{"id":125,"date":"2010-10-11T08:52:23","date_gmt":"2010-10-11T15:52:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/nuclearhistory\/?page_id=125"},"modified":"2010-10-11T08:53:56","modified_gmt":"2010-10-11T15:53:56","slug":"transcript-of-david-willis","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/nuclearhistory\/transcript-of-david-willis\/","title":{"rendered":"Transcript of David Willis, General Science Department Head 1969 – 1985"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lyn \u2013 I am here with Dave Willis, in McMinnville, Or., On August 20th,<\/sup> 2009.\u00a0 I will start out by asking you when and how you came to Oregon State University.<\/p>\n

Dave – It is a fairly long story part of it is covered by this item I just gave you.\u00a0 I was teaching in a college in Southern California.\u00a0 Teaching Biology, I was fascinated with radioactivity aspects of biology.\u00a0 This was early in the time when radioactivity was being used in research in biology.\u00a0 As I indicated to you a little earlier my wife had had Polio in 1955 we had three children.\u00a0 I had a master\u2019s degree but wanted to go on for a PhD, but under those circumstances it was almost impossible.\u00a0 As a consequence I was taking summer courses at summer institutes and looking into the possibility of a doctoral program although it seemed not feasible, an ill wife and 3 children.\u00a0\u00a0 I contacted people at UCLA, USC, you name it, looking into the possibility of a doctoral program that would emphasize the uses of radioactive tracers in biology.\u00a0 No one was interested plus there was no support for that.\u00a0 The summer of 1959 I came to a summer institute at OSU it was OSC at that time, Oregon State College.\u00a0 It was for college biology teachers sponsored by National Science Foundation.\u00a0 In that program there was a section on biochemistry, and the teacher invited in Dr. Chih Wang from Chemistry department to give a series of lectures.\u00a0 Dr. Wang had only been in the US a little over a decade, his English was very poor let\u2019s put it that way.\u00a0 Fortunately I had training in linguistics and could pick it up quit well.\u00a0 Most people were totally blown away by it, because he was very rapid speech, he tended to jump in his ideas, and not have a consistent flow, plus he was so technical that most people were not prepared for this.\u00a0 As a consequence of hearing a couple of lectures, I said this is what I am interested in.\u00a0 So I approached him after hours in his office.\u00a0 I said \u201cwould you be willing to give some special lectures if I could drum up some interest amongst these 40 -50 faculty members.\u201d\u00a0 Oh yes because he was enthusiastic about the application of radioactive tracers.\u00a0 So he arranged, after 5:00 from 5:00 to 5:30, he gave us a series of lectures there was only about 5 people, who showed any interest, and some of them dropped out because his English was very poor, very broken and his presentation was choppy.\u00a0 But I was eating it up.\u00a0 This was just what I wanted.\u00a0 I then approached him and I said I am interested in doing a thesis that would be eventually be made into a text book in this field, showing the application of radioactive tracers in biology.\u00a0 He was teaching a course called radioactive tracer method, Chemistry 419 which was helping people in Agriculture, Pharmacy, and Biology to use these chemical techniques that they didn\u2019t know anything about.\u00a0 As a consequence he was struggling, trying to explain these things to these people and they were struggling to understand it.\u00a0 But it was an excellent course.\u00a0 So he said yes I would love to do because I feel the need of a text book that is understandable and readable there were very few textbooks I n the field.\u00a0 As a consequence he said I don\u2019t have any support for you because that\u2019s not the kind of thing research grants usually support.\u00a0 But if you can get your support I would be happy to take you on as a student.\u00a0 He understood our family situation.\u00a0 So the next summer I was at a summer institute at the University of Washington of Seattle which was in Radiation biology again.\u00a0 I learned of a program that the National Science Foundation had which was Science Faculty Fellowships for College teachers who wanted to enhance their backgrounds or get a PhD whatever, a very competitive program.\u00a0 So that year then I applied for it and to my great happiness December 1960 to be awarded a 15 month fellowship to come to OSU then and work with him to develop a thesis which would be a text book eventually.\u00a0 On the table before you there the top volume is what eventually came out.\u00a0 I came in June 1961 and immediately got to work on this.\u00a0 I had accumulated a fair amount of graduate credits already from various schools in Southern California. Took an intensive program during the year and started developing this, worked with him day after day.\u00a0 To my surprise in the middle of the year I was offered a faculty position the next year, because I had been teaching general biology in California, using the same text book they were using at OSU.\u00a0 I had been working on developing a laboratory manual to go with it and OSU didn\u2019t have a good laboratory manual for that.\u00a0 And there had been the beginnings of a program in radiation biology at OSU, one faculty member had been involved in it.\u00a0 There was no program as such. \u00a0\u00a0This was in the general science department which no longer exists, it went out of existence in \u201892.\u00a0 The program and they wanted to develop and it fit in this interdisciplinary department it didn’t fit anywhere else it was biology chemistry physics so I was brought in to develop the program on one hand and work in general biology on the other.\u00a0\u00a0 Dr. Wang and I worked on this thesis over a two-year period and finished the program in the spring of 1963.\u00a0 He then immediately set out to take my 608 page dissertation went to work and submit it for publication to various textbook publishers.\u00a0 After a little bit of finagling we finally signed a contract with Prentice-Hall to publish this in fit with several other books they had.\u00a0 We worked for two more years it was finished in the summer of 1965.\u00a0 We worked intensely over those years together.\u00a0\u00a0 By that time they were trying to develop a radiation biology graduate program and have an undergraduate senior course.\u00a0 At that time then I was the key person in this.\u00a0 In the late 60s would began hiring specific faculty just for this program and at the height of this program in the early 70s we had three full-time faculty members plus myself.\u00a0 By that time I was department chairman so I was heavily involved in administrative duties but was teaching as well.\u00a0 The textbook did very well in fact it dominated the field for quarter of a century.\u00a0 The publishers got after us \u201cwon\u2019t you revise this\u201d so the second book on the list there was published in 1975.\u00a0 By that time a great deal of development had taken place in the electronics area and we brought in Dr. Walter Loveland, chemistry, who was up-to-date on this sort of thing.\u00a0 We revised it actually it was almost totally rewritten, but a heavy revision, and change of title and that continued on I think it was in print for 18 years or so.\u00a0 That’s how I came to OSU, a long answer to your brief question.<\/p>\n

