the opportunity, the area

00:29:03.049 --> 00:29:07.826
, I like the I like the geology and
geography of the area and just a great

00:29:07.859 --> 00:29:10.207
opportunity.

00:29:10.240 --> 00:29:14.556
What was it like when you first came
out here? What was it like? Can

00:29:14.589 --> 00:29:20.467
people in a small town? Um The
university was about 12,000 students I

00:29:20.500 --> 00:29:23.066
think if I remember at least other
people can give you better numbers.

00:29:23.099 --> 00:29:26.607
 Probably um

00:29:26.640 --> 00:29:31.847
Engineering was basically just kind of
getting off the ground. A wing was

00:29:31.880 --> 00:29:37.677
built and the B. C. D. E. Brings the
laboratory rings built. That's all it

00:29:37.710 --> 00:29:42.617
was. Our office is my office. I shared
an office with charlie Newland and

00:29:42.650 --> 00:29:49.167
Phil borgo who taught surveying and we
had one office, good size office uh

00:29:49.200 --> 00:29:54.586
not as big as this room but three of
us in there out in one of the wings,

00:29:54.619 --> 00:29:57.486
I can't remember which I think it was
the wing but I'm not sure and a lot

00:29:57.519 --> 00:30:01.427
of the faculties of civil faculty had
their offices out in the in kind of

00:30:01.460 --> 00:30:06.967
on the ends of the, of the laboratory
areas? Um It was convenient because

00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:13.197
the parking lot right outside and the
lab was right there and so it was a

00:30:13.230 --> 00:30:16.417
small department. Everybody knew each
other, basically. Everybody got

00:30:16.450 --> 00:30:23.967
along together. And and it was it was
an experience that I have to tell

00:30:24.000 --> 00:30:28.566
you, it was experience sharing an
office with Phil borgo charlie and I

00:30:28.599 --> 00:30:33.506
both smoked at that time but Phil
treat tobacco.

00:30:33.539 --> 00:30:36.907
And so he had the opportunity office

00:30:36.940 --> 00:30:40.637
and he was very popular, taught
surveying and he was very popular with the

00:30:40.670 --> 00:30:44.187
students. So we're in this relatively
small office and he just has a

00:30:44.220 --> 00:30:47.887
continual stream of students coming in
day and night, you know whether to

00:30:47.920 --> 00:30:52.217
ask him about their love life for
surveying or anything else. I mean he

00:30:52.250 --> 00:30:56.907
was he was their godfather, so to
speak. So that was interesting. And what

00:30:56.940 --> 00:31:02.286
was your first job? What were your
responsibilities When I first came I

00:31:02.319 --> 00:31:05.967
was teaching kind of general civil
engineering courses. I taught strength

00:31:06.000 --> 00:31:10.207
materials, thought statics. I taught a
materials court, excuse me, the

00:31:10.240 --> 00:31:14.207
materials course for architects
because at that time architecture was part

00:31:14.240 --> 00:31:21.526
of the engineering college. And so uh
the strength of materials and how

00:31:21.559 --> 00:31:27.967
Materials Act two loads and stuff. Um
They use civil engineering faculty

00:31:28.000 --> 00:31:34.707
to teach the architects. And so that's
one of the things I did. Um and

00:31:34.740 --> 00:31:40.607
then started one x one developing
graduate courses in in my specialty so

00:31:40.640 --> 00:31:44.607
that within a year we had

00:31:44.640 --> 00:31:46.806
the basic

00:31:46.839 --> 00:31:52.617
pieces of a master's degree. And and
do you remember how much you were

00:31:52.650 --> 00:31:56.316
paid when you first came out here,

00:31:56.349 --> 00:32:00.107
$60 $200

00:32:00.140 --> 00:32:02.697
nine months?

00:32:02.730 --> 00:32:06.806
And your title was Assistant
professor.

00:32:06.839 --> 00:32:10.506
Mhm.

00:32:10.539 --> 00:32:15.306
Who was the president?

00:32:15.339 --> 00:32:21.509
What was he like as president? An
assistant professor really didn't know.

00:32:21.880 --> 00:32:23.880
Probably didn't care because they were too busy doing their own things. I

00:32:25.230 --> 00:32:29.796
got to know whom Durham a little bit
later but never got to know him. Well

00:32:29.829 --> 00:32:34.316
, by the time I got into
administration, he was he was gone. Uh he had a

00:32:34.349 --> 00:32:39.236
good reputation. I think that he he
was well thought of. But as a as a

00:32:39.269 --> 00:32:46.006
young professor and you know, I had
other fish to fry.

00:32:46.039 --> 00:32:50.046
And that was in the sixties. You were
out here with some of the Vietnam

00:32:50.079 --> 00:32:54.907
protest. Yes, yes. I remember

00:32:54.940 --> 00:32:59.586
uh what was his first name? Duffy
anyhow? Duffy was head of security.

00:32:59.619 --> 00:33:04.877
Remember the day when there was
demonstration around the flagpole out by

00:33:04.910 --> 00:33:09.066
the administration building. I
remember that very well. There was also

00:33:09.099 --> 00:33:13.867
demonstrations up. But what was the
ROTC building. So yeah, we had a few

00:33:13.900 --> 00:33:18.437
demonstrations, but none of them, I
think too large to be because of

00:33:18.470 --> 00:33:21.006
Duffy's

00:33:21.039 --> 00:33:26.236
approach to life and approach, he
loved the students. And so there was

00:33:26.269 --> 00:33:31.506
never any violence, but he could keep
them calm.

00:33:31.539 --> 00:33:34.986
You know, they want, as I recall, I
may be wrong on this, but as I recall

00:33:35.019 --> 00:33:40.207
, they wanted to lower the flag. And
he finally said, okay, lower flag and

00:33:40.240 --> 00:33:45.117
or they're flying. He said, all right
now put it back up and I did. And

00:33:45.150 --> 00:33:48.677
that was the kind of guy he was, he
was he was the right guy for the right

00:33:48.710 --> 00:33:53.266
time for this campus when we needed
somebody, just every campus needed

00:33:53.299 --> 00:33:58.026
Duffy. Now, we were lucky to have one
for engineering students involved

00:33:58.059 --> 00:34:01.847
not to minor. I don't know. They may
have been, I don't know why the

00:34:01.880 --> 00:34:07.806
liberal arts students. Um I think with
students from across the campus, I

00:34:07.839 --> 00:34:12.756
I you know, you have to have somebody
in the broad said, I I really don't

00:34:12.789 --> 00:34:17.407
know.

00:34:17.440 --> 00:34:23.606
Yeah. The people you work with, who
was the dean of the engineering,

00:34:23.639 --> 00:34:26.807
what was he like?

00:34:26.840 --> 00:34:31.997
He and I didn't always see eye to eye,
but that's alright because his goal

00:34:32.030 --> 00:34:35.586
was one thing and my goal was
something else. My goal was to establish

00:34:35.619 --> 00:34:39.916
graduate study and research. His goal
was to build the best undergraduate

00:34:39.949 --> 00:34:43.646
program he could because you gotta
remember, he's he started from nothing

00:34:43.679 --> 00:34:49.197
at 58 And I think he may have been
higher than 57, but he basically

00:34:49.230 --> 00:34:54.896
started from nothing. So his main goal
was to build a quality, fully

00:34:54.929 --> 00:35:00.416
accredited uh undergraduate program.
And he did that. He did a very good

00:35:00.449 --> 00:35:04.836
job of it. And I'll say this for him
when, when uh Kirsten hired people

00:35:04.869 --> 00:35:08.206
like me um

00:35:08.239 --> 00:35:15.336
that was fine with Thompson, I didn't,
he kind of let us do our thing just

00:35:15.369 --> 00:35:19.927
if we could do it, go do it if you
can't do it well. Okay. But his his

00:35:19.960 --> 00:35:24.157
focus was the undergraduate program
and is, was the absolute appropriate

00:35:24.190 --> 00:35:27.907
focus at that time

00:35:27.940 --> 00:35:32.619
because if that had failed, everything
else would have been nonsense too.

00:35:33.039 --> 00:35:35.039
And it sounds like you were teaching quite a few divers courses. Uh five

00:35:37.880 --> 00:35:45.037
courses a year. Um three courses a
quarter semester, That was a typical

00:35:45.070 --> 00:35:51.506
load, 3, 3 courses. Uh people used to
say it was a reduced load from four.

00:35:51.539 --> 00:35:54.666
And did you develop the content for
those courses or was it given to you

00:35:54.699 --> 00:35:57.586
? Uh and some of the earlier, of
course, when I, like when I was teaching

00:35:57.619 --> 00:36:00.907
strength of materials and and the
regular civil engineering courses. Yeah

00:36:00.940 --> 00:36:05.407
, there was a syllabus for um of
course as I was developing, obviously I

00:36:05.440 --> 00:36:12.097
developed the syllabus. How did your
career progress from there? Well, I

00:36:12.130 --> 00:36:20.130
guess the next big occurrence was in,
What would it be about 60 for?

00:36:20.130 --> 00:36:25.986
I got a telephone call one day from a
doctor Jim rafferty at at Lockheed

00:36:26.019 --> 00:36:28.597
Aircraft International.

00:36:28.630 --> 00:36:33.947
He said he wanted to come over and
talk to me. So I said fine, well it's

00:36:33.980 --> 00:36:41.146
the Sudan again, it follows me
throughout my life. Lockheed at that time

00:36:41.179 --> 00:36:44.467
was in the forefront of the
applications of what they were calling.

00:36:44.500 --> 00:36:49.657
Systems analysis was some of the first
really sophisticated analysis of

00:36:49.690 --> 00:36:54.506
systems as a whole rather than bits
and pieces. And they had gone to the

00:36:54.539 --> 00:37:00.697
State Department and said we'd like to
try this somewhere.

00:37:00.730 --> 00:37:06.097
And at that time, relations with the
Sudan was fairly decent. And the

00:37:06.130 --> 00:37:10.697
story goes, i this is all 2nd, 3rd and
4th hand story goes that they said

00:37:10.730 --> 00:37:15.037
, well like he said, well give us a
country to do something with and the

00:37:15.070 --> 00:37:20.097
and the state of my heart and said,
fine, you got the Sudan

00:37:20.130 --> 00:37:25.456
And so rafferty, obviously I wanted to
find out what I knew about the

00:37:25.489 --> 00:37:30.566
Sudan and we talked and we had several
meetings and finally it came down

00:37:30.599 --> 00:37:37.106
to that. We would get a subcontract

00:37:37.139 --> 00:37:42.776
to do the field work to collect
basically soils and information on

00:37:42.809 --> 00:37:48.856
geological situation, soils, aggregate
availability, water availability,

00:37:48.889 --> 00:37:52.217
all the bits and pieces you needed to
design roads. And then we would come

00:37:52.250 --> 00:37:57.267
up with some road designs and cost
them out and give that two Lockheed,

00:37:57.300 --> 00:38:03.566
which they would put in their in their
systems analysis thing. Um Now they

00:38:03.599 --> 00:38:06.157
were doing all forms of
transportation. We were just doing roads, they

00:38:06.190 --> 00:38:11.787
were doing rail, they were doing air,
they were doing water,

00:38:11.820 --> 00:38:15.486
I'm not sure that we're doing water.

00:38:15.519 --> 00:38:19.637
So we put together a team that went
over there for about 18 months,

00:38:19.670 --> 00:38:23.367
traveled throughout all of the
northern central part of the Sudan

00:38:23.400 --> 00:38:29.046
gathering data. We did not go into
south boxes and by that time there was

00:38:29.079 --> 00:38:33.867
a conflict between the south and the
north, which was only, you know,

00:38:33.900 --> 00:38:39.927
solved a couple of years ago. Um so we
couldn't get into the south, but we

00:38:39.960 --> 00:38:43.126
did do all of all over the north and
central part of the country all the

00:38:43.159 --> 00:38:50.456
way from. Mhm names wouldn't mean
anything but throughout Kordofan Darfur

00:38:50.489 --> 00:38:56.686
and all the way up to the Egyptian
border all the way to the coast um

00:38:56.719 --> 00:39:04.407
came to a kind of strange end Because
the 67 war broke out in the Middle

00:39:04.440 --> 00:39:07.287
East and

00:39:07.320 --> 00:39:14.086
the Sudanese misjudged what the
americans do when you cut off diplomatic

00:39:14.119 --> 00:39:19.586
relations. Their experience had
basically been with the british when they

00:39:19.619 --> 00:39:23.847
cut off diplomatic relations with the
british. This happened several times.

00:39:23.880 --> 00:39:26.657
It happened in the original Suez
crisis when I was over there the first

00:39:26.690 --> 00:39:28.677
time

00:39:28.710 --> 00:39:33.347
the british ceremony city, the
ambassador ceremoniously lowered the

00:39:33.380 --> 00:39:37.717
british flag, gets in his limousine
drives to the airport, gets on a

00:39:37.750 --> 00:39:42.477
british military aircraft and flies
away.

