Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

Tombrello–145
ASPATURIAN: Really?
TOMBRELLO: Koonin had opinions, and he didn’t mind telling you what they were. Remember,
he was a teenage protégé of mine, and maybe he got some of the wrong lessons. One was to be a
bit of a dilettante in science and do a lot of different things. And the other is sometimes to tell
people things they don’t want to hear.
ASPATURIAN: Are you comfortable giving a couple of examples?
TOMBRELLO: See, I’ve never had any trouble with him, but he clearly had not treated Zewail
with quite the respect that Ahmed wanted. Again, Koonin had not done any administrative stuff,
and he was thrown into the provost’s job. He made some mistakes by offending people,
basically by shooting from the hip on a few things. I was willing to excuse it. After all, he’d
been my student. I’d gotten him back here. I had kept him from getting away; I told that story.
To jump ahead just a little bit, when I had an interview with David Baltimore about becoming
division chair of PMA, he said, “Well, Koonin was your undergraduate student and then your
colleague. How do you feel about working for him?” I said, “Would ‘proud’ be a good
adjective?” That finished the conversation. I said, “I have no problems.” Koonin and I have
had our disagreements. Haven’t we all? I said, “But I think, you know, I think I can work with
him. Will it always be smooth? Why should it always be smooth?”
Turned out it was exceedingly smooth. I’ll give an example: He was chosen provost in
1995, and I got chosen as division chair in ’98. I got in just before the beginning of a new fiscal
year—I believe, the first of August in 1998. I discovered that the budget for the next year had
been completely committed. I had discretionary money, as division chair of a big division, of
$19,000. My predecessor, Charlie Peck, had committed it all, and I wasn’t entirely happy with
the way it had been committed. So I cried foul to Koonin. [See also Session 8] Koonin looks at
me with a twinkle in his eye and says, “You’re really good with money, Tom. Let’s just say this
is a challenge for you.” I said, “Well, Steve, I’m willing to take that challenge.” I said, “I don’t
think anybody should look at the books very carefully. And with the current financial system,
you really can’t. It won’t be illegal, but I’ll get through the year with $19,000 of discretionary
money.” He just laughed. To make a long story short, I finished the year with a surplus, small.
I got a lot of things done. I renormalized expectations in the division. The next year Koonin
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