Thayer School

The Overseers of the Thayer School met in Hanover on January 22 and 23, and one phase of their discussions involved the proposed joint Thayer and Tuck School building facilities which have reached an advanced stage of planning. The full Thayer and Tuck Boards of Overseers will meet together to review these plans. Donald N. Frey, president of General Cable, and John D. Cook, chairman and director of Whitney Blake Company, were elected to the Thayer Board of Overseers this past fall and we are looking forward to meeting them.

Bob Foote '4B is back with the Port of New York Authority as Manager of the Research Division for Tunnels and Bridges following his year-long leave of absence. Bob traveled around the world visiting and studying many large city transportation systems and presented an important, well-received paper to the Port Authority and New York City transportation leaders on conditions, progress, and needs in urban transportation in major world urban environments. We are reminded by the cold Hanover weather that Ken Ragland '58 was seen on TV recently teaching in Central Siberia. Ken is an instructor in the Russian Technical Institute while his wife teaches in the local school. Merle Thorpe '53, who gave us this information, also reported that Ken now has his doctorate. Merle is president of Humphreys Corporation located in Bow, N.H. His firm has started a major, multimillion dollar building expansion, and has gone on the Vancouver Stock Exchange as Ionarc. This is impressive growth since Merle's initial start in the late 19505.

Another Thayer School entrepreneur is Dean Spatz '67 who has just gone into business for himself as Osmonics, Inc. in Minneapolis. Osmonics offers a reverse osmosis system for the separation of dissolved matter from fluids applicable in the important fields of water purification, pollution control, water reuse, metal recovery, and food processing. At the moment Dean and Carol are working in their garage, building this infant company which is founded, in part at least, on previous experiences at Thayer School in ES-21 and his B.E. and M.E. project work.

January signals the start of the company recruiting season at Thayer. We expect that Bill Mac Curdy '57 of Bell Labs, Em Houck'58 of Eli Lilly, and Caleb Brown '49 of Wyman-Gordon may visit Hanover again to talk with future Thayer graduates. Emerson is also a member of the Dartmouth Alumni Council so visits Thayer on other occasions. Bill Davidow '58 had planned to travel east to Hanover from the West Coast for Hewlett Packard but late word indicates that the pressure of his managerial duties will prevent his visit.

Mr. Frank Heaney, a member of last fall's ES-21 Board of Review, informed us that John Lovewell '48 is a project engineer with Camp, Dresser and McKee in Boston. A picture of Chuck Way '48 appeared in Civil Engineering a few months back. Chuck, president of the Pittsburgh Section, ASCE, attended the Annual Meeting of ASCE in Chicago in October. Also present at this meeting was Nick Costes '51 and your reporter. Nick headed a panel of experts presenting a report on lunar soil exploration and interpretation based on the first Apollo landing and soil sampling. Your reporter gave a paper, "Education Today for Environmental Challenges Tomorrow, based on the Dartmouth-Thayer School design project work in sophomore ES-21 and the fifth-year B.E. projects. Rube Samuels '47 was reelected secretary of The Moles, the nationwide association of outstanding heavy construction engineers and contractors. Rube, as vice president and chief engineer for Thomas Crimmens, has had charge of foundation construction for many large New York buildings including Shea Stadium, Chase Manhattan Bank, and the Pan American Building. .

Dana Low '55, an associate with Tippetts- Abbett-McCarthy-Stratton, has been able to visit Hanover and the Dartmouth Skiway several times recently. Dana is in charge of transportation planning and design projects in several northern New England cities, as well as more distant responsibilities such as the Dallas-Fort Worth and Greater Pittsburgh Airports. He is able to use the fam- ily cottage on Lake Morey now that it is somewhat winterized. Dana reports that, in addition to Doug Kerr '69, who is presently an M.E. candidate at Thayer School and who spent last summer with TAMS in New York, Bill Tindall '59 and Bob Prasch '59 are also with the firm. Dana visited Bob last fall in Africa where Bob travels very widely from country to country, representing TAMS on a broad spectrum of highway and airport projects. Last fall Dennis Drapkin '69 left the Rand Corporation in New York to enter Yale Law School. No word has been heard from Dennis since this, temporary we hope, departure from engineering.

Jim Browning D'44, president of Browning Engineering Corp. in West Lebanon, N.H., published a paper recently titled "Flame Jet Gains Ground as Blast Hole Drill," in which he reports experimental work and new developments in high temperature, supersonic jet drilling in rock. Jim's process and equipment appear to provide important production and cost advantages in rock quarrying and tunneling, the latter of special importance to such large projects as the proposed Northeast Corridor subsurface hi-speed train.

Dan Taggart '37 commutes from his beautiful old home in Mechanicsburg, Pa., to Harrisburg where he is associated with the architectural firm of Larrie and Green. Dan reports that Ed Elsenhaus '36 travels the east coast for Dragon Cement.

Professor Al Converse is back at Thayer School following nine months of teaching at University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. Al and his family report a fine experience while Down Under and in traveling to and from Australia.