Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

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Tombrello–266 we sell them high.” And I said, “You know, the markets where we used to sell the students are changing. There are not as many places you can sell a professor. Research labs for industry are disappearing. The national labs have no vision for the future.” I said, “There’s one new market—the startup game; the small companies.” I said, “We’ve got to have a market for these kids. And this is the market, and it’s going to pay off. I don’t know if it will pay off in the companies we start at Caltech. But it’s going to pay off in the long run when there are going to be more people like Gordon Moore, and they’re going to end up giving us a lot of money because they got their ideas here.” Well, it had happened with [Arnold] Beckman, of course, who developed the pH meter here. Gordon didn’t develop anything here, but Gordon’s been extremely grateful to Caltech. Jack said, “Well, I’m not sure I agree with you, but, you know, I understand the motivation that we’re doing it for the students.” And it happens two ways with the students. They see it going on around them and they know it’s OK. And of course, they develop the kind of context they need to actually try to do it. Caltech tries to help them with it. I had a student—Michael Woods, who graduated a few years ago—who had an idea for a company. I’m a Gnome, which I consider one of the great honors I have—belonging to the Gnomes at Caltech. I said, “Hey, come to the Gnome Christmas party; I want to show you how to network.” Within probably an hour of just walking around with a drink in his hand, talking to people, he got all kinds of ideas of how you begin to start a company. Free, hey! This is seriously good advice. They got very interested in him, because they’re very devoted to Caltech. So the culture changed, and it changed in a way that I’d like to think will never go back, because it opens up a whole new range of possibilities for our students. And, in addition, Caltech has made a hell of a lot of money off Tech Transfer. There have been no scandals. I think I had a lot to do with no scandals. ASPATURIAN: You’ve kept things on the straight and narrow. TOMBRELLO: Larry always listened. Larry never disagreed about that. We wanted to avoid having to explain why something bad had happened. They’ve now sort of turned it over to [vice provost] Mory [Morteza] Gharib, in the provost’s office, and I hope he does it well. It’s not a job that you spend every waking moment thinking about, but there’s so much to lose that you do have to pay attention to it. You just have to have a sensitive nose for, oh, maybe you should look http://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechOH:OH_Tombrello_T
Tombrello–267 at that, just to see exactly what’s happening there. But one of the big changes in my lifetime at Caltech has been the influence of Tech Transfer on the whole culture. Because before Larry came, this place was a different place. Professors did start businesses: [Charles] Richter and [Frederick] Lindvall [professor of engineering, d. 1989] had a business. [Amnon] Yariv had businesses. A number of people had businesses, but they were not really connected to Caltech. It was because a professor had a vision and did it anyway. And we had a bunch of crazy rules. ASPATURIAN: Yes, many. TOMBRELLO: Some of which were created by Jack Roberts when he was provost, which we just had to get rid of. They didn’t make any sense. They didn’t make any sense for the world we were moving into, and the world we’re likely to stay in for a long time. It’s funny when we start looking at some of the younger trustees we’ve got. A lot of them come out of that world; a few of them are ours. But a lot of them are attracted here because they see Caltech doing pretty well in this area of taking science and turning it into something useful. The latest example is a little company started by David Baltimore, Axel Scherer, and this grad student named George Maltezos, which just got sold six months ago for $110 million. Not so shabby. Caltech made money out of it. I’m sure the inventors made money out of it. And it sent a clear signal. ASPATURIAN: Axel Scherer. Is that the field-testing malaria chip? TOMBRELLO: Yes. Well, it does everything. You find the substrate, and it will test for many things. David and Alex have each gotten $2.5-million grants from the Gates Foundation. I think they’re going to develop a test for tuberculosis, because roughly the same technique can be modified to do that. These are big-ticket items. ASPATURIAN: They sure are. TOMBRELLO: You can see when the Gates Foundation comes in, they see it as having a big societal good attached to it. I think it will be a case of doing well by doing good. 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
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Tombrello-133 sciences. They were g
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Tombrello-135 candidates came and g
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Tombrello-137 TOMBRELLO: I don’t
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Tombrello-139 TOMBRELLO: Yes. But I
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Tombrello-141 opposite sides. But h
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Tombrello-143 ASPATURIAN: Now, was
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Tombrello-145 ASPATURIAN: Really? T
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Tombrello-147 TOMBRELLO: Yes. I’d
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Tombrello-149 I believe he had a vi
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Tombrello-151 to predict something
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Tombrello-175 And then in the summe
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Tombrello-177 think you need that c
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Tombrello-179 nuclear counterterror
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Tombrello-181 spoiled by that. The
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Tombrello-183 particularly the weap
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Tombrello-185 set up to prevent wea
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Tombrello-187 with those that alrea
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Tombrello-189 powered by solar. The
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Tombrello-191 TOMBRELLO: I know. I
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Tombrello-193 THOMAS A. TOMBRELLO S
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Tombrello-195 discretionary $19,000
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Tombrello-197 Lange is PMA chairman
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Tombrello-199 Witten’s here, Zewa
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Tombrello-201 There were many thing
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Tombrello-203 the key—the hallmar
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Tombrello-205 TOMBRELLO: Not exactl
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Tombrello-207 pieces of hardware th
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Tombrello-209 TOMBRELLO: It’s nic
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Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

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