Lynn- very interesting so then, you were a department chairman of general science?<\/p>\n

Dave – General science from 1969 to 1985.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Lyn – you mentioned a little in this guess is that eulogy almost to Dr. Wang and I heard this from other people that the kind of collaboration that was going on there between chemists, physicists and engineers was pretty unique<\/p>\n

Dave – very unique<\/p>\n

Lyn – how do you think that came about?<\/p>\n

Dave – let me go back in Dr. Wong situation so you probably have some of his history.\u00a0 He has a master’s from the University in China.\u00a0 In their during the war with Japan and suffered considerably was married have at least one child a son and right after the end of World War II he found the opportunity to come to Oregon State for a doctoral program his wife was also a professional person she came along but because of unsettledness of China at that time it was slightly before the Communist takeover but there was the four or five year period when the nation was in chaos,\u00a0 they had to leave their son behind with his parents and they came then I’m getting this all second or third hand not from him directly fairly clear.\u00a0 They came over and he then worked very hard finished his doctorate in the late 40s may be 1950 and show himself to be a genius anyways.\u00a0 Despite his language problem, because he had very poor English even to the end, despite his language problem he had a unique way of bonding with other people.\u00a0 Very soon he and Popovich were close friends, fishing buddies.\u00a0 Dean Gleason in engineering also was involved with us.\u00a0 Chih had a vision he was a visionary man really.\u00a0 This was very early in radioactivity era in colleges.\u00a0 He saw the applications, he was basically an organic chemist and then he gradually moved into biochemistry, in fact that’s unique about his life he made these increasingly diverse transitions.\u00a0 He began to see that there was a need for training other people especially biologists and applied biology in the use of radioactive tracers and in radiation in general. He and Dean Gleason in engineering were very close by the late 50s he began to see there was a need for OSU to have something in this field because, it was the science technology university for the state.\u00a0 He had a way of pulling money out of rocks, it was incredible. He hardly ever had anything turned down.\u00a0 He began to develop this network of federal grant agencies that went on throughout his whole life. \u00a0He can be very persuasive, but also he was visionary, and as a consequence he realized that OSU needed a reactor, well they finally got a 10 Watt training reactor which was miniscule.\u00a0 It was installed in engineering and when I first visited in 1959 he took great pride he took me into the basement of the electrical engineering building showed me this dinky reactor but he was very proud of it he and Gleason worked together on this Popovich and being Dean of administration helped financially.\u00a0 He just developed a network of people and as a consequence was able to develop relationships across campus in a way you probably wouldn’t see now campus being so much larger you’re talking about five or 6000 students.\u00a0 He had this vision for developing a coordinated program in the radiation sciences interestingly enough the physics department showed no interest you would think they would be primary they weren’t and as a consequence he said goodbye to them the six department has never been involved in radiation center strangely enough.\u00a0 They have programs in nuclear physics but the applications thereof no.\u00a0 By 1959 he was working out with Dean Gleason this nuclear engineering option in mechanical engineering as I recall so that mechanical engineers could work with the reactor and get some experience but it was a dinky reactor to say the least.\u00a0 He then began to see that it was necessary to develop a coordinated center where all the radiation and radioactivity programs could be centered for safety’s samples by the way he became the radiation safety officer for the University they had no such he was the head of the radiation safety office for years I succeeded him decades later he finally hired a radiation safety officer to do the day-to-day work, John Prince, who was a colleague of mine.\u00a0 He saw the need for getting things together in one place.\u00a0 That was a time when OSU was building buildings at a rapid pace.\u00a0 You can see many of them came from the same period late 50s early 60s.\u00a0 So this idea of a radiation center took hold and he worked for probably five or six years to bring it fruition he got many here he got many there he got approval here it was a fascinating process to watch and it consumed him really for quite awhile.\u00a0 One thing was to get a building built the other was to staff it with people.\u00a0 \u00a0He had this outreach across campus to bring in for his people chemistry in particular since he was in the chemistry department at such.\u00a0\u00a0 he enlisted people in chemistry to come there and basically had to hire new faculty so in the mid-60, \u201965, \u201966, \u201864 he was bringing people in anyone doing research in radioactivity or radiation he pulled the man and as you know the building at first was the low rise section there was no reactor in back he allocated space for chemistry biology and for engineering this went on until he saw that to have a thorough going nuclear engineering program you needed a good reactor a training reactor and so the TRIGA was finally built in 1966 as I recall.\u00a0 And that needed a whole cadbury of people that would support the activity of the reactor.<\/p>\n

