WEBVTT 00:00:00.740 --> 00:00:05.077 Good afternoon, my name is Bill More. I'm a retired family member of 00:00:05.110 --> 00:00:11.556 industrial engineering. Today is friday May 22nd 00:00:11.589 --> 00:00:17.006 january 22nd 2010. 00:00:17.039 --> 00:00:23.267 I'm interviewing dr William Lewis. Bill Lewis who is a started industrial 00:00:23.300 --> 00:00:30.357 engineering, redesigned etcetera for the A. S. U. R. A history video 00:00:30.390 --> 00:00:34.006 history project. 00:00:34.039 --> 00:00:39.807 Okay. Why did you choose the issue? 00:00:39.840 --> 00:00:45.476 Well I spent 3.5 years in Chicago. That told me I didn't want real cold 00:00:45.509 --> 00:00:49.436 weather anymore. I've really never really heard of Arizona State 00:00:49.469 --> 00:00:53.906 University until a friend of mine interviewed out here from Northwestern 00:00:53.939 --> 00:00:58.616 didn't take the job but said how great a place it was. And so I applied, I 00:00:58.649 --> 00:01:05.357 had offers from five schools. It turned out the issue was the lowest of 00:01:05.390 --> 00:01:12.397 the five offers. $1,000 spread Gundam iron for the high and low. But I 00:01:12.430 --> 00:01:17.507 like the the university of the climate. I'd like to see the Gambrel who 00:01:17.540 --> 00:01:21.057 was the chair of the department sign and I like the rest of the fact that 00:01:21.090 --> 00:01:25.706 they were here and that's why I decided to come here. 00:01:25.739 --> 00:01:31.507 What was your first? Thank you assistant prof in industrial engineering 00:01:31.540 --> 00:01:35.956 teaching primarily operations research, probability statistics. I came 00:01:35.989 --> 00:01:43.989 here I would say the spring of 66 was my first semester 00:01:44.439 --> 00:01:51.617 describe your career progression stupidity. Oh We added 1 to that. Tell me 00:01:51.650 --> 00:01:58.206 where your offices were. Okay. Oh boy. Uh 00:01:58.239 --> 00:02:02.906 my office is originally in the wind 00:02:02.939 --> 00:02:08.307 and it was in g wing probably up until 1980 00:02:08.340 --> 00:02:11.906 actually share an office with you for quite a few years actually, probably 00:02:11.939 --> 00:02:17.707 when I left the key way I've been sharing off you probably up until then 00:02:17.740 --> 00:02:19.906 remember. 00:02:19.939 --> 00:02:24.406 I can't remember when we split the last two years you were up there. Okay. 00:02:24.439 --> 00:02:30.367 But I was in G wing Keep thinking G to 52 for a while. I'm not sure the 00:02:30.400 --> 00:02:36.006 other room members. It was in G. Wing. He got promoted associate professor. 00:02:36.039 --> 00:02:43.207 Mhm. seven years into my tenure here or stay here and 00:02:43.240 --> 00:02:48.967 was moved in over to the old University services building on the second 00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:53.606 floor where we start the computer science program. We left the iii program 00:02:53.639 --> 00:02:57.807 instead of the computer science department. And we had our offices over in 00:02:57.840 --> 00:03:02.587 the old second floor of administrative services. Roland Hayden actually 00:03:02.620 --> 00:03:09.737 asked me to spend the year at 79 80 years forming a program. And I was at 00:03:09.770 --> 00:03:14.087 the point where I was ready for full prof. And so I told roman I can't 00:03:14.120 --> 00:03:19.686 spend that time doing administrative work effectively if I want to get 00:03:19.719 --> 00:03:23.666 promoted to full professor. And Roland said I'll tell you what you get the 00:03:23.699 --> 00:03:27.096 program going and I'll see if you get promoted. And he was true to his 00:03:27.129 --> 00:03:31.606 word. He got me promoted without a good publication records. I was never 00:03:31.639 --> 00:03:36.756 but I would consider a heavy research by any means very lightweight. Had a 00:03:36.789 --> 00:03:40.436 couple of very large grants, a lot of lot of millions of dollars but they 00:03:40.469 --> 00:03:44.656 had nothing to really what I consider research or what the university 00:03:44.689 --> 00:03:48.327 today would consider his research. But then he promoted me, got promoted 00:03:48.360 --> 00:03:55.397 in. I guess it was 80, time school year to full professor. When Roland 00:03:55.430 --> 00:03:59.596 asked me if I wanted to become chair of computer science, I can remember 00:03:59.629 --> 00:04:02.967 thinking, you know, why would anybody want to leave the role faculty going 00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:07.277 to the administrator? Because I used to love teaching and hated 00:04:07.310 --> 00:04:12.737 administrative. We're always glad somebody else did it. And I I took the 00:04:12.770 --> 00:04:18.406 position for a year as chair CS. And Roland was supposed to look for a 00:04:18.439 --> 00:04:22.007 full time chair. And about halfway through I realized, you know, I was 00:04:22.040 --> 00:04:28.467 really enjoying this. I was really enjoying the administrative and it was 00:04:28.500 --> 00:04:33.837 just one of those situations. And it's really funny too because about a 00:04:33.870 --> 00:04:37.426 year after being an administrator, the faculty don't view you as one of 00:04:37.459 --> 00:04:42.627 them anymore. You're now one of the enemies. And it became very obvious 00:04:42.660 --> 00:04:45.866 very quickly, you know, I always thought I was a faculty member, but the 00:04:45.899 --> 00:04:48.846 faculty didn't view it that way after a year or so of being a department 00:04:48.879 --> 00:04:52.426 chair. And then when you move up to associate dean, I mean you were then 00:04:52.459 --> 00:04:59.447 part of the enemy, part of them and vice provost, it got even worse. I was 00:04:59.480 --> 00:05:06.827 in that position until 85. Roland Hayden was dean of the college in Roland 00:05:06.860 --> 00:05:14.860 actually, I got to the point where I realized I was not probably 00:05:15.040 --> 00:05:18.697 involving the faculty as much an administration of CS. So that should be, 00:05:18.730 --> 00:05:21.916 I was just making the decisions. The fact that we're happy with the play 00:05:21.949 --> 00:05:25.517 as bugs in a row. They didn't care they before being bothered. But I 00:05:25.550 --> 00:05:29.187 realized I wasn't, you know, consulting him enough and so on and I figured 00:05:29.220 --> 00:05:32.546 it was time to step down, let somebody else come over. And so Roland gave 00:05:32.579 --> 00:05:40.579 me a position of associate dean, which I was in that position until 93 94. 