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>–29<br />
funding our research to the NSF. As a board member, Willy couldn’t be a PI [principal<br />
investigator] over an NSF grant. So Tommy became PI of the NSF grant. But then the times<br />
suddenly changed. In 1968 we were on this growth curve—all of science was. There was lots of<br />
money. And then suddenly there wasn’t. The country is trying to fight the Vietnam War, and<br />
they’re not going to raise taxes. Science began to not grow anymore, and funding even<br />
decreased. We probably didn’t get as much money from the NSF as we’d gotten from the ONR.<br />
It became more of a challenge to run Kellogg.<br />
So Tommy is dying. I’m trying to fit in—this is now probably 1972. My marriage is<br />
coming slightly unglued. I have three little kids, a son and two daughters. In the evening I’m<br />
going over to sit <strong>with</strong> Tommy, telling him what’s going on in the lab, because I just sort of<br />
inherited the day-to-day stuff. There were many more people who were more senior than I was<br />
there. So I got tenure in ’70 and got to be a full professor in ’71, which was more or less on<br />
schedule.<br />
ASPATURIAN: You were promoted pretty young.<br />
TOMBRELLO: Yeah, pretty young. There were others who got there faster. I probably got there<br />
faster than I deserved, but that’s OK. I wasn’t complaining. The evenings <strong>with</strong> Tommy were<br />
interesting. He had sort of been given the painkiller of choice, and the painkiller he understood<br />
best was gin. So there was a lot of gin being poured. Part of the discussion was drinking <strong>with</strong><br />
Tommy, and all his old friends dropping by. Some of the old people who had been in the<br />
weapons game—and maybe were still in the weapons game—would drop by. Everyone wanted<br />
to see Tommy before he died. A slightly prickly saint. A brilliant man who had basically in<br />
some ways submerged his own career to keep Kellogg running. Someone once said, “Charlie<br />
had one son, but unfortunately it was Willy [Fowler].”<br />
In some sense, Willy was the heir apparent to the vision of Kellogg, and Tommy—<br />
Charlie’s son—was one of the people who kept it going. But Tommy was a brilliant man—had<br />
humor, could figure things out, was good <strong>with</strong> people. I was always a challenge to him, because<br />
I come <strong>with</strong> my mother’s hard edge in dealing <strong>with</strong> people, particularly people above me in the<br />
pecking order, but not so much <strong>with</strong> people below—but certainly <strong>with</strong> people above me. We’ll<br />
get to that again when I get to my interactions <strong>with</strong> Schlumberger and <strong>with</strong> the <strong>Caltech</strong><br />
http://resolver.caltech.edu/<strong>Caltech</strong>OH:OH_<strong>Tombrello</strong>_T