Lyn – let me ask you.<\/p>\n

As I warned you I can go on and on<\/p>\n

Well I’m just interested do you think it was I mean he had obviously attracted very skilled people from many disciplines was it his enthusiasm that attracted them was at his genius?<\/p>\n

It’s really hard to say why and how he attracted all these people you would have to ask many of them what brought them to OSU.\u00a0 He had wide contacts across the country by this time and he was active in American nuclear Society.\u00a0 Particularly he had contacts University of California and Berkeley radiation lab but more than anything he offered a unique experience and he offered a chance to grow up with something.\u00a0 Haynes enthusiasm was contagious even though was so broken par example and people used to behind his back joked about his accent but they loved him.\u00a0 He had a unique ability to, more than any man I’ve ever seen, to bring disparate people together and weld them together in a harmonious team.\u00a0 As I mentioned in that article I gave you most faculty groups were faction ridden and not to harmonious.\u00a0 he had the ability to make everyone worked together and like it.\u00a0 It was really unique I look back and I tried to emulate it in our department, not entirely successfully.\u00a0 He had that ability that personal ability and he saw that that was the way to success for the organization and for the individual.\u00a0 So the interaction between individuals at the radiation center has been phenomenal for years.\u00a0 It was a club of friends you might say very unique.\u00a0 He had unique personal abilities one to get people to work together to recruit them but also to pick people who were winners I can’t recall any of the people he hired who had to be let go or who fumbled the ball and didn’t come through.\u00a0 He motivated and encourage them in a unique way.\u00a0 He could be an autocrat too.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lyn \u2013 In 1967 the Radiation Center was officially dedicated.\u00a0 Were you at that dedication?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dave – to the best of my recollection I was but I have no strong memories of that frankly there were so many things happening there.<\/p>\n

Lyn – I did discover that Governor Tom McCall attended he don’t recall him attending?<\/p>\n

Dave – Well I vaguely recall it.\u00a0 Again Chih Wang had the ability to reach out and touch people he was politically sensitive he was doing something that put Oregon on the map there was no such radiation center in the country<\/p>\n

Lyn \u2013 Really?<\/p>\n

Dave \u2013No, this is a unique facility.\u00a0 I think if you have developed sense but she had this concept and followed it through like no one else it set an example in the nation<\/p>\n

Lyn -Do you recall the construction of the TRIGA reactor?<\/p>\n

Dave – oh yes that went on for a long while and people were amazed by the amount of concrete poured into the building. it was really a delight to see it go up, but that was a real coup for him because TRIGA reactor were top-of-the-line for research reactors the atomic energy commission was doling out money to have them built but it was highly competitive there were I think only, some of the others can tell you, there were only eight or 10 in the country at that time.\u00a0 He put his hand in there and was given one again because of his persistent, his enthusiasm and he had the structure where it was the obvious next addition.\u00a0 Again he hired a marvelous crew for that people who were reactor operators Terry Anderson Art Johnson came on as radiation safety officer and then a whole other group of people many who were dependent upon the reactor for their research.<\/p>\n