00:05:40.740 --> 00:05:47.007 No public had come in his proverbs and we had the same name of lee Allen 00:05:47.040 --> 00:05:51.567 who was the effectively the ceo of the university wasn't called that at 00:05:51.600 --> 00:05:59.600 the time but he was running the computing center and uh the faculty just 00:05:59.870 --> 00:06:04.906 hated the alley. Just hated leon he wouldn't make a decision 00:06:04.939 --> 00:06:09.827 if you would just and and the staff hated the out. The E. T. Staff wasn't 00:06:09.860 --> 00:06:15.327 called I. RM. Information resource management. So dan bring myself and 00:06:15.360 --> 00:06:19.556 Andy philippa ca's what's a Milk black and said you gotta do something 00:06:19.589 --> 00:06:27.589 about this. And Milk called in a team of consultants from com which now it 00:06:27.939 --> 00:06:31.786 calls, it was common at the time and three people came in and they 00:06:31.819 --> 00:06:38.056 reviewed the central I. RM group and they made a comment to Milk that 00:06:38.089 --> 00:06:42.666 they're spending a lot of money and he's a nice guy but he won't make a 00:06:42.699 --> 00:06:47.337 decision and everybody hates him. You've got to get rid of. And so milk 00:06:47.370 --> 00:06:53.166 basically gave called the Andy and dan breaking myself back into his 00:06:53.199 --> 00:06:56.517 office and said okay which one of you? Turkey is going to help out for a 00:06:56.550 --> 00:07:01.596 year and the other to step back a step. And uh I said okay I mean I'll try 00:07:01.629 --> 00:07:08.507 to do it. So the 93 94 academic year I was sort of serving as interim 00:07:08.540 --> 00:07:13.616 on the telecommunication and academic side. And Connie McNeill was serving 00:07:13.649 --> 00:07:18.707 as interim on the administrative side. 00:07:18.740 --> 00:07:21.577 And about halfway through the year I want a remote so you know you aren't 00:07:21.610 --> 00:07:25.767 advertising for anybody yet. You know you need to get somebody in here to 00:07:25.800 --> 00:07:29.637 do this job. And he and he said would you apply for it I said well I'm not 00:07:29.670 --> 00:07:33.306 going to apply for it if you're gonna open up to the world. I said but if 00:07:33.339 --> 00:07:37.187 you make it just on campus I'll apply for it. He said okay we'll make it 00:07:37.220 --> 00:07:41.856 just on campus. And I said okay I'll apply for it and apply for it. Got 00:07:41.889 --> 00:07:47.156 the job as vice provost at that time for us for information technology. We 00:07:47.189 --> 00:07:53.806 changed the name from I. R. M. I. T. Served in that capacity until 00:07:53.839 --> 00:08:00.277 2006. I guess it was I think that was about the time frame when I stepped 00:08:00.310 --> 00:08:05.207 down went back to I took my first sabbatical first 00:08:05.240 --> 00:08:09.906 sabbatical leave and take it ever taken a sabbatical leave. 00:08:09.939 --> 00:08:14.027 It was one of the things where I always thought that if you I didn't think 00:08:14.060 --> 00:08:17.156 there was anything I'd rather be doing than what I was doing. And so I 00:08:17.189 --> 00:08:22.007 never took a sabbatical. I very consciously I told my daughter who's now 00:08:22.040 --> 00:08:26.587 assistant profit, small school particular sabbaticals when every time you 00:08:26.620 --> 00:08:31.447 can get them take them, you you need to do that. But I never took one. And 00:08:31.480 --> 00:08:35.087 so when I stepped down, I took a year's sabbatical and then went back to 00:08:35.120 --> 00:08:39.606 the program. Actually, I didn't even finish a year sabbatical. I was I was 00:08:39.639 --> 00:08:43.106 going to take a semester sabbatical lesson. 00:08:43.139 --> 00:08:49.616 I was taking a year's sabbatical and in november of the of oh six, the 00:08:49.649 --> 00:08:57.649 cherished CS Punch came to be instead the I need an assistant chair, 00:08:58.139 --> 00:09:03.407 nobody is stepping forward to do it. And I said, I don't mind, I'll do it 00:09:03.440 --> 00:09:06.927 when Punch was sort of the director of the the School of Computing and 00:09:06.960 --> 00:09:11.187 informatics addicts have that set up or something like that. So I took 00:09:11.220 --> 00:09:16.407 over and took over the academic programs are back in in the CS of those at 00:09:16.440 --> 00:09:24.440 that time, served in that capacity until May of a wait when I retired. 00:09:29.440 --> 00:09:32.006 Well, 00:09:32.039 --> 00:09:36.366 probably the thing that that I I find the most enjoyable thing I ever did 00:09:36.399 --> 00:09:41.006 hear the issue was forming the CS program, getting, getting the faculty 00:09:41.039 --> 00:09:44.537 together and getting them doing all the things that had been done to set 00:09:44.570 --> 00:09:50.307 up a new program that didn't exist here before getting all the approvals, 00:09:50.340 --> 00:09:57.327 excuse me and so on. That was probably the single most enjoyable time that 00:09:57.360 --> 00:10:01.646 I probably never had here the issue and it was very rewarding. It was just 00:10:01.679 --> 00:10:07.876 as I say, just a good experience. Roland Hayden came in in 79 as dean of 00:10:07.909 --> 00:10:13.126 the college and I get this knock on the door up on my second floor office 00:10:13.159 --> 00:10:18.346 , You're right, I was I wasn't sharing it with you at that time and I got 00:10:18.379 --> 00:10:22.356 this knock on the door and uh I had I was sort of infamous infamous for a 00:10:22.389 --> 00:10:29.736 messy office piles high and wide, it's