I'm pam Stevenson and our photographer videographer today is Manny Garcia
and it's monday january the 9th, 2000 and six and we are doing a living
history interview for the living history video project for Arizona State
University retirees association. And we are at the visitor's information
center of a issue at rural and
be much longer. They're closing in. Uh and I'd like to have you introduced
yourself if you could give us your full name. My name is Charles E bacchus
known as chuck to most people. And you tell me when and where you were
born. born in 1937 in wade's town. West Virginia, raised in west Virginia
and went to college in Ohio Hi university and then went to the University
of Arizona for my graduate degrees. Let's talk a little bit about growing
up in west Virginia. Is that where you grew up? What did your family do or
how many kids were in your family?
Well, one of the biggest influence I guess was that both of my
grandfathers and their families were backward farmers in west Virginia and
my father do a set of circumstances became a methodist minister and so we
in those days they rotated every couple of years. And so we moved all over
west Virginia. I was growing up but always with the roots, my grandparents
not too far away
and he actually moved to Ohio and 53. Well I was going into junior junior
year of high school and but then he moved away just a year later. And so I
sort of stayed at this little farming community work in my room and board
and finished up high school and then went to high University
and engineering,
moving that much brothers and one sister, one older sister and yeah, it
became more difficult. The order you got to uproot and change again, but
probably not bad experience in retrospect of
having to make new friends and so forth fairly quickly. So that wasn't all
bad. And my home being a minister in those days, you didn't make very much
money and so we didn't have much money at home, but a lot of books and so
that was probably not a bad environment either. So were you a good student
?
I guess, so that it was never a major driving force in my life. But yeah,
I guess I was a good student.
It was college, something you always planned to go to college. Yes. Um,
that was just expected. Again, we didn't have much money, but my, my
mother was a schoolteacher and actually started teaching school when she
was 16 before they had colleges in those days. My father,
I didn't decide to go to high school until he was 20, they didn't have a
high school actually within walking distance. And so after he got his call
to the ministry, he had to go to high school first and then to college and
then the seminary, so pretty late start in life, but it was just sort of
expected that my sister and I would go, did you know, growing up, what you
wanted to study or what not at all. I, I figured out that I didn't want to
be a minister.
Ah but I don't know, I guess I was in high school in a small town in Ohio
and one of my teachers just said, well you're good at math and there's a
big demand for engineers and it pays well. So I said, okay, cool, find out
for engineering. It wasn't a real passionate, but I always interested in
the world around me and how it operated. I mean I was inclined that way. I
just didn't know what the label was to go with it.
And so you went to Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, the first university
west of the Allegheny Mountain. No claim,
I wouldn't know and went um
Very well. I, I came from this very small high school there 15 in my
graduating class and you know that we just had one year of algebra and and
no physics and chemistry and so I had to do a lot of makeup courses and I
was concerned about being thrown this big universities. So the first
semester, first half of next semester actually I worked really hard. I
thought I was going to have to try real hard and I did and, and I had
straight A's by the end of the midterm. So I started slacking off and
enjoying myself a little bit. But
now it was enjoyable. But I I was married between my sophomore and junior
years. So my wife and I were married when we were 19, so sort of rushed
everything along. Yeah, that's young to be married, yep. And we had our
three kids before, we were Whatever, it was 24, something like that. And
so
so did you know, what did you have time to put three kids to think about
what you're gonna do for a career? Well, um, other than uh when I
graduated from high University and Mechanical Engineering, I decided that
I I didn't think I wanted to be a mechanical engineer, which was not time
to realize that. And but there was a new field blossoming and nuclear
engineering, which you just needed to have engineering degree to go into
on a graduate level. And so um I decided that that was interesting. I've
had one course as an undergraduate in that field. So I, there weren't very
many schools in nuclear engineering at the time and you have a, was one of
them. And so I played there in several other places, but they, they
offered me a assistantship
and I've been to Arizona and I wanted to come to Arizona. So
what did you like about Arizona?
I've always been sort of an outdoors oriented person and and I've been out
here and hiked around a little bit and traveled in Arizona and it's just
huge variety of terrain and outdoor experiences available. When did you
come to Arizona 1959
and we had
two Children at that time I guess.
Don't, what did your wife think about Arizona? She's always hot brown. She
was from Ohio and I'm not sure she'd ever been out of the state before.
But so we, we came to Arizona and and uh but the outdoor life I was
interested in was very cheap, which was an appropriate thing for graduate
school. So I did a lot of hiking and climbing and campaign and so forth
during the graduate school days and usually worked away in the summertime.
And so we got to experience various other places. And in the west you
were studying nuclear engineering at that point. What were you planning to
do with that? Well this was post um Sputnik days, you may recall Sputnik
went up in 57. So there was, and that's when I was in college and
and interested like any fetish young man perhaps uh in up and coming
things. So my interest was in getting into
working on power systems for space space vehicles and in nuclear
engineering. There's was one of the ah Up and coming things at the time
too. But it was one of the two basic sources of energy that one could use
in space. You can't take a lot of fuel to operate satellites, Sony, there
has to be a nuclear source of a small come back or it had to be solar and
solar was just getting started at the time. So I went space power area and
when I graduated in
65 with my PhD, I went to work in Pittsburgh of all places and for
Westinghouse because they built satellite systems and nuclear power
systems. I worked there for three years before I got a call from A S. U.
One of my colleagues had come on the faculty here and called me in
Pittsburgh and so they were looking for another nuclear engineer kind of
person on the faculty at issue and asked if I'd be interested in, the more
I thought about, the better sounded coming home now. Has that been
something you thought about going into teaching? Yes, uh I enjoyed it
because my assistantship, I did a lot of teaching when I was in graduate
school before I went on a research assistant ships for my doctorate
dissertation and I enjoyed it and was convinced by the chairman of that
department that if I'm ever interested in teaching, I needed to go ahead
and get my union card first. And so, and if you ever drop out, you'll
never start again. So you better just keep going. And so I took that
advice, just kept keep that option open. I've always been keeping your
options open. So, so what was a s you like when you came in? What year did
you come here, 68 68. It had only been a university Really less than 10
years at the time. Ah And most of the people were originally hired in in
the initial hiring process. Um Dean lea Thompson was the Dean of
Engineering and he had started the engineering school from scratch. Like
all the other colleges, business and engineering were strong colleges at
that time and for several years after that, partly on the the
personalities of the two deans. But um Thompson had come here, was hired
to become to be the founding Dean of Engineering 56 so long before the
vote to make it a university and was strong participant in getting at the
referendum passed and all that sort of thing. And it was a very
uh teachers, college philosophy, it had always been a teacher's college.
All the administrators university were teachers,
the strong philosophy at the time, which certainly Dean Thompson had was
that our purpose in Arizona was to educate the citizenry of Arizona. Our
job was to provide educational opportunities so that they could pursue
their areas of interest to prepare them for life. And that was our sole
job. There was very little interest and certainly no encouragement to do
research, which I found a little disappointing because that's what my
primary interest really was. And so um the whole atmosphere,
I was teaching oriented, very good teachers. For the most part, not all
the faculty then were phds
that wasn't a requirement kind of thing in those days and that was sort of
the transition of american universities in general and 60s of sort of
requiring that and sufficient pool of graduates that they could, could
require before that had been a little difficult, certainly in areas like
engineering. So it was a different environment, There was really no
encouragement to work with industry and of course I was coming from
industry. Uh first of all, they don't give you any credit for having
worked in industry and academia. Um but um I I remember Dean Thompson
telling me that we shouldn't accept any gifts from, from the equipment or
anything else from industry, which is quite contrary to what I spent a lot
of my life doing what was his magic. Well that if they give you something
and you're obligated to do something for them and we need to be
independent and not obliging to anyone or any sector or whatever. So it
was
maybe a little idealistic but more the traditional educator point of view
that we're looked at from society as independent, credible sources of
information and if you get tainted in some way that you owe somebody
something and that would undermine that kind of image and reputation. Mhm.
