Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

Tombrello–42
important. We broke through and hired somebody who was “none of the above,” but he was best
of show. Hey, you could begin to do that. What happened was interesting. First, some of the
old fields began to shrink.
ASPATURIAN: Can you give me some examples here?
TOMBRELLO: Nuclear physics had become very small. High-energy physics is smaller than it
was. Today we’ve grown in some areas. We’ve grown in condensed matter physics. In those
days, we always talked about how we could never get critical mass in these fields. Do we have
critical mass now? More than we did then. The other thing was that the division became
infinitely more collegial. There was much less horse trading and much more of a feeling of
“We’d better get along with our colleagues, because we’re going to have a hotshot candidate one
day, and we want that choice to get through the committee.” The division became nicer. I had
no idea that was going to happen. I’m extremely pleased by that.
ASPATURIAN: I have a question: Did your mandate here extend to astronomy and mathematics?
TOMBRELLO: No. But it did have an influence on astronomy. Now we go forward to ’89. I’ve
come back from Schlumberger. Stone is no longer chair, but Neugebauer is, and he said, “I want
you to take the staffing over again.” I said, “I’ve lost two years.” He says, “You’ll find a
winner.” Well, I did find a winner. David Goodstein [Gilloon Distinguished Teaching and
Service Professor, emeritus, and Caltech vice provost, 1988-2007] had been chosen to be on the
selection committee for a new set of fellowships, called the Packards. This was their first year,
and all the incredibly bright young people in the United States were being put up for Packards.
All those files were in David’s office downstairs. I said, “David, I’d like to look at those files.”
He says, “You know, I’m not supposed to show these files.” I said, “Right.” He says, “But you
know, I’m not here this next weekend.” I said, “Well, how about that.” So I went into his office
and I read all those files. One of the nominees had actually worked for me at Schlumberger.
These are the brightest people in the United States. Some tenured, some not, but they’re
all young. There’s a singularity among them. There’s a line in one of the— Did you ever read
the Mary Stewart novels about King Arthur?
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