really bad. Uh and I get the stock 00:10:29.769 --> 00:10:32.957 on the door and just rolling Hayden and he opens the door, I opened the 00:10:32.990 --> 00:10:36.467 door and he comes in he said, I just I've heard about your office, just 00:10:36.500 --> 00:10:39.776 wanted to go up and see it. And then he said that's not really why I came 00:10:39.809 --> 00:10:43.557 , he said I wanted to ask you why we didn't have a computer science 00:10:43.590 --> 00:10:49.437 program at HQ. And I turned them and I said you know that's the most 00:10:49.470 --> 00:10:55.407 refreshing thing. I've heard Dean say because we tried with 00:10:55.440 --> 00:10:58.896 the Thompson to do something computer science and we would have nothing to 00:10:58.929 --> 00:11:03.126 do with it Because he got burned by a computer in about 70 and he would 00:11:03.159 --> 00:11:09.557 have nothing to do with computers or computer science. And he then uh said 00:11:09.590 --> 00:11:14.006 we need a computer science program. And so we got a group of us, there 00:11:14.039 --> 00:11:22.039 were seven at the time, myself and bob Lovell from I. E. Ah dave venus and 00:11:22.350 --> 00:11:28.067 mars would fill from double E. Jim college fellow brian hand she and Gerry 00:11:28.100 --> 00:11:34.407 ford from mathematics. We started having clandestine meetings. 00:11:34.440 --> 00:11:39.567 We would go out to off campus to have lunch and take three hour meeting 00:11:39.600 --> 00:11:43.667 times and so on, trying to see what we can do to get a computer science 00:11:43.700 --> 00:11:47.787 program going. Mathematics was trying to start a computer program and 00:11:47.820 --> 00:11:52.866 there jurisdiction. That's why there was three people over there. And then 00:11:52.899 --> 00:11:58.587 uh Industrial engineering actually had the first, a better credited 00:11:58.620 --> 00:12:04.087 computer Engineering program. We were the year they credited that the 00:12:04.120 --> 00:12:08.167 first year they credited five. Asia was one of those five. So we had one 00:12:08.200 --> 00:12:12.407 of the first live, a better credited industrial engineering, industrial 00:12:12.440 --> 00:12:16.506 computer engineering programs that was run out of industrial engineering. 00:12:16.539 --> 00:12:21.006 And then doubly had a computer option. So we pulled some faculty from all 00:12:21.039 --> 00:12:25.746 43 of those programs and started meeting trying to come up with a how to 00:12:25.779 --> 00:12:30.707 get a computer science program going talk about what we would do and so on. 00:12:30.740 --> 00:12:34.266 I ran into a lot of resistance from liberal arts and sciences, 00:12:34.299 --> 00:12:39.077 particularly Allen Feldstein over in mathematics. Allen was sort of the 00:12:39.110 --> 00:12:43.697 nemesis at the time. He was a numerical analyst and he thought anything 00:12:43.730 --> 00:12:46.957 other than liberal arts was was a bastard program that nobody wants 00:12:46.990 --> 00:12:52.187 anything to do with over here was the poor child or whatever. And the 00:12:52.220 --> 00:12:55.947 three gentlemen from mathematics didn't really care. They just they were 00:12:55.980 --> 00:12:58.756 sold a bill of goods that would be a computer science program and they 00:12:58.789 --> 00:13:01.276 wanted computer science program because they were really computer 00:13:01.309 --> 00:13:05.807 scientists. And their degree was computer science. 00:13:05.840 --> 00:13:09.986 Two people from double E. While they weren't computer science, they were 00:13:10.019 --> 00:13:15.217 doubly computing like hardware people. And then bob Lovell, who actually 00:13:15.250 --> 00:13:20.287 left before the department really was started. And myself were the two 00:13:20.320 --> 00:13:23.577 from industrial engineering. And we got together and finally got the 00:13:23.610 --> 00:13:26.986 university to agree to give a greater program, got the Board of Regents 00:13:27.019 --> 00:13:32.886 approval In 1980. It started as a full computer science program Computing 00:13:32.919 --> 00:13:37.927 center. We had was actually uh the old president's office that was over 00:13:37.960 --> 00:13:41.967 the administration building at the back door. And it came out through this 00:13:42.000 --> 00:13:46.856 this room which was our computing center was where the door came out. And 00:13:46.889 --> 00:13:50.516 I remember when we first started running computers over there, he created 00:13:50.549 --> 00:13:54.146 too much noise from the president's office. So we had to soundproof the 00:13:54.179 --> 00:13:59.266 door in that wall in order to make it so that the computer center that was 00:13:59.299 --> 00:14:05.307 when we were setting up didn't cause problems with the president's office 00:14:05.340 --> 00:14:10.356 just rang gangbusters, couldn't hire faculty fence, given all the 00:14:10.389 --> 00:14:17.096 positions we could we could hire. Uh and we we we had 1100 undergraduates 00:14:17.129 --> 00:14:22.297 at one time in the probe. Just a monsters got her, got her master's degree 00:14:22.330 --> 00:14:28.016 approved, got her PhD a program from approved all in the first five years. 00:14:28.049 --> 00:14:31.606 Just one faculty member is still on the faculty. It's Jim Kalla fella, 00:14:31.639 --> 00:14:35.506 he's now associate dean of Engineering 00:14:35.539 --> 00:14:41.506 but he's still a member of the program. I am. 00:14:41.539 --> 00:14:47.126 Let's just say I enjoy working with that group of Of six other people. I 00:14:47.159 --> 00:14:53.077 enjoyed the support we got from the university, from administration. 00:14:53.110 --> 00:14:58.516 I enjoyed the politics of liberal arts that was sort of fun trying to get 00:14:58.549 --> 00:15:04.307 things done and overcoming some, I'll say roadblocks at Howard Feldstein 00:15:04.340 --> 00:15:08.366 tried to throw it away and so on. But I would say that was probably the 00:15:08.399 --> 00:15:13.407 most enjoyable single time 00:15:13.440 --> 00:15:16.307 Back in 1985. 