Lyn – I also read that OSU is one of the few universities hoping to build to get money to build a TRIGA reactor who had support from many different departments in the application for this money so that was one of the things that swayed them.<\/p>\n

Dave – He had a unique ability to pull people together pull ideas together and yet if you never met the man his English again was very poor when we were doing the second book Walt Loveland if you’re familiar with most Japanese and Chinese have trouble with the l\u2019 and r\u2019s.\u00a0 So if you have trouble with your ls and rs what would you call Walt\u2026Wart?<\/p>\n

Lyn \u2013 Wart<\/p>\n

Dave -Walt and I would sit across the desk from Chih wart this, wart that, we were chuckling to ourselves he couldn’t hear the difference of course.<\/p>\n

Lyn \u2013 Right.\u00a0 Did you actually have an office in the radiation center?<\/p>\n

Dave – I never had an office as such several of my faculty members had an offices there Dr. Don Kimball Dorff was there from 68 to time he retired in the early 80s.\u00a0 Stewart Knockway was there ballot was there I did research there but I didn’t have an office as such.<\/p>\n

Lyn – Do you recall some of the research you were working on then?<\/p>\n

Dave – I’m sorry<\/p>\n

Lyn – do you recall the research and you were working on there?<\/p>\n

When I was working on?\u00a0 Early on I worked with Frank Conti who was working in my department zoology.\u00a0 Frank was studying the ability of steelhead to migrate from freshwater to salt water and to transition their ability to handle the increasing salinity.\u00a0 And he was searching for the glands or the cells in the animals that would adapt to salt water conditions and I worked with him one summer.\u00a0 And then my last research project in the 80s dealt with a project for the Environmental Protection Agency they were concerned with the possible toxicity of natural uranium in drinking water, not radioactivity but the chemical toxicity.\u00a0 So we worked with the reactor they are intensively for about four years we developed a technique to measure very, very low levels of uranium in tissue and drinking water that hadn’t been done before.\u00a0 That’s a long story I won’t go into it that was major use I had on the reactor. \u00a0I was on the reactor operating committee for years, I was radiation safety committee for years and chairman of that so I was involved always with the radiation center. After I formally retired but that’s another story let\u2019s come to the health physics program.\u00a0 General science department had the radiation biology program, and in the early 60s about 63 may be 62, 63 they were approached by a gentleman from General Electric Corp. x-ray division to develop an x-ray science program science and engineering program this man Dr. Dale Trout maybe you have come on that name. \u00a0Dale Trout he was the expert on x-ray machines particularly for medical is also industrial with a hit in his career and General Electric is now 60 years of age and the US Bureau of radiological health approached him and said \u201cDale x-ray training simply doesn’t exist in the country anymore all the physics departments that used to have x-ray before World War II have now turned to nuclear field and have dropped the x-ray.\u00a0 We can’t find training programs for PO and radiological health that we need to do what the federal agency does we will find you totally you choose where you want to go we will pay the whole cost of developing the program, grants for students if you will do the job and knew he could.\u00a0 Well Dale Trout was that Dean in that field he knew it all.\u00a0 She was of course in Wisconsin where their headquarters are but he loved to fish.\u00a0 He had a fishing cabin on Vancouver Island and Canada and come out each for his vacation to fish.\u00a0\u00a0 so he thought what better place than the Northwest.\u00a0 He first approached University of Washington since they had programs in radiation, they weren\u2019t interested.\u00a0 So for some reason he contacted OSU got a hold of Chih Wang and the others and they said sure why not.\u00a0 The radiation center was coming into being and so they said fine will allow you to space and as you know there’s several x-ray machines there now.\u00a0\u00a0 So somewhere around 63 or 64 trout moved in as soon as the facility opened and set up a marvelous program in x-ray science and engineering.\u00a0 That lasted two decades or a little more than two decades.\u00a0 Then a real serious problem developed I never saw anyone that Chih Wang couldn\u2019t get along with but Dale Trout came from the industrial hierarchy.\u00a0 He arrived with his big black Lincoln Continental and the first thing he asked for was a dedicated parking spot with his name on it. Well OSU didn’t do that then, maybe it does now I don’t think even the president had a parking spot.\u00a0 This ruffled some feathers and it started a downward trend of Dale Trout being an organization man from big industry and Chi being a freewheeling granting getter and before long we were at each other like loggerheads Dale Trout accused him of misusing funds it was sad. \u00a0two wonderful men that were both, I felt, close friends because Dale Trout was in my department eventually they had a breakdown in Chih said you can’t be in the radiation center you have to go somewhere else.\u00a0 So he took over in the basement and the first floor of Waldo Hall.\u00a0 Waldo Hall being the oldest building on campus a wreck in fact the top floor is an inhabitable.\u00a0 Dale Stout spent thousands revamping that getting in x-ray machines\u00a0 by the dozens, developing a wonderful training program, again and General science he had radiological physics, he had radiological health as well graduate programs taught undergraduate courses.\u00a0 Developed an outstanding program actually Dale when he reached age 75 decided it was time to retire again.\u00a0 And so he did and his associate director John Kelly continued the program for some years.\u00a0 The problem is one man couldn’t run the whole program and we realized that there was a real need nationally in health physics radiological health we called it a radiation health.\u00a0 Art Johnson who was teaching a course in my department although in the rad center, and I put together our heads and put together a mish mash of courses together to make an undergraduate program in radiation health and we already had a graduate program available.\u00a0 When I formally retired in 1987, we realized there was no one to continue that, and so working with Art and we transferred it to NE.\u00a0 They took the program and then adapted it to nuclear engineering more and made it a more broader program.\u00a0 The radiation health physics that exist there started in General science in the early 80\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Interesting I didn’t know that<\/p>\n

