Thayer School

Ham Chase, Mech E '49, President of Clean Way Industries, Inc., of Keene, N. H.: "Have you forgotten how TomChace, Cal Brown, and I assembled a gas turbine power plant using a B-29 turbo-supercharger and a combustor from a German Messerschmidt 263 jet engine? We had to rev it up to 5,000 rpm to get it going, which we did with an electric motor belted to it. Cal's job was to pry the belt off the electric motor with a broomstick when the turbine achieved 'take-off' speed. At this time, Tom Chace would be pouring gasoline into a red hot combustion chamber while I had to crudely adjust the inlet air flow with a board. We actually got the system running; it ran white hot and the exhaust duct scorched the window sill through which it passed."

(I remember it well and shudder every time I think of it ... Ham has generously offered to support financially a project for some Thayer student to investigate the operation of a natural gas fueled automobile with respect to air pollution.)

William Koelsch D '66, is a computer program consultant at S. A. Engins Matra in Velizy, just outside of Paris. Matra is marketing a computer program in France which Koelsch helped develop at TRW Systems in Los Angeles. Timothy Hankins, Ms. E '67: "Last

September I completed all of the requirements for the Ph.D. in Applied Physics at the University of California, San Diego, and had my thesis, "Microsecond Intensity Variations in the Radio Signals from Pulsars", accepted by the University Librarian. My career as a professional student is, at long last, over.

I have an appointment here as an Assistant Research Physicist and half time lecturer in the Department of Applied Physics and Information Science. I am scheduled to teach a graduate course in Radio Astronomy. I will continue my work on pulsars and hope to make some small contributions to the group here studying the 'solar wind.'

The great push to get the thesis done these last six months has cut into my sailing time somewhat, but I have been enjoying racing a high performance catamaran in Southern California for the past year. This fall I intend to go the whole way into the California thing and take up surfing.

It seems to me that Dartmouth and Thayer School are going in the right direction. President Kemeny's innovative leadership, including careful consideration of coeducation, may be the best thing to happen to Dartmouth in many years.

I am also pleased to hear of Thayer's renewed emphasis on developing technological solutions for social problems.

I see Dale Runge, BME '65, from time to time. He is in Los Angeles working in an automobile safety program for the Southern California Automobile Association. He stops here on his way to Mexico for various weekend jaunts. Dave Heyer, BE '65, another member of the winning team of the last Tuck vs. Thayer bike race, has also been through here several times in the past year."

Neil Drobny, CE '64. 'You wrote recently in your column that the faculty is considering implementation of a new program that will focus on technology and public policy. I feel very strongly that something like this is very much needed at Thayer School and encourage the Thayer faculty to give this very serious consideration.

"With the conscious or unconscious deemphasis on civil engineering at Thayer School over the last five to ten years, I have been disturbed that Thayer was not directing sufficient resources to the training of personnel capable of attacking widescope contemporary problems. Such personnel are very much needed by the public sector and I foresee the proposed curriculum as filling this urgent need. I volunteer to assist you and the faculty in evaluating the merits of Thayer School pioneering in this direction."

Neil is Group Leader in the Environmental Planning Group at Battelle-Columbus Laboratories in Columbus, Ohio.

Steve Olko CE '47 and Charles WayCE '48 are members of the American Society of Civil Engineers' Committee on Legislative Involvement. The committee's job is to present ASCE's position on such legislative concerns, as: (1) registration laws and their restraints on the practice of civil engineering, (2) the legal liability of professional engineers in private practice or at decision-making levels of the government, and (3) restraints on the funding of needed public works.

Steve is President of the Metropolitan (New York) Section of ASCE, and heads his own consulting firm, Olko Engineering, 500 Fifth Avenue, New York City.

Lewis Waterbury CE '13 has spent most of his professional life in small railroad and sugar mill operations in Puerto Rico. He recalls particularly when a 160 m.p.h. hurricane, accompanied by a rainfall of 20 inches in 12 hours, hit Puerto Rico in 1928. The smashups of railroad and sugar mill installations were appalling but Lewis' experience during World War I, when similar events were a daily occurrence, was a big help in getting things back in operation in record time. He writes that R. D. Money, CE '28 was a big help to him in this operation.

Lewis thinks President Kemeny is doing a good job. He doesn't hold for coeducation but concedes that it was bound to come.

David Heyer BE '65 writes: "After graduation, the Navy interfered with any plans to follow up the work I had done at Thayer School with Dean Myron Tribus(1961-1969) and Mark Tuttle, BE '66, on developing a handwritten character input system for digital computers. In the Navy I spent five years in the nuclear submarine program which included a shipyard overhaul (complete with reactor refueling, startup, and test programs), duty stations in California, Connecticut, and Idaho, and even a six-month sojourn to the Western Pacific including almost everywhere save Vietnam.

Since graduation from Cornell with a master's degree in nuclear engineering, I've been working for Westinghouse in Pittsburgh preparing for a startup engineer's job on a pressurized water nuclear reactor which Westinghouse is supplying for a public utility. This is a fascinating field utilizing the disciplines of metallurgy, heat transfer, reactor physics, instrumentation and control, and lots of old-fashioned engineering know-how.

I extend an offer of a beer to anyone passing through the Pittsburg area."

Professor Tom Piatkowski (1967), Syd Alonzo, research technician, VinceFeck, D '72, and students in Professor Piatkowski's course in Computer Hardware Design pooled their talents to produce an experimental model of a computerized electronic oscillator organ as one aspect of a computer controlled orchestra (CCO). The CCO is expected to be helpful for composers of music but it has recreational values as well. This interesting liaison between technology and music is in the experimental stage.

Anyone wanting a demonstration over the telephone as well as more information, simply call 802-646-2608 and ask for Tom Piatkowski or Syd Alonzo; or stop in and see them next time you're in Hanover.