00:15:16.340 --> 00:15:21.006 Union Carbide had this disaster in India called 00:15:21.039 --> 00:15:26.837 Yeah. And where they had a chemical leak That killed 2000 people in the 00:15:26.870 --> 00:15:31.587 city of Bhopal. They had a pesticide plant, fertilizer and pesticide plant 00:15:31.620 --> 00:15:38.876 in Bhopal. And I had a faculty associate who was a U. S. Citizen but 00:15:38.909 --> 00:15:43.707 indian december and 00:15:43.740 --> 00:15:50.817 VJ Sin if you remember VJ or not. And he uh he was a part time, well he 00:15:50.850 --> 00:15:57.006 was actually full time instructor for us in computer science and 00:15:57.039 --> 00:16:01.707 he and I wrote a proposal to Union Carbide to set up a vocational training 00:16:01.740 --> 00:16:07.907 center to try to rehab people who had been injured in the Union Carbide 00:16:07.940 --> 00:16:13.106 disaster. And we spent 00:16:13.139 --> 00:16:17.057 it was sort of hilarious. I don't, don't think I ever understood really 00:16:17.090 --> 00:16:21.366 how private sector companies worked as well as I did after that, we went 00:16:21.399 --> 00:16:26.996 back to, we wrote this proposal, I got a phone call from the guy who was 00:16:27.029 --> 00:16:31.947 the chief purchasing agent for Union Carbide in Danbury Connecticut and 00:16:31.980 --> 00:16:36.346 said, we got your proposal, we're not sure what we're gonna do. We've had 00:16:36.379 --> 00:16:42.287 a lot of proposals and about, but we'll let you know and about a week and 00:16:42.320 --> 00:16:46.896 a half, two weeks later, we get this call saying, uh, could you come up to 00:16:46.929 --> 00:16:52.797 Danbury Connecticut to visit with us and talk to us about what you'd like 00:16:52.830 --> 00:16:56.006 to do or what you, what you're proposing? 00:16:56.039 --> 00:17:00.797 So we went up to Danbury and we met with the chief purchasing agent, four 00:17:00.830 --> 00:17:04.976 or 5 other people. And then we had a 15 minute meeting with Warren 00:17:05.009 --> 00:17:08.276 Anderson who was chairman of the Board of Union Carbide, which turned into 00:17:08.309 --> 00:17:13.306 2.5 hours with you with Warren Anderson. 00:17:13.339 --> 00:17:19.197 And this guy, Vijay was sort of a pushing person I guess would be the best 00:17:19.230 --> 00:17:27.230 , best, best way to call it personality was just pushing. And so, um, 00:17:28.140 --> 00:17:31.217 we, we finished this long meeting that lasted a lot longer than anybody 00:17:31.250 --> 00:17:35.467 thought it was going as we were leaving VJ turned around and he said, well 00:17:35.500 --> 00:17:39.316 , why don't we hear from you? And the guy who director person, he said, 00:17:39.349 --> 00:17:44.207 well, you know soon. And he turned to Warren Anderson and said, when will 00:17:44.240 --> 00:17:47.296 we hear from you? He said well how much do you need for the feasibility 00:17:47.329 --> 00:17:51.306 study? We had a feasibility study in the budget that was all we were doing 00:17:51.339 --> 00:17:57.036 or proposing And we said you know $200,000. He said okay you got it. And 00:17:57.069 --> 00:18:02.217 he said go ahead and do it. And uh we left and walked out of the office 00:18:02.250 --> 00:18:06.526 with purchasing director and I said what do we need to do now? He says 00:18:06.559 --> 00:18:10.967 nothing, I've got my orders, I'll cut you a check for $200,000. We 00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:15.776 actually came home with a check made out to the university For $200,000 00:18:15.809 --> 00:18:21.607 and every word proposal that went to the university. 00:18:21.640 --> 00:18:28.207 So we had to had to put together a proposal sent a 3rd Union carbide Heart 00:18:28.240 --> 00:18:36.137 Henry who was the VP of research, Henri, Henri reasons VP of research and 00:18:36.170 --> 00:18:41.236 Henry just got decide himself on this one and the But you know we worked 00:18:41.269 --> 00:18:47.086 it out and and so on. But here I had this check for $200,000 and we go 00:18:47.119 --> 00:18:52.127 back every quarter And we were funded about $2 million dollars a year for 00:18:52.160 --> 00:18:56.347 almost a year and a half and we go back every quarter we come back with 00:18:56.380 --> 00:19:00.127 half a million dollars champion. It wasn't anything. You know you said hey 00:19:00.160 --> 00:19:03.907 there will be no, no no we don't want you to put any of your money out, 00:19:03.940 --> 00:19:07.756 we'll cover you up front. And they just sent us a check, you must account 00:19:07.789 --> 00:19:10.006 for it. 00:19:10.039 --> 00:19:15.256 And I later asked the purchasing director why they were, what I thought 00:19:15.289 --> 00:19:19.826 was very easy to work with, he said, well we've worked with the university 00:19:19.859 --> 00:19:22.256 before. We know you have enough checks and balances, we don't have to 00:19:22.289 --> 00:19:25.847 worry about your spending the money badly, you'll spend it okay enough, 00:19:25.880 --> 00:19:30.566 people will review that, we don't have to worry about. And it was very 00:19:30.599 --> 00:19:35.397 interesting, but that was a very, very, I'll say interesting time for the 00:19:35.430 --> 00:19:41.397 first time I ever, I didn't, I didn't have a passport at the time in the 00:19:41.430 --> 00:19:45.407 first place I really went was India. And I actually remember the first 00:19:45.440 --> 00:19:50.576 trip over there we, I packed, I've heard all the horror stories and so 00:19:50.609 --> 00:19:54.177 this is when you take water on the plane, you know, and so on. And I 00:19:54.210 --> 00:19:59.907 packed bottled water and in these little uh boxes of fruit juice and so on. 00:19:59.940 --> 00:20:04.847 Never used the water, practicing our peanut butter, not knowing you know 00:20:04.880 --> 00:20:07.647 what it was gonna be like in the world. And they loved it when I left the 00:20:07.680 --> 00:20:13.107 stuff over there with some of the people we work with. But it was a very, 00:20:13.140 --> 00:20:17.707 I'll