Thayer School

Whitney Eastman, CE '11, must be numbered among the outstanding graduates of Thayer and Dartmouth ... a poor farm boy from Fort Ann, N. Y., he worked his way through Dartmouth, tending lawns, doing household chores, setting up ice cream sodas at "Deacon" Downing's Drug Store, doing photographic work for Mr. Langhill, washing dishes at the Pillsbury Club, running student dances, laying out bodies at Rand's funeral parlor ... his first job after graduation was building sewers and tunnels in New York City . . . this led to the construction of a linseed oil processing plant on the Hudson and a lifelong career in the vegetable oil processing industry of which he was one of its leaders ... he worked with Henry Reichhold, the master German lacquer expert, and Henry Ford in the development of the alkyd resin finish for Ford's auto . . . he administered the research into soybean processing residues which came up with a basic substance for cortisone manufacture . . . wrote a code of ethics for the vegetable oil industry and a history of the linseed oil industry in the United States . . . leadership activities of this sort led to the presidency of the Chemical Division of General Mills and a corporation vice-presidency until he retired in 1955 . . . his civic activities on a leadership level related to Boy Scouts, crippled children, conservation, and city recreational facilities . . . his nature studies in recent years have taken him to the Galapago Islands and Antarctica ... he is now writing a chapter of a book for a London publisher on North American birds.

Wrote Whitney: "It is gratifying to an old-timer to see the strides which Thayer School has made in recent years. I have been greatly impressed with the younger Thayer graduates. Everywhere I go the standing of Thayer School in the engineering world is tops. Let's keep it that way!" (It's always nice to hear a bit of pure Thayer chauvinism; thank you very much. Whitney.)

Harvey J. Welker, MS '68: "My wife, Julie, and I have been living in Puerto Rice since January 1971. Sun Oil is building a refinery on the southern coast of the island, and for the moment I've given up theory for this position as a field engineer complete with muddy boots and a while hard hat. We plan to finish things down here by the end of the year and return to Philadelphia in January. . . . Julie has been taking Spanish courses at the University of Puerto Rico. On the weekends we've been exploring the Caribbean, both above and below the water.

"I am definitely against coeducation at Dartmouth and shudder to think of the day when a woman 'libber' tops my record as Thayer School's 'winningest' slowball pitcher."

Donald R. Muzyka, Ph.D. '67, is Supervisor of High Temperature Alloy Research at the Carpenter Technology Corporation's R&D Center in Reading, Pa. He received his first patent this year on a melting process for nickel base super-alloys and has five other patents pending. In general, Don's work is oriented toward me development of . new products/processes within a time constraint of five years per product/process. He has published about 20 R & D papers during the past five years

Don and his wife Eileen have three sons but they still manage to take on political and charitable chores, as well as the collecting and restoring of antique clocks.

Particular thanks to my respondents and best wishes to all for very happy holidays.