WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTI
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WINTER 1992
Manufacturing
in the 1990s
A SPECIAL ISSUE
Robert C. Stempel '55
Chairman and CEO
of General Motors
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WPI Journal
VOLUME XCV NO. 1 WINTER 1992
2
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CONTENTS
What's Good for General Motors Today? Michael Dorsey
The 1980s was an eventful decade for the world's largest manufacturer. General
Motors Chairman Robert C. Stempel '55 explains what the corporation learned
during those critical 10 years about making quality products for the highly
competitive automotive market, and how it is applying those lessons to become
a stronger company in the 1990s.
The New Wave in Manufacturing Carol Campbell
Power to the people. It may sound like a leftover slogan from the '60s, but more
and more, American corporations are learning to make their employees key
players in the quest for quality. As manufacturing executives at seven corpora-
tions explain, involving and empowering workers is a critical step on the road
to competitiveness.
Flights of Fancy
Here's a look at several of WPI's best-known buildings — up close and personal.
In this four-color photo essay, we capture some of the embellishments and
details that give these buildings their unique character and charm.
Education on the Front Lines Cathy Kalenian
In the classrooms and laboratories of the Washburn Shops, students enrolled
in manufacturing engineering, WPI's newest accredited academic program, are
learning to become the manufacturing executives and the industrial innovators
of the 21st century.
The Entrepreneurial Spirit: Steady As She Goes Michael Dorsey
Robert H. Beckett '57 waited until the time and circumstances were right to
found his own company. Since then, his unswerving vision and quiet leadership
have helped Robec Distributors grow into the nation's most profitable distribu-
tor of desktop computers, peripherals and software.
DEPARTMENTS
34 Communique: Climbing Between the Peaks. Donald F. Berth '57
Front Coven Robert C. Stempel poses with a General Motors concept car. Story on page 2. Photo
courtesy General Motors. Opposite: Paul Cotnoir, director of the Manufacturing Engineering Appli-
cations Center, left, and graduate student Fredric Gold use a horoscope to examine the transmission
housing of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle. Story on page 21. Photo by Janet Woodcock. Back Cover. A
detail from a hand-colored engraving of the WPI campus by Richard Rummell, completed in 1908. WPI
has launched a drive to endow the maintenance of its academic buildings, including Boynton Hall.
Stratton Hall and the Washburn Shops, seen here from left to right. Story on page 34. (Note: Alumni
Gymnasium, completed in 1916 and seen in the background, was added to this print at a later date.)
Staff of the WPI Journal: Editor, Michael W. Dorsey • Alumni News Editor, Ruth S. Trask • Writers, Bonnie Gelbwasser and Neil Norum • Designer, Carol Hoyle Ballard
• Photographer, Janet Woodcock • Alumni Publications Committee: Samuel Mencow '37, chairman • Paul J. Cleary 71 • James S. Demetry '58 • Judith Donahue SIM '82
• William J. Firla Jr. '60 • Carl A. Keyser '39 • Robert C. Labonte '54 • Roger N. Perry Jr. '45 • The WPI Journal (ISSN 0148-6128) is published quarterly for the WPI Alumni
Association by the Office of University Relations. Second class postage paid at Worcester, MA, and additional mailing offices. Printed by The Lane Press, Burlington, Vt.
Diverse views presented in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or official WPI policies. We welcome letters to the editor. Address correspondence
to the Editor, WPI Journal, WPI, 100 Institute Road, Worcester, MA 01609-2280. Phone: (508) 831-5609, FAX: (508) 831-5604, Electronic mail (Internet): mwdorsey@wpi.wpi.edu.
Postmaster: If undeliuerable, please send form 3579 to the address above. Do not return publication. Entire contents m1992, Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
Winter 1992
What's Good for
General Motors
Today?
By Michael Dorsey
After a decade of dramatic change, the world's largest
manufacturer is striving to become a smaller, leaner
and more efficient corporation to better face the enor-
mous pressures of foreign competition, and to better
survive one of the longest recessions in recent memory.
What did GM learn during the tumultuous
1980s about building high-quality products, about bal-
ancing automation and human resources, and about
competing in the global marketplace, and how is it
putting those lessons to work to tackle the challenges
it faces today? GM's chairman and CEO, WPI's own
Robert C. Stempel '55 (left), provides some answers.
n 1952 President Eisenhower nominated Charles
"Engine Charlie" Wilson, a former General Motors
president and a major GM stockholder, to be his
secretary of defense. Asked whether his ties to a
corporation that counted defense contracts as an im-
portant part of its bottom line would pose a conflict of
interest in his new job, Wilson replied, "For years I've
thought what was good for the country was good for
General Motors, and vice versa."
While General Motors' impact on the well-being
of the United States may have diminished somewhat
since those days, it is still the largest and most impor-
tant manufacturing company in the world. Its work
force numbers close to half a million. About 10,000
dealers sell its products. Some 30,000 suppliers pro-
vide it with parts and raw materials, and its assembly
lines are the nation's largest consumers of steel, rub-
ber, glass and plastic.
It's not surprising, then, that decisions made in
the 14th-floor executive offices of the General Motors
Building in Detroit have the power to captivate the
international business press, and quickly become
the focus of conversations around water coolers and
dinner tables from coast to coast.
Such was the case on Dec. 18, 1991, when Robert
C. Stempel '55, a 33-year General Motors veteran who
became chairman and CEO 18 months ago, stood
before a packed press conference and announced a
major resizing of the corporation. Over the next five
years, Stempel said, GM will close 21 of its 125 assem-
bly and parts plants, reducing its capacity by one-fifth,
and eliminate 74,000 blue- and white-collar jobs (nearly
18 percent of its North American work force), shrink-
ing the company to about half its 1985 size.
WPI Journal
The announcement was the latest step
in a series of actions — including an historic
$2. 1 billion special charge against earnings
in 1990— that GM has taken over the last few
years to improve its competitiveness, pro-
ductivity and profitability by bringing its
manufacturing capacity and payroll in line
with its worldwide auto sales. Those sales
have been declining in recent years due
chiefly to the erosion of consumer confi-
dence brought on by a lingering recession.
In 1991, for example, sales of GM ve-
hicles fell by about 600,000 over 1990 levels,
leaving the company facing losses of up to
$3 billion (GM last earned a profit— $4.85
billion — in 1989). The drop in earnings fol-
lowed a decade in which the company's
share of the North American market steadily
declined.
GM, which once made 52 percent of all
cars sold in the U.S., saw its market share
drop from 46 percent in 1980 to just over 35
percent by the end of 1991. Over the same
period, the share held by Japanese auto-
makers rose from 15.7 percent to 29 percent.
Significantly, the size of that market has also
declined — from about 14 million vehicles
in 1980 to about 12 million vehicles today.