say that was a very interesting time. I learned an awful lot about 00:20:17.740 --> 00:20:25.226 people I learned for instance, we, we had a lady in Bhopal who was a 00:20:25.259 --> 00:20:31.226 disciple of Mother Teresa, who was that lady we worked with Interpol and 00:20:31.259 --> 00:20:37.256 uh we were trying to get in to see the Finance Minister of India. We 00:20:37.289 --> 00:20:42.857 couldn't get into it. And so she knew his wife and she got us invited for 00:20:42.890 --> 00:20:48.256 tea At his house at Night one night in New Delhi. And so we go and meet 00:20:48.289 --> 00:20:53.407 with him and his wife in New Delhi at home over tea. And then the next 00:20:53.440 --> 00:20:57.707 morning he saw us in his office and uh you know I think about what we 00:20:57.740 --> 00:21:00.357 pulled off in India compared to what it would be like to try to do the 00:21:00.390 --> 00:21:06.607 same thing here in this country just wouldn't happen. But we uh say met 00:21:06.640 --> 00:21:11.006 with Finance minister company later became Prime Minister another country. 00:21:11.039 --> 00:21:17.637 And it was hilarious. They were in the process of trying to get around 00:21:17.670 --> 00:21:23.336 the corruption in the indian government. He kept telling us you know if 00:21:23.369 --> 00:21:27.207 you come running to any of this interesting corruption and bribes you let 00:21:27.240 --> 00:21:30.107 me know and I'll take care of it. The worst problem we had was bribes in 00:21:30.140 --> 00:21:34.647 the indian embassy in D. C. And they wouldn't do anything for you unless 00:21:34.680 --> 00:21:38.857 you greased the pole. We're trying to do something. We get this call, we 00:21:38.890 --> 00:21:42.736 were trying to get our visa for some reason we were having trouble getting 00:21:42.769 --> 00:21:48.806 a visa at one point to get back in the country. And uh the guy one of the 00:21:48.839 --> 00:21:54.746 under under ambassadors called us and said I can get your visa. He said 00:21:54.779 --> 00:21:59.336 you know my my wife would really like some some silk from a certain story 00:21:59.369 --> 00:22:02.786 in New Delhi. And we said well sure we'll get it. You can just pay for us 00:22:02.819 --> 00:22:06.306 when you know I can't pay you for it. We don't make very much and you know 00:22:06.339 --> 00:22:10.717 it's just one of those things and I felt Turkeys. What do you think of the 00:22:10.750 --> 00:22:14.506 greatest challenge? Sure. 00:22:14.539 --> 00:22:17.907 Well 00:22:17.940 --> 00:22:22.407 one of one of them was this uh problem that we had with the fiscal plan. 00:22:22.440 --> 00:22:25.816 That was a challenge. It really wasn't something that was not in what I 00:22:25.849 --> 00:22:30.867 would consider my wheelhouse of expertise by any means. I was more or less 00:22:30.900 --> 00:22:36.246 a mathematician, applied mathematician, operations research, type person 00:22:36.279 --> 00:22:40.927 statistics, probability and computing science. I wasn't a mechanical 00:22:40.960 --> 00:22:45.566 engineer that these were not things that were something that I was felt 00:22:45.599 --> 00:22:50.367 comfortable with at first but I think it was an extremely challenging time 00:22:50.400 --> 00:22:55.097 and it was one of very rewarding uh when when we were able to get it done 00:22:55.130 --> 00:22:59.806 and it worked the way it did as we found the problems were able to solve. 00:22:59.839 --> 00:23:04.756 When I first went over to milk collect as vice provost. I guess probably 00:23:04.789 --> 00:23:12.476 the second year I was there milk had a biologist. Alright let's plant 00:23:12.509 --> 00:23:17.857 sciences was what Kathie Church was something like that or botany or 00:23:17.890 --> 00:23:24.536 something. And walter Harris was a musician. Music major. And we had a 00:23:24.569 --> 00:23:29.597 problem on campus with the chilled water system, the thermal storage and 00:23:29.630 --> 00:23:36.246 chilled water and we had just redone the cooling system in what was A. S. 00:23:36.279 --> 00:23:43.107 B. And 105 days after it was turned on, it started leaking. 00:23:43.140 --> 00:23:45.607 And 00:23:45.640 --> 00:23:48.627 there was something wrong with the chilled water systems running through 00:23:48.660 --> 00:23:52.647 it. And milk called me at one time because he was getting under an awful 00:23:52.680 --> 00:23:57.677 lot of pressure from the campus and a couple of people on campus and 00:23:57.710 --> 00:24:01.377 actually generally with joe west at the west campus who was saying, you 00:24:01.410 --> 00:24:05.147 know, you're mistreating your plant, physical plant things are wrong, 00:24:05.180 --> 00:24:12.347 you're not running it right. And so milk asked me to sort of take charge 00:24:12.380 --> 00:24:15.687 and figure out what was going on. He says you're the only one that's an 00:24:15.720 --> 00:24:19.086 engineer and we need an engineering background and I thought I'm an 00:24:19.119 --> 00:24:22.286 industrial here, I'm not a mechanical engineer, I'm not, you know, and so 00:24:22.319 --> 00:24:26.986 on. So I can remember the christmas break, I went over the library and I 00:24:27.019 --> 00:24:31.437 just buried myself in the library to read about thermal storage, about 00:24:31.470 --> 00:24:35.957 their chillers, water chillers and and all this stuff to try to get as 00:24:35.990 --> 00:24:40.996 much knowledge as they could. And then basically as far as the physical 00:24:41.029 --> 00:24:46.147 plant was concerned, Janice Burton started reporting to me temporarily for 00:24:46.180 --> 00:24:49.736 probably a year until we can figure out what was wrong with the physical 00:24:49.769 --> 00:24:54.447 plant, the water system Uh turned out we then found out that we were 00:24:54.480 --> 00:24:58.536 pumped. We were uh what was supposedly a sealed system, we were 00:24:58.569 --> 00:25:03.657 replenishing 100,000 gallons of water a day. Yeah, it was leaking that 00:25:03.690 --> 00:25:09.937 band. We found