What was your first job title when you came here? Professor of
Engineering? We didn't have departments of engineering yet. We just had
and no no titles like electrical or mechanical engineering. That was an
artifact of how Dean Thompson had to get to college started through the
board of regions and over the U. Of A's objection. You couldn't call them
electrical engineers or whatever, you just became engineers. And how big
was the school at that time? Uh the university or the engineering school's
not that I can answer. Probably either question. Ah
The engineering Engineering school, I really don't know. I guess maybe
maybe 1500 couple 1000 students. He was an athlete. About
100 or so. Where were you looking in? Engineering G wing, which are
relatively new building at the time?
I was in Mechanical Engineering Faculty, which sort of housed the subset
of nuclear to these two nuclear engineers. But I had a, you know, a
bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, so that was appropriate. So I
could teach mechanical engineering courses. And and those days we all
taught for Courses, courses. And so they're all 12, 12 credit hours a
semester. And I taught a lot of lab courses which take even more time in
that. But I was interested in research and I guess sort of the the nice
thing is that they didn't say I couldn't do it. And so I started some
activities on the side and and writing the proposals, I decided when I
came since I was in uh nuclear space power and all of the contracts were
going to the solar cell people, Satellite people were winning all the
contracts. So when I came here in 68 when I decided, well I'm smart enough
to join the winning team. So I decided I'll become a solar expert. So I
had to set in a lot of courses here about electronics that I had some
background in, but not enough. And so I became
Uh interested in an advocate and a researcher in in solar energy then
starting in 68. Now at that time in Arizona where it was solar energy
other than you were talking about your skin for space, but where was it?
Okay, very little. Uh, then other than, um, And there's several examples
where there were solar engines and so forth, operating like in Tempe
Arizona in 1902. Uh, and other places, uh, there had been a solar
conference here in 56
in which they created an international solar energy society.
And uh, Professor Yelich was here um and affiliated with architecture and
he had been here locally and was instrumental in that conference. And, and
uh, so the International Solar Energy Society office was in Tempe at an
engineering issue at the time and it was being moved out about that time
to Australia because there was so little activity in the US. So the issue
was very instrumental in the very early history of solar energy,
But down to about zero at that time,
did you think at that time that your career, when you moved to Arizona,
that this was going to be your final place for your career? Or what were
your thoughts in coming here? They moved career? Um
I don't know if I had made a commitment to stay indefinitely. I'm not a
very um
short term thinking individual in general. And so I don't fritter here and
there as a general rule. So
you never know you can't project Your own career for 40 years in advance.
I'm just happy with what I was doing and progression over the years today
, as you were very happy and changes that occurred today issue throughout
all those years. And so it was very compatible and instrumental in a lot
of those changes. So that was very, very good. Well, you're gonna mention
before we started about telling me more about the history of the
engineering department is a good place to do that. Sure. And I've already
alluded to
Uh Dean Thompson, Lea Thompson who was hired in 56, he was a native
Arizona and um but went away and was at texas A and M. Teaching
engineering at the time. and uh invited back to start the engineering
program in 56, Hired George Weekly in 57 and the two of them and
orchestrated getting the approval through the board of regions to
establish an engineering program here. Of course at that time, this wasn't
even a university in 57. And
do you have a dominant as it was and continues to be um had the only
engineering school and the whole state of Arizona all those years. And so
there was a lot of opposition And um but they were successful in getting
the referendum passed in 58 to become a university but they had to
organize this special kind of engineering to get it through the border
regions and unopposed by the U. Of A. And that they had to have a general
engineering. And so they came up sort of as a requirement of that. But
with a concept of engineering that was unique in the country, meaning that
that a philosophy that your first of all an engineer and then second of
all specialists. So the first three years of engineering, it was the same
core for everybody where they're going electrical or mechanical or
chemical and you only sort of specialized that last year. And so that was
very unique and therefore you couldn't say well you're just duplicating us.
And so that was the original concept of engineering at a issue. And and
that grew um from there and degraded if you will if you over the years too
two be more conventional engineering curriculum um as it as it matured.
But really there were no engineering departments per se. Most of the
university was organized in colleges and departments and there were
administrative collections called just faculties of electrical And so
forth. And that occurred until Thompson retired in 78 and we hired a new
dean. Um and that was fortunate enough to be on the dean selection
committee and we hired a person to help us change gears and become a more
modern, uh huh well balanced engineering program with all kinds of things
other than just mostly undergraduate education and a few masters degrees.
So that was um very good. We hired Roland Hayden as the new dean of
Engineering with that kind of orientation and because of my orientation
within semester. So he asked me to be the associate dean for research for
the college to help this transition into a more balanced college. And I'd
had many large by issue standards and research contracts too, the National
Science Foundation and and so forth. That were, you know, a couple
$100,000 a lot of money and early seventies.
And so um I was able to pursue on a broader scale bringing up the
engineering college and a research balance mode across the whole college.
And so we forged the, a partnership with industry, they needed engineers
and they needed well trained engineers in the valley. And so that was a
major early thrust of Roland Hayden's and myself more in the background as
uh associate dean for research in getting that relationship and building
research capability, hiring faculty to do that. And so that was called an
engineering excellence program was called the time I got a lot of money
out of the legislature because industry would go down there and say we
need this for our growth and that sort of thing. So it a very workable
partnership, so that that's always been very satisfying to me to to help
and to see that change within a s you certainly within the College of
Engineering in particular change of the role of the private industry.
Are there particular parts of the local private industry that were
particularly helpful to diversity? Yes. All of the big companies at the
time. Motorola was fairly big In the 70s. They sort of peaked, they were
the highest private employer in the state of Arizona at the time, 20
25,000 employees. And they were probably the most influential ones. And we
had no no expertise in electronics. And hear they were a major electronics
manufacturer in the valley. And we didn't have a decent electronics lab.
And and all this time I was trying to do research and, and solar
ah electric systems called photovoltaics, which it was very difficult to
do. And so we chose a research area that didn't require hi electronic
capability at university, which was approaching terrestrial photovoltaic
switch. What I emphasized after I came here um of using the sun to
concentrate it with some cheaper device, like a mirror lens. And so that
the expensive part of the device, meaning the solar cell was very small
compared with its output, try to reduce the overall cost. So our uh
photovoltaic concentration approach to lowering the cost of, of solar
generation. It was quite unique and we started that in, in the world and
uh, brought along to its commercial viability essentially over all those
years. Um, so that was very personally satisfying to me as this transition
of the whole college and university, the research oriented Probably during
the Middle 70s, late 70s, early 80 as she was the prominent research
university and photovoltaics and the country, if not the world. We had a
lot of different professors involved eventually over a whole variety
spectrum of solar research
and I remember doing stories about that at the time. Yeah,
thanks. But yet it doesn't seem to have progressed very far.
It does appear to have that that reputation.