00:39:42.510 --> 00:39:48.747
The people in the embassy raise a
danish or Norwegian or some other flag

00:39:48.780 --> 00:39:52.166
and they are the british section of
the Norwegian embassy. So really

00:39:52.199 --> 00:39:57.637
nothing happens except the ambassador
goes home. Well they did. They

00:39:57.670 --> 00:40:00.456
figure that's what the americans would
do. So they, they broke off

00:40:00.489 --> 00:40:03.717
diplomatic relations with us and the
americans just said we're pulling

00:40:03.750 --> 00:40:09.137
everything out where there was a full
load of wheat in a boat on the ship

00:40:09.170 --> 00:40:14.177
on the high seas that was turned
around there was a group doing uh

00:40:14.210 --> 00:40:18.867
constructing the first paved road
without a cartoon. They contractors were

00:40:18.900 --> 00:40:23.436
all given like a week to get out of
the country, luckily we had finished

00:40:23.469 --> 00:40:27.787
our work but our people were still
there so they were airlifted out. Some

00:40:27.820 --> 00:40:32.447
went to some were taking Nairobi
somewhere taking the malta I think and

00:40:32.480 --> 00:40:37.367
then got home from there. The
unfortunate part was that the locking people

00:40:37.400 --> 00:40:41.517
had just about six months before set
up their office. So they were like

00:40:41.550 --> 00:40:45.677
two years from finishing their part of
the job and they were yanked out.

00:40:45.710 --> 00:40:51.236
So the project was just kind of closed
down. Lockie state department

00:40:51.269 --> 00:40:56.927
allowed us to finish what we were
doing and pay us for that. But the

00:40:56.960 --> 00:41:02.876
information was never released.

00:41:02.909 --> 00:41:06.706
So did you come home? And then from
there Yeah I wasn't there at that time

00:41:06.739 --> 00:41:13.157
I was here but well I was over there
for several months over the 18-month

00:41:13.190 --> 00:41:19.577
period but I wasn't there at the end.

00:41:19.610 --> 00:41:24.376
So then you just continue your career
here issue.

00:41:24.409 --> 00:41:31.276
When did you? Yeah. Change or move up
in positions at A. S. U.

00:41:31.309 --> 00:41:36.177
Well by the late 60s I was a full
professor.

00:41:36.210 --> 00:41:39.887
People they move fast in those things

00:41:39.920 --> 00:41:46.646
in 60 nine. I was called by

00:41:46.679 --> 00:41:50.677
the Dean of the graduate school

00:41:50.710 --> 00:41:54.526
to see if I wanted to come and be an
assistant dean in the graduate

00:41:54.559 --> 00:42:01.566
college. Um that was Bill Burke. He
was he was vice president and dean. Um

00:42:01.599 --> 00:42:05.666
, and I did. Um,

00:42:05.699 --> 00:42:09.916
if you're gonna ask me why I did. I
don't know. I guess I just wanted to

00:42:09.949 --> 00:42:14.126
do something different at that time.
By that time I had finish the Sudan

00:42:14.159 --> 00:42:19.026
project, I had ongoing research with a
dot that other people could do. We

00:42:19.059 --> 00:42:25.767
had two or three people now. Faculty
members and transportation. So I was

00:42:25.800 --> 00:42:31.186
not superfluous. But I mean nothing
would happen if I moved over. And part

00:42:31.219 --> 00:42:34.747
of my agreement with with Bill was
that I would continue at least teach

00:42:34.780 --> 00:42:39.077
one course. Um which I did throughout
my career until the end of it. I

00:42:39.110 --> 00:42:43.666
always taught a course this semester
in the department.

00:42:43.699 --> 00:42:46.767
Um,

00:42:46.800 --> 00:42:52.276
it was something different to do. I
guess it was a challenge. And he was a

00:42:52.309 --> 00:42:57.367
nice guy. So what did you do when you
moved over to the graduate college?

00:42:57.400 --> 00:43:03.037
Basically just general administrative
stuff. There was at that time he had

00:43:03.070 --> 00:43:07.747
one assistant and it was than me. We
had two assistants. Harold Honeycutt

00:43:07.780 --> 00:43:11.626
was, his Bill was vice president for
Research and Dean of the graduate

00:43:11.659 --> 00:43:15.186
college. So Harold Honeycutt took care
of the research end of it. And I

00:43:15.219 --> 00:43:18.227
kind of took care of the
administration of the graduate college. So it was

00:43:18.260 --> 00:43:23.296
all kinds of stuff. We ran our own at
that time. And they may still be

00:43:23.329 --> 00:43:26.836
true. I guess graduate college had
their own admissions office separate

00:43:26.869 --> 00:43:33.367
from the regular admissions office.
How large was at college?

00:43:33.400 --> 00:43:38.367
You mean a number of students? Mm hmm.

00:43:38.400 --> 00:43:45.356
I don't remember low thousands I think
because there was always, education

00:43:45.389 --> 00:43:49.827
is the biggest college for graduate
programs because that was our historic

00:43:49.860 --> 00:43:54.427
background. They had a doctoral
program longer than anybody else. Um,

00:43:54.460 --> 00:43:57.467
everybody else was kind of getting up
and I imagine it was in the little

00:43:57.500 --> 00:44:03.557
thousands and a couple of 1000 maybe,
but I don't really remember.

00:44:03.590 --> 00:44:11.590
So how long did you stay with that?
Seven years? Seven years.

00:44:12.389 --> 00:44:20.389
I guess the most,

00:44:21.789 --> 00:44:27.617
I took one year off to go to kenya,
the National Science Foundation grant

00:44:27.650 --> 00:44:34.157
to teach at the University of Nairobi
applied for it.

00:44:34.190 --> 00:44:40.057
Um, why did you want to do that? Um,

00:44:40.090 --> 00:44:45.367
because I had gotten very close to
kenya, um, when I was in the southern

00:44:45.400 --> 00:44:50.427
part of the Sudan and just read a lot
about it and heard a lot about it.

00:44:50.460 --> 00:44:55.986
It was a nifty place and it was
relatively compared to Sudan, relatively

00:44:56.019 --> 00:45:00.657
easy living from what I understood and
it was

00:45:00.690 --> 00:45:04.177
someone over there and taught, taught
for a year. Where were you? What

00:45:04.210 --> 00:45:08.396
part of Nairobi is the University of
Nairobi? And the other reason I think

00:45:08.429 --> 00:45:14.836
the reason I got the award was that a
road research lab in Britain was

00:45:14.869 --> 00:45:19.686
just finishing up a relatively
extensive program when the first programs

00:45:19.719 --> 00:45:26.666
in the world to try and actually
measure and document variation and road

00:45:26.699 --> 00:45:30.017
user costs by kind of roads, you're on
the kind of vehicles you're driving

00:45:30.050 --> 00:45:35.347
, how you drive them. And I happen to
know a couple of the people who were

00:45:35.380 --> 00:45:41.126
on that project. So I kind of attached
myself and said part of my job was

00:45:41.159 --> 00:45:44.577
to interact with them and see how that
was going. But my real job was to

00:45:44.610 --> 00:45:49.387
teach at the, at the university. That
was a good year, same thing. General

00:45:49.420 --> 00:45:55.097
civil engineering, I, I thought one
highway court, but the rest of it just

00:45:55.130 --> 00:46:00.637
general civil engineering, including
surveying what was that? They were

00:46:00.670 --> 00:46:05.427
independent. Yes. Joma kenyatta was
head of the country and head of the

00:46:05.460 --> 00:46:09.247
university. Um,

00:46:09.280 --> 00:46:13.537
again, it was a great time for kenya
and things were relatively peaceful

00:46:13.570 --> 00:46:21.570
bomb, all things have been cleared
off. Um, it was, it was a good time. It

00:46:21.849 --> 00:46:28.546
was

00:46:28.579 --> 00:46:31.856
73 I think.

00:46:31.889 --> 00:46:35.427
Oh yeah, yeah, I'm married now. And a
little girl went to school over

00:46:35.460 --> 00:46:42.967
there for a year. She was in, I think
the 3rd grade and uh, it was an

00:46:43.000 --> 00:46:46.796
interesting experience for her. It was
a little school run by a Scottish

00:46:46.829 --> 00:46:50.546
lady Mrs Sharples

00:46:50.579 --> 00:46:54.316
the first time in her life she had to
wear a uniform. Also the first time

00:46:54.349 --> 00:46:57.486
in her life she had to ride a horse
because mr Sharples had horses, so

00:46:57.519 --> 00:47:00.657
everybody learned to ride a horse
complete with the little black helmets

00:47:00.690 --> 00:47:08.690
and everything. Um, in this country
when she had not all of the writing,

00:47:09.480 --> 00:47:13.896
virtually all the writings she done
been printing, walked in the first day

00:47:13.929 --> 00:47:17.776
in doggy school and she started print
something Mr Sharples said no we

00:47:17.809 --> 00:47:21.706
don't print in the school. We write
cursive. That was probably the most

00:47:21.739 --> 00:47:26.787
dramatic for both her and us for a
while. So she had to write everything

00:47:26.820 --> 00:47:31.416
in cursive. But it was it was a great
experience for her because we had to

00:47:31.449 --> 00:47:35.447
get to the school every day. I drove
her out in the morning Julia and I

00:47:35.480 --> 00:47:41.456
and we walked we drove right past the
Nairobi game park out back every day.

00:47:41.489 --> 00:47:45.936
Of course at any time. We it was a it
was a good game park. Didn't ever

00:47:45.969 --> 00:47:50.106
need elephants which was at this point
but it was right virtually in the

00:47:50.139 --> 00:47:54.816
city almost. But it's several 100
square miles. I mean it's not it's not a

00:47:54.849 --> 00:48:01.396
zoo. Um But it was it was it was
great. Life was, life was good. And we

00:48:01.429 --> 00:48:07.267
still, we lived in university housing
which was The unit we lived in was

00:48:07.300 --> 00:48:14.637
four uh We call them small town
houses, Common walls, two stories high,

00:48:14.670 --> 00:48:19.747
two bedrooms Kitchen, living room down
kitchen, living downstairs, two

00:48:19.780 --> 00:48:26.106
bedrooms upstairs And there were four
families. Ah We still get together

00:48:26.139 --> 00:48:32.646
with three of them. Uh We're spread
all over the country, one in we're all

00:48:32.679 --> 00:48:37.287
retired now but once in New Mexico
ones in texas. And I'm here and we're

00:48:37.320 --> 00:48:42.956
planning another get together for next
year. God willing. Yeah. Yeah, it

00:48:42.989 --> 00:48:48.316
was the 4th person. The 4th professor
was Indian. He was good too. But he

00:48:48.349 --> 00:48:52.137
just, we lost track of him after we
left.

00:48:52.170 --> 00:48:55.017
And they were all on longer contracts
than we were, we were just there for

00:48:55.050 --> 00:49:00.456
a year and they were for a good three
year contracts or your five year

00:49:00.489 --> 00:49:03.747
contracts. How did the graduate
college today issued get along without you

00:49:03.780 --> 00:49:08.537
? They said they missed me.

00:49:08.570 --> 00:49:15.557
Mhm. Um by that time uh building hired
a second assistant, I became

00:49:15.590 --> 00:49:20.197
associate and I was an assistant so
that they got along. And so the

00:49:20.230 --> 00:49:28.006
termites, I lost 100 volumes of books
because termites got into my office

00:49:28.039 --> 00:49:36.039
over in, oh the one that used to be a
dorm. It's our, the,

00:49:36.579 --> 00:49:42.537
I've lost the name. It's where the
America's colleges now.

00:49:42.570 --> 00:49:48.287
Wilson call Wilson hall. Yeah. Well
tell me about how did termites get

00:49:48.320 --> 00:49:53.606
into your books? I came up through the
walls and and had a bookshelf right

00:49:53.639 --> 00:49:56.617
against the wall. And of course it was
an old building and there was lots

00:49:56.650 --> 00:50:01.736
of termites on the campus in those
days and they just got in and I came

00:50:01.769 --> 00:50:05.247
back. I didn't notice anything for
about a couple of days, pull the book

00:50:05.280 --> 00:50:08.436
off the shelf and there was nothing
but the binding and the and the covers

00:50:08.469 --> 00:50:12.827
, all the pages were gone.

00:50:12.860 --> 00:50:15.776
That sounds like a serious termite
problem. That was a serious termite

00:50:15.809 --> 00:50:22.477
problem. Do something to get rid of
them. I think they did, yes,

00:50:22.510 --> 00:50:28.227
if they want any precious first
edition books.

00:50:28.260 --> 00:50:32.526
How long were you located in that
office?

00:50:32.559 --> 00:50:35.907
Seven years?