leaks. I hired a mechanical engineering firm to come in and 00:25:09.970 --> 00:25:14.526 do a complete study of the piping system to find dead spots. To find leads 00:25:14.559 --> 00:25:20.367 , find thin spots in the pipe. Uh probably took in a year, probably took 00:25:20.400 --> 00:25:24.766 10 to 15 years of life out of the cast iron pipes that were running This 00:25:24.799 --> 00:25:28.836 chilled water. These are 40" pipes, big pipes out of the thermal storage 00:25:28.869 --> 00:25:33.816 system and found out what the trouble was. We had what was called the 00:25:33.849 --> 00:25:40.726 nitro find bacteria in the water and it was attacked new copper. So the 00:25:40.759 --> 00:25:45.657 copper coils were being eaten from the inside out. Old copper gets tender 00:25:45.690 --> 00:25:50.967 on the inside and the tinning protected it from these bacteria that was in 00:25:51.000 --> 00:25:55.217 the order. And so we hired a water treatment firm to come in and confirm 00:25:55.250 --> 00:25:59.816 what we, what we found. We found some poisons to put in it to kill 00:25:59.849 --> 00:26:03.347 everything. Nobody was drinking this water. It's a sealed system, but it 00:26:03.380 --> 00:26:07.187 wasn't your drinking water. And we got it under control. But that was just 00:26:07.220 --> 00:26:10.367 a I'll see you another 00:26:10.400 --> 00:26:16.586 enjoyable time. It was realizing that engineering background that you 00:26:16.619 --> 00:26:23.607 could solve problems. It wasn't just what your specialty area was 00:26:23.640 --> 00:26:28.286 The students system that we had here. The issue was was put in operation 00:26:28.319 --> 00:26:35.707 in 1980. Building herself served this campus tremendously well For 20 plus 00:26:35.740 --> 00:26:41.776 years, 25 26 years. Um But we knew there were things we couldn't do, we 00:26:41.809 --> 00:26:44.806 couldn't do flexible scheduling. We couldn't do a whole bunch of other 00:26:44.839 --> 00:26:48.786 things with it because it was just wasn't designed that way. But we 00:26:48.819 --> 00:26:54.197 couldn't afford to put in a full system because it was a $20 million 00:26:54.230 --> 00:27:00.437 dollars type project. And so S. AP which is the largest software vendor in 00:27:00.470 --> 00:27:05.617 the world, although now oracle maybe tying with them or with them. He had 00:27:05.650 --> 00:27:10.736 him since he bought something. Um But they were not in the academic 00:27:10.769 --> 00:27:15.806 community at all. And so in 1999 00:27:15.839 --> 00:27:20.736 we formed a partnership with S. A. P. To help them develop a student 00:27:20.769 --> 00:27:25.776 information system and for a year they did all their requirements 00:27:25.809 --> 00:27:31.387 gathering here at a. S. U. On a student information system. 00:27:31.420 --> 00:27:36.336 And we participated we had focus groups, telling the educating them about 00:27:36.369 --> 00:27:40.147 what higher education was. And it was hilarious. They didn't have any idea 00:27:40.180 --> 00:27:43.107 what higher education was. 00:27:43.140 --> 00:27:46.006 They 00:27:46.039 --> 00:27:50.526 they they did scheduling systems to schedule conference rooms or schedule 00:27:50.559 --> 00:27:55.907 other things and they thought it would be trivial to scheduled classes and 00:27:55.940 --> 00:28:01.107 they didn't even understand the technology, the terminology of education. 00:28:01.140 --> 00:28:05.167 And so we had an awful lot of education to do with them as to what really 00:28:05.200 --> 00:28:10.506 what a higher education institution is and 00:28:10.539 --> 00:28:14.347 what the terminology wasn't nothing else that you needed to use in higher 00:28:14.380 --> 00:28:22.380 education. And I can remember the name of Dietmar failure. Who was ceo of. 00:28:23.440 --> 00:28:27.506 No, he was he was the 00:28:27.539 --> 00:28:33.806 second deputy ceo, I guess was the second command of A. S. A. P. Germany 00:28:33.839 --> 00:28:38.826 one time he was over here visiting and he said Bill, he said, you told me 00:28:38.859 --> 00:28:43.657 that I had no idea how complicated the student information system was. And 00:28:43.690 --> 00:28:47.296 he said, we now realize it's probably the most complicated system we've 00:28:47.329 --> 00:28:53.326 ever tried to develop. And we then went through this. And then it turned 00:28:53.359 --> 00:28:57.947 out that S A. P. You either install everything with ASAP or you install 00:28:57.980 --> 00:29:02.107 nothing. Everything is tightly integrated. And so while they were giving 00:29:02.140 --> 00:29:05.536 us the students system and the support and so on, it was still going to 00:29:05.569 --> 00:29:12.347 cost us another $10 million dollars to get the people the HR and finance 00:29:12.380 --> 00:29:18.427 system put it in and we just didn't have the money. And so actually in 00:29:18.460 --> 00:29:26.460 early 2000 we walked away from it and left it left to go 00:29:27.240 --> 00:29:33.336 milk trying to to get funding for it. He felt that he couldn't get certain 00:29:33.369 --> 00:29:39.397 key people on campus who are nameless to uh back it appropriately. And so 00:29:39.430 --> 00:29:43.006 he couldn't really run. 00:29:43.039 --> 00:29:48.907 And so we decided at that time that we spent an awful lot of human capital 00:29:48.940 --> 00:29:53.256 trying to put this system in and that we probably couldn't try right away 00:29:53.289 --> 00:29:57.986 to go to something else. We needed to. I'll say, let things, let the dust 00:29:58.019 --> 00:30:03.917 settle and see what happened in the marketplace, we were at the same time 00:30:03.950 --> 00:30:08.707 , by the way, we're doing the wives who came mediation of our old system. 