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>–48<br />
ASPATURIAN: So not SURF [Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships] students, for<br />
instance—<br />
TOMBRELLO: SURF didn’t quite exist at that point. But that’s a good story, too. I had these<br />
incredibly bright students all at once. At this point, Jancaitis is still working for me, because he<br />
was in the same class as Polchinski and Zajc. Weaver and Koonin are gone. Koonin’s gone off<br />
to MIT, because I’m going to get him back as the house theorist at Kellogg. But I’ve got too<br />
many of these kids to support, and I want to keep them all for the summer. I go to Harold Brown<br />
[<strong>Caltech</strong> president 1969-1977], my president. [Lee A.] DuBridge was a great president [1946-<br />
69] of <strong>Caltech</strong>. I knew DuBridge and I used to talk to him. But Harold Brown was kind of my<br />
president. I can be very candid, and he could be extremely candid <strong>with</strong> me. Like he could say<br />
no. But see, that was the great thing about Harold Brown. You came to him <strong>with</strong> an idea. He<br />
might say no, and you knew it was “No.” You’d never have to worry about it again. But if he<br />
said yes, he’d say yes right then, and you knew the check was in the mail. So I mentioned to him<br />
these students and how I wanted some money for the summer to pay them. In those days you<br />
paid them so little. And he said yes. Hey, done! And he says, “But I might have Morrisroe look<br />
into getting you some support someplace else. I can’t keep doing this.”<br />
ASPATURIAN: [David] Morrisroe being the finance guy [vice president for business and finance]<br />
at that point.<br />
TOMBRELLO: They got money for me from the Richter Foundation. So I was running a summer<br />
thing <strong>with</strong> Richter Foundation funding, and then, later, when Murph [Marvin L. Goldberger,<br />
<strong>Caltech</strong> president 1978-87] is here, and Fred [Fredrik H.] Shair [professor of chemical<br />
engineering, 1976-89] started SURF, I decided that rather than have two of these things<br />
competing <strong>with</strong> each other I would just throw the Richter money into SURF. That’s my SURF<br />
story. I’ve never had very many SURF students—I’ve had a few—but I always had students of<br />
my own that were paid for by something or other. Harold Brown basically made a lot of the<br />
future happen. And Murph inherited at least one tiny little bit of what supported SURF.<br />
They’ve kept the Richter money, and it’s still supporting part of SURF. Morrisroe found it for<br />
me, and I always tried to keep him happy. I told him about how good the students were,<br />
http://resolver.caltech.edu/<strong>Caltech</strong>OH:OH_<strong>Tombrello</strong>_T