How did General Motors arrive at this
critical era of belt-tightening? How did a cor-
poration that once seemed the stable, solid
heart of American enterprise find itself in
the midst of an urgent quest to rebuild and
remake itself? Much of the answer lies in the
events of the 1980s, 10 years of dramatic
change at GM, and a decade that posed
some of the most significant challenges the
corporation has faced in its 83-year history.
Several critical events in the 1970s paved
the way for the eventful '80s. The most im-
portant was the oil embargo of 1973, which
sent gasoline prices soaring and created a
! tremendous demand for smaller, more fuel-
efficient cars. American car companies re-
sponded with models like the Ford Pinto
and the Chevrolet Vega, but consumers
seemed to prefer imports like the Honda
Civic. In fact, Japanese carmakers made
significant inroads into the U.S. car market
during the rest of the 1970s.
In 1978 the U.S. was hit with another oil
embargo and the federal government intro-
duced the first fuel-economy standards for
cars. General Motors, which had already
begun a program to downsize its larger
cars, accelerated that program and set out
to make virtually every one of its vehicles
smaller, lighter and more fuel efficient.
The oil embargoes, combined with a re-
cession in the mid-1970s, led to declining
sales for all three U.S. automakers. In re-
sponse, GM laid off thousands of workers in
1979, and the following year the company
posted its first yearly loss in 60 years— $763
million. As the 1980s began, it was becoming
clear to many that American automakers
had a bigger problem: the Japanese were
beating the Big Three American automakers
in two critical areas — quality and cost. By
selling cars that appealed to U.S. consumers
and keeping their manufacturing costs
down, the Japanese were giving GM, Ford
and Chrysler a run for their money.
Some of the ways in which GM re-
sponded to the competitive pressures of
the early 1980s were destined to erode con-
sumer confidence. For example, the move
to downsize cars resulted in car series —
the J-cars of the early 1980s, for example,
or the GM-10 series introduced later in the
decade — with models that looked too much
alike or that lacked the eye-catching styling
of their foreign competitors. More and more,
consumers also came to see GM cars as
assess*
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The 1992 Cadillac Seville, winner of the top award from three major automotive
magazines, is a product of GM's redoubled commitment to making quality cars.
!SS^18
The NUMMI plant in Fremont, Calif.,
a joint venture between General
Motors and Toyota. NUMMI was one
of several experiments GM engaged
in during the 1980s to learn how to
make its manufacturing operations
more competitive.
being lower in quality and more expensive
than the vehicles rolling off the Toyota and
Honda assembly lines.
Recognizing that it was losing ground to
the Japanese, General Motors made a major
effort to upgrade and automate its plants
in the 1980s (see Lesson 1, next page). The
plant improvements were an attempt to
lower GM's production costs, an area where
it has long lagged behind even its domestic
competitors.
While GM found that automation is
important, it learned that other ways of im-
proving productivity (many pioneered on
Japanese factory floors)— like keeping mini-
mum inventories of parts on hand, finding
ways to involve and empower workers, and
becoming committed to the continuous im-
provement of both products and the manu-
facturing process — were even more vital.
To learn more about these techniques,
GM engaged in several partnerships with
Japanese companies during the 1980s (see
Lesson 2, next page) and launched a new
car division, Saturn, to apply these lessons
and to develop its own manufacturing inno-
vations.
Even before GM's Dec. 18 announcement,
auto analysts were in agreement that Gen-
eral Motors is making good use of the les-
sons it learned in the decade just past and
is beginning to turn the giant corporation
around. While it will take time to rebuild
consumer confidence lost in the 1980s, car
buyers and the automotive media seem to
like the high-quality cars GM is putting into
showrooms.
Sales of the 1992 Buick Park Avenue, a
stylish midsize car, are running about 34
percent ahead of sales of the previous ver-
sion of the model. The Chevrolet Caprice
Winter 1992
was named Motor Trend's Car of Year in
1991, and the new Cadillac Seville has cap-
tured top awards from three major automo-
tive magazines. While Japanese makers still
earn the top spots on the index of customer
satisfaction published by the California-
based J.D. Power & Associates, Buick
and Cadillac ranked fourth and seventh,
respectively, on the most recent list — the
only U.S. carmakers to appear in the top 10.
Over the past two years, GM has re-
vamped many of its models and introduced
a flurry of new vehicles, including 16 new
cars and trucks for 1992— the largest new
car rollout in automotive history. These cars
are winning consumer approval for their
sleek, aerodynamic styling and high quality.
In addition, the company is winning a well-
deserved reputation as a technical leader in
such areas as anti-lock brakes and electric
vehicles.
GM has also been at work streamlining
its massive organization. Its parts-making
divisions have declined from 12 to nine. The
division that makes brakes and suspension
systems for GM cars is being merged with
the one that makes hardware related to
those systems. The GM engine and trans-
mission divisions have been merged into
a single powertrain division.
And, while GM as a whole continues to
lose money, its two major acquisitions of
the 1980s— EDS, a computer services com-
pany, and Hughes Aircraft— are both doing
well. But Stempel acknowledges that there
is still much to do. For example, GM is still
the highest-cost auto manufacturer and its
plants are still not as efficient or as flexible
as those of the Japanese.
GM's latest advertising campaign says
the company is "putting quality on the
road." With 24 other car companies also
putting quality — in the form of some 600
models of cars and trucks — on that same
road, GM will have to continue to improve
the way it designs, engineers and makes
cars to remain competitive. The Journal
asked Robert Stempel what lessons he feels
his company distilled from its experiences
in the 1980s and how it is using those les-
sons to meet its goals for the decade ahead.
Here are his answers:
LESSON 1
Balance Automation With
Well-Trained Workers
In the late 1970s General Motors launched a
major effort to modernize its aging assem-
bly and parts plants and introduce robotics
and other automation technology to its fac-
tories. By the end of the 1980s the corpora-
tion would spend about $77 billion on plant
modernization.
"Many of our plants were built in the
1920s and 1930s," Stempel says, "and were
of a style that was just the way they used to
teach at WPI. They had high bays and col-
umns and cranes and so forth — a lot of ver-
tical motion. So, we built new plants and
refurbished older ones, because if you're
going to be competitive in today's world
you need modern, up-to-date facilities."
The new and renovated plants incorpo-
rated some of the latest ideas in manufac-
turing, Stempel says, such as unloading
parts and materials near where they'll be
used in the plant to minimize trucking and
handling, and reducing the amount of room
needed for parts storage by keeping just
those raw materials on hand that are neces-
sary for the immediate future— what's
known as just-in-time inventory. "Most of
all, we decided we better be pretty flexible,"
Stempel says, "because we don't know what
the automobile is going to look like in the
future, other than that it will probably have
four wheels."
