From a 1983 letter to Paul Potter

I joined the staff in 1957 after two years as a graduate student and teaching assistant in the department. I had come in 1955 from Columbia to finish a Ph.D. in structural geology under Bill Jenks when Walter Bucher retired. I guess my minor emphasis in sedimentology and stratigraphy was enough to qualify me for a staff position when Harold Brooks left. Earlier, in 1956,I went with Harold to Missouri to collect carbonate petrology specimens from a limestone mine. We used a military rifle with armor piercing ammunition to blast loose specimens from the ceiling of the mine 40 feet over our heads. We also slept under his Studebaker that night when the temperature dropped well below freezing. I still remember that night as one of the coldest in my life. My ears still ring from the rifle too!

In any event, I painted houses the summer of 1957 (including Dick Durrell's) to tide us over from June when my assistantship ran out until September when my appointment as a new (really new) Assistant Professor began. I taught Principles of Sedimentology and Principles of Stratigraphy courses as well as an advanced Regional Stratigraphy seminar. I also got the (then) dubious honor of teaching both Geology for Engineers and Engineering Geology for students in the Civil Engineering program in the College of Engineering. These were assigned to me, I'm sure, because I was the junior faculty member and nobody else was interested. You could hardly have found a less likely candidate. Nevertheless, I found the applied area fascinating and grew rapidly away from more theoretical concerns to the practical.

All of this came about, I think, because my background in these areas was totally lacking - - even though I was supposed to be the instructor. The solution was clear, get some experience. So together with Dan Keller, one of my former students, we hung out a shingle and started doing consulting. Our first major project was a study of the sedimentary petrography of an aggregate deposit! The efforts of our fledgling consulting venture expanded into a company which, in the early to mid 1960s, employed 32 professional, technical and clerical staff and involved several of the faculty at various times in various capacities.

In the meantime, the department took over the basement of Old Tech, which had been occupied, I think, by the ROTC. New laboratories were designed with acid digestion hoods, metal-cabinet storage facilities and the beginnings of a physical sedimentology teaching/research laboratory. I remember many planning meetings and lots 'of discussion about whether or not it was worth spending money on the basement, because we would "soon" move into a new building. I am glad that that "soon" has now really become reality, and equally glad we did not wait in 1959 or 60 when the debate went on!

On the personal side, my recollections turn to the fine students we had at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Although there were plenty of hi-jinks and good times, the graduate students were pretty serious, probably because many of them were Korean War vets. They knew why they had come to the department and were hard workers. This spirit must have rubbed off on the undergraduates as well. I remember that some of them won an NSF undergraduate research grant and did a project in sedimentology. However, I don't remember what it was!

The Principles of Sedimentology and Stratigraphy had both graduate and undergraduate students, numbering between 12 and 20, as I recall. The seminars were much smaller (3 to 8) and probably couldn't be taught today because of "economic constraints". Nevertheless, they were much more intimate than some of the ones we now have with 30 to 50 students. At that time (from 1957 to 1963) our graduate student population was probably somewhere between 20 and 30 total.