Uh, but sort of as a commercial industry. Now, a lot of the early works
were government related, either supportive research or demonstration
projects. And In the early and late 70s, I was one of the founders of the
national solar Program. In 1973,
they called a conference to set up the national program. There was not a
government supported program to support solar energy at all before that
time. And and so it just got started then. But in the last 20 years, that
industry
as an industry has grown every year, about 20% per year And by most
industrial economic standards, as a very rapid growth for an industry to
grow by 20% a year for 20 years in a row. Now, it started from so close to
zero, You can do that a long time without having a significant effect. But
it's, uh, you know, it's, it's probably approaching a measurable meaning,
um, Maybe less than a 1%. But a measurable amount of contribution to
energy, United States turns out Germany and other countries have surpassed
us now because of the lack of government support. So, uh, we're now
playing sort of second fiddle and a lot of our companies have evolved into
foreign ownership. Now notice Australians
remember at the time when I was doing something, Arco had bought up solar
,
I wanted to succeed. Well, that was, that was a suspicion among most of
the conspiracy theorists around, but actually the opposite was the case.
And that a lot of the oil company and they have, you know, a lot of money
to put in R and D and for speculation and so forth. And some of them
started to realize that, you know, we're in the energy business in the
long run, not just the solar business and we'd better establish our foot
in sort of the next generation, even though they wouldn't openly talk
about it. Most knowledgeable people realized the limitation of the world's
supply of oil. And Even though 20 years ago wasn't very popular, it's
pretty much recognized among the resource scientists of the world that
there was a pretty limited supply. And as you know, presumably the oil
production US speak many, many years ago and has been declining and the
world production of oil will probably peak within this next five year
period and it will decline from them forever. And so there has to be some
transition to other alternatives. And so those oil companies Arco was one
of mobile was one of them. There was a mobile solar company for many, many
years um Solar Act or Amoco Solar X was the company that they bought. And
Shell joined up with a Motorola and a joint venture um, Here in the early
80s, here in phoenix. So the oil industry were major investors and in
portable tanks and now the largest producer of photovoltaics on the road
is british petroleum.
So, and again, and like the r code that you mentioned,
the german company bought them out some years ago. Okay. It seems like the
technology, the photovoltaic cells were working fine in 1980.
Has it has it gotten that much technology of photovoltaics gotten better?
The there's nothing wrong with the technology. And I have some cells for
instance that my cattle ranch which became solar powered In 1979. So
that's 27 years ago. And I have some solar panels that are 30 years old
because we were just starting like I said and 73 to set up a terrestrial
oriented program. And so there was some cells made actually by uh Exxon at
the time oil company? S. O research labs
that were built just let's take some of these silicon cells put them on
hold circuit board and cover it with something to keep the rain off of it.
And and so they made him about the time we were starting a national
program where people didn't know how to make them for terrestrial self.
I've had them at the ranch after they were tested for two or three or four
years. I've had them then since the late 70s at the ranch exposed to
sunlight and doing work and most of them have
Are still fine and operable. They've degraded over that 30 years Maybe as
much as 20% in there electrical output. But that they were built when you
didn't know how to build them and no glass on them, no metal on them or
anything that are long term materials. And so the technology is fine. They
were just very expensive and what has changed over the years is to
decrease. And the price photovoltaic panels that are the final products
and in the reliability of those panels in the sense that we have. As a
matter of fact one of the results of my activities the issue we were
encouraged and have set up the only solar photovoltaic testing laboratory
in the United States so that for certification verification all the
companies have to send their panels to us to get sort of the U. L. And
we're actually ul rated lab as well. Uh And this is actually east these
days and that was is required to guarantee that they can pass all these
physical requirements to last for 30 years in in the environment and with
hail and rain and storm and lightning and and all these kind of things. So
that has matured past that the other parts of solar systems are the ones
that have matured the most I'd say solar cells and solar panels. Nothing
goes wrong with them. Just put them out there and they generate
electricity. Ah But the ones that control the batteries if you have
batteries in the system, the batteries themselves,
the only thing you ever have to change, I have to replace them every five
years or so.
The the controllers if you want to convert it to a C electricity for 120
household kind electricity that was a special product. And you had to get
the production up to a point that they became reliable because a very
special product for electronic industry and and so those things have
matured much faster and finally caught up somewhat with the reliability of
the panels themselves. But the panels require you to reduce the cost per
square foot of making them. That's all. And so solar so ah low density
from an engineering point of view and you walk outside you think it's
pretty hot in the summertime. But compared with walking into a gas furnace
that's nothing you know so that the density is very low which means you
need a very, very large area and so you need a large area. So you have to
get the cost per square foot down and that's what's been progressing over
these years ever so slowly, don't. But that I guess in in our discussion
about the history of a issue that that was a field that a s you became
extremely well known in. And I encourage some of my colleagues and
and mechanical engineering to get into partly the concentrator part that
we were working on as which is mechanical systems from those parts. But in
solar air conditioning systems and hot water heating systems dr Byron
would
I became very involved in that. And there were, I think Yellow must have
joined the architectural faculty about that time, sort of had an
architectural perspective. And then Jeff Cook Also in the design of
buildings to incorporate or two to minimize the effects of solar. So
across those, those technologies were very well known around the world and
I probably for many years ran into Jeff other places in the world more
than a day. If you I've seen two or three different places would be
invited lectures and and more so than I'd seen him on this campus. And I
would um became very well known and solar thermal kinds of uses. And so
that was one of the early credible recognizable
research contribution areas of issue in the technical world. Anyway,
key part of that. Yes, uh huh. I was in our students and faculty and one
time I think I counted we had eight different faculty members in
engineering involved in some aspect of photovoltaic research at that point
we had capability of doing cell research and materials research as well as
as systems and so forth. So and you mentioned the photo tech testing. When
was that?
Ah
Well as I was phasing out of active researcher and getting into more into
administrative level and I was I I acted as the interim dean of
engineering when Roland Hayden left in whenever that was 1990 or so. And
phasing out, we were being encouraged by the national labs and industry to
to establish the testing laboratory because there was one in europe they
had to send there's two to get certified
and so with the help of them the national labs and some of the industry
they gave us funding to get started and building up test equipment so
forth. So I hired an old friend that was an experimentalist type of person
and he started that laboratory and we built a lot of equipment with
students and so forth. And bob Hammond, he was not a faculty member but he
used to work at Motorola in their photovoltaic element and work for mobile
solar for several years after that and for as a consultant for power
companies and others and so he was hired to to start that laboratory and
he build it up and we became certified. And when I moved to east to start
that campus and 93
we then moved what, we started that lab out there. And, and that's where
it became well known. And they do Testing for 70% of all the photovoltaic
companies in the world go through their land. So the continuation is not
research per se, but its recognition to the university for establishing
that, um, report that sounds like something that might even bring in
income. It pays for itself anyway, that's more than most university
activities. Do you have to be underwritten to some degree? So it, yeah.
And it puts us on the map. Mm hmm. Um, well you mentioned you did a lot of
traveling with the solar industry. Are you still involved with that or
administration? Right. I've been very active over the years with the solar
energy subset of like electrical engineering electrical engineering
society. And actually I became a fellow of the Electrical Engineering
Society. one must have been 80 or 81 when I was a member of the Mechanical
engineering department. And so the electrical department then at that time
said, well, we can't have a fellow of the away, there were only two of us
in the university at that point. And so they invited me and I became an
electrical engineering professor and that's what I retired as electrical
engineering professor. Um, but very prominent in organizing
short courses. I taught short courses, your week long short courses for
many, many years when it wasn't available in universities this curriculum
and in an organizing conferences and so forth and so on. And so I'm still
involved some for that, although they had a photovoltaic concentration
conference in Australia
Two or three years ago and I was invited to give the keynote address and I
said, I haven't done anything in research for 10 years or more and they
said that we just want to give a historical perspective and I think I can
do that. So, so anyway, I'm involved with with those kinds of activities
to people, certainly the lab out here brings in a lot of people and still
involved with the uh we and sort of one of the old gray hairs as far as
just advising, running the conferences and so forth, but nothing really
technical, Well, tell me about how you transition from the engineering
college and from research into administration. Exactly about well, um
after we hired the new dean and um engineering Roland Hayden in 78
At that time, as you had a rule that no administrator could serve after
age 65. So um lea Thompson had to retire as dean, he could continue on and
teach in which he did, won several teaching awards after that. Um
So the new dean came in in 78 and as I had indicated with the intent of
most of us to change directions and to build up research. And since I was
a very active researcher in the colleges, why he asked me to be a social
dean for research. And so I was able as associate dean for research to
pursue my own research as well as encourage others, which gave me
credibility of course with others to do what I do, not what I tell you to
do kind of thing. Uh So I could pursue my own research and graduate
studies and that and teach. Always taught us at least one course a
semester even when I was in administration.