While the investment in plant moderniza-
Workers at the modern Saturn plant have
stantial role in ensuring the quality of the
tion has paid off by giving the corporation a
modern manufacturing base, its experimen-
tation with automation has taken longer to
bear fruit, Stempel says. "Early in the 1980s
there was a feeling that you could do every-
thing with robots— that they would make
things quite simple. We've learned over time
that you want to automate things that are
repetitive or that take a lot of grunt work-
things like the precision placement of parts
or precision welding. None of us can do the
same thing perfectly hour after hour, but a
robot can.
"But where you have tasks that may vary
from car to car, or tasks that will be con-
stantly changing, don't discount a well-
trained worker. The human body is still the
most adaptable machine when it comes to
reprogramming. So you need a balance of
automation and people. That balance is
what makes it work."
LESSON 2
Make Workers Part
of the Quest for Quality
While General Motors worked to upgrade
and automate its plants, it also entered into
several critical projects during the 1980s
aimed, at least in part, at learning why Japa-
nese automakers were able to turn out high-
quality cars faster and less expensively than
U.S. manufacturers. The most important of
these undertakings was a joint venture
launched in 1983 with Toyota Motor Sales
Co., Japan's largest and most profitable car
company.
Called NUMM1 (New United Motor Manu-
facturing Inc.), the company today builds
the Geo Prizm, the Toyota Corolla and a
Toyota pick-up truck at a GM plant in
Fremont, Calif. GM
and Toyota each
appointed half of
the members of the
NUMM1 board of di-
rectors and the plant
itself is managed by
Japanese and Ameri-
can staffers.
"The joint venture
was really a learning
laboratory for Gen-
eral Motors," Stempel
says. "We wanted to
know what the Japa-
nese did differently
that we might also
try. Was their success
due to the fact that
they come from a
country half-way
been given a sub- around tne §,obe' or
products they make, is it the fact that they
WPI Journal
do things differently than we do?"
GM discovered that while automation
and advanced technology played a role in
Toyota's success, the way it manages its
plants and people is far more important,
Stempel says. "We learned about just-in-time
inventory, about ideas like continuous im-
provement— even about things as simple as
workers using visual signals to let people
know when they are running out of materi-
als or when something isn't quite right on
the line. Overall, it's been a good learning
experience for us."
The techniques employed at NUMMI, in-
cluding a strong emphasis on human devel-
opment and placing responsibility for
decision making and quality improvement in
the hands of hourly workers, would ulti-
mately play a role in the success of General
Motor's Saturn Division. Saturn represented
GM's attempt to start with a clean sheet of
paper and invent, not only a new car, but a
new way to design, engineer and build it.
Created over eight years at a cost of
about $3 billion, Saturn is the first new GM
division since founder William Durant ac-
quired the Pontiac Body Co. in 1916.
Stempel says Saturn was designed to ac-
knowledge some fundamental rules about
manufacturing that GM had come to appre-
ciate. "You've got to understand that cus-
tomers today are only going to accept the
highest-quality products," he says. "They're
looking for something new and fresh and
they're looking for something that's done in
a short period of time. So Saturn was set up
to meet those demands.
"The objective was to build a small,
highly fuel-efficient, affordable car here in
the United States at a profit. We set some
very tough parameters for ourselves, be-
cause we realized that if we can't build a
"We're Going to Walk Throug
T
1 ■
1 1.
Stempel, on campus to deliver the 1987
Commencement address, stops to admire
a race car designed by WPI students.
he man who took charge of General
Motors on Aug. 1, 1990, has had a life-
long fascination with cars. Bom in
Trenton, N.J., Robert C. Stempel grew up
in Bloomfield, N J., where he worked in a
garage to earn money for college. He later
fixed cars for schoolmates while earning his
degree in mechanical engineering at WPI.
After he graduated in 1955, he worked
briefly for General Electric and served in
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, but his
real ambition was to land a job at General
Motors. He began as a design engineer in
the Oldsmobile chassis design department
in 1958. His first assignment, designing part
of a wheel assembly, went poorly, but he
learned and went on to develop the front
suspension and transmission for the 1966
Toronado — GM's first postwar front-wheel-
drive car. Stempel's design for the system
that joined the transmission to the front
axle is considered a significant engineering
achievement.
After earning an M.B.A. from Michigan
State University in 1973, he was chosen spe-
cial assistant to then-GM president Edward
Cole. Under Cole, Stempel helped develop
the catalytic converter, a revolutionary
Cadillac general manager John O. Grettenberger tells workers
at the Hamtramck plant they've won the 1990 Baldrige Award.
Robert Stempel can be seen behind the podium at left.
small car profitably, it will only be a matter
of time before we go out of this business."
The first Saturns went on the market in
1989, and so far the experiment seems to
have been a great suc-
cess. "We've stayed
with our goal of having
only the highest-quality
product," Stempel says.
"We've gotten good cus-
tomer acceptance — it's
one of the few cars we
have on the market to-
day that's really selling
well — and buyers are
recommending it to
their friends and neigh-
bors."
As it did with the
products of the NUMMI
experiment, GM is shar-
ing the lessons of Saturn
with its other divisions.
"We're taking the people
training, the educational
skills, and the idea of
teamwork and applying them. We've been
doing that from day one. In some units it's
worked very well; in others, where we have
more of a history of friction between labor
and management, it will take a little longer
to get it through the system.
"Sharing these experiences is something
we do on a regular basis at General Motors.
And we do share both ways. We share where
we've screwed up, and we share where
we've had successes. It's important to take
apart your failures, to say, 'OK, we learned
that once, let's not learn it again, guys.' With
success we say, 'let's see how many times
we can spread that good example in our
various organizations.'"
One way GM is spreading the idea of em-
powering workers is the Quality Network, an
agreement enacted between GM and the
United Auto Workers in 1987. The agreement
says that all GM employees — from the chair-
man on down — are partners in the process
of delivering quality vehicles to customers.
Essentially, the Quality Network is a way of
sharing the goals of the corporation with
all employees and then giving them the
Winter 1992
Ms For Bob Stempel"
device that enabled GM cars to meet strict
government emissions requirements.
Over the next 14 years he held increas-
ingly important positions that exposed him
to all aspects of GM's worldwide operation,
including director of engineering for Chevro-
let, vice president and general manager of the
Chevrolet and Pontiac divisions, vice presi-
dent and group executive of the Buick-
Oldsmobile-Cadillac Group, and executive
vice president of the overseas and truck
operations.
In 1987 he became the youngest GM presi-
dent in 30 years; three years later he was
named chairman and CEO, becoming only the
second person since Alfred P. Sloan to hold
both the president's and chairman's jobs.
A football player at WPI, Stempel is an
imposing 6 feet 4 inches, but he has the
warmth and charm to quickly put people at
ease. Known for his long workdays, his thor-
ough understanding of cars, and his willing-
ness to take charge in tough situations,
Stempel was hailed by GM employees and
dealers — and by financial analysts — when
he took over the top spot at GM.
