Thayer School

The Thayer School community, in the first week of May, joined in campus-wide discussions and activity in regard to the national situation. Student-faculty meetings, communication and decisions are being carried out in an atmosphere of cooperation and deep concern. Many Thayer alumni will receive communications from students and faculty in which sincere concerns and convictions are voiced.

Professor Al Wood is retiring this June to conclude almost a quarter of a century of devoted service to Thayer School students. Al is on leave this year and using the time to advantage at his home in Lyme, N. H. A more extensive resume of his career will appear elsewhere in the ALUMNI MAGAZINE.

The Thayer, program on inexpensive digital devices, held at the end of April, was an outstanding success in terms of both discussions and attendance. In addition to those participants mentioned last month, Bill Risso '67 presented a paper, "A Digital Pre-processor for Monitoring Arterial Blood Pressure." Bill is with the U.S. Public Health Service, National Institutes of Health, in Washington, D. C., though he is expected to finish his tour of duty there in June 1970. Warren Loomis '65 led a facilities tour and demonstrations of a local, private, computer, time-sharing service. Warren is Director of Timesharing Services at Time Share Corp. here in Hanover.

Dean Spatz '67 writes from Minneapolis that his young company, Osmonics, Inc., is coming along quite well. As specialists in reverse osmosis systems, the new company is placing units in an amazingly diverse set of uses. For example, units have been ordered for hospitals, ice making, car washes, and to provide drinking water for an Alaskan Indian village. Also, the company is installing a cheese whey reclamation (pollution control) pilot plant in South Dakota and has a tentative agreement from the Mayo Clinic for reverse osmosis units to be used by kidney patients at home. NeilDrobny '64 is deeply involved in pollution control, water resources, and waste management problems at Battelle Memorial Institute where he is Associate Chief, Chemical Process Development Division. In March he appeared on the program at a national solid waste management conference in Houston. With the aid of a Battelle Fellowship, Neil will complete, in June 1970, course requirements at Ohio State for a Ph.D. in the area of water resource system analysis. His extracurricular activities include Presidency of the Ohio Section - American Water Resources Association, and general chairman of the Section's first annual conference which will be concerned with "Dimensions of Water Management in Ohio." Along these same lines, Ed Elsenhans '36 is providing major assistance to Chuck Klimmek '70 in the latter's B.E. project on using reclaimed waste glass as an aggregate in concrete. Ed visited Hanover in April to discuss the project with us, and to show Dartmouth to his son who has just heard he will be a member of the class of 1974.

Clem Edgar '64 is now with the Scott Paper Co. and visited Hanover early in the year to discuss possible projects of interest to Scott with students and faculty. Here again, the new emphasis on pollution control and recovery of resources from solid waste and fluid effluents and associated project opportunities at Thayer, becomes clear.

In March, Dr. Robert Dean Jr., Professor of Engineering and Chairman of the Board of Hypertherm, announced the election of Dick Couch '65 as president of Hypertherm. Dick had been Vice President and General Manager of the company since its founding in July 1968. Hypertherm manufactures plasma arc equipment for industrial and research applications. It also conducts research and development in many areas of high temperature technology. As Bob Dean puts it, Hypertherm plus his two other local companies - Creare and Ecological Research Corporation - have sprung alongside Thayer School, if not from within it. Other Thayer people with these companies include: Charles Spehrley '70, who is manager of Creare's Laboratory Services Office in addition to his main occupation of technically directing the air pollution control advanced technology program of Creare's subsidiary, Ecological Research Corporation; Andrej Aplenc '70, who joined the staff of Ecological Research Corporation in January 1970 as a Research Engineer, working on thermal pollution control (Prof. Graham Wallis is a consultant on this program); and Stanley Birch '70 who permanently joined the staff of Ecological Research Corporation in April 1970 as a Research Engineer working on advanced technology for air pollution control. Assistant Professor Peter Runstadler is, of course, Vice President and Technical Director of Creare and deeply engaged in environmental improvement.

Bob Treat '50 has been appointed by Stone and Webster to Assistant Chief Cost Engineer of that large corporation. Bob has been with the company since 1951 and has been located for much of the time in the home office in Boston. On May 21 and 22 the Thayer School Board of Overseers and the officers of the Dartmouth Society of Engineers will hold their annual meeting in Hanover. Many alumni will remember this occasion for the informal discussions between alumni, students and faculty, and for the warmth and general cordiality of the dinner meeting.