00:50:35.940 --> 00:50:40.517
I was a graduate college for seven
years. And so then where did you go

00:50:40.550 --> 00:50:44.617
after the graduate I went over to, I
was asked to go over to the Academic

00:50:44.650 --> 00:50:49.486
Vice President's office. The reason
being is that when I was in graduate

00:50:49.519 --> 00:50:54.146
college, one of the first things Bill
Burke did for me was to send me to a

00:50:54.179 --> 00:51:00.876
winter, a summer workshop for new
graduate deans. I said Bill don't even

00:51:00.909 --> 00:51:05.236
qualify him an assistant dean. He
said, forget it. So he sent me off, I

00:51:05.269 --> 00:51:13.227
think we're in Wisconsin for about a
month and

00:51:13.260 --> 00:51:17.546
talked to a lot of other new graduate
deans and some were putting on the

00:51:17.579 --> 00:51:22.157
workshop who were experienced of
course. And I came back and I said, you

00:51:22.190 --> 00:51:26.796
know, what's what's up bill? And said
we've got to start evaluating

00:51:26.829 --> 00:51:31.146
graduate programs. It's the wind of
the future. I talked to a number of

00:51:31.179 --> 00:51:35.896
genes are either doing it or they're
about to implement it. And at that

00:51:35.929 --> 00:51:39.227
time there was no nobody

00:51:39.260 --> 00:51:44.977
um did any evaluation other than their
own internal evaluation of graduate

00:51:45.010 --> 00:51:49.486
programs. Um the professional, like
for example in Engineering, the

00:51:49.519 --> 00:51:53.236
Professional Crediting Organization
doesn't accredit graduates. And then

00:51:53.269 --> 00:51:57.927
in that time graduate graduate
programs just undergraduate programs. Um so

00:51:57.960 --> 00:52:02.097
the only time they ever even looked at
was when we go through North

00:52:02.130 --> 00:52:06.977
central accreditation, which is the
whole university in all programs at

00:52:07.010 --> 00:52:11.336
one time. So I convinced Bill that we
ought to get going on this and in

00:52:11.369 --> 00:52:18.477
about two years we had gotten it
started um with some degree of conflict

00:52:18.510 --> 00:52:23.577
because you were dealing with deans
and department chairs who really

00:52:23.610 --> 00:52:28.506
didn't like the graduate college
coming in with two people to, to evaluate

00:52:28.539 --> 00:52:34.407
how they were doing in their graduate
programs. And uh, but it got done

00:52:34.440 --> 00:52:38.617
and uh, and I think it was beneficial.

00:52:38.650 --> 00:52:46.206
Um, we used people from around the
campus who had kind of associate

00:52:46.239 --> 00:52:50.637
concerns that the particular
department would have. We also brought people

00:52:50.670 --> 00:52:56.756
in from outside, usually at the people
they would recommend. And it went

00:52:56.789 --> 00:53:04.117
very well. I think it was, it was
good. Well to make that long story short

00:53:04.150 --> 00:53:09.517
Nancy had been about mid 70s, I guess

00:53:09.550 --> 00:53:14.816
the winds of change actually hit the
board regions

00:53:14.849 --> 00:53:19.037
and the border regions took the
position that all programs will have

00:53:19.070 --> 00:53:24.017
external evaluation, which meant all
undergraduate programs.

00:53:24.050 --> 00:53:27.736
And since I was about the only person
on campus that had any experience,

00:53:27.769 --> 00:53:31.526
Carl Dana felt talked to Bill Burke
and Bill said, how would you like to

00:53:31.559 --> 00:53:36.287
work for Carl Dana felt he did you
were there to get give the mandated

00:53:36.320 --> 00:53:42.706
regions mandated evaluation program
going. So I went over there and spent

00:53:42.739 --> 00:53:48.697
another seven years evaluating
programs all over campus initially but

00:53:48.730 --> 00:53:51.577
doing all kinds of things.

00:53:51.610 --> 00:53:54.617
I worked there through

00:53:54.650 --> 00:54:01.836
carl's latter years and that page
Mulholland through page you've got much

00:54:01.869 --> 00:54:08.347
more involved with regions, policies,
planning, budgeting, that's where I

00:54:08.380 --> 00:54:12.356
learned that part of it,

00:54:12.389 --> 00:54:15.307
the administration building

00:54:15.340 --> 00:54:22.126
just down the right next to the
president's office ever. The business vice

00:54:22.159 --> 00:54:24.206
president,

00:54:24.239 --> 00:54:29.747
academic vice president and the
president all had their suites of offices

00:54:29.780 --> 00:54:34.456
there on the second floor of the
administration building and then later

00:54:34.489 --> 00:54:38.807
the research vice president,
accounting office up there.

00:54:38.840 --> 00:54:42.407
So it sounds like you got around
campus a lot then you know people

00:54:42.440 --> 00:54:47.586
everywhere. Yes. Yes, yes that was and
that was really what I loved about

00:54:47.619 --> 00:54:52.206
the job that that's what I really
thank Bill Burke for. I got to know what

00:54:52.239 --> 00:54:56.827
a university was because to me prior
to that university was something that

00:54:56.860 --> 00:55:03.407
had an engineering school and it
really gave me it was just very exciting

00:55:03.440 --> 00:55:10.157
, very rewarding for me to really
start understanding at least to some

00:55:10.190 --> 00:55:15.756
degree, the various aspects of the
university. So have you ever, you never

00:55:15.789 --> 00:55:19.606
really had studied like the university
administration?

00:55:19.639 --> 00:55:26.506
No. Did it? The hard way?

00:55:26.539 --> 00:55:32.867
Mhm. Did you enjoy that job? Yeah.
Yeah, I did. I think I've enjoyed most

00:55:32.900 --> 00:55:37.506
every job I've had in the issue. Yeah.

00:55:37.539 --> 00:55:45.539
Is there anything special you remember
about that part of your career,

00:55:45.840 --> 00:55:49.816
there was lots of things special and
we've talked about the a lot of time

00:55:49.849 --> 00:55:54.706
was was spent on getting the
evaluation programs going, keeping healthy.

00:55:54.739 --> 00:55:57.106
Um,

00:55:57.139 --> 00:56:02.927
I also remember being involved with
the computer people who were kind of

00:56:02.960 --> 00:56:08.787
new at that time and the registrar who
was probably the third most

00:56:08.820 --> 00:56:15.327
influential man on the campus,
including the vice president. Um, and

00:56:15.360 --> 00:56:22.927
trying to get the registrar two mm
hmm. Computerized the registrar's

00:56:22.960 --> 00:56:27.097
office that went on for a year

00:56:27.130 --> 00:56:30.427
until we find well went out for longer
than that. It took us almost a year

00:56:30.460 --> 00:56:32.796
to get an agreement.

00:56:32.829 --> 00:56:39.177
Ah and I was given the job of seeing
that it got, seeing the agreement got

00:56:39.210 --> 00:56:42.597
made, which means I was the one that
was between the computer center

00:56:42.630 --> 00:56:47.836
director and the registrar and the
registrar later became a good friend,

00:56:47.869 --> 00:56:52.276
but he was a reputation. It was al
thomas, he had a reputation of really

00:56:52.309 --> 00:56:57.796
being tough and he was tough and if
you read it as if you run a

00:56:57.829 --> 00:57:01.006
registrar's office, you've got to be
tough because everything's gotta be

00:57:01.039 --> 00:57:06.256
accurate in those days. Everything was
paper done. So you had to have a

00:57:06.289 --> 00:57:09.967
group of individuals who were
absolutely dedicated, careful and accurate.

00:57:10.000 --> 00:57:14.927
So yeah, he was tough. Um, also I'm
not sure he liked computers either,

00:57:14.960 --> 00:57:18.456
but that's, that's beyond the point.
But he was, he himself was an

00:57:18.489 --> 00:57:23.137
interesting man. He himself, one
reason I first got to like the first time

00:57:23.170 --> 00:57:27.217
I went to his office, he had a huge
office over in Wilson Hall that wasn't

00:57:27.250 --> 00:57:34.296
all in more building and

00:57:34.329 --> 00:57:37.436
it was a very large office, you could
use it as a conference and all the

00:57:37.469 --> 00:57:44.037
way around the rim had ink drawings of
all the Saudi Arabian cheeks. It

00:57:44.070 --> 00:57:48.997
turns out which I felt when I first
got a, he was, he was sent to Saudi

00:57:49.030 --> 00:57:57.030
Arabia to develop their their
educational system. B he was an artist and

00:57:57.420 --> 00:58:00.166
so he done these paintings, drawings
of all these sheikhs and he had them

00:58:00.199 --> 00:58:05.097
, they're all black and white all the
way around his office. And I guess

00:58:05.130 --> 00:58:10.256
it was at that point we started to
have a little bit of good dialogue

00:58:10.289 --> 00:58:13.907
between us and as I said, by the time
he, I retired, he retired by the

00:58:13.940 --> 00:58:19.316
time he retired, I considered to be a
good friend. Ah but there were a

00:58:19.349 --> 00:58:23.626
couple, there were several hard years
there. That was one thing another

00:58:23.659 --> 00:58:30.907
positive things I think we did is when
a page came we initiated the first

00:58:30.940 --> 00:58:33.186
competitive

00:58:33.219 --> 00:58:38.756
research grants for interdisciplinary
research on the campus and actually

00:58:38.789 --> 00:58:42.296
ran the grants out of the academic
vice president. So I guess it was the

00:58:42.329 --> 00:58:46.936
provost office at that time, there was
a time of switch between academic

00:58:46.969 --> 00:58:52.146
vice president and provost as a title,
but the office was the same. Um,

00:58:52.179 --> 00:58:55.347
that was interesting. So yeah, there's
always all kinds of interesting

00:58:55.380 --> 00:58:58.986
things.

00:58:59.019 --> 00:59:03.006
We encourage, we just let people know
if you want to get together with

00:59:03.039 --> 00:59:06.316
some colleagues outside your own
discipline, right? As a reporter or a

00:59:06.349 --> 00:59:11.626
research proposal and we had a small
committee that reviewed them,

00:59:11.659 --> 00:59:16.057
selected winners, there wasn't a lot
of money. Well there's a lot of money

00:59:16.090 --> 00:59:19.427
at the time. I think it was like
$5,000. Which there's still a lot.

00:59:19.460 --> 00:59:22.427
There's enough to get some research
done. Not if you wanted to go hunt

00:59:22.460 --> 00:59:26.606
elephants in Africa or something, but

00:59:26.639 --> 00:59:32.267
stayed close to home. It was, it was
good money. Yeah. Mhm.

00:59:32.300 --> 00:59:34.927
Okay.

00:59:34.960 --> 00:59:38.827
So that's a good place to change to

00:59:38.860 --> 00:59:42.977
get your water ready to go

00:59:43.010 --> 00:59:46.376
when you're talking about getting the
registrar computerized. You were

00:59:46.409 --> 00:59:52.847
here when the whole computers came on
campus. What was that like? How did

00:59:52.880 --> 00:59:58.356
that change the university? Well,

00:59:58.389 --> 01:00:01.236
I think it just made us more
efficient. We had to do it because our

01:00:01.269 --> 01:00:07.477
graduate students needed computer
knowledge. And

01:00:07.510 --> 01:00:13.026
my, my first PhD student, you know, I
had at that time we had everything

01:00:13.059 --> 01:00:17.477
was punch cards. So he'd walk around
with these big trees and punch cards

01:00:17.510 --> 01:00:20.876
fearing that he'll drop them.

01:00:20.909 --> 01:00:25.986
And so it was really, you know, from
an academic standpoint, it had to be

01:00:26.019 --> 01:00:32.077
done to remain current for, for
graduate students from administrative

01:00:32.110 --> 01:00:37.977
standpoint. Since the university is
growing fast, there was growing a lot

01:00:38.010 --> 01:00:44.896
and this was an answer to being able
to handle some of that growth? Just,

01:00:44.929 --> 01:00:48.327
just mechanically and nothing else.
Just keeping records and and things of

01:00:48.360 --> 01:00:53.157
that nature. So what do you remember
what the first computers were that

01:00:53.190 --> 01:00:56.677
you got and how big they were

01:00:56.710 --> 01:01:00.677
they belong to?

01:01:00.710 --> 01:01:03.577
Was it Motorola

01:01:03.610 --> 01:01:09.586
somebody even when I came out there
was a whole half of a wing in

01:01:09.619 --> 01:01:13.686
engineering that had the computer in
there. One computer my desktop

01:01:13.719 --> 01:01:18.206
probably got more power than that
thing had but it went on and on and on

01:01:18.239 --> 01:01:23.916
and big reels of tape and special air
conditioning to keep it cool and

01:01:23.949 --> 01:01:26.267
yeah.

01:01:26.300 --> 01:01:32.717
And uh that was the first computer.
Well, I did wanna so just to sort of

01:01:32.750 --> 01:01:38.876
put it in context for me, 1962. The
first time I registered at A. S. U. I

01:01:38.909 --> 01:01:44.157
stood out on the football field in the
sun with my cards. Right, okay.

01:01:44.190 --> 01:01:51.276
When did that change? It was a while

01:01:51.309 --> 01:01:57.376
I think we were still registering
people in the more building with cards.