Within the corporation, he is known as a
fair manager who values loyalty and who likes
to manage through teamwork. To encourage
participation and debate, he meets with his
management team around a round table in
his office. He's known for giving credit where
it is due, but also for accepting blame when
things go wrong. "He's the kind of leader who
takes the lumps, and we're going to walk
through walls for Bob Stempel," Richard
G. LeFauve, president of the Saturn Corpora-
tion, told the Wall Street Journal last year.
"For several years now we've been focus-
ing on teamwork at General Motors," Stempel
says. "As we made the transition to smaller,
lighter, front-wheel-drive vehicles, we real-
ized that we had to change 75 years of auto-
motive history and that we'd have to work
together to do that. So the sense of team-
work has been building. I've certainly tried
to improve communication so we all know
what's going on and we can respond in a
better fashion to the customer."
Stempel's watch has been marked by
some of the greatest challenges GM has ever
faced — challenges that began on his second
day as chairman, when Iraq invaded Kuwait
and sent auto sales sliding. "My first day on
the job was great," he says. "The rest of them
could have been a lot better."
resources to use their skills and ideas to
help realize those goals, Stempel says.
LESSON 3
Serve Your External
and Internal Customers
The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality
Award was created by the Department of
Commerce in 1987 to recognize American
corporations that have made the greatest
strides in improving their quality and cus-
tomer satisfaction. To qualify for the award
a company must do a detailed self-evalua-
tion in seven categories, including leader-
ship, strategic quality planning and human
resource utilization. Often, the process of
completing this evaluation teaches a com-
pany valuable lessons about just where it
falls short in the quest for quality.
That's what happened when General
Motors' Cadillac Division decided to com-
pete for the award in 1989. "That first year
they got into the finals, but they didn't win,"
Stempel says. "But it encouraged them to
go ahead and try it the next year, and, of
course, they did win it. [Other winners in
1990 were the Rochester division of IBM,
Federal Express and the Wallace Co.] It's
been terrific for the work force; they're very
proud of it. Today they're
building our new Seville
and Eldorado, which
have won tremendous
acceptance worldwide."
What made the differ-
ence at Cadillac? While
the division adopted
many new ideas and pro-
cedures aimed at in-
creasing the quality of
its products — including
many of the ideas dis-
cussed elsewhere in this
article — one of the most
fundamental and benefi-
cial changes it made at
its modern Hamtramck
Assembly Center was to
make its employees
aware of their role in the
pursuit of quality.
Cadillac adopted the notion of the inter-
nal and external customers: the external
customer is the buyer of a Cadillac automo-
bile; the internal customer is the next per-
son on the assembly line whose work is
affected by how well the previous person
does his job.
"If you go through that plant today,"
Stempel says, "you'll find that everybody
understands what quality is and what it
takes to make a quality vehicle. That whole
work-force training paid off, because each
worker knows if he doesn't do his job right,
somewhere down the line it's going to cause
a problem for someone else."
LESSON 4
Good Manufacturing
Begins With Good Design
"With the tremendous number of auto
manufacturers today, all offering high-qual-
ity products, it's imperative that we increase
our competitiveness by getting our costs
down and getting our cars to market faster,"
Stempel says. "One tool for doing this is
design for manufacturing or design for
assembly. It's a terrific technique."
Essentially, design for manufacturing
encourages designers, engineers and pro-
duction experts to work together at the be-
ginning of the design process to assure that
when the car makes its way to the assembly
line it can be put together as quickly and
efficiently as possible. "It causes us to make
our cars with as few parts as possible, and
to make sure that there is virtually only one
way to fit those parts together, reducing the
chances for misassembly," Stempel says.
"It's really just good old commonsense engi-
neering. We're using it extensively and it's
working out quite well."
The 1992 Buick Park Avenue is one of several new
GM models that is easier to assemble, thanks to a
technique known as design for manufacturing.
WPI Journal
Europe is a Bright Spot,
But the Japanese Are Coming
One of the bright spots for General
Motors during the 1980s was the
turnaround of its European opera-
tions— a success in which Robert Stempel
played an important role. Today, GM is
Europe's fastest growing and most profit-
able carmaker. With a unified European mar-
ket just around the corner, the gains the
company has made on the Continent over
the past 10 years will place it in good posi-
tion to stay competitive.
Part of the reason for GM's success in
Europe was the revamping of its product
line to replace boxy, look-alike cars with dis-
tinctive and attractive vehicles like the Opel
Kadett, the second most popular car in Ger-
many and GM's best-selling vehicle world-
wide.
The company also modernized its manu-
facturing plants and used a heavy dose of
synchronous engineering to make its cars
easier and cheaper to build. Better relations
with union workers in Europe allowed the
carmaker to introduce three-shifts-a-day
production at several plants, further boost-
ing productivity. As a result, GM's productiv-
ity is second only to Peugeot in Europe. As
head of GM's Adam Opel unit from 1980 to
1982, Stempel helped introduce the Kadett
and also helped build strong ties to labor.
In more recent months, GM has ex-
panded its manufacturing and marketing op-
erations into Eastern Europe and the former
Soviet Union, and now has a greater pres-
ence on the Continent than even some Euro-
pean carmakers. But to date, GM and its
European rivals have not had to deal with
heavy competition from Japanese compa-
nies. That will soon change, as the Japanese
begin to gear up their operations in Europe.
"We're going to have to stay ahead of the
game in Europe," Stempel says. "We've had
a great learning experience in the U.S., and
we'll be able to profit from the mistakes
we've made right here. Now we must con-
tinue to reduce our manufacturing costs and
get even more efficient in Europe. We're not
far behind the Japanese in the U.S., but our
European operations will have to get leaner
without sacrificing our high level of Euro-
pean quality. Yes, we're pleased with our
success in Europe, but we're not resting
on our laurels."
Stempel says nearly all GM designers
have been trained in design for manufactur-
ing and several new GM cars have benefited
from the technique, including the new
Cadillac Seville and the Buick Park Avenue.
The 1992 Seville, for example, has 50 per-
cent fewer parts in its front and rear bumper
systems than its predecessor. With fewer
parts, cars go together faster and less ex-
pensively, a benefit GM is keenly aware of.
A company study in 1989 found that 41
percent of the difference in productivity be-
tween a GM plant and a comparable Ford
plant was due to differences in design.
Cost saving is not the only benefit of sim-
plifying design, Stempel says, noting that, in
general, the simpler the design the more re-
liable and durable the product. He says this
new approach to design has made particular
inroads into the manufacture of the elec-
tronic systems that control emissions on
GM vehicles.
"Some of the systems found in cars to-
day are very complex, with many devices,
computers and associated wiring," Stempel
says. "We've tried to simplify the design,
and yet maintain all the controls. With less
complexity, we've increased the reliability.
