Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

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Tombrello–206 ASPATURIAN: What are your thoughts about some of the other observational astronomers on the faculty? TOMBRELLO: Shri [Shrinivas R.] Kulkarni [MacArthur Professor of Astronomy and Planetary Science] is a genius. He has a completely different style. He’s across the map. He does a little bit of everything. He is clearly one of the world’s great astronomers with a completely different style than the others. [Stanislav] George Djorgovski is the kind of astronomer who—I think he’s frustrated by being in the same group as Steidel. Steidel would just reach down and find the gold coin. George would have to shovel through all of it and might then find the gold coin. It’s got to be frustrating to be around people like Steidel. Just totally frustrating. He’s just too good. It looks like luck, but it can’t be if you do it over and over again. So, anyway, now we’re moving TMT forward. ASPATURIAN: Right. You’ve got two $17.5-million commitments. TOMBRELLO: And we’ve got a commitment for some matching funds from the Canadians. Clearly, we had what we thought was the beginning of a critical mass. We had money. We had the design study started. Now we have to sort through other big proposals. The next thing was a nanotechnology center. We could clearly get money for that, but when Dave Tirrell, chairman in chemistry [Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering], and I saw the proposal for it, we thought it looked like an entitlement proposal. The last thing we wanted was to have a project where the money came in, got spent, and was gone. ASPATURIAN: The proposal came from whom? TOMBRELLO: It came from PMA, engineering, chemistry, and maybe biology. ASPATURIAN: So it was a very interdisciplinary proposal. TOMBRELLO: Yes, but Tirrell and I didn’t like it, although we liked the idea of the center. We thought that we needed to get to a situation in nanotech where it isn’t just each person having one little widget that they do something with. We needed a facility where there were lots of different http://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechOH:OH_Tombrello_T
Tombrello–207 pieces of hardware that they could use together, rather than each one staying with their own little electron microscope or e-beam writer or whatever. We wanted a combined facility that’s up to date, competitive with everybody else, and with a strategy for replacing these things. Because, again, if you have a bunch of new equipment, in five years it’s a bunch of old equipment. It’s not competitive anymore. How do we set it up? Tirrell and I were not entirely popular, because we eliminated the entitlement aspects—paying salaries, having seminars, and stuff like that. We basically said, “Look. Buy equipment. We will have a certain number of years for which you have service contracts and technicians to run these things. At that point, you better figure out how to support it, because it’s not clear it’s going to carry through to the next fund-raising drive.” We got roughly $25 million from the Moore Foundation, I think, and $7.5 million from the Kavli Foundation. So we have a lot of money to begin with. And we started with Mike [Michael L.] Roukes [Abbey Professor of Physics, Applied Physics, and Bioengineering] as the director—but with a plan that the directorship would rotate and that a council would choose the next director. The next director was [Axel] Scherer. And at the moment Roukes and Scherer are co-directors. Scherer is a genius with the equipment, knowing what to do, how to keep it running, how to look to the future. Roukes is Mr. Outside, who knows how to go out there and sell it. I think it turns out to be a good combination—Roukes was in at the right time at the beginning, and Scherer came in at the right time when you try to build it up, and now we have put the two of them together. Now they have gotten some more money from the Moore Foundation, and I think they may get more from the Kavli Foundation. And basically the cash-flow situation with users is quite good. If they’re not paying their whole operating expenses, I think they’re very, very close to doing it. It was a very good model, and I think David Tirrell and I deserve the credit for establishing a credible model that not only got this thing for them but gave them a path by which it would be self-sustaining and would go on forever, one hopes. Another thing I did was that JPL was interested in hiring scientists. I said to Elachi—he became JPL director in 2001—“Let’s do an experiment. You want scientists. I’ve got scientists. You’re going to need a standard of comparison when you starting hiring your own scientists, and you don’t have that now because you don’t have any scientists.” I said, “I will propose that we put some joint appointments in of people who are really good. They will give you a scientific baseline. And anytime somebody wants to hire someone, you can say, ‘Anybody we hire has got http://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechOH:OH_Tombrello_T
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THOMAS A. TOMBRELLO (b. 1936) INTER
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Contact information Archives, Calif
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NOTE TO READERS Per agreement betwe
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Tombrello-iv TABLE OF CONTENTS INTE
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Tombrello-vi Session 4 68-72 Colleg
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Tombrello-viii his presidency. Tomb
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Tombrello-x 206-213 Establishes (wi
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CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
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Tombrello-3 TOMBRELLO: Bisacquino.
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Tombrello-5 TOMBRELLO: This proceed
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Tombrello-7 Memphis, and I believe
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Tombrello-9 otherwise, we mostly we
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Tombrello-11 of the ability of the
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Tombrello-13 truly bigger than life
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Tombrello-15 I associated with the
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Tombrello-17 they’re probably rig
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Tombrello-19 ASPATURIAN: Your thesi
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Tombrello-21 wonderful time. And yo
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Tombrello-23 TOMBRELLO: Let me go o
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Tombrello-25 ASPATURIAN: When you s
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Tombrello-27 We did that again in t
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Tombrello-29 funding our research t
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Tombrello-31 from the NSF grant, bu
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Tombrello-33 doing great stuff, bec
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Tombrello-35 TOMBRELLO: I wasn’t
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Tombrello-37 [Morrisroe Professor o
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Tombrello-39 clearly willing to pay
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Tombrello-41 my teaching assignment
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Tombrello-43 ASPATURIAN: No. TOMBRE
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Tombrello-45 Charlie, that’s numb
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Tombrello-47 heavy ions. Jancaitis
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Tombrello-49 because, no surprise,
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Tombrello-51 of a wreck somewhere.