And and then as when I was acting dean in 91
is when they announced the closure of Williams Air Force Base and mason
and it was one of governors appointed re use of Williams Air Force Base,
what was the best re use of it, which turned out to be
the community wanted the presence of a issue there. We had an issue west
at the time. And so
my involvement there and then the interest in a airport located university
site uh indicated interest in technical and involvement with industry and
economic development and blah blah. So I was responsible for starting the
planning of that campus. And then when we were ready to open in 96, of
course, we had to go through the Air Force process and then legislative
process of creating it and Getting money to renovate buildings and all
that stuff. But we opened in 96 and I was officially designated as the
provost of that campus, which is sort of as opposed to provost of this
camp, as the provost at that campus in west. It was sort of the ceo of
that site. So you're worried about everything, not just the academic
program. And so, and that was essentially I and essentially worked full
time from 93, part time before that, but full time from 93 until my
retirement and 04. So that's 11 years I spent full time and getting a new
campus started. Was that always a goal of a s, you have an east campus or
how did that come about? When, when Aladdin Core first came in his
inaugural address,
1990, maybe something like that. He talked about the need of the
university to expand to accommodate students from obvious explosion
population. And so we needed to start planning and thinking about, And as
you three called it. And, and then when the closure of this Air Force Base
was announced uh, in 91 And they actually closed 93, um, that was sort of
an obvious thing. We had an issue West and we didn't have anything towards
the east and here was land that the Air Force closure law allowed you to
use for educational purposes if and get the land all free if you had the
justification the need because of the growth and all that sort of thing.
So we went through the process of applying to get it. And so we got 610
acres with
two million square feet of space of buildings, existing buildings, a lot
of more houses,
uh, free, absolutely free. We still needed money to operate them and
change them to an academic institution and all that sort of thing. So that
was just sort of, um, unique opportunity. And probably before the
university would have planned to expand west was a different basis. It was
created by the legislators to have a west side presence of the university.
And so the university didn't plan that campus, but um, This one then was
planned because of that target of opportunity.
Well, the opportunity became there and then we had, you know, some years
to plan it and to plan it in a way,
which I found very interesting and challenging and uh, um, meaningful in
to develop a campus, which was not just a watered down version of the main
campus to have unique programs there that didn't exist in maine to
transfer programs off main to that campus to develop separate and
equitable, uh, part of the university rather than just extension, like a
site offer courses. And so we were unique in doing that so much so that
when Crowe came, he said, hey, this is a polytechnic kind of campus and
that's what we should call it when he was here on his interview and came
to east and I told him around that's his, his reaction. And it took him a
couple of years to do it. But it is now called the polytechnic campus
because it followed, it followed. Our design was to create programs that
we called directly met the needs of society, meaning the more professional
jobs, the career oriented jobs as opposed to liberal arts education.
Nothing wrong with that. But the main campus did that very well. And so if
we had the more professional programs and geared towards where the demands
of society, we needed these kinds of career path individuals then and, and
if we had programs which didn't for the most part duplicate the main
campus and meet that demand. And so that's why we, uh, we had those kinds
of programs which started taking on this characteristic of a polytechnic,
that's not what we had in mind when we started. It was only uniqueness and
identity of that was separate and credible compare with me.
Obviously it has the aviation. Yes. And we had that before. And that was
an engineering. And that was another thing. I'm sure that President
Couture was inclined, asked me to lead that effort because it had had an
aviation program. We had a school of engineering technology which is
within the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences. And, and they are
sort of considered applied engineer. They're, they're more hands on
oriented and they had a flight program and, and airport management program
and so forth for years and years uh and pretty well known um in the
country, even the engineering technology school was well known but
overshadowed by engineering in the college and and university. So um it
was decided to move those programs to to to that campus which gave them
direct unique programs.
And due to the new engineering dean that came in, he also wanted a
division of what was called agriculture moved out of the engineering
college. And so they didn't have too many choices but to move to east and
again, the only agricultural related program at at issue Even though it
had been changed in 1982, B
limited to agribusiness.
We had a
experimental farm Price and Elliot um major production agriculture
operation really, which was and a dairy herd of 300 and some had and 100
horses and pigs and sheeps and chickens and alfalfa fields and and all
that. Uh and in 1979,
which is about the time I became a social dean, uh They, the border
regions told us to get out of that business of production, agriculture,
that they were trying to define the three universities more clearly and
that you have a was to do that would be a big school, they were to do
production agriculture issue was to do agribusiness and n au was to do
forestry and that was sort of the division of responsibility and ag
related things. And so which turned out to be a very good thing, but they
also told us to get rid of that production farm and and we were very much
afraid, you know, we sold off all of the livestock and tore down the
buildings and all that sort of thing. We're afraid that people downtown
just gonna sell that and put it in the general coffer. And that's why we
came up with actually in my office Roland Hayden and I came up with the
thought of we should make it into a research park and try to complement
the engineering school and other that resource that was in the college.
And so we did that. So you were responsible for that whole changeover.
Well, certainly the concept we started, but engineering promoted that. Uh
and and we called in Rudy Campbell very quickly who was on the border
regions at the time. And um and later came back on for another term but
got him to champion it through the border regions and then through the
legislature took special legislation to do that to create a university
Research Park, certain tax provisions and so forth. And so and and as it
turns out after my retirement a year ago,
President Crow called me and asked me if I would serve as the President of
Research Park, which is, I had thought about that, but it's sort of full
circle that made made a lot of sense. I was thinking cause I knew that you
were just appointed last year, but I didn't know about your early
connection with the research park. So agriculture was by then under
engineering, it always has been miller,
that was all under College of Engineering. It's called a division of
agriculture and then there was a division of engineering technology and
there was a division of construction and
a school of engineering. Those were the title shoes, but they all reported
to the Dean of Engineering and and Thompson, the an old rancher and
agricultural based person, it was very compatible with him and probably
with the Ag people.
And that was my trauma nationality with with Thompson that why he evolved
into my sort of pseudo father over all those years. Um so it was
compatible
and and the egg people uh felt just as comfortable or more so with
engineers than they would with biologists or sociologists or whoever else
is in the university, at least, engineers were more practical thinking
folks and more compatible. So yeah, those, those were all elements of
engineering of the Engineering College College of Engineering and Applied
Sciences, those are the applied sciences. Okay. I was wondering why I had
such a big title. What wasn't there a necessity or something in the law
that the state university did have to have some aspect of agriculture,
there's some,
well there's a there's a land grant, a national land grant bill, which set
up an ag school in each state. And that was in the 1880s. And almost all
the states had colleges or universities then. And so the new egg, it's an
agricultural mechanic, which means agriculture and engineering again. And
the traditional coupling they were given land and money special federal
money to establish those in each of the states. So each state had a
agricultural college of some note. And but at that time Arizona didn't
have any universities in 1880 and they both started with, and most schools
like texas A and M. There's the university of texas existed long before
the land grant University of Oklahoma Kansas holders. And so the Ag
colleges became the state colleges, Kansas state
texas A and M. In that case Oklahoma state, those were all black colleges
and engineering and but but Arizona didn't have it. So do you have a, is
the land grant school in Arizona And it was the only college until 1958.