But more important, a simpler system lends
itself to more precise control of emissions
and better fuel economy. It's not by accident
that we are the fuel economy leader."
Good design is also
enabling GM to stream-
line the number of unique
parts it uses in its cars.
For example, it is reduc-
ing the number of GM en-
gine families from nine to
five, trimming its ignition
systems from seven to
three and combining
some of its 19 platforms
(the metal framework on
which a car is built).
LESSON 5
ing as independent functions to be per-
formed in series. As Charles M. Jordan, GM's
vice president for design, told the Canadian
magazine Maclean 's last year, "We used to
design a car and then throw it over the
fence to the engineers. After a while, they
would toss it back and say they couldn't do
this or that. Then, after a few more rounds,
we would both toss it over the fence to the
manufacturing guys, who would raise a
whole new series of objections."
As a result, General Motors was taking
far too long to bring new cars to market,
Stempel says. "It used to take us on the
order of 60 months — five years — to go from
concept to showroom floor," he notes.
"Today, most of our cars are coming to
market in 36 months or less. The best of the
Japanese companies, we find, are doing it in
about 27 months. We're continuing to work
on this process — we've gotten cars out in
as little as 34 months."
Stempel says the time from concept to
marketable car has got to be less than three
years if customers are to perceive new cars
as fresh and exciting. To accelerate its
speed to market, GM has adopted synchro-
nous engineering, which essentially means
bringing the designer, industrial engineer
and production engineer together at the be-
ginning of a new car project. GM has gone a
step farther and brought the workers who
will actually assemble the car into the initial
planning process, an idea that came out of
the Saturn program.
Saturn assembly workers have been
given a say in many matters previously re-
served for senior management — things like
the layout of the factory floor, the choice of
dealers, and even the selection of the
company's national advertising agency.
Stempel notes that Saturn workers visited
Integrate Design,
Engineering and
Manufacturing
For many years, GM
looked at design, engi-
neering and manufactur-
The body panels of the Saturn are put on last, making
it easier for workers to assemble the car's interior.
8
Winter 1992
When it is put on the market later this decade, GM's Impact will become the
first modern electric car manufactured by a major automaker. Impact will be
built by the highly skilled work force at GM's Lansing (Mich.) Craft Centre.
the vendor contracted to build the machines
used to assemble the car's underbody. "As a
result of their input," he says, "the equipment
is more worker friendly: there's less lifting,
turning, stooping and so forth. If a guy's been |
putting cars together most of his life, he's got
ideas about what makes things easy and
what makes them harder. It's really worth-
while listening to him."
Synchronous engineering reduces sur-
prises when a new car reaches the assembly
line, Stempel says. "If you know you're going
to use a weld gun that needs a certain
amount of access, you can design that access
into the body. If you know you're going to
have an operation that requires lifting from
underneath the vehicle by an automated sys-
tem, you can design in the proper clearance
or put in special brackets.
"You may even want to change the way
you build things. At our Opel facility in Ger-
many, we use what we call a cockpit load,
where the assembly that includes the instru-
ment panel, heater, steering column and so
on is built outside the car and put in fully as-
sembled. By eliminating the need for workers
to do tedious work while lying on their backs
inside the car, you reduce mistakes. This idea
came about because process engineers were
there at the design stage."
Integrating design, engineering and pro-
duction can help make manufacturing facili-
ties more flexible and better able to respond
quickly to the changing marketplace. At its
highest level, flexibility means being able
to build several different vehicles on the
same line, switching effortlessly from one
to the other, but it can also mean making
several versions of the same car with a mini-
mum of equipment.
On the Saturn assembly line, for example,
the same equipment can be used to make
either automatic or manual transmissions be-
cause, though the transmissions share only
some parts, all of their parts were designed
to be handled by the same machines. This
saves about 60 percent of the cost of build-
ing transmissions on two different lines.
Similar thinking went into the design of the
engine line, where of 86 workstations, 50 are
common to the single-overhead-cam and
dual-overhead-cam versions of the engine.
At the Cadillac Division, the idea of syn-
chronous engineering was expanded into
a more comprehensive management tech-
nique called synchronous organization. In
this approach, all parts of the manufactur-
ing enterprise — human resources, financial
management, design, engineering and manu-
facturing— are integrated. The goal is to
identify the parts of the operation that drive
the cost of production, and then eliminate
those that add no value to the product.
LESSON 6
Quality is What
the Customer Says It Is
In his opening remarks to the third
National Quality Forum in 1988, then-GM
president Stempel provided a simple defini-
tion of quality: "responding to the voice of
the customer — meeting his desires and re-
quirements." Chairman Stempel says he is
still committed to that definition.
"If a customer is looking at one of our
automobiles and he says, 'Well, you know
that isn't really a good fit and this doesn't
look right to me,' the fact that 1 can show
him a whole raft of data showing that our
car is just as good as anyone else's is irrel-
evant. He said he didn't like it.
"To make products that hit the mark, you
have to listen to the voice of the customer.
When a customer walks up to our new Park
Avenue, LeSabre or Bonneville, his first reac-
tion is, 'Wow, what a car.' He's made a visual
assessment. He's seen that not only is it an
integrated design that looks good, but the
fits are good. When he gets in it and it starts
and runs well, then we've got him interested.
So, you really have to work to listen to what
the customer is saying about your products."
To stay on top of evolving customer de-
mands, GM employs the Continuous Auto-
motive Marketing Survey. At regular intervals
after a car is bought — starting soon after the
purchase and continuing through the fifth
year of ownership — GM surveys the owner
and asks how well the car is meeting his or
her expectations.
Customer surveys also enable GM to
fine-tune its cars once they're on the market,
Stempel says. "For instance, a couple of
years ago, owners told us that the legibility
of the instrument panels in our trucks suf-
fered in strong sunlight or at certain angles.
We made changes and polled customers
again to see if they were satisfied. Obviously,
you want to catch as many of these things
as you can during pretesting, but there's
nothing like going after the person who's
bought a car or truck to find out what he
likes and dislikes."
LESSON 7
Break Out of the Boxes
One of the lessons of synchronous organi-
zation is that it's no longer good enough to
be just a good designer or a good industrial
engineer or a good production person.
Manufacturing professionals must be pre-
pared to cross the lines between disciplines
and learn how their jobs affect every part of
the operation. They must be ready to give
up the comfortable, insulated boxes they've
worked in for so long, Stempel says.
"Some people put an awful lot of empha-
sis on particular disciplines," Stempel says.
"1 put a lot of emphasis instead on education.
It doesn't matter whether you're an engineer,
a physicist, a chemist or a financial person.
All of those disciplines have a place, but ev-
ery one of them begins with a fundamental
education, training and logic in the way you
do things.