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Tombrello-53 concurrent computers,
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Tombrello-55 your green card.” He
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Tombrello-57 USC. She said, “My n
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Tombrello-59 video of it. Brian was
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Tombrello-61 ASPATURIAN: Without th
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Tombrello-63 ASPATURIAN: Consciousn
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Tombrello-65 Stone reported this co
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Tombrello-67 says, “That is so im
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Tombrello-69 basement was where I l
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Tombrello-71 Graaff generators] at
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Tombrello-73 groups at Chicago, and
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Tombrello-75 TOMBRELLO: I think it
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Tombrello-77 TOMBRELLO: Yes. I reme
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Tombrello-79 TOMBRELLO: Well, it wa
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Tombrello-81 were made up of these
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Tombrello-83 TOMBRELLO: It had a re
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Tombrello-85 ASPATURIAN: It wasn’
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Tombrello-87 Remington bronzes but
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Tombrello-89 He’d done all kinds
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Tombrello-91 side, with totally ira
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Tombrello-93 TOMBRELLO: Yes. It too
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Tombrello-95 wouldn’t have asked
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Tombrello-97 U.S. independent of fo
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Tombrello-99 own operating people a
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Tombrello-101 particularly in compa
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Tombrello-103 Six months later, “
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Tombrello-105 necessary—that was
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Tombrello-107 make things harder. A
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Tombrello-109 TOMBRELLO: It really
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Tombrello-111 it. It was clearly an
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Tombrello-113 little bit—he had h
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Tombrello-115 protons, you didn’t
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Tombrello-117 Did she have an affai
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Tombrello-119 questions. But Murray
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Tombrello-121 marvelous teacher—h
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Tombrello-123 ASPATURIAN: What I ha
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Tombrello-125 ASPATURIAN: That woul
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Tombrello-127 and all sorts of thin
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Tombrello-129 ASPATURIAN: Someone e
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Tombrello-131 DuBridge interpreted
Page 147 and 148: Tombrello-133 sciences. They were g
Page 149 and 150: Tombrello-135 candidates came and g
Page 151 and 152: Tombrello-137 TOMBRELLO: I don’t
Page 153 and 154: Tombrello-139 TOMBRELLO: Yes. But I
Page 155 and 156: Tombrello-141 opposite sides. But h
Page 157 and 158: Tombrello-143 ASPATURIAN: Now, was
Page 159 and 160: Tombrello-145 ASPATURIAN: Really? T
Page 161 and 162: Tombrello-147 TOMBRELLO: Yes. I’d
Page 163 and 164: Tombrello-149 I believe he had a vi
Page 165 and 166: Tombrello-151 to predict something
Page 167 and 168: Tombrello-175 And then in the summe
Page 169 and 170: Tombrello-177 think you need that c
Page 171 and 172: Tombrello-179 nuclear counterterror
Page 173 and 174: Tombrello-181 spoiled by that. The
Page 175 and 176: Tombrello-183 particularly the weap
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Page 183 and 184: Tombrello-191 TOMBRELLO: I know. I
Page 185 and 186: Tombrello-193 THOMAS A. TOMBRELLO S
Page 187 and 188: Tombrello-195 discretionary $19,000
Page 189 and 190: Tombrello-197 Lange is PMA chairman
Page 191 and 192: Tombrello-199 Witten’s here, Zewa
Page 193 and 194: Tombrello-201 There were many thing
Page 195 and 196: Tombrello-203 the key—the hallmar
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Page 203 and 204: Tombrello-211 Wendy, until well int
Page 205 and 206: Tombrello-213 realized it was a wor
Page 207 and 208: Tombrello-215 you try for. But you
Page 209 and 210: Tombrello-217 TOMBRELLO: He did not
Page 211 and 212: Tombrello-219 ASPATURIAN: Just a re
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Page 215 and 216: Tombrello-223 He’s not dumb. OK.
Page 217 and 218: Tombrello-225 ASPATURIAN: And incre
Page 219 and 220: Tombrello-227 could control him. We
Page 221 and 222: Tombrello-233 down to the late stag
Page 223 and 224: Tombrello-235 THOMAS A. TOMBRELLO S
Page 225 and 226: Tombrello-237 the tandem laboratory
Page 227 and 228: Tombrello-239 picked Motorola’s 6
Page 229 and 230: Tombrello-241 ASPATURIAN: How did y
Page 231 and 232: Tombrello-243 town, staying in a ve
Page 233 and 234: Tombrello-245 TOMBRELLO: Somebody v
Page 235 and 236: Tombrello-247 years before, I’d s
Page 237 and 238: Tombrello-249 as good as you can im
Page 239 and 240: Tombrello-251 Los Alamos is a wonde
Page 241 and 242: Tombrello-253 TOMBRELLO: No. I thin
Page 243 and 244: Tombrello-255 navy, done the submar
Page 245 and 246: Tombrello-257 TOMBRELLO: —had don
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Tombrello-261 putting up a substant
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Tombrello-263 TOMBRELLO: I think so
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Tombrello-265 TOMBRELLO: There were
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Tombrello-267 at that, just to see
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Tombrello-269 ASPATURIAN: Is he ori
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Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

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