He only had one college in the whole state or one university in the whole
state. So that's been the land grant college. So they had to charter
nationally and statewide for agriculture. It turns out the reason it grew
here. This was the teacher's college and um Tempe normal and and Arizona
State Teachers College.
Most of the agriculture in the state was in this county Maricopa county
used to rank a 2nd 3rd or fourth largest producer of agricultural products
in the United States part because it was so large irrigation as a county
goes. But all the agriculture was here. And ag teachers being the
teacher's college was a big thing. And so that sort of evolved, not
necessarily by design and charter into a fairly large production oriented
teacher I and and eggs
and division
and that. And that's the reason the board region said, hey, we're
duplicating here and we shouldn't do that. It was hard for us at the time
, but it was the right thing.
A little bit more about issue east, you made that sound so simple that,
you know, definitely air force and started college out there. I don't
think it was quite that easy, was it? No, it wasn't for a variety of
reasons.
But um, it's a terrible bureaucratic process. You have to go to to qualify
for what's called a, a, a public benefit conveyance. Most Air Force bases
or the laws are geared to maximize the income to the Air Force, which
means you sell it off commercial prices lands. But if there's a need for a
public benefit and that mostly either educational uses that needed by the
local community for educational purposes or an airport airports are almost
universally subsidized by the federal government. And so obviously an Air
Force base as a potential reuse as an airport. And when I was on the
governor's reuse council after it was announced too close in 91.
I was the only educational person person on that. But it was clear that
That we had an opportunity of taking 4000 acres of prime land to put in
some public use as opposed to selling off because the local community
wouldn't benefit necessary and just selling more land off. And so we, we
developed six different scenarios of possible uses and one was just to
make it into, I think we called it new town, which was just houses like
everything else in the East Valley. Um, and saw it off that way to
development. Uh, and, and the other extreme was to make the whole thing
into a cargo airport, international cargo airport and then various stages
in between, which would involve different kinds of university or community
college or other kinds of educational uses
that would have to be justified. But that was not a difficult thing for
the growth of Arizona
and in an airport in various combinations. And then we went around to
various communities saying what of these do you like and not like and so
forth. And the two things became very, very clear in that process from the
communities surrounding one was they wanted a national presence I think
just because there was actually West and East Siders felt they deserve
campus as well. But it also brings a little more prestige. And just
another Queen Creek Elementary school being there kind of thing. Um, and
the second thing they wanted was an airport, even those people at the end
of the runway. And I yeah, I found a little peculiar and I only
sort of sort of understood by the fact that willie the name of the air
Force base had always represented jobs to them. And a lot of people had
aviation related jobs there. And so had an opportunity for employment. And
so we ended up with a compromise proposal that would how they viable
airport and a major university presence. But also we conceived it as being
a
an educational mall meaning that you go there for your educational
shopping needs, K through PhD all at one site. And so we had a partnership
of
of the university community colleges, uh the Maricopa district, not a
particular college um and High schools and grade schools are our K through
12 and so and that's indeed how it evolved. But it was by design and but
that was a ah it's one thing to do that but another thing to get the money
to do it. And so we we proposed that and with some exceptions, the Air
Force and made their decision that most of would go to an airport and
they'd support that airport and it's owned by the surrounding cities and
the indian reservation. Hello River in this case.
And the university got the 610
or so acres of the 4000 that was there. But we got all the buildings
And all of the houses. There are 600 individual private houses which isn't
a compliment housing for, for university housing but it had a lot of land
with it and so needed in the long term. And then we had to get approval by
the legislature and they asked us questions like well to build a school
from scratch for 5000 students, what would it cost to remodel the
buildings to serve 5000 students? and also what would it cost us to go out
and build a campus for 5000 students on Maryland Maryland may be given to
us. But what would it cost the state? And we came up with estimates of I
think $34.1
million 5000
seats. And um, probably something like 110 or 120 million to build
building from scratch. And they all thought that was a great idea. So they
approved the creation of this campus but it was something else to get
money out of them to do that because you'd go back and say, okay, you
thought this was such a good deal. How about two or $3 million dollars and
so forth. And so we, and, and I suppose uh
the thing that I liked the least About all my years of association, 36
years with a shoe is that interaction with the legislators.
And it's not. Um, and it was a requirement, it was our lifeblood because
once we opened our doors, the students just kept flocking in Growing at
20% a year and there's no way for a budget to grow 20% a year.
And we didn't have facilities. We had Old World War II barracks and all
kinds of things. A lot of the stuff was built in the 40s and it was just a
real painful process to go begging for resources to to run a campus and we
, we never did have them enough to do. And even if you had good times and
generous legislature and this was in In the 90s where the economics of the
state and the budgets were fine and they in many respects retreated during
that time that they should have been investing. But ah it was just a very
painful process to get resources and then to watch the, the staff and the
faculty struggle with trying to educate the students in the facilities and
without support, Basic support needed to do it. So that was the most
unpleasant thing.
But we were able to develop a camaraderie and I guess it's in mutual
suffering where you've developed camaraderie a better sense and and that
it made it not a plush place to work for sure. But it was a fairly
pleasant place to work and certainly emphasized those kinds of
relationships and to be friendly and speak to everybody on campus that
cost time to do that. So at least be happy in your work and the things
that we could control. And so I don't, I think that people were terribly
unhappy. It was just a terrible handicap to try to do your job. And I
don't, I mean to emphasize the negative points of all that, but it's that
was probably the most gruesome thing to endure and in my years. But on the
other hand, the creation of something new from scratch to influence and we
did this collectively, decide on what sort of the mission should be and
what we should do to achieve it. And uh, how do you develop your own
identity within a larger university? And those are all
major challenging and very satisfying
things to be engaged in. And certainly besides being the frustrating part
with the legislature and the budget is also the most satisfying part
of my years at university sort of beyond the personal, you know, of your
own career development and that sort of thing. That was that was fun and
interesting and exciting as well. But to do something for more of the
common good was even a greater level of satisfaction. It would be very
different though that CSU East was built from existing buildings and roads
and everything, whereas a sus started with bare ground and designed it.
But that was created like I said by the Westside legislators, they wanted
that. And so they funded it and they Gave the money up front to build a
campus for 5000 students. Oh yeah
and we suffered I think our creation helped issue West more than anything
else that had happened to them because now there was more than just a
issue and issue West and the the watered down version on the west side
kind of image that they had and and they tied their hands behind them in a
couple of ways. That was my opinion on fear to expect them to prosper. But
um when we were starting East we suffered partly because of that
conditions under which West was created even to the point of two years ago
after our current governor had been in two to the office,
she had the wrong impression. And not only did they give them money for
Physical facilities to serve 5000 students upfront. They also gave them a
budget to serve 5000 students. So here's the money that you need to hire
all the faculty and all the services and And all those kinds of things to
serve a campus of 5000 students And you know what do you do with all that
money if you only have 1000 students or 2000 students and so forth. And so
And they hired all new professors from scratch which meant they came in at
the higher end of the spectrum as opposed to people have been at AS. U.