"There are no more one-man bands. I
can't run General Motors by myself. It takes
the coordinated effort of a lot of people. Per-
haps it was my education at WPI, but some-
where along the line I learned that you must
depend on others — that you're going to need
the skills of others — so you must learn to
bring out the best in people. That's what
you have to do today.
"This business is complex, whether
you're looking at it as a financial analyst, or
whether you're looking at it as an engineer,"
Stempel adds. "Success depends on more
than one man and more than one discipline.
You've got to manage all of those disciplines
in a cohesive manner to bring out the best
in the organization."
WPI Journal
The New Wave in
Manufacturing
Rv Paroi Pamprfi I ^^
More and more, manufacturing companies are
discovering that the key to quality and competitive-
ness lies in unleashing the hearts and minds — and
not just the muscles — of their employees.
Once, the twin targets of productivity and profitability were the major
concerns of manufacturing executives everywhere. The bottom line
was simple: find ways to make products more quickly and less expen-
sively than the competition. In the 1970s and early 1980s, automation
seemed the best hope for reaching those targets and gaining a competitive
edge. With the proper programming, it was thought, robots could do just
about any job better and cheaper than human workers, saving companies
time and money.
Today, while automation continues to play an important and ever-growing
role in industry, manufacturing managers have learned that robots will
probably never truly take the place of people on the factory floor. Instead,
driven in large part by the success of their overseas competitors, especially
the Japanese, American manufacturers are turning more and more to tech-
niques aimed at empowering their employees and unleashing their potential.
The techniques go by a variety of names, but they share a common purpose:
making workers true partners in the pursuit of competitiveness. Increasingly,
competitiveness itself is being redefined, for most manufacturing executives
now agree that a successful company must do more than simply make
products faster and cheaper; it must be able to anticipate and meet the
constantly rising expectations of consumers.
Where once corporations tended to look at workers as interchangeable,
often disposable cogs in the manufacturing operation, today they are valued
as individuals with a wealth of talent, insight and creativity that can be
harnessed to help design and build quality products. In this brave new world,
where quality is king, even the traditional relationship between management
and labor is being replaced with a new model. Today, managers are likely to
join their employees in quality circles and manufacturing cells to work
cooperatively to refine and continually improve the way their companies make
products.
In the following pages, seven alumni employed as manufacturing execu-
tives at major American companies talk about how those firms are riding this
new wave in manufacturing.
Carol Campbell is a free-lance writer living in Sturbridge, Mass.
10 Winter 1992
The Image of
Quality at Polaroid
Ronald P. May 64
Manufacturing Program Manager
Polaroid Corp.
Waltham, Mass.
Polaroid, the leader in instant photog-
raphy since it introduced the Land Cam-
era in 1948, is constantly tracking the evolv-
ing demands of consumers to assure that its
products are in tune with them, according
to Ronald Klay. "We want to deliver quality
products based on the perceptions and
needs of the consumer."
Klay is currently in the midst of a project
that involves managing the development of a
new instant camera and film system from the
concept stage through design and manufac-
turing. Code-named "Joshua," Klay says the
product will go on the market later this year.
As part of the Joshua program, Polaroid
is using a new approach to product develop-
ment that calls for the entire process to be
supervised by the same management team,
he says. This team approach has carried
over to the manufacturing floor, where work-
ers have been organized into work units re-
sponsible for understanding and managing
the entire manufacturing process.
"Sometimes there is resistance to change
like this," Klay says, "but generally people
are willing to try new ways of doing things.
They're seeking a feeling of ownership in the
products they make and some influence in
the decision-making process. This is what
we hope to make possible through the team
concept approach."
To get the process under way, Klay says
he has had to successfully integrate employ-
ees from several of Polaroid's operating
Ronald Klay shows off some of the advanced
automated equipment used in the manufacture
of film at Polaroid.
units. "When a team is established," he
explains, "a significant adjustment and train-
ing period is required. The employees are
reoriented to their new jobs, and managers
who have not had direct involvement in
manufacturing find themselves actively
engaged in operational concerns related
to assembly."
Klay says the film manufacturing opera-
tions, for which he is directly responsible,
will make significant advances in manufac-
turing technology. "With the use of sophisti-
cated management information system
(MIS) software, we will monitor the con-
sumption of raw materials and the system
performance in real time," he says. "The
assembly process will be fully controlled by
computers and will be operated as a modu-
lar system. Essentially, that means that each
major operation will operate independently
of the others, but be interconnected by
computerized conveyors. Should one part
of the line have to stop, the others will con-
tinue, with partly assembled product being
placed temporarily into in-line storage until
the affected operation resumes."
The assembly process
will also make use of a
monitoring system called a
vision analyzer. The analyz-
ers, developed by a Need-
ham, Mass., company called
Cognex, record images of
the product at key points in
the assembly process and convert them to
digital information. The digitized images are
then statistically analyzed to evaluate how
closely the product falls within predeter-
mined control limits. Processes that fall out-
side these limits are immediately corrected,
greatly increasing the consistency of the
end product.
Klay joined Polaroid as a production
supervisor in 1971 after working as a manu-
facturing engineer at Texas Instruments in
Attleboro, Mass., and serving as president of
and a partner in South Shore Metal Products
Inc. in Braintree, Mass. He was named manu-
facturing manager in 1982 and recently
became manufacturing program manager.
Klay says Polaroid is actively restructur-
ing all of its design and manufacturing capa-
bilities to take advantage of the benefits of
the team concept. "The bottom line is qual-
ity in both product consistency and photo-
graphic performance," he says. "I think the
team approach we've implemented with the
Joshua project, as well as the advances in
manufacturing technology we've made, go
a long way toward meeting that objective."
Improving Quality with People Power
William C. Zinno '63
Vice President of Manufacturing
Miller Electric Manufacturing Co.
Appleton, Wise.
Those close to manufacturing operations
recognize that the work force is chang-
ing," William Zinno says. "Today's produc-
tion workers want more say in the decisions
that directly affect them. We managers also
want to involve more employees in the deci-
sion-making process. We want them to bring
their minds — as well as their hands — to
their jobs."
To do so, Miller Electric, whose products
include electric arc-welding power supplies
and related equipment, is in the midst of a
pilot employee empowerment effort it
launched in 1990. Under the program, the
company has organized production workers
into a manufacturing team consisting of a
production coordinator and about 75 em-
ployees, all focused on producing a single
product line. The group acts as a self-man-
aged business unit, determining its own
staffing, scheduling and so on.
The team uses a consensus approach to
determine whether or not changes need to
be made in the product or in the processes
WPI Journal
11
used to manufacture it, Zinno says. "While
the decisions may sometimes be a bit
slower in coming, they are usually much
better than those made by a single indi-
vidual, and people are committed to them."