there’s a lot of background here as I said I can go on<\/p>\n

it is a new in a war is is cool and his wife will be a little as he or it’s great can you remember the craziest or most unusual thing that ever happened at the radiation center?<\/p>\n

Dave – You know I’ve seen your question and I thought and thought I really can’t think I think the people who are actually on site might have memories of that I can’t really remember any craziness it was all business, all organized, I can’t say that I remember any craziness.\u00a0 Sorry<\/p>\n

Lyn – How did the community feel about the TRIGA reactor being built there?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dave – Chih was very wise in this regard he realized with the rising anti nuclear feeling in the country that there could be opposition. \u00a0He had open houses he brought in community leaders to show them the reactor and explain carefully but it didn’t explode it was a different kind of reactor was not a power reactor.\u00a0 He took great measures in PR, personally.\u00a0 He would lead these he had wide contacts in the community. He was quite respected.\u00a0 Key I think defused any comments.\u00a0 At the Heights of some of the compliance about 1970 there were a few protesters that began that picketed they were students who are not knowledgeable about what was going on but had to pick at something he went out and met with them as I recall he was very accommodating so I never recall any problems there.\u00a0 In 1970 when the Trojan reactor plant was to be built on the lower Columbia River. I remember vividly recall me to the office once and said I want you to meet someone from Portland General Electric.\u00a0 Well I said what was the problem.\u00a0 He said while they’re building a huge power reactor and they’re getting a lot of public opposition he said they need someone to do some reporting on environmental consequences of a radioactivity release while that is the field I developed radio ecology it’s called I was teaching a course in that and he said which you help them with their environmental impact statement with regard to radioactive releases and the consequences of that.\u00a0\u00a0 I vividly remember the PGE manager was there and I said well if you’ve got all the static from people you must have tremendous releases I said could I see in your list of anticipated radioactive releases into the Columbia River.\u00a0 He showed me the list I said I can’t believe it you don’t have a problem oh yes we do public perception so I spent the next two years writing reports attending meetings trying to diffuse public concern rewrote their environmental impact statement with regards to environmental releases it was my introduction to public controversy a sad introduction because I was used to dealing with students who might not always be awake but at least they didn’t contest what you were saying.\u00a0 And here you getting people who would come to meeting after meeting asking the same question and he didn’t try to patiently to explained what was going on and they come back next meeting and asked the same question I was a little slow and finally I realized they were making points they were not wanting answers that was a sad story but it made me appreciate how he had defused any potential problems with regard to the TRIGA reactor to my knowledge it never was a local problem.\u00a0 I think there were a few letters to the editors that were quickly answered. The John Ringle particularly has done a good job writing letters to the editors and to columns and so on trying to bring some rationale into this subject which is difficult for him.<\/p>\n

To try to get some facts and figures to diffuse, for example one of the things people were concerned about the release radioactive iodine into the Columbia River.\u00a0 Because people were aware of radioactive iodine and thyroid problems.\u00a0 Well this student, I sent him up to Portland.\u00a0 He checked and some of the major hospitals in Portland where they were giving radioactive Iodine for thyroid test or thyroid treatments and then a person was voiding the excess radioiodine through the urine into the public sewer system.\u00a0 We made some quick calculations and only one of the hospitals in Portland, just one of the hospitals was releasing more radioactivity more radioactive iodine isotopes into the sewage and into the Columbia\u00a0 river than Trojan was.\u00a0 And of course there were five or six centers doing this. \u00a0So we tried to set this in perspective it didn\u2019t affect the anti nukes one bit it al just it\u2019s Radioactivity it\u2019s dangerous.\u00a0\u00a0 Very discouraging.<\/p>\n