Maine for 20 or 30 years. And so they had higher salaries, very low
teaching loads, nice facilities, all these kinds of images and their
agreement was that we'll give you the money to do it. And other than
inflation once you get your students up there then we'll give you more
money to develop. So as you east came along they gave us a million or two
at a time for facilities and operating funds which went through a S. U. Ah
which had a provost that did not approve of starting a new campus which
made it that much more difficult internally. But it also
I had this image it was created must be like ask you West. And so when I
talked to the governor a couple of years ago she came out to the East
valley and address these valid people. And so I was opportunity to sit at
the table with her and I talked about the need for funding issue east and
she said well you're not big enough to deserve funding yet. And it was
just based on that model that they had that they had to wait till they got
5000 students before they in this agreement could get more operating funds
and we were struggling year after year trying to build up. So we didn't
have that front end budget. And but yeah we had the image that that must
be how we're operating and so at the highest level. So anyway uh huh uh
West has evolved but also the watching of West evolved. And the difficulty
they had is gave us a major advantage as well that we need to do something
unique. We need to have not an uh an image of a issue light which is a
term that's sometimes used but have unique programs and uh our own
reputation and my view and others. If you have non duplicated programs you
have a chance. If you have a the psych department at west and the psych
department at main and the psych department at east, the main ones where
he's going to be the dominant one and they're going to be the best ones
and so forth so on. But if you have a flight program at East that doesn't
duplicate anyway, hey it's the best at A. S. U. To start with and then you
can work on the national and international reputation. Are there any
challenges? I've often wondered with the Maricopa community colleges and
the city of Mesa as part of the airport. You know, the different
government entities working together out there, the community colleges. Um
Well from a pragmatic point of view and getting the campus started. Um
Besides this philosophy we developed of a multi educational institution
thing and we then applied to the Air Force to have some set aside for the
university, some land set aside for the community colleges and they had an
elementary school there that we set aside suffering. Um So we did that
philosophy point of view, but from a practical point of view, we were
going to try to move programs off the main campus to there, which meant
you had specialists in agribusiness and had specialists and all the
various engineering technologies, but they can't teach freshman english
and sociology and psychology and all those kinds of things. And I I knew
that we weren't going to get the Legislature money from the Legislature to
hire those kinds of liberal arts people. And so it was a very practical
thing to say. Let's have a partnership with community college, that's your
business, You do it all here and teach a higher students, all the 1st and
2nd year courses required before they start taking their majors and the
programs were moving out. So it was a necessity in my mind of having a
partnership and we call it a partnership in baccalaureate Education and
you could go to an environment that, um, that was sort of a university
campus, but there are community college courses taught there. And since
most of the students in those community college courses were our freshmen
sophomores qualified for admission to the university kind of thing.
They're also a cut above the community college student that will admit
anybody by definition and design. Um, so the teachers liked in the
community college like to teach at the issue east campus because you know
, they're good students in their classes. And so they were very
cooperative and very helpful and both um MCC and and Chandler Gilbert
community college and and providing programs essentially for our students
And and we also helped them in many respects of
of having. We instituted a new degree for instance that the community
college has suffered from the lack they suffered from the lack of and that
was most of the degrees given by the community colleges were applied
science degrees, their vocational e. Oriented that they prepared people
for a career instead of transfer day issue. And so a lot of people came
out with various specialty degrees. But but the applied science degrees
were not designed for articulation and so they had no dead end system. So
we designed a degree which
gave them an educational alternative so it was a working partnership. But
a requirement from my point of view now with the thought that as the
campus evolves it'll probably evolved start teaching all those other
courses
from S. U. As you of course in the city of Mesa bank. They've been the
major owner of the airport which means that they subsidize it more than
anybody else. It's a losing financial operation and
Mesa has forgotten the numbers but it's something like
80
2% of the ownership of the airport. Gilbert has 10%. Well once the the
healer river indians came in and said they wanted to join and so they were
allowed to join the buy in to the subsidy And they so they ended up with
10% and Queen Creek had 2%. So I think it's now 78% of masons, which means
they pay that and means mesa, the city of Mesa out of there, Their tax
revenues are subsidizing $2-$3 million dollars a year to keep that
operation going. And so they weren't for US resources, financial resource.
And even though they realized the economic development aspects that the
campus brought to the area for their purposes but they're not burnt in a
position to give us money. Sure
that's not true. But when ah
when we looked like the air force was going to give us The land, although
they had to go through their process, they even gave us three or $400,000
to do a master plan for the campus before they decided to give it to us
officially. But when we got, when the air force moved out in 93 and I was
assuming full or full time responsibility for the planning on campus, my
wife and I sold her house in Gilbert and moved into campus housing. We
were the first residents on Williams campus and actually lived there for
quite a while. Just the two of us in one house with gated guarded
community Mesa police responsible for security. So they stopped everybody
to the gate with their weapons and so forth. It's always a little
different.
Tell us why did you decide to do that? Well you know I had career and a
teacher and a researcher and administrator and engineering all those years
and
as part of trying to build that image right from the start that this is a
dedicated serious thing. This isn't something we're going to do on the
side and part time or added part.
And we've sold her house so that you know we burned our bridges and and
left there and I didn't have to go around saying I'm committed to this
campus and all those kind of things that save me a lot of time that way.
And so we and we lived there for five or 6 years and moved out couple
years I guess before I retired.
Um We lived in the wing commander's house which is the top guy there.
Which was probably a step down from houses we've lived in for 25 years.
Before that It was a 2000 square foot house and it was all vanilla and so
forth is fine. No garage. That is fine. But it it just told everybody that
we're committed. Did you love travel times? Yeah that's true. Although
living in Gilbert that was pretty close it turned out yeah. Right. Any
other interesting um experiences that stand out in your mind of your time
at A. S. U. And memorable things that happened?
Well they experience which was you know setting aside my professional
um career and achievements and so forth. And that um what I enjoy doing
very much was in that transition of the college From through the 80's
From this teacher's college in the late 70s, too
much more balanced. It's not, and it's still not a research kind of
university, but it's so much more so than it was and it was just about
zero,
but, and having the opportunity to work at the college level and building
up a incredible, respectable
and competitive eventually engineering school, which means building up the
research part of it. We had an outstanding
teaching faculty before and turned out a very good bachelor's degree in
engineering. Stanford used to send their recruiters down to, to our school
to recruit students for their graduate program
because, you know, we didn't have a credible program for them to go into.
So it was a great recruiting ground for them. Good, good solid engineering
bachelor degree. Um, but you know, we weren't respectable in the national
scene because we were, so just a teacher's college, which more category
stick harvey mudd or some of those lives undergraduate programs.
So in order to orchestrate and build that ah
partnership with not only industry, but at that time, the legislators were
sort of a different oriented group of people down there. Um, and they
could realize the economic development aspects of having the industry of
Arizona going in and say, hey, we need a good engineering school for our
economic well being and therefore for the state. And so they bought into
that and they provided funds for new faculty positions and the university
, as you can imagine, took advantage of that because we had a sellable
product at the Legislature to get more money. And so we build all kinds of
things into that engineering program. There's um, with arguments, you
can't have a strong engineering school without a strong math and physics
and so forth department. So we got positions for them to add to their
departments. There's a center and law for Technology and the law or
something like that. We include all these things into this engineering
excellence program. We'd go to the legislature. So we've got a lot of, a
lot of new, new faculty and so I was able to participating and we, I think
we hired Probably in those five or 6 years, probably hired 120 new
professors in engineering. Um, a lot of more replacements and so forth,
But we had that many. So we had a chance to hire a new oriented faculty.
Um, I became responsible for all the space and planning for the college,
which meant the engineering research center, which is a building. Um, it
was one of the first buildings we built and the first one that was ever
authorized by bonding.
We always had to get legislative dollars before we could build a building
before that. And so overseeing the design and construction and operation
of physical facilities with something new to me and I learned much more
about construction, I cared to know. So all of those were growing
experiences for me during the 80's and we really, the rate of change of
the university in my opinion was much greater in the 80s than in the 90s.
