1965

In the previous issue, we visited with our northern California classmates Dick Jones, Paul Pringle, Jack McLean, and Gary Jaffe. To learn how others in the Bay Area coped with the events of last October 17, we continue with Earthquake '65. Mark Tuttle was in his office on Alameda Island, less than a mile from the portion of Interstate 880 that collapsed, when the first tremors hit. He says, "If that earthquake measured a 7 on the Richter Scale, I never want to be near an 8; the amount of energy involved was absolutely staggering!" Mark and his wife, Marcie, live in nearby Oakland Hills, where, due to a different soil structure, their home survived "without even a scratch or broken glass." Mark says he became a Californian after doing graduate work at Thayer School and studying computer science at Harvard. He was a lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley for 15 years. He is a vice president and co-founder of Lexical Technology, a firm drawing support from the National Library of Medicine and several major medical schools. Mark describes the purpose of his company as "the development of a large computer interface to biomedical knowledge."

Tom Morton and his wife, Karen, were on the way back to their Santa Cruz home following a visit to the California wine country when the earthquake occurred. Finding all the highways closed, they spent the night with friends in Cupertino. When they were finally able to reach Santa Cruz, Tom says the main part of town looked like a "bomb had hit." The Mortons found their own house had suffered only minor structural damage, but "anything that was glass was shattered." When not involved in earthquake activity, Tom finds work as the head of product assurance at Lockheed's missile systems division. He has been with Lockheed since graduating from the Thayer School and has been involved with the Polaris, Poseidon, and Trident programs. Tom experienced some technical struggles during his early years as an engineer, but says that as he moved more and more to a managerial role he gained a great appreciation for the value of the Thayer School's broad curriculum approach.

Lance Sims was riding a bicycle from the downtown area of Santa Cruz to his home a mile away when he felt a jolt. Thinking initially he had been hit by another vehicle, Lance quickly noticed telephone poles were swaying and chimneys on nearby houses were collapsing. When he arrived nome, all appeared well except that his wife, Mary, was looking at a kitchen full of broken glass. Eventually, he found more than $12,000 in damage to the plaster and underpinnings of their house. Lance is well-equipped to handle such rebuilding projects, since he makes a living as a designer of private homes. He received a master's degree in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania in 1970 after first serving in a rural development program with the American Friends Service Committee in Tanzania. He and Mary have three children and Lance spends much of his time on his "other" career as a professional artist.

It seems all those '65s we contacted, as well as our other Dartmouth friends in the area, emerged from the October earthquake with good stories and without serious harm. Perhaps, more than 25 years ago, such common experiences as struggling through a first hour exam or surviving a long Hanover winter have left them prepared to take on the very toughest acts of nature.

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