Lyn – Can you talk about some of the most interesting people you worked with in your career at OSU?
\nDavid – In NE and Radiation Center or over all?<\/p>\n

Lynn – Or overall<\/p>\n

David – I think the thing that impressed me coming from Southern California to OSU was the dedication of many of the older faculty members who unlike some of the later faculty were dedicated to the institution.\u00a0 They weren\u2019t trying to build an empire and then move to a higher position somewhere else.\u00a0 They were dedicated to OSU.\u00a0 And that was, I think a very positive thing. And I think of people like Roy Young even though Roy did go somewhere else temporarily he was really a, I guess the term, Beaver believer is appropriate now although it was the athletics in that sense.\u00a0 Many of the department chairmen had come up through the ranks.\u00a0 In the late 60\u2019s OSU began to change that and bring in people from outside new deans from the east.\u00a0 One dean came in once and he announced to the faculty of the college of Science that I am here to make OSU the Harvard of the West.\u00a0 We all said oh no.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t understand that we were underfunded and a shoestring operation anyways.\u00a0 Many of the science people came in and were very upset that they were in an agricultural institution.\u00a0 They were pure scientist and the agricultural people got their hands dirty.\u00a0 It was an elitism that really turned me off.\u00a0 We saw more of that coming.\u00a0<\/p>\n

David Nichodemus who was a Dean for many years was in Physics when I came he had a reputation even then for being an outstanding teacher.\u00a0 A gentleman, a very good gentleman.\u00a0 He was active in the honors program which I was too early on.\u00a0 He was revered even as a fairly young faculty member.\u00a0 He later went on into administration.\u00a0 A man I always felt close to because of his fairness and his again concern for the institution and the students.\u00a0 Dean Popovich again handled things so smoothly you didn\u2019t know there were financial problems, he finessed them so well. Hugh Jefferies was a personal friend.\u00a0 Fact is his children are my children\u2019s associates.\u00a0 He was business manager for years.\u00a0 He and Poppy worked together often I would see them on flights to the east where they were trying to elicit money from the federal agencies.\u00a0 Across the board, some excellent people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lyn \u2013 What would you say was your greatest accomplishment in your career at OSU?<\/p>\n

David \u2013 That is a question other people would have to answer.\u00a0 Laugh.\u00a0 I tried to keep things together.\u00a0 We had problems.\u00a0 The general science department was a badly misunderstood department, because it was not a disciplinary department.\u00a0 Many of our deans said, if you are not a chemist, not a biologist, not a physicist, a mathematician what are you?\u00a0 It so happened that the general science department had been formulated in 1932 when the state system separated disciplines.\u00a0 It was set up specifically because there were niche areas or disciplinary that didn\u2019t fit disciplines.\u00a0 So we\u2019d been curing over the years.\u00a0 I came in, in \u201961, there were diverse areas. Chairman at that time Dr. Don Humphrey was fascinated with the history of science, history department wasn\u2019t interested so he developed a program in history of science that continued to the very end.\u00a0 Eventually one of them that I hired Dr. Paul Farber, who succeeded me as chairman, at my request.\u00a0 Switched over to become chairman of the history department and did a great job.\u00a0 He was an excellent scholar.\u00a0 But the department taught courses in the general biology for non science majors, Physical science for non science majors, which, was looked down upon by many of the disciplinary people.\u00a0 These are beneath us we want to teach majors.\u00a0 Well it is important to teach those who are going to be public teachers or home economists and so on.\u00a0 We thought that was an important role.\u00a0 And then we have the specialized programs the radiation sciences, history of sciences and so on.\u00a0 Actually Oceanography had started in the general science department.\u00a0 One man<\/p>\n