00:30:08.740 --> 00:30:16.740 It turns out by the way that N A. U. Back in about 80 00:30:16.740 --> 00:30:21.957 six or 87, we actually gave a you are students system and they handled it 00:30:21.990 --> 00:30:26.486 until they put their people's souls system. Obviously they may change 00:30:26.519 --> 00:30:31.907 their own changes to that. But they ran it for a long time serving them. 00:30:31.940 --> 00:30:35.486 You have a tried to develop their own students system, worked with the 00:30:35.519 --> 00:30:40.516 company and it became a disaster. Just an absolute disaster. Um, I was 00:30:40.549 --> 00:30:43.927 having to report every month of the board of regions because all the 00:30:43.960 --> 00:30:48.397 budget overrides and all the excess costs That they were looking for was a 00:30:48.430 --> 00:30:53.326 project that was going to cost them $8 million 28 million or something 00:30:53.359 --> 00:30:56.516 ridiculous like that. They've got nothing else. I didn't have a system of 00:30:56.549 --> 00:31:04.549 the work. And the so it was interesting times, 00:31:05.339 --> 00:31:11.726 another area is in your role as vice provost. You see that keep the 00:31:11.759 --> 00:31:18.316 infrastructure of the systems on campus pretty well up with the state of 00:31:18.349 --> 00:31:25.306 the art. You seem to have pretty good support from provost's office. I 00:31:25.339 --> 00:31:28.917 wonder if you might talk a little bit about the changes in the 00:31:28.950 --> 00:31:34.417 infrastructure that went on, how some of the support was pretty much 00:31:34.450 --> 00:31:39.516 centralized and it went out to the colleges and I think it's back now. 00:31:39.549 --> 00:31:47.549 Again, it's more sexualized now than it was. Um When I first moved into 00:31:47.549 --> 00:31:52.407 the vice provost position, we were, 00:31:52.440 --> 00:31:58.157 we did the decentralization and moved staff out to the colleges. Um the 00:31:58.190 --> 00:32:02.377 engineering colleges always saying staff and computing. As far as I'm 00:32:02.410 --> 00:32:06.607 concerned, engineering probably had better staff than the central IT group. 00:32:06.640 --> 00:32:11.677 We read the first networking it was done in engineering affairs of for 00:32:11.710 --> 00:32:19.710 instance, we did a lot of that stuff. And uh so I realized that that 00:32:20.359 --> 00:32:24.367 support needed to be closer to the faculty level and centralized least. 00:32:24.400 --> 00:32:28.486 That's what I thought. And so we started pushing out staff to the 00:32:28.519 --> 00:32:35.526 colleges. We put about, We took about 45 or 50 of the central it staff and 00:32:35.559 --> 00:32:40.897 assigned them and gave them for for a few years probably to their sort of 00:32:40.930 --> 00:32:45.597 joint appointments. That is, I would pay them, but they really got 00:32:45.630 --> 00:32:49.167 marching orders from the colleges. After about two years we just 00:32:49.200 --> 00:32:53.357 transferred the lines to the colleges because it became difficult to do 00:32:53.390 --> 00:32:56.776 evaluations and things like that when we weren't controlling them 00:32:56.809 --> 00:33:00.427 centrally, et cetera. So we just moved them out. But I, my whole 00:33:00.460 --> 00:33:03.687 philosophy was, you always want to move support staff as close to the 00:33:03.720 --> 00:33:07.457 faculty as possible so that they had a better idea of what was going on 00:33:07.490 --> 00:33:11.786 within the unit and the like, so that was one of the things that we did at 00:33:11.819 --> 00:33:14.407 that point in time. 00:33:14.440 --> 00:33:20.036 I will say that I I think I had a tremendous advantage as the vice provost 00:33:20.069 --> 00:33:24.417 and then later C. I. O. And the fact that milk click loved computers, the 00:33:24.450 --> 00:33:28.157 efforts that Milk put forward during his first few years here to make sure 00:33:28.190 --> 00:33:33.167 every factory member had a computer on his desk, even if they didn't know 00:33:33.200 --> 00:33:39.306 how to use it or turn it on. I can remember those times we were devoting 00:33:39.339 --> 00:33:43.316 spending money to the colleges so that they could, at the end of the year 00:33:43.349 --> 00:33:47.046 we take whatever slush fund mill had left out that he hadn't had to spend 00:33:47.079 --> 00:33:53.306 and we distributed out into a computer purchase program by computing for 00:33:53.339 --> 00:33:58.177 faculty desktops and things like that. So Milk always loved technology and 00:33:58.210 --> 00:34:04.556 he he really understood the I think the the role that technology could 00:34:04.589 --> 00:34:09.807 play and has played in moving the university forward, 00:34:09.840 --> 00:34:13.497 making sure we had adequate networking that we supported things properly 00:34:13.530 --> 00:34:16.807 so that the network was there, that we always had enough bandwidth to meet 00:34:16.840 --> 00:34:21.776 their university needs. Those are important things to milk and became 00:34:21.809 --> 00:34:28.106 important to me too to make sure that we did those things. 00:34:28.139 --> 00:34:31.856 What kind of advice would you give young people in choosing their college 00:34:31.889 --> 00:34:36.206 ? 00:34:36.239 --> 00:34:41.467 I mean coming to issue or? Well let's let me split that apart in terms of 00:34:41.500 --> 00:34:45.956 general careers, they high school seniors and in terms of academic careers 00:34:45.989 --> 00:34:52.117 , students who were eventually looking in that direction. Well, you know, 00:34:52.150 --> 00:34:56.106 it's interesting. I talked, I used to talk an awful lot to high school 00:34:56.139 --> 00:35:00.856 students about careers and going to college and things like that. And they 00:35:00.889 --> 00:35:07.046 would all talk about their, the smaller schools and so on. And I many 00:35:07.079 --> 00:35:10.887 times told students, I said, you know, the nice thing about the issue is 00:35:10.920 --> 00:35:13.796 if you want a course in basket weaving, we probably have a course in 00:35:13.829 --> 00:35:17.787 basketball that you could take if you wanted anything. And of course 00:35:17.820 --> 00:35:21.356 almost anything you could probably find a day issue, whereas you're not 00:35:21.389 --> 00:35:25.256 gonna find it at a smaller school and you're gonna