01:01:57.409 --> 01:02:04.256
Ah Pushing about 1970. I think people
still had cards because I vaguely

01:02:04.289 --> 01:02:07.947
recalled my first year or so. In the
graduate college we were over there.

01:02:07.980 --> 01:02:13.717
I was over there helping hundreds,
massive numbers of people sitting at a

01:02:13.750 --> 01:02:17.977
desk. And you have to take your
sociology card to sociology and your

01:02:18.010 --> 01:02:22.566
engineering. Card engineering. And
then if one didn't have that class you

01:02:22.599 --> 01:02:27.767
were dead because nothing else would
work. Nothing else works. You know?

01:02:27.800 --> 01:02:34.066
But they were punch cards. I mean

01:02:34.099 --> 01:02:41.566
mm hmm. So you sort of saw computers
get smaller and more of them? Right.

01:02:41.599 --> 01:02:45.227
By the time you were trying to
actually computerize the registrar's office.

01:02:45.260 --> 01:02:50.967
 How large were the computers then?

01:02:51.000 --> 01:02:55.686
By that time the computer center had
been developed, computer science had

01:02:55.719 --> 01:02:59.666
been created and I don't remember
exactly what computers they had, but

01:02:59.699 --> 01:03:04.566
they had, they had plenty of
capability to to do that. They were still

01:03:04.599 --> 01:03:08.517
bigger than the desktop.

01:03:08.550 --> 01:03:12.287
They still, they weren't running,
we're running on tape still. Um, they

01:03:12.320 --> 01:03:20.267
were running tape, not punch cards.
They were running tape

01:03:20.300 --> 01:03:25.166
kind of learning curve I think for
anybody that was starting to use them.

01:03:25.199 --> 01:03:28.836
Yeah. Yeah. I guess the biggest
breakthrough for most administrators is

01:03:28.869 --> 01:03:31.287
when they got the profit system and it
was, it was kind of like an

01:03:31.320 --> 01:03:35.566
internal email system. And

01:03:35.599 --> 01:03:39.217
prior to that, I think most of prompts
kind of, and let's say we're in

01:03:39.250 --> 01:03:43.997
this area, I didn't use them very
much. The graduate students did, but

01:03:44.030 --> 01:03:48.057
they didn't, I didn't use computers
much until the profit system. I mean,

01:03:48.090 --> 01:03:53.727
I had other people using them, but I
personally didn't use them very much.

01:03:53.760 --> 01:04:00.756
Oh gee, I don't know. Again, I'd say
early 70s,

01:04:00.789 --> 01:04:03.756
maybe mid seventies.

01:04:03.789 --> 01:04:08.497
Mhm. So let's talk about a little more
about your career, you know, where

01:04:08.530 --> 01:04:14.956
did you go from? Okay. Left.

01:04:14.989 --> 01:04:22.989
Let's see, that would have been about
70 85, I guess

01:04:25.889 --> 01:04:31.876
at that point we had an interim
provost, um, who happened to be rolling

01:04:31.909 --> 01:04:37.657
Hayden, who had been dean of the
engineering school?

01:04:37.690 --> 01:04:42.537
He knew me and I knew him, but more
administratively because all I was

01:04:42.570 --> 01:04:48.186
doing during his tenure in engineering
was trying to encourage people to

01:04:48.219 --> 01:04:51.876
do to research but not doing much
myself and teaching one course a

01:04:51.909 --> 01:04:54.657
semester

01:04:54.690 --> 01:04:59.756
anyhow. He was over as kind of an
interim provost

01:04:59.789 --> 01:05:07.789
and one day he called me over he said
I've got it challenge for you.

01:05:08.489 --> 01:05:13.456
No he was not in the public, he was in
he was in engineering. He called me

01:05:13.489 --> 01:05:18.586
over and he said he wanted the value,
he had conceived an excellence

01:05:18.619 --> 01:05:23.967
program with five areas of excellence
and I can't remember what they all

01:05:24.000 --> 01:05:28.617
were but obviously one was computers
ah and one happened to be

01:05:28.650 --> 01:05:33.956
transportation. So he said I want you
to start a transportation research

01:05:33.989 --> 01:05:38.356
center in engineering. Are you willing
to come back and do that? Well I've

01:05:38.389 --> 01:05:42.816
been in the provost's office for about
for about seven years at that point

01:05:42.849 --> 01:05:48.477
I, Okay, that sounds interesting. Uh
And he said I'll support it. He said

01:05:48.510 --> 01:05:53.867
I'll do whatever I can to support it
financially. So we got some lab space

01:05:53.900 --> 01:05:59.236
up on the third or fourth floor of the
new G wing and office space up

01:05:59.269 --> 01:06:04.396
there. And the first thing we were
able to do even just before I moved

01:06:04.429 --> 01:06:12.429
over he and I work with a doctor and
came they were getting a space crunch

01:06:13.079 --> 01:06:19.827
and they had a small ah research
operation of their own which basically

01:06:19.860 --> 01:06:27.860
administered federal research money
coming in.

01:06:36.880 --> 01:06:41.767
Great. You can edit this one out.
Okay, turn it off. Yeah, I might do it

01:06:41.800 --> 01:06:48.057
again. Where were we? Uh Let's see.
You were explaining about this new

01:06:48.090 --> 01:06:52.646
relationship with a dot. Well, yeah
and

01:06:52.679 --> 01:06:57.316
so we came to an agreement because we
we had some space uh in the wing

01:06:57.349 --> 01:07:02.796
because it was new. And so we made an
agreement that would move there and

01:07:02.829 --> 01:07:06.436
research arm

01:07:06.469 --> 01:07:09.546
in the g wing from downtown

01:07:09.579 --> 01:07:13.747
and they'd be on the same floor. Well,
that was a tremendous advantage

01:07:13.780 --> 01:07:17.327
because I could walk over to the
Director of eight hours research and we

01:07:17.360 --> 01:07:21.427
just have coffee discussed things. So
we ended up getting, doing a lot of

01:07:21.460 --> 01:07:27.097
work for eight hours over those five
year, five years. I was there all

01:07:27.130 --> 01:07:32.146
kinds of work um We started a
materials lab because we didn't have a

01:07:32.179 --> 01:07:40.179
really good one. Higher materials ah
professor um did a lot of work on

01:07:40.300 --> 01:07:46.646
traffic operations so that and the
number of faculty that we had in

01:07:46.679 --> 01:07:54.679
transportation kind of kept growing.
It was at its height, it was 5-56.

01:07:55.340 --> 01:07:59.327
If you count the materials person, six
faculty members, which made us one

01:07:59.360 --> 01:08:04.626
of the largest programs in the country
in terms of faculty science. Um and

01:08:04.659 --> 01:08:09.787
we had this advantage of having this
pipeline kind of into into it was all

01:08:09.820 --> 01:08:11.836
competitive,

01:08:11.869 --> 01:08:17.666
but it was an advantage having the
people, there was advantages throughout

01:08:17.699 --> 01:08:22.496
the research effort because you could
the person who was overseeing your

01:08:22.529 --> 01:08:25.817
research, if you had problems, you go
talk to him and said, what, what do

01:08:25.850 --> 01:08:29.076
you guys really need? This is what
we're thinking of doing. So it's just a

01:08:29.109 --> 01:08:31.916
lot more communication because
everybody was just across the hall from

01:08:31.949 --> 01:08:37.836
everybody else. So that worked
Throughout the five years. I was there. It

01:08:37.869 --> 01:08:40.116
seems like an interesting career move
though when you were in

01:08:40.149 --> 01:08:45.567
administration, overseeing a lot of
the whole university to go back to the

01:08:45.600 --> 01:08:48.397
engineering department where it seems
like you were kind of in line to

01:08:48.430 --> 01:08:52.536
move up in the administration. Um,

01:08:52.569 --> 01:08:55.036
not really.

01:08:55.069 --> 01:09:01.756
Um, I had been told and I won't say by
whom, but at least two people who

01:09:01.789 --> 01:09:07.267
knew that an engineer would never be
academic vice president at this

01:09:07.300 --> 01:09:14.807
university. And just because that's
the way it was, that was politics. And

01:09:14.840 --> 01:09:18.887
other than later when Roland was
interim vice president for a couple of

01:09:18.920 --> 01:09:22.767
months, that's the only case I ever
know. So far, we still haven't had a

01:09:22.800 --> 01:09:27.937
vice president who was an engineer.
Um,

01:09:27.970 --> 01:09:30.836
even though I had a lot of
administrative experience and I knew a lot of

01:09:30.869 --> 01:09:33.336
people,

01:09:33.369 --> 01:09:38.256
there was just this gulf of, of
understanding or misunderstanding or lack

01:09:38.289 --> 01:09:41.956
of understanding and so I've been told
that, so I knew, I knew that was

01:09:41.989 --> 01:09:49.277
not in the cards. And so this was the
first time, I, I guess you can say

01:09:49.310 --> 01:09:53.036
when I first came, I had a blank sheet
and I could do what I wanted to do.

01:09:53.069 --> 01:09:55.586
But this is the first time I could do
what I wanted to do with his money

01:09:55.619 --> 01:10:01.536
there. So, and the ability to hire
colleagues and so that was, that was

01:10:01.569 --> 01:10:06.927
that. And uh, great fondness and
admiration for Rolling Hayden. He's, he

01:10:06.960 --> 01:10:12.927
was a good deed. And you also, we're
going back to your academic field,

01:10:12.960 --> 01:10:19.427
which I really had never left but
going back to work full time.

01:10:19.460 --> 01:10:25.227
Did you do more travels? An
international things during that?

01:10:25.260 --> 01:10:31.956
No, not really. I went to a couple of
conferences, one mm hmm.

01:10:31.989 --> 01:10:36.946
And out of the country. But no,
Arizona. Yeah. We did. One of the things

01:10:36.979 --> 01:10:42.416
we started was what was called the
technology transfer program and we

01:10:42.449 --> 01:10:47.097
developed Short courses, some of them
as long as a week, but mostly to

01:10:47.130 --> 01:10:49.326
three days

01:10:49.359 --> 01:10:53.626
basically for county engineers because
a lot of the county and engineers

01:10:53.659 --> 01:10:58.477
some, well, I guess they were all
quote engineers at that point, but

01:10:58.510 --> 01:11:03.307
nobody had really been do anything for
him. So we just started a program

01:11:03.340 --> 01:11:09.326
and instead of bringing them to us, we
went to them. So in the course of 2

01:11:09.359 --> 01:11:15.277
, 3 years, I guess I was in probably
every county in the state and

01:11:15.310 --> 01:11:19.427
sometimes we had to bring it to them
when we gave the short courses and

01:11:19.460 --> 01:11:23.357
how to do what to do with computers.
And by that time we had little

01:11:23.390 --> 01:11:28.527
computers, they had to come here
because that was where the computers were.

01:11:28.560 --> 01:11:33.826
And uh I'll never forget one time I
was we had a bank of about 10

01:11:33.859 --> 01:11:38.727
computers, 10 county engineers in
there. We just got done with our spiel,

01:11:38.760 --> 01:11:44.887
we told Mark and I'll try and do what
we we said, there's one chapter I

01:11:44.920 --> 01:11:47.616
was sitting there

01:11:47.649 --> 01:11:52.727
just looking at this, just sitting. So
finally walked over, I said

01:11:52.760 --> 01:11:58.137
no problem. He said yes. I said what's
the problem? He said, how do you

01:11:58.170 --> 01:12:03.817
turn it on for those who remember the
on off switch was always in the back

01:12:03.850 --> 01:12:08.067
of the computer, never in the front.
So he'd been sitting there looking at

01:12:08.100 --> 01:12:13.416
the computer and figuring gotta be
somewhere to turn this.

01:12:13.449 --> 01:12:17.187
So yeah, we we started with bare bones
stuff but that was fun. We we did a

01:12:17.220 --> 01:12:22.387
lot and we did we did workshops on
maintenance and our materials and all

01:12:22.420 --> 01:12:28.147
kinds of stuff. Those weren't apples
where they were the apple computers.

01:12:28.180 --> 01:12:31.206
I forget what they were. The apples
were weird to turn on. I don't know if

01:12:31.239 --> 01:12:36.817
you remember that, but they had a
couple of no, no, these are these were

01:12:36.850 --> 01:12:41.527
uh huh ibms of some kind. Yeah.
Although it is interesting that that's

01:12:41.560 --> 01:12:47.296
probably the The one generation who
had to as adults and learn how to use

01:12:47.329 --> 01:12:53.956
the computer for kids today. Know what
three on? It's a whole different

01:12:53.989 --> 01:12:59.647
world. Right. Was there any other
experiences during that period that she

01:12:59.680 --> 01:13:03.517
could remember that stand out?

01:13:03.550 --> 01:13:08.477
Because of my my own professional
work. I had always been in, active in a

01:13:08.510 --> 01:13:13.017
group for international and a
transportation research board, a group on

01:13:13.050 --> 01:13:18.017
low volume roads. And

01:13:18.050 --> 01:13:22.576
they have an international conference
every four years. And since I was

01:13:22.609 --> 01:13:25.946
with some kind of in the early years
we sponsored the second, I think it

01:13:25.979 --> 01:13:33.116
was one here in temple, the palms
hotel had just been built.