Zinno says Miller's pilot manufacturing
area is deliberately compact. "The group's
final assembly line builds just what is
needed each day, which drastically cuts the
amount of inventory and the lead time nor-
mally needed to manufacture the products."
Before the business unit approach, the
assembly line operated in a traditional man-
ner, with items assembled in several steps
by separate groups of workers in different
locations. For example, to make electric
transformers, one group would wind the
coils, a second would crimp the ends, a
third would assemble the coils into mag-
netic cores, and a fourth would do the re-
quired welding of the transformer assembly.
Within the business unit, every worker is
trained to do many jobs, and the team as a
whole is responsible for getting the product
made. This cross-training enables workers
to switch operations according to the
changing work load on the assembly line,
which makes the manufacturing process
more efficient and responsive. But even
more, Zinno says, because workers are so
thoroughly involved in the product, they
feel a greater sense of responsibility for and
commitment to its quality.
"Workers can better see how their jobs
affect the end customer," he says. "Another
advantage of this approach
is that employees become
intensely dedicated to the
company because of the free-
dom we allow them to have
in their jobs."
Miller Electric was
founded in 1929 in the base-
ment of Niels C. Miller, who
made one of the first direct-
current welders and began
by selling the devices to lo-
cal blacksmiths. Today
Miller's descendants run an
international enterprise that
employs more than 1,600
people. The company's primary customers
are distribution networks for welding supply
companies who, in turn, sell equipment to
end users such as fabricators and body
shops. Miller's competition comes largely
from three domestic manufacturers, who
sell to many of the same distributors.
"There is fierce competition in the cost
and quality of the product," Zinno notes.
"The challenge is to run with less inventory
and lower production costs, while at the
same time maintaining a primary focus on
improving quality."
By looking at its manufacturing opera-
tions from the perspective of its employees,
Miller hopes to achieve the kind of world-
class quality it needs to make its products
stand apart from those of its competitors,
Zinno says. "To make improvements in our
Zinno, center, listens to a briefing by a member
of a manufacturing team, part of Miller Electric's
employee empowerment program.
products and processes, Miller has always
focused on people rather than things. We
will continue to follow that philosophy in
the years to come."
Prior to coming to Miller in 1990, Zinno
was vice president of manufacturing at the
Turbo Products Division of Dresser Rand in
Olean, N.Y. In his present position he handles
all plant operations, including assembly, fab-
rication, production control, maintenance,
and plant engineering. "What has made this
job truly exciting for me is the opportunity to
branch out and develop this pilot employee-
empowerment process," he says.
Zinno says the pilot program, which he
describes as promising, is continually im-
proving and maturing. He says the company
plans to expand it throughout its manufac-
turing operation in the months ahead.
Gearing Up To Make a Medical Wonder
Christine Powers '75
Director of Manufacturing
Biopure Corp.
Boston, Mass.
You've been involved in a car accident
and you've lost a lot of blood. As emer-
gency crews work to stabilize your vital
signs, you begin to go into shock. At one
time medical technicians may have had few
options other than wrapping you in a blan-
ket and keeping you comfortable until you
reached a hospital, where doctors could do
a transfusion to replace the lost blood vol-
ume and get oxygen to your cells. In the fu-
ture they'll be able to do more, thanks to
researchers at Biopure Corp., makers of a
hemoglobin-based blood substitute that can
be administered on the spot through a
simple injection — without the need for
cross-matching of blood types.
For Boston-based Biopure, a biotechnol-
ogy firm that has until now been involved
strictly with research and development, the
production of this new product will mark
its first experience with manufacturing,
notes Christine Powers, who is responsible
for Biopure 's manufacturing operations.
Before joining Biopure, Powers worked
as a process engineer for Clairol Inc. and
Armor-Dial Inc. She later joined Baxter
Travenol Labs Inc., where she ultimately
became a product manager. "I was lured to
Powers examines a
sample of Biopure's
first product, a blood
substitute.
Biopure in 1989 by the start-up
opportunity — by the chance to
build an organization that I be-
lieve is necessary," she says.
Having hired most of
Biopure's 16 manufacturing em-
ployees (the company, founded
in 1984, currently employs 81
people), Powers is now training
them to work within the con-
straints of a pharmaceutical manufacturing
environment and to adhere to strict Food
and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations.
The company has already initiated the first
part of a three-part FDA review to determine
the safety and effectiveness of Biopure's first
product in humans. Previously, the company
performed a lengthy series of tests on
animals in support of this submission.
12
Winter 1992
In addition to humans, animals will also
benefit from the new product. In fact, Bio-
pure will become the only company to mar-
ket a blood substitute to veterinary clinics.
The market for the product in human medi-
cal treatment, on the other hand, will be far
more competitive, Powers says. For this
reason, the company has signed a strategic
agreement with Upjohn Co., which will
handle all marketing and distribution for
the human product in the U.S.
Powers says the production process
used to make the blood substitute, devel-
oped at a pilot manufacturing facility in
Boston, begins with the product's raw
material — blood from slaughtered cattle.
The red blood cells are separated and
broken open, so their hemoglobin can be
recovered. The hemoglobin is then refined
in a patented process that includes an ex-
tensive purification step.
Of particular importance is a filtration
system that separates the blood before it is
purified, Powers says. "This process allows
us to produce large quantities of the prod-
uct at a relatively low cost," she adds.
Because the entire operation is carried out
in a controlled environment, workers must
wear "bunny suits" that completely cover
their bodies, Powers adds.
Current plans call for the animal product
to hit the market in 1993, with the human
product to follow in 1994 or 1995. Powers,
who says she is confident that the new
product will receive a positive response in
both of its markets, is currently preparing
the company for a comprehensive effort
to gear up its production facilities to meet
the anticipated demand.
A Focus on People
Issues at Du Pont
David F. Gilbert '54
Manufacturing Resources Manager
Du Pont Co.
Wilmington, Del.
Founded in 1802 to make gunpowder,
Du Pont today is a $40 billion operation
that manufactures a host of products, in-
cluding chemicals, synthetic fibers, elect-
ronics and polymers. Each of the company's
seven principal business sectors, as well as
Du Pont's Conoco subsidiary, could consti-
tute a Fortune 500 company in its own right.
David Gilbert, with Du Pont for 37 years,
joined the company's engineering services
division field program just after completing
his military service in 1956. This training
program was attractive, he says, because at
the time he wasn't sure what he wanted to
do in his career. Over an eight-year period
Gilbert worked on assignments in four loca-
tions, gaining experience in engineering
development, research, new processes
and management.
Deciding upon the management route,
Gilbert transferred out of engineering into
an industrial department and now works in
Du Pont wants to more fully involve employees
ical manufacturing sites in the operation of the
the chemical manufacturing division of the
chemical sector. Over the years he has held
a variety of supervisory positions, including
plant manager at four locations and techni-
cal consultant in a joint venture with a
Japanese company.