find choice is much 00:35:25.289 --> 00:35:29.577 harder to come by. And a smaller school. So there are some advantages to a 00:35:29.610 --> 00:35:35.037 large school. And I've told him many times that it was the experience you 00:35:35.070 --> 00:35:40.206 have, the success you have is up to. You don't rely upon the faculty being 00:35:40.239 --> 00:35:43.046 your advisor and telling you what to do. You better know what to do. You 00:35:43.079 --> 00:35:45.606 better read the catalogs, you better know what your degree requirements 00:35:45.639 --> 00:35:50.097 are. Don't rely on what somebody else is doing. And so I've told many 00:35:50.130 --> 00:35:55.336 times students to, to not shy away from the big schools that there are 00:35:55.369 --> 00:36:03.369 some advantages to a big school. And um, I would tell them even today that 00:36:03.530 --> 00:36:06.736 you can get as fine an education of the issue is you get anyplace in the 00:36:06.769 --> 00:36:10.517 country. The quality of your education is depending a lot upon you as an 00:36:10.550 --> 00:36:14.916 individual and what you want to do and how you go about it. But you can 00:36:14.949 --> 00:36:18.197 make yourself have a slight in education here as you can any place in the 00:36:18.230 --> 00:36:23.217 country. And so I told him primary look for where your best financial 00:36:23.250 --> 00:36:26.816 opportunities are. Look at what your personal situation is. Can you be 00:36:26.849 --> 00:36:33.126 away from home? I used to talk to some people on indian reservations and 00:36:33.159 --> 00:36:36.977 their big problem there is that they're they're societal, they don't leave 00:36:37.010 --> 00:36:41.936 the reservation at least they won't believe any reservations and it was 00:36:41.969 --> 00:36:46.626 very difficult for them to take a semester come down here and be away from 00:36:46.659 --> 00:36:51.956 mom and dad are particularly mom matriarchal society. A lot of indian 00:36:51.989 --> 00:36:56.206 tribes and talk to them a lot about you know think about where you're 00:36:56.239 --> 00:37:00.066 going and how close you need to be to your family. Maybe any of you might 00:37:00.099 --> 00:37:03.217 be a better choice for you but you're closer than where they lived and so 00:37:03.250 --> 00:37:10.497 on and that type of thing. So I guess I would feel very, 00:37:10.530 --> 00:37:13.697 I would give that type of advice that you need to look at where you get 00:37:13.730 --> 00:37:19.376 your best financial help. Need financial help. Don't look at the the ivy 00:37:19.409 --> 00:37:21.956 league schools just because they're ivy league schools. You're not getting 00:37:21.989 --> 00:37:25.077 any better education there than you are at other schools. You know I look 00:37:25.110 --> 00:37:32.606 at, I have some friends over at stanford and they're they're average G. P 00:37:32.639 --> 00:37:37.367 . H. Stanford is very very hot. They just don't funk students period. It's 00:37:37.400 --> 00:37:41.296 not that they're any better students. They just have great inflation. 00:37:41.329 --> 00:37:44.767 That's literally true. They can save grade inflation and I think that's 00:37:44.800 --> 00:37:50.577 true in a lot of schools a lot of the better name schools I think they 00:37:50.610 --> 00:37:53.807 have great insulation in many cases. It's not that they're any harder. I 00:37:53.840 --> 00:37:57.336 don't think you get any better education. I went to my back, both my 00:37:57.369 --> 00:38:01.927 bachelor's and master's and PhD were private schools Northwestern Journey 00:38:01.960 --> 00:38:07.537 Private School Back in the Big 10 11 now. Yes but it's very private school 00:38:07.570 --> 00:38:12.756 in there. Everything else is state schools, johns Hopkins is private, is 00:38:12.789 --> 00:38:18.197 one of the private schools of all ivy league and so on. But I came out 00:38:18.230 --> 00:38:22.477 here as a state school and I don't think that we gotta get any better 00:38:22.510 --> 00:38:27.217 education of those other private schools. Very high dollar schools that a 00:38:27.250 --> 00:38:33.267 student could get here in the issue. Now as far as academic careers going 00:38:33.300 --> 00:38:35.887 into academia, 00:38:35.920 --> 00:38:41.276 I guess I would tell people today that you've got to, you've got to 00:38:41.309 --> 00:38:45.637 realize that teaching is only part of the job and if you're only going to 00:38:45.670 --> 00:38:49.066 be teaching, you probably want to look at some place other than a major 00:38:49.099 --> 00:38:52.557 research institution. You want to look at a community college, you want to 00:38:52.590 --> 00:38:57.997 look at small liberal arts school or something like that. But if you if 00:38:58.030 --> 00:39:03.497 you want research to be a key part of your portfolio of talents and place 00:39:03.530 --> 00:39:09.827 like a issue is not a bad place to go. Um, in today's economy. I think 00:39:09.860 --> 00:39:12.986 that 00:39:13.019 --> 00:39:17.706 issue is probably as good as school is anything to go to. We're being hit 00:39:17.739 --> 00:39:22.117 as well as everybody else, but I think that everybody's been hit. You know 00:39:22.150 --> 00:39:27.137 , I'm looking at the turmoil has come about because of the merger of 00:39:27.170 --> 00:39:30.666 industrial Engineering and Computer Science. And I know that there are a 00:39:30.699 --> 00:39:34.907 lot of faculty members or some faculty members that would like to leave, 00:39:34.940 --> 00:39:38.287 but right now it's not a good time to leave. There's just not a lot of 00:39:38.320 --> 00:39:42.617 openings, not the country and it's all the senior people and usually the 00:39:42.650 --> 00:39:46.347 better people, that would be the only ones that can lead because they're 00:39:46.380 --> 00:39:49.186 the only ones that are really marketable. 00:39:49.219 --> 00:39:53.947 In a situation where that the budgets are such that you're not hiring 00:39:53.980 --> 00:39:56.420 except thebest