01:13:33.149 --> 01:13:38.666
That was that brought a fair amount of
notoriety. What are low volume

01:13:38.699 --> 01:13:46.336
roads roads with small traffic
volumes? So the low volume road

01:13:46.369 --> 01:13:50.576
constituency is made up of three
groups of people give you a global volume

01:13:50.609 --> 01:13:54.876
roads. 101. What are people like
myself who are interested in building

01:13:54.909 --> 01:13:59.916
roads for economic development In 3rd
world countries

01:13:59.949 --> 01:14:04.057
to our county engineers. That's what
they have a low volume roads and most

01:14:04.090 --> 01:14:09.756
of them and three you would never
guess the U. S. Forest service. And they

01:14:09.789 --> 01:14:13.557
do some of the best research of all
three groups and they have some of the

01:14:13.590 --> 01:14:18.357
most interesting problems of all three
groups. I remember sitting through

01:14:18.390 --> 01:14:23.217
them one day and make a long time to
make a long story short. And the

01:14:23.250 --> 01:14:27.086
problem they were discussing was
building logging roads. Now when you

01:14:27.119 --> 01:14:31.296
build a logging road it's got to be
able to be strong enough, they don't

01:14:31.329 --> 01:14:35.857
pay them, it's got to be strong enough
to carry the heaviest loads and

01:14:35.890 --> 01:14:41.296
loads heavier than allowed on
interstates, big logging trucks. Alright

01:14:41.329 --> 01:14:44.857
then once they've logged it out Then
they put the road to sleep for 20

01:14:44.890 --> 01:14:46.906
years

01:14:46.939 --> 01:14:50.956
And they want to be able to come back
20 years later and open it up again

01:14:50.989 --> 01:14:56.107
without too much colder now, how do
you do that now? There's a problem and

01:14:56.140 --> 01:14:59.237
that's a, that's some of the kind of
work they do, some of the work they

01:14:59.270 --> 01:15:03.156
do is just and they've got some good
people and good laboratories. But it

01:15:03.189 --> 01:15:06.817
was, even though I was in the business
kind of before I got involved with

01:15:06.850 --> 01:15:11.277
this low volume roads committee, that
was good. I had never even thought

01:15:11.310 --> 01:15:14.847
of, I would never have thought I was
such a group. I mean usually you

01:15:14.880 --> 01:15:19.006
think of traffic as dealing with
congestion. Right, right. But I guess

01:15:19.039 --> 01:15:25.156
that's the whole other side of it,
interesting one interesting modern side

01:15:25.189 --> 01:15:31.357
like to that is that this june july
The 9th conference, remember there are

01:15:31.390 --> 01:15:36.527
four years apart is being held in
austin texas and we're finally getting

01:15:36.560 --> 01:15:41.607
some of the Sudan information
published for the first time. So you've

01:15:41.640 --> 01:15:45.967
stayed working on Sudan all these
years. Uh yeah, in the back pocket kind

01:15:46.000 --> 01:15:49.267
of not working on it because there was
nothing no work to do and there was

01:15:49.300 --> 01:15:53.637
no money to fund anything. But yeah,
I'm a student of the city and I guess

01:15:53.670 --> 01:15:57.046
you said and I think the reason it was
accepted as we had done work in

01:15:57.079 --> 01:16:01.996
Darfur and the part of the project
that we're publicizing is what we did

01:16:02.029 --> 01:16:08.086
in our four. And of course that's a
huge public thing. Now

01:16:08.119 --> 01:16:12.296
if I if I if I said we wanted to do it
with Upper Nile province, nobody

01:16:12.329 --> 01:16:16.786
would care and they wouldn't public. I
don't think anybody heard of Darfur

01:16:16.819 --> 01:16:21.937
until last year. Not many, not many.
It must be sad for you to see what's

01:16:21.970 --> 01:16:29.970
going on. Yeah. Yeah. Said yes. Um but
they are making progress and I

01:16:31.569 --> 01:16:34.937
don't want to get into a long
political discourse. People forget there was

01:16:34.970 --> 01:16:40.286
a long decades long war between the
north and South and that solved. And

01:16:40.319 --> 01:16:43.336
people always say um doesn't do
anything with the U. N. Is down there and

01:16:43.369 --> 01:16:47.107
they're the peacekeepers between the
North and South and when the vice

01:16:47.140 --> 01:16:49.906
president, the north has a president,
two vice presidents. When the Vice

01:16:49.939 --> 01:16:55.147
president, head of the Southern and
the agreement is that in six years

01:16:55.180 --> 01:16:58.967
from the time of the piece, which is
about five years, 4.5 years now, the

01:16:59.000 --> 01:17:03.927
South wall can succeed succeed if they
wish. So that's going to be

01:17:03.960 --> 01:17:07.156
interesting to see, especially since
some of the newly discovered oil is

01:17:07.189 --> 01:17:12.777
down there. Mhm. That always, yeah, it
certainly made it certainly made

01:17:12.810 --> 01:17:15.807
the Sudan and a country of interest to
other countries in the world where

01:17:15.840 --> 01:17:21.137
it wasn't before when I was there,
they grew cotton. Probably more roads

01:17:21.170 --> 01:17:28.397
to get that oil out of there or at
least pipelines.

01:17:28.430 --> 01:17:33.767
So how long did you work on this? Um,
the transportation project? The

01:17:33.800 --> 01:17:40.666
center, I was director for five years.
Um, we were fairly successful. My

01:17:40.699 --> 01:17:44.927
last year there we completed, we
actually build $1 million dollars worth

01:17:44.960 --> 01:17:48.637
of research, which is good to do. And
we had another million dollars under

01:17:48.670 --> 01:17:53.807
contract. And I got another call from
Roland Hayden, this is, I was wrong

01:17:53.840 --> 01:17:59.527
before I was ahead of myself and this
time he was the acting provost. It's

01:17:59.560 --> 01:18:03.357
okay Roland, what is it? He said, come
over, I want to talk to you about

01:18:03.390 --> 01:18:09.036
something. He wanted to, there had
been no real institutional strategic

01:18:09.069 --> 01:18:14.536
planning or much of any kind of
planning in the university. So he wanted

01:18:14.569 --> 01:18:18.687
to create an office of Strategic
Planning. Well, in fact he had, he had

01:18:18.720 --> 01:18:25.737
hired a planner and so we talked about
it. He said there's one other thing

01:18:25.770 --> 01:18:33.770
, nobody's going to respect this
planning office and I have some teeth.

01:18:33.819 --> 01:18:38.036
And he said, what people respect
around here,

01:18:38.069 --> 01:18:40.786
administrators,

01:18:40.819 --> 01:18:46.267
maybe faculty too, maybe faculty to is
money. So what I want you to do is

01:18:46.300 --> 01:18:52.527
I want you to be vice provost in
charge of planning and budgeting. So I

01:18:52.560 --> 01:18:57.057
had this new office of Planning that
had two or three people in it and the

01:18:57.090 --> 01:19:04.487
budget office and I said that sounds
like fun.

01:19:04.520 --> 01:19:09.296
So, so that's what I did basically for
another five years until I retired

01:19:09.329 --> 01:19:17.187
from a strange idea of fun. Why would
that be fun. Um

01:19:17.220 --> 01:19:20.446
Because it's something new for the
university. They were interesting

01:19:20.479 --> 01:19:25.086
people to work with. Ah

01:19:25.119 --> 01:19:31.467
And uh again you're trying to put
units together for the benefit of the

01:19:31.500 --> 01:19:39.500
institution ah which really kind of is
often seen as diminishing their

01:19:40.020 --> 01:19:43.487
bone bailiwick in this case it was the
budget office. The budget office

01:19:43.520 --> 01:19:46.397
was one of the strongest offices in
the university because they control

01:19:46.430 --> 01:19:50.586
the budget and they control the
expenditures and they control all of that.

01:19:50.619 --> 01:19:52.987
 Um

01:19:53.020 --> 01:19:58.017
In fact, but you have to know what the
budgeting process was like. At

01:19:58.050 --> 01:20:02.817
least after page Mahan was here. A lot
of those decisions got made at

01:20:02.850 --> 01:20:07.946
other levels and so the budget office.
Yeah I had the responsibility for

01:20:07.979 --> 01:20:12.006
it and did have a lot of of
interaction with the regions and the

01:20:12.039 --> 01:20:15.777
legislature

01:20:15.810 --> 01:20:21.887
but they didn't really make the
decision of whether Department X got This

01:20:21.920 --> 01:20:26.746
$100,000 or not. That was that was
another one. Um But it was a powerful

01:20:26.779 --> 01:20:31.126
office and all of a sudden it was
under a new all of a sudden it no longer

01:20:31.159 --> 01:20:34.387
for a time it actually reported that
the President's office now they're

01:20:34.420 --> 01:20:39.097
reporting to and vice provost for
goodness sake Along with an office that

01:20:39.130 --> 01:20:47.130
had three people. So yeah it was fun
and and it worked out didn't it? We

01:20:47.199 --> 01:20:50.406
we did some good some good work was
done. Some of the first long range

01:20:50.439 --> 01:20:54.256
planning for the university was done.
We did a physical plan for a

01:20:54.289 --> 01:20:58.876
university which never came about.

01:20:58.909 --> 01:21:02.737
That must be frustrating. Tell me no,
tell me. How did you do with

01:21:02.770 --> 01:21:06.206
physical plan? We had consultants in
to look at the whole campus, tried to

01:21:06.239 --> 01:21:12.017
, we did uh an estimate of how much
the campus would continue to grow. We

01:21:12.050 --> 01:21:14.546
had just bought

01:21:14.579 --> 01:21:16.977
Tempe Center.

01:21:17.010 --> 01:21:24.946
Um so we had some professionals come
in advisors. Um too cute stories

01:21:24.979 --> 01:21:30.876
about that. The first, the first day
they were here they got a ticket

01:21:30.909 --> 01:21:35.217
because they were coming up College
Avenue across the patch in of course

01:21:35.250 --> 01:21:38.076
it was one way that way

01:21:38.109 --> 01:21:42.286
and they said that's your main
interest of campus. We thought that was the

01:21:42.319 --> 01:21:47.866
main interest campus and it's a one
way street going out. Just crazy. So

01:21:47.899 --> 01:21:50.767
they, what they, what they envisioned
in which I don't think we'll ever

01:21:50.800 --> 01:21:57.467
come about remember where it was
taking the, what would be, it would be

01:21:57.500 --> 01:22:04.467
the the corner of Kempe center where
the restaurant was. Was that north?

01:22:04.500 --> 01:22:10.156
The north corner and putting them
making that a major entry cutting right

01:22:10.189 --> 01:22:14.456
across what Tempe center was a major
entry into the campus. Your bride

01:22:14.489 --> 01:22:19.366
kind of like boulevard like entry if
you've been down in your hand. I

01:22:19.399 --> 01:22:24.756
think you go in there, it's kind of a
grand entrance. I never give up but

01:22:24.789 --> 01:22:28.347
that was a good good idea. What did
come about was we also had a

01:22:28.380 --> 01:22:32.166
professional come in and make

01:22:32.199 --> 01:22:36.166
estimates of future population of the
campus

01:22:36.199 --> 01:22:44.199
and this was my Probably about 85 six.
And at that time the estimate was

01:22:45.460 --> 01:22:50.567
that we would be on the main campus,

01:22:50.600 --> 01:22:58.196
45,000 students in 15, 20 years. I had
the honor of presenting that to the

01:22:58.229 --> 01:23:01.487
border regions.

01:23:01.520 --> 01:23:07.366
I won't say they were, I won't say
they laughed me out of the meeting. But

01:23:07.399 --> 01:23:11.626
that was kind of tone of it. It was
just that whole population estimate

01:23:11.659 --> 01:23:15.777
was just kind of ignored because it
was so unreal. Of course it came. It

01:23:15.810 --> 01:23:22.067
was right on. It was it was spot on in
terms of what really happened. Um

01:23:22.100 --> 01:23:26.067
but so planning can be an interesting
thing if you if you push it too far

01:23:26.100 --> 01:23:29.626
, nobody believes you, If you don't
touch it far enough, you're not doing

01:23:29.659 --> 01:23:36.376
your job. But I'm still involved with
in my community with planning. And

01:23:36.409 --> 01:23:40.996
it's just, it's the same thing if if
everybody agrees with you, then you

01:23:41.029 --> 01:23:45.147
haven't done your job because you
haven't pushed it far enough. And uh and

01:23:45.180 --> 01:23:49.777
if nobody agrees with you, you've gone
too far. Maybe not. Maybe you were

01:23:49.810 --> 01:23:53.567
right on. Yeah, but that was just one
thing we were we did get other

01:23:53.600 --> 01:23:56.467
things through.

