Thayer School

Ordinarily, the death of a Thayer School alumnus is not reported in this column on the assumption that it will be more appropriately and more adequately covered in the "In Memoriam" section of the MAGAZINE. However, when death takes one who has been a continuing part of the School and a fellow-worker and colleague of many of us, it seems right to make an exception. And so it is that I record here with sadness and deep regret the passing on January 20, 1964 of John Hirst '39 in Middleboro, Mass. John was a faculty colleague from 1944 to 1955 when a combination of circumstances, including an opportunity to combine his great engineering talent with his lifelong interest in fire-fighting, lured him from the academic scene to the industrial world of the Maxim Engine Company in Middleboro. Although he had visited Hanover and Thayer School only infrequently during the past several years, his interest in the School and in his former students and colleagues remained keen. His death, following an extended illness with increasing complications, is a sharp loss to all of us.

A memorial service for John was held in the Congregational Church in Middleboro on January 26 and was attended by the Heston Hirsts '36, the Charles Hitchcocks'39, the Russ Stearns's '38 and the Bill Kimballs '29.

Russ Stearns has reported seeing a number of Thayer School alumni at the annual meeting of the Highway Research Board in Washington in January, including: BobPrice '47, supervisor of product development at the Wharton Research Center of International Pipe and Ceramics Corporation; Chuck Way '48, partner in the consulting engineering firm of Richardson, Gordon and Associates in Pittsburgh; Gil -Nelson '5O, in charge of traffic operation in Baltimore County, Maryland; Bob Foote48; and Joe Wattleworth '60. Other incidental intelligence from Russ: Jim Decker 54 is in South Australia as a member of a transportation study team of the Wilbur Smith and Associates firm; Guilford P. St. Clair DC'18, with the Bureau of Public Roads, gave a "most delightful talk (at the HRB meeting) on congestion, costs, control, implications."

An article in The New York Times last November announced that "Television cameras, photo-electric cells, computers, catwalk cars, and policemen constitute the components of a new system that has been devised to smooth the flow of traffic through the Lincoln Tunnel." This caught my eye because it is the result of studies and developments during the past several years un der the direction of Bob Foote '48, who, as recently mentioned in this column, is Supervisor of Tunnels and Bridges Research for the Port Authority.

At the other end of the land, John Fondahl '48, Associate Professor of Civil Engineering at Stanford University, was a contributor to the January 1964 issue of The Constructor, The Management Magazine of the Construction Industry, with a letter on applications and limitations of computers in resource allocation programs.

I had the privilege and pleasure in January of presenting a paper entitled "Education and Civil Engineering" at a meeting of the Metropolitan Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers in New York. Part of the pleasure was in being introduced by Program Chairman Steve Olko '47. Steve is the Principal of the New York firm of Olko Engineering, Consultants and Designers.

Department of Loyal Ex-Students I Have Known: the meeting was also attended by Don Phinney '34, Sam Florman '46, RubeSamuels '47, Art Diemer '48, Bill Wheeler'49, Mike Pender '50 and Gordon Starkey'61. The only Thayer School alumnus in attendance who was too old to have been an ex-student was ex-schoolmate Gerry Updyke'30.

Before returning to Hanover on that occasion, I had the additional pleasure of visiting Art Diemer and Mike Pender at their places of business. Art, who is Building Manager of the practically brand-new, fifty-odd-story Park Avenue office building of Union Carbide Corporation, showed me many of the interesting construction and operating features of the building and while there I had a short chat also with Jack Devor '42 who is Purchasing Agent responsible for all construction purchases for the corporation. Art and Jack had worked together on the construction of the building.

Mike Pender, Deputy Executive Vice- President of the New York World's Fair, gave me a fine quick tour of the Fair in Preparation. His boss, General Potter, informed me that Mike is his right arm - and sometimes both his arms - and claims that if they have proved nothing else by their work they have proved that engineers can build anything that architects can design. A visiting to Flushing Meadow will leave you in no doubt, except maybe as to who designed it. It's exciting. Incidentally, if you want to telephone, you won't need the Directory. The number is WF 4-1964.