Lyn – Did it?<\/p>\n

David \u2013 Where else would you put it you see?\u00a0 Geography had started and later budded off.\u00a0 It was a nursery bed for many interdisciplinary programs.\u00a0 We had some deans in the 70\u2019s particularly who didn\u2019t appreciate this and felt that it was not a reliable program.\u00a0 I spent much of my time as chairman fighting off predatory deans, who were going to scatter us to the three winds and disband the department.\u00a0 The irony is that the one dean, Dean Horn, in the 90\u2019s who came to appreciate the department. I was gone by then.\u00a0 He was the one who had to disband the department in 1992 because of cutbacks, when many departments were cut.\u00a0 He was one dean that appreciated what we were doing.\u00a0 Dean Cheldelin did in the early 60s too.\u00a0 He felt he saw the need for such an interdisiplinary department and supported it strongly, but many of the others did not.\u00a0 So I guess one of my accomplishments was keeping the department together in very difficult times.\u00a0 And, trying to develop programs that were suitable.\u00a0 Radiation Biology was my own personal interest and so we had 3 other staff members came in on that.\u00a0 And we cooperated with people of interest in Oceanography.\u00a0 There was a team in Oceanography back in the 60\u2019s and early 70\u2019s under Dr. Charlie Ostroburg.\u00a0 That was concerned with the use of radioactive tracers to study oceanography.\u00a0 You might say, how would you do that.\u00a0 They discovered or realized that the Hanford plant in Washington pouring out fair amount of activity in the river, actually considerable amounts.\u00a0 That came down the river and spewed out in the Pacific.\u00a0 And they said This is a natural radio tracer we don\u2019t have to add anything it there.\u00a0 So Charlie and his team, he had a wonderful team, 4 or 5 people, and they used the presence of radioactivity in seawater to trace where the plume of the Columbia River went.\u00a0 No one had been able to do this before.\u00a0 It was huge fresh water coming out into the ocean where does it go obviously mixes but how does it mix and where.\u00a0 They were able to develop very sensitive measures for radioactivity in the ocean.\u00a0 They were able to trace that in the summer the plume was diverted southward they were able to trace it as far as the California border by that time, it got to dilute.\u00a0 And in the winter winds drove the plume north, and if you know the southern Washington coast.\u00a0 Willapa Bay, a huge bay, with oyster production.\u00a0 It drove it north and into the bay.\u00a0 Which created a great deal of consternations, because zinc65 was one of the nuclides in the water and that was avidly taken up by the oysters.\u00a0 When the announcement were made about this, it almost killed the oyster industry temporarily because people \u201cradioactivity in my oysters\u201d.\u00a0 So they tried to show how dilute this was, yes, they could measure it but only in trace, trace, trace amounts.\u00a0 But they did wonderful work and then Charlie moved off.\u00a0 He was asked to come to Atomic Energy Commission Department of Energy Washington DC and moved his program there.\u00a0 So that was a very good program we lost.\u00a0 Hope I am not repeating myself.<\/p>\n

Lyn – Not at all<\/p>\n

David – It\u2019s a very good story<\/p>\n

Lyn – I could listen to you all day.<\/p>\n

David – I might talk about some of the people in the Radiation Nuclear Engineering Radiation Center and I am sure you have come upon this. (shows her a paper)<\/p>\n

Lyn – I haven\u2019t seen this<\/p>\n

David \u2013 You need to get a copy of this.\u00a0 It was in a booklet that OSU put out with each department having a page or so and I would judge from the dates that it\u2019s probably the mid 70\u2019s, because it lists Steve Binney coming in 1973.\u00a0 That gives a capsule of each of the early people in the departments<\/p>\n

Lyn – Could I make a copy of this and send it back to you?<\/p>\n

David \u2013 You certainly may<\/p>\n

Lyn \u2013 That would be great<\/p>\n

David \u2013 I tore it out of the book.\u00a0 But there\u2019s a book it should be in the archives, Because it was presenting virtually all the departments at OSU at the time.\u00a0 You want to read those details about the people.\u00a0 Let me take a look at that and I\u2019ll talk about some of the people.\u00a0 It talks about Chih Wang here and I could say more about him.\u00a0 It talks about Bernie Spinrad.\u00a0 That name, have you come across it?<\/p>\n

Lyn – I haven\u2019t<\/p>\n

David – Chih Wang was so involved that he realized he could not be director of the Radiation Center and also Department Chairman of the Nuclear Engineering.\u00a0 Now granted he started Organic Chemistry, Bio Chemistry Nuclear Engineering Radiation Center, and So Bernie Spinrad was a specialist in Nuclear Engineer at Argonne Laboratory.\u00a0 Chih had his network out all over the country picking out people.\u00a0 He got Bernie Spinrad to come to direct the Nuclear Engineering program.\u00a0 He gave prestige to it to the outside.\u00a0 He was only there a few years.\u00a0 I forget why he moved on but, I think he was offered something else.\u00a0 But he was fairly effective at getting Nuclear Engineering really a going program.\u00a0 John Ringle you\u2019ve certainly seen and talked with.\u00a0 John was a key person early on and later became the associate graduate dean or Dean of the graduate school.\u00a0 John was a strong person. Alan Robinson I believe has died.<\/p>\n