01:23:56.500 --> 01:24:00.387
It seems like it was an interesting
move for you. Do you think the

01:24:00.420 --> 01:24:04.677
budgeting office would be run by
accountants,

01:24:04.710 --> 01:24:08.427
didn't run the office Director of
budget office from the office? I was his

01:24:08.460 --> 01:24:11.357
boss.

01:24:11.390 --> 01:24:15.477
So you didn't have to be didn't have
to be. I had I was because of my

01:24:15.510 --> 01:24:18.967
other work over the years with
university budgets, I was familiar with

01:24:19.000 --> 01:24:22.977
budgeting but I'm not an accountant.
You don't need to be account to

01:24:23.010 --> 01:24:26.727
decide who gets the money. You need to
be an accountant to keep track of

01:24:26.760 --> 01:24:29.756
the money.

01:24:29.789 --> 01:24:37.357
So how long did you do that? Five
years, five years until 93?

01:24:37.390 --> 01:24:41.956
Is that when the planet came about for
CSU East during that time? That was

01:24:41.989 --> 01:24:45.817
probably the of of what I did. That
was probably the most important thing

01:24:45.850 --> 01:24:51.557
I did because there were only three of
us involved in that Brent Brown

01:24:51.590 --> 01:24:56.397
check back I said engineering and
myself probably the only three people on

01:24:56.430 --> 01:24:59.656
the campus who were even

01:24:59.689 --> 01:25:06.616
mhm disposed to the east campus. But
it was such an opportunity, it

01:25:06.649 --> 01:25:10.706
couldn't be turned down. So yeah, we
worked, we worked that through and I

01:25:10.739 --> 01:25:14.727
guess one of the highlights was one we
convinced the president that he

01:25:14.760 --> 01:25:19.576
should take it to the regions that we
should accept There's hundreds of

01:25:19.609 --> 01:25:24.857
acres and 300 homes.

01:25:24.890 --> 01:25:28.656
What what was the opportunity that
came about? The opportunity came about.

01:25:28.689 --> 01:25:31.597
The federal government decided they
would close the airport and close the

01:25:31.630 --> 01:25:39.147
facility, the whole thing Williams Air
force base. And so what do you do

01:25:39.180 --> 01:25:45.137
with it? So I think it was, it was,

01:25:45.170 --> 01:25:49.317
I'm not sure who actually came
originally hated the idea. It may have been

01:25:49.350 --> 01:25:51.656
Brent brown

01:25:51.689 --> 01:25:57.567
um because his, his, he's got a
brother is still in the legislature I

01:25:57.600 --> 01:26:03.527
think maybe retired this year but
quickly because it was planning it

01:26:03.560 --> 01:26:09.376
landed on my desk. Um The person in
engineering who was entered was chuck

01:26:09.409 --> 01:26:14.597
backers who later became provost of
that campus and we just started

01:26:14.630 --> 01:26:20.347
working it working basically with the
feds.

01:26:20.380 --> 01:26:26.086
And there was a whole, the whole thing
was kind of put out who wants to do

01:26:26.119 --> 01:26:32.446
what and It ended up the two primary

01:26:32.479 --> 01:26:34.746
organizations

01:26:34.779 --> 01:26:42.156
that really kind of got the base was
asked, you came as you east and city

01:26:42.189 --> 01:26:48.616
Mesa. They wanted the runways and they
wanted the runway buildings as you

01:26:48.649 --> 01:26:51.687
know they're flying and they're flying
commercially out of there now. So

01:26:51.720 --> 01:26:56.637
they wanted that part and there was
also beyond the runways. There was a

01:26:56.670 --> 01:27:01.347
couple, there was hundreds of acres. I
can't remember how many that was

01:27:01.380 --> 01:27:06.477
just undeveloped and I think the long
range plan and maybe it still is, is

01:27:06.510 --> 01:27:13.147
to industrialize that kind of like
Scottsdale Airport.

01:27:13.180 --> 01:27:17.656
We got the the, because there was a
lot of instruction going, we got the

01:27:17.689 --> 01:27:22.446
instructional buildings, there was a
big simulation lab where they had

01:27:22.479 --> 01:27:26.557
wonderful simulation machines, you can
learn to fly an airplane that

01:27:26.590 --> 01:27:31.137
became part of ours. We also got stuff
we didn't quite know what to do

01:27:31.170 --> 01:27:35.647
with like as I remember 250 single
family dwelling units which were all

01:27:35.680 --> 01:27:37.847
the officers.

01:27:37.880 --> 01:27:44.376
Um We also got dormitories where the
cadets lived and we've got a brand

01:27:44.409 --> 01:27:50.696
new The year that they gave it to us.
They completed a 50,000 square foot

01:27:50.729 --> 01:27:54.546
administration building. Brand new.

01:27:54.579 --> 01:28:00.946
Um Bless the federal government. Um So
yeah that was exciting and I think

01:28:00.979 --> 01:28:06.437
it's going to be important to their
future. What is your vision for what

01:28:06.470 --> 01:28:11.237
that can become?

01:28:11.270 --> 01:28:16.536
I don't really know. It's there it's
gonna be called polytechnic campus.

01:28:16.569 --> 01:28:20.046
Whether they'll ever whether they'll
ever convince engineering to move

01:28:20.079 --> 01:28:26.347
out there. I don't know um That will
depend on what happens on the main

01:28:26.380 --> 01:28:31.637
campus. The main campus is stuck for
land and as you can see most of

01:28:31.670 --> 01:28:38.357
what's going up is going up
vertically. Um So I I don't know whether that

01:28:38.390 --> 01:28:43.357
become a stronger polytechnic. I don't
think it will become a liberal

01:28:43.390 --> 01:28:48.836
liberal arts college. We learned I was
involved in the very beginning with

01:28:48.869 --> 01:28:54.416
the concepts of branches. It was
played some role in the creation as you

01:28:54.449 --> 01:29:02.307
west. We made a mistake there into
what we tried. What we developed. It

01:29:02.340 --> 01:29:06.937
was kind of like a small a. S. U.

01:29:06.970 --> 01:29:13.206
And it causes some heartburn over the
years because the first couple of

01:29:13.239 --> 01:29:16.906
people we hired to direct it were
hired from outside and of course their

01:29:16.939 --> 01:29:21.777
incentive was gee if I could make this
a freestanding university, I can be

01:29:21.810 --> 01:29:25.076
president of my own university and
there were people on the west side who

01:29:25.109 --> 01:29:27.906
were not opposed to it and there are
legislators on the west side who were

01:29:27.939 --> 01:29:31.836
not opposed to that. Um

01:29:31.869 --> 01:29:38.017
and it took a while to to work through
that problem a couple of decades,

01:29:38.050 --> 01:29:46.050
over a decade. Um I think one of the
things that as you east did was too

01:29:50.949 --> 01:29:56.586
set a new pattern first of all to
really establish these, you were gonna

01:29:56.619 --> 01:30:00.687
have real branch campuses. Now. We had
a small branch downtown at the Mark

01:30:00.720 --> 01:30:05.317
Otto, but it was kind of an enemy
Skype. There were no permanent faculty

01:30:05.350 --> 01:30:09.067
down there, that as I recall, but we
had that little downtown thing and we

01:30:09.100 --> 01:30:15.946
had west which was getting to be
fairly decent sized what as you east did

01:30:15.979 --> 01:30:20.477
as well as providing a great
opportunity for technology and agriculture

01:30:20.510 --> 01:30:24.767
and the people that moved out there
was to solidify the concept today as

01:30:24.800 --> 01:30:31.326
you was in fact going to be going to
have branch campuses

01:30:31.359 --> 01:30:35.977
and that kind of took the wind out of
independence for the west side. I

01:30:36.010 --> 01:30:40.166
think that's a personal opinion. The
other thing we did, which was which

01:30:40.199 --> 01:30:43.027
we should have done on the west side,
but we didn't have the foresight to

01:30:43.060 --> 01:30:48.866
do was to move whole units out. So in
the east campus, technology and

01:30:48.899 --> 01:30:52.397
agriculture moved out there. If you
want to take technology to ask you,

01:30:52.430 --> 01:30:57.786
you go to these campus, it doesn't
exist on the main campus. That was the

01:30:57.819 --> 01:31:00.956
smart, intelligent thing to do and I
think we'll be doing the same thing

01:31:00.989 --> 01:31:05.977
downtown because that's when 10 years
I guess since I've retired more than

01:31:06.010 --> 01:31:10.456
that. But my understanding is they're
going to move the whole college of

01:31:10.489 --> 01:31:14.416
nursing down there. They're not just
going to put a branch down there. So

01:31:14.449 --> 01:31:19.006
that's the way I think that's the
reason some of the reasons issue East

01:31:19.039 --> 01:31:23.687
was important. It solidified the
branch campus concept and it gave us a

01:31:23.720 --> 01:31:27.267
new way of building branches that you
don't have to build a small

01:31:27.300 --> 01:31:34.746
university. You build specialized
units where it's medicine, nursing and

01:31:34.779 --> 01:31:39.036
the whole that whole research area
downtown

01:31:39.069 --> 01:31:42.836
or what's on the world is that So I
don't know what what we'll do in the

01:31:42.869 --> 01:31:49.027
future but we'll do something because
the campus the the only thing that

01:31:49.060 --> 01:31:52.126
it would really help the campus. And
this was something I used to kid some

01:31:52.159 --> 01:31:58.296
of the administrators about was it if
if A P. S. Would just close down

01:31:58.329 --> 01:32:03.597
there peeking operation and we could
get that whole a ps piece of property

01:32:03.630 --> 01:32:08.296
we'd be in, we'd be in heaven. Of
course they never have. But someday they

01:32:08.329 --> 01:32:16.217
will and they issue I hope we'll get
that property.

01:32:16.250 --> 01:32:20.387
So you were really involved in the
very beginning with a issue from the

01:32:20.420 --> 01:32:27.027
very beginning the first time we hired
uh consultant we hired was called

01:32:27.060 --> 01:32:33.317
Edo cause I remember there were
consultants and it was basically them and

01:32:33.350 --> 01:32:38.777
bacchus and Brown and myself. Mhm.
Talk again about, you said you took

01:32:38.810 --> 01:32:43.567
this idea to would you take it to
first to the President? President who

01:32:43.600 --> 01:32:47.836
was the President? Let me go over by
the time we got that far and then

01:32:47.869 --> 01:32:52.597
from there to the regions and what did
they think of it? Hey something for

01:32:52.630 --> 01:32:55.217
nothing. They were there they were I
think they were there was some

01:32:55.250 --> 01:32:58.746
concern that they were getting into
something. They didn't know what how

01:32:58.779 --> 01:33:02.376
much it was costing in the future. But
I think the idea that they were

01:33:02.409 --> 01:33:05.607
getting it for nothing which was
literally two I think we paid a dollar

01:33:05.640 --> 01:33:11.937
for it um and be that we were taking
stuff that they were already paying

01:33:11.970 --> 01:33:17.807
for on the main campus and moving them
out there so that they there was no

01:33:17.840 --> 01:33:23.857
immediate a burst of budget requests
Now they came because we had to build

01:33:23.890 --> 01:33:26.527
some more buildings, we had to rehab
some of the buildings and they knew

01:33:26.560 --> 01:33:29.317
all that but there was no it was not
like you were going to go out there

01:33:29.350 --> 01:33:34.916
and hire 50 600 faculty members. So it
was it was a relatively easy sell

01:33:34.949 --> 01:33:41.960
to the regions and it wasn't a cotton
field or a vacant piece of land like.

01:33:42.350 --> 01:33:44.350
And uh I always admire laddie ay I remember going in there and laying it

01:33:49.670 --> 01:33:53.557
out, he said you know most of the
people on the campus are not for this. I

01:33:53.590 --> 01:33:59.156
said I know that president sure he
said but I think you're right and we're

01:33:59.189 --> 01:34:03.897
going to do it. I said I wasn't that
convincing. Why are we going to do it

01:34:03.930 --> 01:34:07.496
? He said if we don't do it people 20
years from now, I don't think we

01:34:07.529 --> 01:34:11.706
were stupid

01:34:11.739 --> 01:34:14.607
and he was absolutely right. I mean
you don't turn down something like

01:34:14.640 --> 01:34:22.006
that. If you're if you're a growing
institution with with a grand vision,

01:34:22.039 --> 01:34:26.307
how was lady cora to work with?

01:34:26.340 --> 01:34:30.496
I like him very much with a lot of
different presidents.

01:34:30.529 --> 01:34:36.256
Most of them let me go was the first
one. Well I didn't get to know harmer

01:34:36.289 --> 01:34:41.206
that much which was the first one you
really got to know

01:34:41.239 --> 01:34:43.946
I get some water

01:34:43.979 --> 01:34:51.876
wanna um of course larry core very
well. Russell nelson, Russ, nelson.