It was the 80s that we started from a Teaching Orientation School and in a
fairly short time of 90 or so. Um when Larry core came in, we had built up
a fairly credible, balanced university research education service kind of
orientation we didn't have before And then the 90s are sort of maturing of
that. And now in the 2000 people, um think we're going through a lot of
changes and we are, but on a percentage basis we going to greater changes
percentage wise than In the 80s and the 90s, probably in the 70s, it
started in 80s and 90s. But it's so it's just a continuing
growth and maturing of a major university and all of the various
presidents were very instrumental and appropriate for the time that they
served.
Nelson was such a big relief after Suada.
And
and then laddie core came in and established even greater uh interaction
with community at large and maturing at the university and sophistication
and so forth. And then Michael comes in with with the needed talents at
this point of development in my opinion and all these people served
extremely well for the time that they were there. And we're very fortunate
to have had their leadership during those times and none of them could
have served at another one of those times, so and we're very fortunate
that way.
I'm going to ask you about the President's but you covered that.
Is there any one thing that you'd like to be remembered for?
Oh,
uh huh. I don't, I think I've
I think in terms of wanting to be remembered remembered in my mind for
what I contributed to is sufficient
and there's a certain amount of and one of the reasons I started
concentrating more on the administrative things, I'd sort of accomplished
more of the technical national international recognition, my little
research area that that I could and so it was sort of time to contribute
some other way
and the building of the engineering school even in that case though, since
I wasn't a deny wasn't high visibility person, but I was the one behind
the scenes, making, helping with the strategy and and making sure things
didn't happen. Uh and that was fine with me. I mean I don't I don't need
to be remembered for that but in my mind uh the satisfaction of what we
accomplished during that time and obviously the creation of East uh huh
which by most people's measure would be a very successful creation of a
new campus,
anything that you wanted to do or there were disappointments for you that
didn't happen.
Ah Oh not on a personal basis I guess. Um The biggest disappointment is
that we could have done so much more uh and grown faster at east had, we
have respectable resources and so that may be the only regret.
You know, how do you start a technical and nationally competitive programs
which we have, they're in their areas are not high visibility areas, but
they're nationally competitive programs in their areas.
How do you do that without
respectable library french? And we all realized and starting and and uh
1990 that um Or early 90s of a new campus that the libraries of the future
are just going to be information storage systems that are available
everywhere to everybody instead of collections of volumes, which has
always been a traditional measure of how good a library was, how big it
was and how many special collections and so forth. But we were starting in
that transition period, you know, 2030 years from now that all the
information retrieval.
And so how do you start a library and serve the students at the same time
of being geared towards the future? I mean all those are our challenges.
And I think the, the students maybe had to suffer because of a lot of
those things, which I feel badly about. But you know, it's hard to start
from scratch and get some place without and without
being less than all of the amenities of a major university campus. And but
it's not a personal thing, I don't how I've always lived my life, not half
to say, I wish I had done something else than what I've done, ironically
one of the first buildings library, it's not ironic, I mean it's it's
that's the foundation of the university and in that sense it's a very
logical thing to do and it's a very nice library
and one of those great facilities I was talking about that, they just
started with Um even though it, you know, it may be an artifact in 20
years in a sense, um but that's um yeah, that's um okay. Mhm.
I suppose one of the things that it has been gratifying that people have
um described me as I guess in many respects it was not a conscious thing
but of being
honest and fair in my dealings and certainly I've tried to do that, but as
I hear at retirements and going away parties and all that kind of thing,
kind of comments by people uh that seems to be what they remember and
that's good, that's good. Did you think when you came out to Arizona to a
issue that that would be this would be where you'd be for the rest of your
life. No, not necessarily, but
if you enjoy what you're doing, that's where you should be and again, both
the outdoor, physical environment as well as um as the work environment,
both very stimulating as I've alluded to a few times I was interested in
cattle ranching and the improvement of range conditions, land conditions
and so I've been able to Be a cattle Rancher on the side for the last 30
years in addition to my other things and it served me very well.
Um two
decrease the mental pressure and anxiety of university stress and
pressures and so forth that I've been involved with wine, go out and
literally deal with life and death situations in this case and animals.
But it's a way of keeping your foot on the ground and keeping your
orientation straight uh relative to the world about you and not getting
grossed and think the academic community is the real world. And so that
served me very well psychologically probably during all those years. Where
is your? Well it's in the Superstition Mountains which on the southern
edge which means I could could always, regardless where we live get there
in 45 minutes or so, but it's It's 100 years away. And operation and horse
operation, very rugged country and end of seven miles of dirt road and no
electricity. That's why it's solar powered all these years. Uh so that's
just been a good outlet for for me and for my family I suppose larger
branches well and for the last several years I've also had a ranch up by
Cholo and we actually move the cattle truck them all the way up to colo
and lakeside Pinetop area. Uh huh. And so we have really two but we
operate them sort of as one with being down here and it works well when
you're retired to have to go up there with your cattle in the summertime
back in the
But it's we have about 350 mother cows and then raise calves and it's all
those in here. And so it's large enough to be challenging and to be able
to do things which improves the quality of the land. So it's a little
better when you leave it than when you came. It's a very satisfying kind
of surprised that you mentioned is on the south side of the superstitions.
It seems like the houses are creeping right up when I was involved in the
creation and other a group called the Superstition erI Land Trust and just
stepped down after five years being president of the board of that. And
that is to try to protect those foothills along the wilderness area and
our ranch there we have 10 miles of common border with the Superstition
wilderness area even though we're on state trust lands and to preserve
some of those foothills. So you don't have the building the ones in Gold
Canyon and others there That had been built up in the last 20 years. That
has always been private land. So there hasn't been any any sale or
degradation or conversion of state trust lands to private. They've just
been developed during that time. But obviously they're in danger of that
now. And one of the things that evolved,
we did some, some things with the Land trust of doing suitability analysis
for development, which is a pretty straightforward thing this done and
development were on uh and then did a suitability analysis of for
preservation or conservation in a very similar terminology
Kind of thing and overlaid them to develop to develop a suitability map of
what should be developed and what should be conserved and that everything
north of 60 up until the and so that's been influential. And that area and
with Panel County and that evolved something I started when I became
President of Valley Partnership. Uh huh Business quality of Life
organization, East Valley to take Everything south of 60 all the way down
the sand tans, Here's 250 sq mi of state trust lands there and that's why
there's a johnson ranch and these other things because they have to jump
over that state trust land to pick up these little parcels of private land.
And so I initiated and still pushing for a project called Superstation
vistas which is uh I plan to do master planning for 250 square miles of
land in a responsible way. Long term planning way conservation of energy
conservation of water. one owner so that you have capability of doing
planning like no one's ever had before State Land Department and involved
in trying to change and modified state land department that would allow
them to engage in those kinds of things and that's an ongoing training and
continuing sort of outgrowth. First of my ranching and then of the land
trust and now the state Land Department reformation to and responsible
planning for the state of Arizona, that's what you're doing in retirement.
