Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

Tombrello–38
ASPATURIAN: Schlumberger being—?
TOMBRELLO: An oil service company. It’s like Halliburton.
ASPATURIAN: Based where?
TOMBRELLO: Well, let’s see, the headquarters in those days were in Manhattan. It was started in
France. There were lots of labs there. There was a lab in Japan. Its first real research lab was in
Connecticut. I get offered the chance to run the Connecticut research lab. Not entirely out of the
blue, because I’d been a consultant for them for six years at that point.
ASPATURIAN: How had your consulting role there come about?
TOMBRELLO: That’s an interesting story. The head of the research lab knew Frank Press. I’d
known Frank because one of the Lauritsen kids had been married to Frank’s son. Frank had just
finished his tour as a science advisor to [President Jimmy] Carter and was now back at MIT, but
on his way to be head of the NAS [National Academy of Sciences]. So there was this little open
space in Frank’s career. He was asked to come to Schlumberger to form a small visiting
committee. He must have called Willy about joining him. He also talked to John Deutch, who at
that point had been in Washington, DC, I believe as an undersecretary of energy and was back at
MIT. And Willy didn’t want to do it, or couldn’t do it, and just told Frank to call me. He asked
me if I would be on this committee. Barclay Kamb [Rawn Professor of Geology and
Geophysics, emeritus] was also picked. So in early 1981, the four of us go off to Schlumberger.
They loved us, except for Barclay. Barclay they couldn’t figure out. Barclay is a genius. I love
Barclay Kamb; he is one of my heroes. He is truly one of my heroes. But he can be enigmatic.
ASPATURIAN: I think that’s a good word for him.
TOMBRELLO: He’s a wonderful person. But they couldn’t figure him out at Schlumberger. They
did not want to deal with it. They could figure me out. They could figure Deutch out; he ended
up on their board of directors. Frank always had some connection with them. But I ended up
just a routine consultant. More than routine—I was spending forty days a year there. They were
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