Thayer School
A POLOGIES FOR NOT APPEARING LAST MONTH. A The truth is that your correspondent just didn't have anything to write about.
The forty-first annual meeting of the Thayer Society of Engineers was held at the Dartmouth Club in New York on the evening of January 21. Forty-two members of the Society were present. Dean Garran and I .were there and were called upon to describe the operation of the School under the Navy program. Dean Garran also spoke of the postwar problems which the School will face, including the setting up of refresher courses for graduates who will have been engaged in service work outside the field of engineering, completion courses for those whose engineering training may have been interrupted by war service, and a broadening of the curriculum to include courses in mechanical and electrical engineering.
A distinguished guest of the evening was Dr. Laurence I. Hewes, D.C. '98, now chief engineer of the western division of the Public Roads Administration in San Francisco. Dr. Hewes is the author of the most up-todate and comprehensive treatise on highways, a two-volume set entitled "American Highway Practice" published in 1943.
Luther S. Oakes '00 and Frank E. Cudworth '02, Overseers of the School attended the meeting and spoke briefly about the importance and effectiveness of the program being carried on at the School under Dean Garran's direction. Mr. Oakes spent a week in Hanover, with Mrs. Oakes, earlier in January and was a most welcome visitor at the School. Mr. Cudworth made the trip to New York for the Overseers' meeting and the Society meeting from Providence where he is with the Walsh-Kaiser Company, Shipbuilding Division.
Dr. Charles F. Goodrich '06 traveled from Pittsburgh to attend both the Overseers' and Society meetings. He reported to the Society on the activities of the Board of Overseers and spoke interestingly on the work being done by the American Bridge Company on the building of steel ships such as LST's. The problems involved, including some of the technical problems of welding, which are a far cry from the company's peacetime activities of bridge building, were described in a most interesting and entertaining manner.
The following elections were reported as a result of the letter ballot of the Society: Executive Committee; S. C. Bartlett '08, F. A. Davidson '15, R. N. Miller '20; F. H. Munkelt '09 and P. L. Thompson '9; Advisory Board: C. P. Richardson '09, G. A. Sampson '03, and A. H. Schilling '04.
The Society voted to make a gift of $500 from its current balance to the Thayer Society Fund. This fund, which has been built up by gifts from the Society since its founding in 1902, now amounts to $7,000. It is considered as part of the endowment of the School and the interest is used to meet current expenses.
George H. Hutchinson '84 was honored at a banquet given for him on the occasion of his retirement from active service last January 31 by the Pittsburgh and Ohio Valley Railway Company. Mr. Hutchinson has been active in railroad and related work continuously since graduation from Thayer School, and took a prominent part in the ceremonies at which his company was awarded the Army and Navy E for meritorious service last year.
Our sympathy is extended to Shaw Cole '31 on the death of his wife, Joan. Mrs. Cole died suddenly at their home in Upper Montclair, New Jersey, on December 19th.
It was with deep regret that we learned of the death of William W. Bradt '36 on December 29. At the time of his death, Bill was a Warrant Officer in the 97th Infantry Division of the Army stationed at Fort Sheridan, Illinois. He was killed in an accident at that station. He is remembered by those of us who knew him in school as a happy, congenial and thoroughly charming boy with the best of prospects for a full life. He will be greatly missed.
P. J. Halloran '20, Captain (CEC) U. S. Navy has recently been honored with the award of the Wason Medal by the American Concrete Institute. This award is for the Most Meritorious Paper in the field for the year 1943, a paper written by Captain Halloran and K. H. Talbot under the title "The Properties and Behavior Underwater of Plastic Concrete." The formal presentation of the medal will be made at the Institute's ,40th Annual Convention in Chicago on March first. The studies which formed the subject of the paper constituted pioneering work in the field and have been most valuable in more recent underwater work with particular applications in the construction of drydocks. Captain Halloran presented a most interesting description of this work in a lecture to Thayer School students in the fall of 1942. At this writing, Captain Halloran is expected in Hanover next week to talk to the trainees here about the activities of the Civil Engineer Corps.
More news, omitted from this letter for lack of space, will appear next month.