Mhm. Retirement besides the research park and a few other boards,
another specialty at S. U. East. I evolved of the uniqueness of providing
programs to directly meet societal needs obviously in need of societies
and health care and the cost of health care. So we developed a philosophy
how can a little campus contributed to that huge problem. We decided to
emphasize not reducing the cost of health care ah but to reduce the
percentage of people who needed that expensive healthcare meaning keeping
people healthy. And so we developed a special emphasis on that and the
department of nutrition moved out to join us and the Department of
exercise and wellness joined us. We started a new program in human health
which was sort of a pre professional program to let you go into to medical
schools or health professions that most of that evolved to the graduate
level now. But it's not just alla pasic medicine which doesn't push
preventive medicine and healthy living. Ah They only, you know, drug it or
cut it out kind of approach and they're so busy they don't have time not
that they're against
preventive medicine or or living healthy but the other people, the al
empathic of the osteopaths, naturopathic, they all those kinds of holistic
people addressed address that. And so I became involved and I've been
serving on the board of directors of a nature pathetic medical college in
Tempe that most people don't even know about one of only six and in the
world. And so that's another activity that I'm happy to
participate in. And obviously bring a lot of sort of large scale
university and university administration to a a group of naturopathic
doctors. Some of them are. MD. Some of them are phds on the faculty. But
It's a very small schools. Medical schools. Are that less than 400
students for your programming level that they need sort of some larger
administrative university type procedures, you know, how do you set up
promotion and tenure and all those kinds of things that a small group of
specialists, not educators, have gotten together to form medical college
and they're they're not normally known for their
educational experience to be on faculty and most medical colleges anyway.
So there's several things to keep one busy and you mentioned that your
ranch has been good for your family or your Children's still here. We have
three Children. All three live in the valley. All three graduated from the
issue in the Business College, all tree married issue business college
graduates, we live here in the valley and we have seven grandchildren,
major commitments instead of building up resources for inheritance
purposes.
Uh, we've committed to provide our grandkids with education and
experiences or something like that. So we committed to take All of our
grandkids on international travel trips when they're 14, 15 years old,
very impressionable. We took our kids around the world in 74
on my first and only sabbatical and visit all the solar installations
around the world. three Kids Plus Graduate Students. And, and, and they
were like 12, 14, 16. And it was such impact on their perspective of
people and cultures and, and a broadening of just the way they look at
things we thought that would be a good thing for our grandkids too. So we
committed to that. We've taken six of the seven now besides they only with
grandpa and grandma, I'm all for 3, 3 weeks or something. Um, and then
before crow came, I gave them all a letter once at christmas time that we
would commit to paying four years of college tuition for all of them at
the value that a issue charges and go anyplace they want to get all the
scholarships they want to, but we will pay that much towards their
education. And equivalent of course tuition has doubled since we made that
commission. So we're every time they raise tuition costs us thousands of
dollars. So, uh, and so that's a challenge and, and a goal that's sort of
independent, but we have a very close family and, and they're all here and
we're very fortunate to have that. So not a one another one.
Well, one of the things I'd like to ask everybody is, what kind of advice
do you give to young people today using a car?
Well, um, I guess one of my first recommendation is to not live at home
when you go to college. Very practical thing. I understand for many and
like I said, all three of our kids want the issue, but they moved to
campus and they would come home to eat. Sometimes it was dirty laundry,
but they had that part of the education that I think is important for
undergraduates, You know, 18-22 is a pretty tough time to live through
anywhere, but it's a, can be a very learning maturing experience and uh,
if they live at home they just don't grow in the same way of being away
from home, even if it's just a few miles. Um, so that was one thing I
don't, I don't think
the undergraduate education is, it can be helpful, but it's not critical
if you're a very professionally oriented person. And so there's nothing
wrong with the three state universities in Arizona. And even though I
encourage our kids to go to any you or you have a uh they all went to
issue, which is fine. I have a granddaughter. Do you have a, by the way?
And one at least
in education
so that you don't have to choose your schools unless you're the true upper
crust that has to go to Harvard or Princeton or something. Um So that's
not as critical if you want to specialize, be a true competitive
professional, you do that at the graduate level and then it depends upon
what your areas to specialize and go to different schools, but you're
strong and different things. Um just keep going to school.
I can say I have voice
um done things, so keep my options open and not be,
I have to say I regret not having done that. Probably went on even though
three kids and $200 a month income and um graduate school to go and finish
up my PhD because otherwise I could never had a career in and the
university, I have not done that and I've never going back, I've never
gone back if I'd gotten start working for a living, so just keep going, I
don't know that maybe all the advice I give my drink, it's cool.
It's very, very interesting. Thank you very much saying that I should have
asked,
I thought I was going to ask you,
well I wasn't quite sure how you would put this whole
bunch of information together in some meaningful way or if there was a
theme or a um um storyline you were following kind of thing that I wasn't
sure if there was some aspect that,
that you, you, you wanted to do and that was my unknown, I guess with
trying to record your story,
you have a lot of different stories so well and it has not been a simple
life, which makes it that much more interesting from my point of view and
but that's, that was my only concern if there was a storyline that you
were trying to do that you can orient rambling thoughts in certain
directions if you so choose,
I guess, um
you know, everyone who's come to ask you to and probably characteristic
regards where you are, but certainly I have observed that the issue, they
considered that the world began when they came to the issue and whether
upper administration or faculty members or whatever, that's when the world
began and there was nothing before At time zero when they arrived and I, I
somewhat lament that there's not
perhaps an appreciation for all those people that went before, that made
tremendous contributions and sacrifices often times and building the
university because it's been a continuously improving process um of
people who have not been maybe as flamboyant as others, but are the, the
salt and the pillars upon which the university has been
created and matured into a very respectable university and, but I think
it's human nature to think, you know, I don't, I guess I probably the same
way didn't think too much about those 1st 10 years from 58 to 68 when I
came here of of um more so than others, probably appreciate all of the
changes. One has to go through to become a university. And how do you
start when you have only a college of education, How did you start all of
these things from scratch?
And the difficulty of the administrators of raw educators to branch out
into non education things. And education in my mind is much more of the
applied kind of professional school like engineering. They're not broad
based administrators necessarily to,
to create an appreciation and then implement the growth of all these other
areas of academic endeavors.
So that's
another one of my post retirement goals is to try to get that some of that
classical education that I missed as an engineer, You know, went through
10 years of college at all. Prerequisite courses on top of each other and
very little broadening. And so I've taken on trying to read a lot of the
old classics and I found me a book to, to guide me through this, to say
through the books you read in this area and here in this area, it's a
little challenging to get the time to do that. But I probably read a dozen
or so in the last year or so, some of those things that I just, you always
hear about because you never, I never read, you know, but that's sort of
peculiar trying to record those stories from all the different
perspectives of the people that were and some of them do go way back, we
talked about the campaign,
the name changed the universe. No, it was a charter the mission of the
university to do that. And that's was so critical and those people went
out and and all corners of the state and campaigned and of course it's
very successful, but it was the result of them doing it, you know, and if
people don't even think about it, I guess it doesn't affect their lives
much they don't have to. But but I appreciate him doing.
And I was at U of a of course during I went to U of a in 59 right after
the vote and I was down there during the Medical School Fight in 62,
But of course the view there was, you know, this was just a high school up
here and didn't deserve
the university. There's only one university and all that stuff. Before I
came to interview the issue. I I just thought it would be interesting to
go. But I can't imagine going there with my sort of more interesting
research and advanced technology. And I was surprised when I came, I guess
to an interview because I've never interacted with these folks here. Well
now they're talking about another new campuses dr it and involved in plans
for downtown
only superficially.
And when I was on course, Cabinet,
I kept saying, we need To be planning for a university for 100,000
students. And uh, No one wanted to talk about that. No, it's just no, we
can't do that. We'd scare people and we don't have to tell people what we
administrators need to be planning, how you're going to cope with. I mean
, pretty simple projections and we're the only show in town and, you know
, they can create new colleges, but there's not a hi history of that. And
even if they do, you know, we're going to go there unless we do something
drastic and somebody should be planning for it. And that means Major
development at the other two campuses, creation of new campuses, um, north
, south, whatever. And I.