01:34:51.909 --> 01:34:58.807
Yeah, yeah. What was he like

01:34:58.840 --> 01:35:06.840
for us? I would kind of characterize
as a businessman, he was a student

01:35:11.260 --> 01:35:16.647
and he wasn't academic but in many
ways he wasn't, I think he he was at

01:35:16.680 --> 01:35:21.107
the University of time when he needed
to be there and it was a time when

01:35:21.140 --> 01:35:28.326
budgets were damn difficult. Ah I
remember when I was in provost office

01:35:28.359 --> 01:35:32.467
the year the budget got cut and you
know that that's not fun. So they were

01:35:32.500 --> 01:35:38.057
tough times. Both of those presidents
were in in growth times but times

01:35:38.090 --> 01:35:43.437
when growth was tough it was there was
if you weren't here you just in the

01:35:43.470 --> 01:35:49.857
word in in kind of on the battlefield,
you don't realize just how fierce

01:35:49.890 --> 01:35:53.706
the competition was between the S. U.
And U. Of A. And it wasn't all on

01:35:53.739 --> 01:35:58.406
the football field, it was in the
legislature, it was in the regions,

01:35:58.439 --> 01:36:05.406
it was all over the budgets being cut.
It was a uh bad, bad year for the

01:36:05.439 --> 01:36:09.446
state. Everybody's cut, budgets were
cut and it's just one of those years

01:36:09.479 --> 01:36:11.597
,

01:36:11.630 --> 01:36:15.546
yep, there was only one year, but next
year we're about two years. We were

01:36:15.579 --> 01:36:19.996
back to normal year. Maybe in a year.
We're back to normal, back to normal

01:36:20.029 --> 01:36:24.147
but it was hard in a place that had
never had a budget cut to deal with it.

01:36:24.180 --> 01:36:31.777
But it went all right. I think
everybody's no it was just a shortfall for

01:36:31.810 --> 01:36:37.397
a short period of time and that the
state wasn't going into bankruptcy or

01:36:37.430 --> 01:36:42.597
what year was that? I really don't
remember it.

01:36:42.630 --> 01:36:44.756
I would have been in the academic Vice
president's office but I don't

01:36:44.789 --> 01:36:48.616
remember which year was, it was not
when I was in charge of the budget

01:36:48.649 --> 01:36:52.496
office and it was before that,

01:36:52.529 --> 01:36:56.876
oh overall, looking back at that your
career here, are there any

01:36:56.909 --> 01:37:03.496
particular um challenges that stand
out for you

01:37:03.529 --> 01:37:06.897
particular challenges?

01:37:06.930 --> 01:37:10.126
I don't know everything was a
challenge. It was all but it was all fun. I

01:37:10.159 --> 01:37:15.406
mean it's, somebody once said to me
busy people are happy people and I've

01:37:15.439 --> 01:37:19.637
taken that as my mantra and I think
it's, it's, it's true and I also think

01:37:19.670 --> 01:37:24.897
people who are doing something new are
happy people.

01:37:24.930 --> 01:37:28.897
So particular challenges.

01:37:28.930 --> 01:37:33.906
No, not really. I mean just, I think
one of the challenges going back

01:37:33.939 --> 01:37:41.939
early on was when I was in the
graduate college and I did most of my work

01:37:42.130 --> 01:37:44.777
was involved with the liberal arts
because they had more of the graduate

01:37:44.810 --> 01:37:48.796
programs um,

01:37:48.829 --> 01:37:52.967
to convincing them that I knew
something uh, and maybe even knew something

01:37:53.000 --> 01:37:57.756
about maybe their discipline was
willing to learn and that and that I owe

01:37:57.789 --> 01:38:04.887
all that to uh, to Bill Burke who just
would back me and uh, who's himself

01:38:04.920 --> 01:38:10.456
as a chemist. So he was from the block
of course the NFL was historians

01:38:10.489 --> 01:38:18.086
and it went on like that. Um, but
that, that's all,

01:38:18.119 --> 01:38:23.777
no, no, no. Great overwhelming
challenge. Keeping up with the growth of

01:38:23.810 --> 01:38:28.687
the institution I think was a the day
to day challenge.

01:38:28.720 --> 01:38:31.607
What about achievements? Are there
anything that you're particularly proud

01:38:31.640 --> 01:38:39.640
of that you achieved during here? Um,

01:38:40.920 --> 01:38:45.097
Yeah, I think the creation of the east
campus,

01:38:45.130 --> 01:38:51.557
I'm proud of a lot of the things that
were very important at the time but

01:38:51.590 --> 01:38:54.717
have either become routine or been
forgotten. Such as evaluation of

01:38:54.750 --> 01:38:58.687
graduate programs. I mean that's,
that's routine, nobody don't remember

01:38:58.720 --> 01:39:03.187
that nobody really cares about it
anymore. Who did everyone did it

01:39:03.220 --> 01:39:10.166
probably the thing that the maid
interestingly enough that has lasted the

01:39:10.199 --> 01:39:15.097
longest with me has been to Sudan
project because as I said a few months

01:39:15.130 --> 01:39:17.836
it will be the first time I would have
had a chance to stand up before an

01:39:17.869 --> 01:39:22.607
audience and talk about it and people
are still interested in because it

01:39:22.640 --> 01:39:26.487
was it was the kind of work that
doesn't change, soils don't change, the

01:39:26.520 --> 01:39:30.897
water doesn't change geology doesn't
change. And so the data that was

01:39:30.930 --> 01:39:34.887
collected is still valuable to that
country and to anybody who works there.

01:39:34.920 --> 01:39:41.086
Um How much lasting I think a lot of
things I had lasting value but

01:39:41.119 --> 01:39:45.487
certainly I won't be remembered for
them. What do you think you'll be

01:39:45.520 --> 01:39:50.086
remembered for? Um

01:39:50.119 --> 01:39:56.187
I don't think anybody's remembered
after about two generations. Um

01:39:56.220 --> 01:40:00.786
I think a lot of my colleagues will
remember me for my work with the

01:40:00.819 --> 01:40:05.927
retirees association after I after we
graduated in my third term layer was

01:40:05.960 --> 01:40:13.960
president. Um I started this project,
it was my idea. Um

01:40:15.210 --> 01:40:19.347
I don't know but as I say, I don't
think you're in anybody's unless you're

01:40:19.380 --> 01:40:22.027
a president, you've got your name on a
building. Nobody or there's not

01:40:22.060 --> 01:40:28.107
much Membranes after about one or 2
generations. And even then people have

01:40:28.140 --> 01:40:32.727
to remind them what what's that
building called that? Yeah, that's true. I

01:40:32.760 --> 01:40:37.706
went to the rededication of the more
building and nobody quite knew who

01:40:37.739 --> 01:40:41.977
who whose work. Right.

01:40:42.010 --> 01:40:45.987
Mhm. Are there any particular memories
of your time at issue that you want

01:40:46.020 --> 01:40:51.177
to talk about? Good or bad or? Funny?
I think I've covered covered most of

01:40:51.210 --> 01:40:54.376
them? I think

01:40:54.409 --> 01:40:59.277
The one man I worked for who I haven't
mentioned

01:40:59.310 --> 01:41:01.477
um

01:41:01.510 --> 01:41:07.506
was Dick peck who was academic vice
president provost for a while.

01:41:07.539 --> 01:41:14.416
Dick is a writer, he writes plays and
novels. He's continued to write

01:41:14.449 --> 01:41:22.097
since he retired. He was just, he was
a good guy to work for and I never,

01:41:22.130 --> 01:41:26.916
I appreciated him, but I think I never
appreciated him more than when he

01:41:26.949 --> 01:41:32.196
left. And that's this is the story he
left here to become president of the

01:41:32.229 --> 01:41:35.076
University of New Mexico

01:41:35.109 --> 01:41:39.836
At that point, I hope New Mexico's
ever want to listen to the state. But

01:41:39.869 --> 01:41:43.196
at that point, University of Mexico
had a revolving door for presidents. I

01:41:43.229 --> 01:41:46.767
think they've gone through six, I'm in
10 years or some obscene number

01:41:46.800 --> 01:41:53.237
like that. Um And it was rife with
politics. The legislative, especially

01:41:53.270 --> 01:42:00.357
the both Washington legislation and
the legends were immensely, and I

01:42:00.390 --> 01:42:03.177
remember sitting down with Dick when
he told me he was taking a job. I

01:42:03.210 --> 01:42:10.916
said, why, why that place is, it's
chaos.

01:42:10.949 --> 01:42:15.267
Well, I think it would be interesting.
Well, he was there for as President

01:42:15.300 --> 01:42:22.286
I think for 10 years before he
retired, he was able to to do it. And I've

01:42:22.319 --> 01:42:26.777
admired him probably as I said more
after for what he did after he left

01:42:26.810 --> 01:42:29.786
than even when he was here. But I like
him when he's here. He's a great

01:42:29.819 --> 01:42:33.607
guy I worked for. Did you ever think
that you would want to be a

01:42:33.640 --> 01:42:41.336
university president? And I came
necklace killing that. Um I was one of

01:42:41.369 --> 01:42:45.946
the final two candidates to become the
president of the american american

01:42:45.979 --> 01:42:52.567
university in Cairo. I was a loser.
The other guy was the winner.

01:42:52.600 --> 01:42:59.456
You didn't try again after that. No
not really. Um

01:42:59.489 --> 01:43:07.166
No that was not that many years ago
and uh you can get to an age where

01:43:07.199 --> 01:43:10.546
you're not presidential material
anymore. It's not retirement age, it's

01:43:10.579 --> 01:43:18.579
it's before that It's in your 50s
probably Or at least early 60s um

01:43:19.500 --> 01:43:27.500
you know that I had I had had
connections with almost gone to university

01:43:28.130 --> 01:43:35.366
american university in Cairo and I
connect people I knew there and

01:43:35.399 --> 01:43:39.366
and in fact had been offered the
deanship of Engineering there and almost

01:43:39.399 --> 01:43:45.506
went but that's when they blew up the
american embassy so I didn't go and

01:43:45.539 --> 01:43:49.057
well I almost went a year later and
that's when the assassin assassinated

01:43:49.090 --> 01:43:56.767
the president and that's when I didn't
go. Um but when this it was

01:43:56.800 --> 01:44:02.836
it's a long involved story but people
I knew there were also uh I knew

01:44:02.869 --> 01:44:07.477
what was going on in Cairo so when
that presidency came up they encouraged

01:44:07.510 --> 01:44:13.006
me to to apply and I did if there was
a sad day in my life that was when I

01:44:13.039 --> 01:44:17.256
didn't get that job. I would have
loved that job.

01:44:17.289 --> 01:44:21.557
It sounds like you've always been
intrigued by travel and foreign working

01:44:21.590 --> 01:44:29.137
really in that area wow. Yeah I um I'm
I guess I've basically become a

01:44:29.170 --> 01:44:34.256
student of the of the Nile Valley in
the Middle East. I don't know much

01:44:34.289 --> 01:44:37.347
about the rest of the world but

01:44:37.380 --> 01:44:40.517
you're part of any of the exchange
programs. I know students from over

01:44:40.550 --> 01:44:43.656
there that come over here.

01:44:43.689 --> 01:44:47.956
Yeah. In fact

01:44:47.989 --> 01:44:55.107
my daughter was born at that time. We
had a lot in engineering. A lot of

01:44:55.140 --> 01:44:57.656
got a lot

01:44:57.689 --> 01:45:02.517
half a dozen maybe Nigerian students
and I was their advisor. I was still

01:45:02.550 --> 01:45:09.217
in the department at that time. And so
yeah normally in those years when I

01:45:09.250 --> 01:45:13.406
was in the department, if there were
forward students uh if they were

01:45:13.439 --> 01:45:16.656
undergraduates I ended up being the
advisers. If they were graduate

01:45:16.689 --> 01:45:20.437
students they would have to be in
transportation or or they would have had

01:45:20.470 --> 01:45:24.046
another adviser. But yeah I did a lot
of advising

01:45:24.079 --> 01:45:30.456
the other job I used to do um Fran
gill who who ran the admissions office

01:45:30.489 --> 01:45:34.737
for the graduate college. We're back
in the graduate. I found out that I

01:45:34.770 --> 01:45:39.057
knew something about foreign
transcripts

01:45:39.090 --> 01:45:46.326
and so Fran had a chair next to her
desk and chair straight here. It

01:45:46.359 --> 01:45:51.847
became known as matt Doctor Betsy's
chair because about twice a week I go

01:45:51.880 --> 01:45:57.336
in there and she and I would go over
all the foreign applications and that

01:45:57.369 --> 01:46:02.847
was fun. So yeah if there's an
opportunity to keep my finger in things

01:46:02.880 --> 01:46:10.880
international, I did it. But a lot of
times there wasn't

01:46:11.800 --> 01:46:19.706
right, you know, I I knew the chap at
srp who ran that program, but no, I

01:46:19.739 --> 01:46:24.546
was never personally,

01:46:24.579 --> 01:46:28.237
I'm trying to think, I'm trying to
think of his name. He was from the

01:46:28.270 --> 01:46:36.270
Middle East sounds fascinating, the
differences and the similarities.

