Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories
Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories
Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories
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<strong>Tombrello</strong>–174<br />
THOMAS A. TOMBRELLO<br />
SESSION 7<br />
December 28, 2010<br />
ASPATURIAN: This is December 28th, and we are going to talk about your involvement in<br />
activities at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore. National laboratories.<br />
TOMBRELLO: As a student at Rice, I’d always been intrigued by Los Alamos because of what<br />
had happened there during the war, and because I knew some of the people. A curious thing<br />
happened when I was an NSF postdoc for the first time here at <strong>Caltech</strong>. I figured the postdoc<br />
wasn’t going to last more than a year, and while I was looking around for what to do next, some<br />
interviewers from Los Alamos came to the campus. I interviewed and very quickly got a letter<br />
back saying they weren’t interested. OK, I figured, that’s par for the course. Then I went off to<br />
an American Physical Society meeting in Washington and ran into somebody named Lawrence<br />
Cranberg, whom I had never met, but I knew his work—and he was at Los Alamos. He saw my<br />
nametag. Pounced on me and said, “I am so excited that you are interested in coming to Los<br />
Alamos. I’m really looking forward to having you there.” And I said, “Larry, you’ve got to be<br />
joking.” He says, “No. I’m not joking. I’m very enthusiastic about this.” I said, “Well, several<br />
weeks ago, I got a rejection letter from Los Alamos.” He says, “Several weeks ago? I have only<br />
had your CV for a couple of days.” So that was my first connection to Los Alamos. [Laughter]<br />
I was fired and then hired, but by then I had already agreed to go to Yale. I don’t know what<br />
would have happened if I’d gotten a more positive response; I probably would have gone to Los<br />
Alamos.<br />
One of the things that happened right after we came back to <strong>Caltech</strong> from Yale was that I<br />
got a call from Los Alamos again. We’d driven across the country twice in one year in the<br />
middle of the winter, so we were a little shell-shocked. I was offered the possibility of becoming<br />
director of the cyclotron there. Remember, I’m still in my twenties; I’m a postdoc again, and had<br />
been an assistant professor for maybe a total of six months or something. So I just couldn’t<br />
move my family again, although it was an attractive offer. I was at <strong>Caltech</strong>; I was having fun.<br />
http://resolver.caltech.edu/<strong>Caltech</strong>OH:OH_<strong>Tombrello</strong>_T