Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

Tombrello–214
TOMBRELLO: Yes!
ASPATURIAN: The U.K.
TOMBRELLO: Close. Canada. We are not gregarious like GPS [Geological and Planetary
Sciences], but we are collegial. We have a few equivalences of the French-Canadians; those are
the astronomers—bombs in the mailbox and that kind of thing. But still, when push comes to
shove, we may be dull, but we’re collegial. We’re not gregarious. But we do agree on priorities.
That’s why I started out with setting those three priorities, and the whole division got behind it.
Even math; because math figured in some of this stuff—like the Fairchilds. They get one of the
Fairchilds every year. Hey! It’s a win for them, too. And some of the string theorists work with
the mathematicians. We can, when it comes to it, agree on a few priorities, whereas Biology at
Caltech has a very hard time with that. I don’t know what I’d say the Biology Division was. I’d
say “dysfunctional” is the word that comes to mind, and that’s not a national group. How can
such a small group be so divided, so contentious?
But anyway, people say, “What was it like, being chairman? What problems did you
have with your colleagues?” I’d say that most of my problems were with the Caltech
administration or with the administrative groups at Caltech. At the end of the day, people don’t
always agree in Physics, Math, and Astronomy, but they can get together.
Another thing I did—time now to talk about Mathematics. Mathematics was probably
down below number ten nationally when I came in. They had hired some good people. They’d
lost some good people. My philosophy for them was that you always go for really good people.
And don’t get disheartened if you don’t get them. You make a lot of appointments, and you’re
always going to lose a few. Some are not going to come. You make them good offers, maybe
just a step ahead of where they are professionally, and you just play that consistent strategy.
Now we’re number seven, and I think I had a lot to do with that. I think at the moment they are
losing a few people. You have to get used to it. It’s still the farm-team problem. But we have
ratcheted ourselves up. We were stuck down in the rankings with Yale, and now we’ve left Yale
in the dust. We are number seven, and they are probably still stuck around ten or eleven. We
have blown past a number of places. But we still can lose the good people I had something to do
with hiring. The department just has to get over the fact that you’re not going to get everybody
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