01:46:36.680 --> 01:46:40.357
Um We'll talk a little bit about how
you saw A. S. U. Changed from when

01:46:40.390 --> 01:46:46.647
you came here in 1961 to today.

01:46:46.680 --> 01:46:53.746
How do you describe it from our
university? Barely out of its eggshell

01:46:53.779 --> 01:46:58.317
to what I think is one of the best
universities in the country and with a

01:46:58.350 --> 01:47:04.946
future that she was. No, and I mean I
don't know what it will become, but

01:47:04.979 --> 01:47:07.647
it will be a great university

01:47:07.680 --> 01:47:13.246
um unless it unless the state goes
bankrupt.

01:47:13.279 --> 01:47:16.076
Well you laugh, but that has happened
to good universities before. They've

01:47:16.109 --> 01:47:22.647
been in the wrong states at the wrong
time. So it's got to be

01:47:22.680 --> 01:47:27.147
I guess it's it's one of the roles

01:47:27.180 --> 01:47:32.307
we've always wanted to play and not
always were able to and that is in the

01:47:32.340 --> 01:47:36.487
development of the economic
development of the state. Initially the value

01:47:36.520 --> 01:47:42.647
of the valley. Um

01:47:42.680 --> 01:47:48.567
Going back kind of the beginning
again, we used to say that the biggest

01:47:48.600 --> 01:47:52.746
thing we lack

01:47:52.779 --> 01:47:56.446
was a phoenix address

01:47:56.479 --> 01:48:02.177
because for in those early years it
was it was a Tempe legislators, not

01:48:02.210 --> 01:48:06.866
the phoenix laters and we didn't have,
they weren't negative, but they

01:48:06.899 --> 01:48:11.786
weren't out there. You know, if you
had after all Maricopa county's got

01:48:11.819 --> 01:48:14.756
half the legislature, if you've got
that, half the legislature pushing for

01:48:14.789 --> 01:48:19.456
you, you can move a lot faster. And so
that was one of the things we used

01:48:19.489 --> 01:48:23.147
to say in the office. In fact, at one
point I think I actually

01:48:23.180 --> 01:48:28.897
investigated whether we could get this
address. Yes,

01:48:28.930 --> 01:48:32.456
we could have gotten a post box, but
it was considered a little tacky to

01:48:32.489 --> 01:48:40.336
do that.

01:48:40.369 --> 01:48:48.017
Well, but yeah, it's the legislators
from the metropolitan area, but I

01:48:48.050 --> 01:48:52.916
know that's the whole county, but um
it's the phoenix later legislators,

01:48:52.949 --> 01:48:59.107
That's still him the numbers and
that's what it is. It's funny thing you

01:48:59.140 --> 01:49:03.536
learn about the legislature is
numbers. So is that part of your reason for

01:49:03.569 --> 01:49:09.406
having the downtown campus? Yes. Oh
yes, absolutely, absolutely. You got

01:49:09.439 --> 01:49:16.677
presence downtown. Absolutely. Because
we had ah we had without a doubt,

01:49:16.710 --> 01:49:20.687
we didn't know what was gonna happen
to it. It never did kind of really

01:49:20.720 --> 01:49:24.836
flourish. But absolutely.

01:49:24.869 --> 01:49:28.286
Just to put your name on that big
building down, that pretty prominent

01:49:28.319 --> 01:49:34.637
building. Yeah, Yeah. Yeah, No, that
was absolutely true.

01:49:34.670 --> 01:49:37.256
Yeah, that was that, that was, that
was a no brainer as far as we were

01:49:37.289 --> 01:49:40.836
concerned when we got that
opportunity. I know there was some toxic,

01:49:40.869 --> 01:49:47.137
you're bailing out Governor Symington
bankrupt building.

01:49:47.170 --> 01:49:52.586
Yeah, there was such a shock then I
won't come on the, not even for

01:49:52.619 --> 01:49:57.557
history history

01:49:57.590 --> 01:50:05.126
do you think that the university gets
enough credit for it? The state,

01:50:05.159 --> 01:50:10.006
I think it's beginning to um this is
not a state that lavishes money on

01:50:10.039 --> 01:50:14.267
education. That's one of the things
that the state has to come to grips

01:50:14.300 --> 01:50:20.086
with uh what the universities and I
include all of them have done with the

01:50:20.119 --> 01:50:26.626
mountains amount of funding that
they've gotten has been spectacular. Um

01:50:26.659 --> 01:50:34.659
If you look at any index of state
dollars per full time student or per

01:50:34.760 --> 01:50:38.477
graduate degree degree and and I don't
care what index used across the

01:50:38.510 --> 01:50:42.647
country. We're still, I don't know
where we are right now but I would

01:50:42.680 --> 01:50:46.746
guess we're still in the bottom third.
Um But it's true throughout

01:50:46.779 --> 01:50:53.866
education From K through 12. So it
seems to me it's it's um it's a very

01:50:53.899 --> 01:50:57.887
conservative state in terms of, well
it's very conservative state period,

01:50:57.920 --> 01:51:03.227
especially fiscally conservative and

01:51:03.260 --> 01:51:07.546
maybe it made it made us better
universities because we didn't have slush

01:51:07.579 --> 01:51:12.376
money. We had to make every dollar
counts. Maybe that was a good thing.

01:51:12.409 --> 01:51:19.116
But boy, it was tough and uh so that's

01:51:19.149 --> 01:51:23.597
that's a challenge for the state I
think is the, if it really wants to

01:51:23.630 --> 01:51:28.126
become

01:51:28.159 --> 01:51:36.159
research or even think tank
powerhouse, it's got to spend more on

01:51:36.199 --> 01:51:41.237
education from top to bottom. It seems
like the trend now is to get

01:51:41.270 --> 01:51:44.517
private money. Yes.

01:51:44.550 --> 01:51:51.307
It's always been, you know asked
carbon Yale when the car came about, uh,

01:51:51.340 --> 01:51:58.177
it and it's always been that before,
uh, both private universities, they

01:51:58.210 --> 01:52:03.206
had to have it, but good public
universities, Penn University, penn state

01:52:03.239 --> 01:52:09.017
Illinois. They all got lots of private
money before.

01:52:09.050 --> 01:52:15.317
Oh, you know, at various points in
their history. Ah and we're just

01:52:15.350 --> 01:52:19.996
starting that now their private money,
like Illinois got a lot of money in

01:52:20.029 --> 01:52:23.326
railroads where you've got a lot of
rail, more money down there, a lot of

01:52:23.359 --> 01:52:27.987
structural money. I remember when they
built a full sigh, a full scale

01:52:28.020 --> 01:52:33.366
full size railroad bridge to test in
one of their laboratories. Um, that

01:52:33.399 --> 01:52:36.496
was a good project. I'm not making fun
of it, but that, you know, they had

01:52:36.529 --> 01:52:41.256
the money to do it and they had the
banking of backing of people of

01:52:41.289 --> 01:52:46.496
railroad money to do it. So hopefully
we'll get high tech money to do it

01:52:46.529 --> 01:52:54.456
here or whatever the next thing is.
But it's still people and brains was

01:52:54.489 --> 01:52:58.906
going to move it forward. People with
brains and education because there's

01:52:58.939 --> 01:53:04.116
a lot of people in this world with
brains and no education and all you

01:53:04.149 --> 01:53:08.857
have to do is work in the
underdeveloped world. You know that, um, we

01:53:08.890 --> 01:53:13.387
don't have a corner on brains. We
have, we have a big corner on education

01:53:13.420 --> 01:53:16.887
in this country. We don't have a
corner on brains. We can buy brains and

01:53:16.920 --> 01:53:21.647
bring them in from other countries.
Um, but we are not into, well, I don't

01:53:21.680 --> 01:53:28.246
think we're, we are genetically
smarter than anybody else, but we've got

01:53:28.279 --> 01:53:32.607
the best education system in the world
and when the state realizes they

01:53:32.640 --> 01:53:37.286
need to have the best education system

01:53:37.319 --> 01:53:41.717
in the west or in the country,

01:53:41.750 --> 01:53:46.187
then we'll, we'll start continue to
move forward where it's not starting

01:53:46.220 --> 01:53:50.076
to move, we're moving forward really
nicely now, but it's got to be kept

01:53:50.109 --> 01:53:54.887
up. And so I'd like to be around 30
years from now and see what it's like.

01:53:54.920 --> 01:53:59.626
I've been retired for what it doesn't.
So I'd like to see in the next 12

01:53:59.659 --> 01:54:03.107
, 15 years, see what, what happens.

01:54:03.140 --> 01:54:06.576
What kind of advice do you give to
young people that are just starting out

01:54:06.609 --> 01:54:13.607
trying to choose a career,

01:54:13.640 --> 01:54:18.406
trying to determine what you'd like to
do,

01:54:18.439 --> 01:54:24.706
but realize you may change your mind

01:54:24.739 --> 01:54:30.326
and pet the best school you can get
into and it can afford no matter where

01:54:30.359 --> 01:54:38.359
it is, go for the best and that's what
I would advise them. Um,

01:54:38.840 --> 01:54:43.177
I guess that's what I did. I wanted to
be a physicist, came away wanting

01:54:43.210 --> 01:54:48.477
to be an engineer. I went to the best
school I could get into. That's,

01:54:48.510 --> 01:54:53.067
that's what I'd advise people who do.
That's not saying they shouldn't go

01:54:53.100 --> 01:54:57.737
to their own state University because
movie, that's the best they can

01:54:57.770 --> 01:55:04.307
either get into or movies, the best
they can afford. And uh,

01:55:04.340 --> 01:55:07.206
that's what they should do. Try and
figure out what they want to do,

01:55:07.239 --> 01:55:14.156
realize they may not do it in the end,
but, but to have a a core of

01:55:14.189 --> 01:55:19.006
knowledge,

01:55:19.039 --> 01:55:23.017
you can always broaden. Hopefully if
you get a good education, you will

01:55:23.050 --> 01:55:26.406
continue to get a good education your
whole life and your scope will

01:55:26.439 --> 01:55:34.439
continue to broaden. So you may start
out to be something that it's narrow

01:55:35.050 --> 01:55:41.506
and whether it's an engineer
accountant or a sociologist, or physicist,

01:55:41.539 --> 01:55:46.937
mathematician, I don't care, um
there'll be opportunities to change into

01:55:46.970 --> 01:55:52.706
broaden. one thing I have

01:55:52.739 --> 01:55:56.467
kind of change my own attitude on over
the years. I used to be an advocate

01:55:56.500 --> 01:56:00.586
of kind of broad general education

01:56:00.619 --> 01:56:04.347
in the sense of a general education
degree, a kind of a, you know,

01:56:04.380 --> 01:56:11.456
delicatessen approach to life, but
without a real specialty. Uh I'm not

01:56:11.489 --> 01:56:15.397
sure that that is really a good idea.
I think somebody should have a core

01:56:15.430 --> 01:56:20.467
of knowledge and whether they actually
exercise it or not. I think it's

01:56:20.500 --> 01:56:24.826
the discipline of getting a core of
knowledge that will carry you through

01:56:24.859 --> 01:56:28.046
that you don't get if you're taking
two hours of this and three hours of

01:56:28.079 --> 01:56:34.397
that. So I have my own educational
philosophy has changed over time.

01:56:34.430 --> 01:56:38.097
Mhm. I think most of the questions I
have for you, is there anything that

01:56:38.130 --> 01:56:43.116
you wanted to? I didn't ask? You know,
I think I told you every story I I

01:56:43.149 --> 01:56:48.307
know my wife will tell me you told
every story, you know,

01:56:48.340 --> 01:56:51.237
that's

01:56:51.270 --> 01:56:55.517
because she's heard them all before.

01:56:55.550 --> 01:57:01.237
Just as a clarification right now, you
can just put the clarification okay.

01:57:01.270 --> 01:57:07.876
Story. Okay. I think when I was
talking about Beirut and Cairo and about

01:57:07.909 --> 01:57:12.597
the presidency in Cairo and that I was
offered the universe the deanship

01:57:12.630 --> 01:57:18.706
of Engineering at American University
in Beirut. I think I may have said

01:57:18.739 --> 01:57:22.696
the american university of Cairo. It
was the american university of Beirut

01:57:22.729 --> 01:57:28.987
where I was offered the deanship and
was about to take it until Malcolm

01:57:29.020 --> 01:57:33.376
Kerr was was assassinated. It was the
american university of Cairo where I

01:57:33.409 --> 01:57:37.626
interviewed for the presidency. I
think it's good just having that, just

01:57:37.659 --> 01:57:41.317
having that little bit, everybody's
researching that american University,

01:57:41.350 --> 01:57:45.107
I guess you never know what they're
going to be researching. Did joon did

01:57:45.140 --> 01:57:49.916
you have anything? You know, I'm glad
you did mention about the project

01:57:49.949 --> 01:57:56.696
that you had started with A s you are
a Oh yeah, I'm so glad that you are

01:57:56.729 --> 01:58:05.520
being interviewed as part finally. Did
you have anything? No. Mhm.