Lyn – No he is still around<\/p>\n

Dave\u00a0 – Ok.\u00a0 Alan also headed up the NE program for a while.\u00a0 He had a unique program in Neutron radiography in fact you have probably seen these pictures.\u00a0 The reactor and this entire array here is Alan\u2019s activity.\u00a0 He was using Neutrons in lieu of X-rays or others.\u00a0 And there\u2019s what called Neutron radiography.\u00a0 He was a specialist in that and really made a name for himself there but he had to have this huge array adjacent to the reactor and a port built so that the neutron could come from the core directly out to his area.\u00a0 He did fascinating things.\u00a0 He could photograph bullets being shot from a gun and impinged on a target with neutrons as the imaging device.\u00a0 Fascinating.\u00a0 Alan was a little controversial.\u00a0\u00a0 I think some people thought he was a little autocratic.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I think he did a good job.\u00a0 Art Johnson you have certainly met with.<\/p>\n

Lyn – Great guy<\/p>\n

David – Art is first rate He was a lot of the glue that kept things together there.\u00a0 He had a great sense of humor.\u00a0 Art had a way with people, got along with everyone.\u00a0 He taught in my department for many years, of course Radiation Health which developed into a program.\u00a0 Art had an enthusiasm which was contagious Students loved him.\u00a0 And he did a great job to as radiation Safety officer.\u00a0 Carl Hornic you probably haven\u2019t heard much about.\u00a0 He died in a bicycle accident I think.\u00a0 He was a Dutchman although educated in Germany.\u00a0 He lived up near us.\u00a0 You would see him riding his bicycle down 29th<\/sup> street with no hands holding his briefcase behind him.\u00a0 I think he died of a heart attack as I recall a fairly young man.\u00a0 But he was a very popular researcher.\u00a0 Steve Binney you have met with I am sure Steve came on a little later 1973 I think.\u00a0 He did a very good job.\u00a0 Some of the other people in Nuclear Engineering and such I didn\u2019t have much contact with.\u00a0 Jose was the real star.\u00a0 I believe he is the chairman now isn\u2019t he.<\/p>\n

Lyn \u2013 Well he has taken a leave of absence as Department head because he is so busy with NuScale Power<\/p>\n

David – I can believe it<\/p>\n

Lyn \u2013 Yeah, You have heard about NuScale<\/p>\n

David \u2013 He has done wonders there.\u00a0 I believe Chih hired him.\u00a0 I am not sure.\u00a0 I am not sure of the dates.\u00a0 He\u2019s been around awhile.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know the newer people.\u00a0 I taught in the Radiation Center in the early 90\u2019s because it seem that the curriculum in Radiological Health or Radiation Health Physics required a course in radiation Biology and they had no one to teach it.\u00a0 I had retired from teaching but I had been teaching the course for years.\u00a0 They asked me to come back and I taught in the conference room there in the center for two or three years.\u00a0 I had contact with people there.\u00a0 Chih was still there.\u00a0 Chih became totally deaf in his later years.\u00a0 I had to shout in his ear, it was really sad.\u00a0 I would see him regularly.\u00a0 Roy Young had an office, Poppy had an office to I am not sure.\u00a0 That office wing had been built some years past because they were really crowded.<\/p>\n

Lyn – Yeah that was the temporary wing that is now is almost 40 years old.<\/p>\n

Dave – Is it 40, I forget when it was built.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lyn \u2013 \u201874 I think.<\/p>\n

David – There were simply not enough offices allocated initially.\u00a0 I mean it was hard to decide how that facility would be used, how it would grow.\u00a0 With the addition of the reactor they had offices in that reactor building but it wasn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n

Lyn \u2013 Well I sure appreciate this. It is very interesting, Am I missing anything, I should ask you about?<\/p>\n

David \u2013 It\u2019s hard to say. I would say you cannot over emphasize the role that Chih Wang play in this.\u00a0 There would be no Radiation Center, there would be no TRIGA reactor without him.\u00a0 He engendered great support from the president\u2019s own way from Popovich over the years, from the engineering deans.\u00a0 He developed personal relationships.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t misuse them.\u00a0 He had a good spirit about him that lets work together for the common good.\u00a0 I appreciated that view he had, very much so.\u00a0 You can read the material I wrote about him there, for his memorial service.\u00a0 The books we both worked on were very prominent.\u00a0 It was a good experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lyn \u2013 I am here with Dave Willis, in McMinnville, Or., On August 20th, 2009.\u00a0 I will start out by asking you when and how you came to Oregon State University. Dave – It is a fairly long story part of it is covered by this item I just gave you.\u00a0 I was teaching in… Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1802,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-125","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/nuclearhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/nuclearhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/nuclearhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/nuclearhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1802"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/nuclearhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/nuclearhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":127,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/nuclearhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/125\/revisions\/127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/nuclearhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}