In his current post he serves as a re-
source for the manufacturing staff at all
28 of the chemical sector's manufacturing
sites, handling personnel matters and serv-
ing as a representative to various other
departments. While many of his challenges
involve employee safety and environmental
awareness (Du Pont boasts the lowest in-
jury rate in the world and is the leader in
the elimination of ozone-damaging fluoro-
carbons from refrigerants and solvent prod-
ucts), he says Du Pont has, over the last 10
years, turned its attention more and more
to the "people" aspect of running the
corporation.
Like so many other companies, Du Pont
is trying to break down the rigid corporate
hierarchy in favor of a total team approach.
Gilbert says there is an effort to remove lay-
ers of management, while maintaining
strong employee motivation.
"We're working harder at including all
levels of employees in the
business aspects of our
operations," Gilbert says.
"By sharing more business
information with employees
and increasing their in-
volvement with our cus-
tomers, I think we've made
our employees feel they are
more 'in on the action.' I
think they also have a bet-
ter appreciation of how
they can add value to our
business effort."
He acknowledges that
at its 28 chem- the breakdown of tradi-
company. tional management roles
\
psSiSWS'l'lS:
Du Pont's David Gilbert.
has created a new problem — how to assure
that workers can still advance within the
corporation and be recognized for their indi-
vidual contributions. Gilbert says Du Pont's
management teams are working to support
the greater contributions of employees
through increased recognition and rewards.
"At our operating sites, plant managers
have been given more authority to identify
and reward employees and teams for their
value-added contributions," he says.
Diversity is another key focus at Du Pont
today, Gilbert notes. "We are a global com-
pany with a whole range of cultures repre-
sented in our people," he says. "We're
learning to appreciate the value of this
diversity and to utilize the best inputs of
all our people in our business."
Another "people issue" receiving increas-
ing attention at Du Pont, Gilbert says, is the
recognition that a successful career does
not necessarily have to lead to a position in
management. "When I was coming up in the
organization, it seemed that the managerial
route was the best way to advance. Now I
feel Du Pont has established the technical
or professional and the managerial routes as
ways to motivate and reward contributions.
One of the values of this is you don't end up
creating poor managers out of outstanding
technical or professional people."
WPI Journal
13
Raising Standards by Raising Awareness
Stuart C. Kazin '61
Vice President of Manufacturing
and Distribution, Worldwide
Lotus Development Corp.
Cambridge, Mass.
YY hen Lotus Development Corp. made
" * its debut in the computer software
world in 1982, it quickly became a leader in
application software packages. Within four
years the company was a $225 million multi-
national corporation whose major product,
Lotus 1-2-3, had become the all-time best-
selling personal computer software product.
However, intense competition among
makers of personal computer software over
the past decade has shrunk the effective life
span of new products to less than a year, on
average, increasing pressure on publishers
like Lotus to upgrade their software as
quickly and efficiently as possible.
To retain its position as a leader in soft-
ware development, Stuart Kazin says Lotus
is currently developing a new type of prod-
uct called "groupwear," which is designed
to facilitate communications within a com-
pany. The products will include Notes, which
will allow an entire company to access in-
formation in a single database at the same
time, and CCMail, an electronic mail system
developed by a California company
acquired by Lotus.
Kazin says he spends a great deal of his
time traveling between Lotus' Cambridge,
Puerto Rico, Dublin, and Singapore manufac-
turing locations, where he strives "to build
strength from the inside out." High on his
agenda these days is diversity-awareness
training.
Kazin and his staff have identified a need
to draw employees closer by having them
acknowledge their differences and the po-
tential to use those differences in a positive
manner in product development. To do
this, Lotus hired consultants who trained
selected staff members in diversity aware-
ness. These staff members now supervise
three-day workshops that focus on stereo-
types, beliefs and diversity, among other
topics. More than 500 of Lotus' 2,000 U.S.
A worker adjusts equipment that copies computer disks at Lotus' manufacturing
facility in Cambridge, Mass. The company produces 100,000 disks every day.
Lotus' Stuart Kazin.
employees have completed the training, and
Kazin says he has already seen improve-
ments in energy levels, quality of perfor-
mance, and business orientation.
Kazin's background includes a master's
degree in aeronautics and astronautics from
MIT, a stint as general manager of the Preci-
sion Measurement Division of Dynamics Re-
search Corp. in Wilmington, Mass., and a job
as general manager of the analytical division
of Foxboro Corp., a maker of process-con-
trol systems. He joined Lotus in 1985 as
director of manufacturing and distribution
and was named a vice president in 1988.
Manufacturing at Lotus means making
duplicate copies of software products on
disks— 100,000 disks a day— and packaging
them with written documentation into
boxes that are then shrink-wrapped. While
the manufacturing process is fairly conven-
tional, Kazin says he hopes to improve
productivity through the use of diversity-
awareness training.
He says he also plans to build on the
positive outcomes of the awareness training
by forming a cross section of Lotus workers
into Corrective Action Teams (CATs). The
CATs will draw on the knowledge of indi-
viduals from different segments of the
manufacturing field to attack and quickly
solve any customer problems or concerns.
The solutions to those problems will be in-
corporated into the next generation of soft-
ware products. Kazin says this "systematic
quality-improvement process," for which
the CATs will be responsible, is essential
in today's competitive software industry.
"Your definition of quality must be based
on customers' requirements," he says.
"When these requirements are not met, you
vigorously solve the problem and solve it
forever. When mistakes are made, I like to
see them be 'innovative mistakes.'"
14
Winter 1992
Bringing Automation to
The Oil and Gas Industry
William U. Pursell Jr. '59
Vice President of Manufacturing
Cameo Products and Services Co.
Houston, Texas
Cameo supplies a variety of production
and safety equipment used in oil and
gas wells, most of which are located off-
shore. Competition among manufacturers
of this equipment has become especially
fierce in recent years, according to William
Pursell. In response, he says, Cameo has
turned increasingly to automation.
For some of its processes, the company
has been a major innovator of manufactur-
ing systems that employ automatic turning
and milling machines, which have built-in
chuck jaw changers, tool storage, and mea-
suring devices. The machines are supported
by robots that load and unload parts, by
coordinate measuring machines, and by
two automatic guided vehicles (AGVs)
that move parts about the plant.
"This automated equipment is arranged
into cells in our new factory," Pursell says.
"The AGVs carry parts from the machining
operation cell to the coating and audit in-
spection areas, and then return them to the
machining cells. We call this our flexible
manufacturing systems or FMS shop."
The market in which Cameo competes
is changing, Pursell says.
"Where once customers
were concerned primarily
about quality and perfor-
mance," he says, "the
market is now quite price
sensitive, though customers
still demand high quality in
our products. Cameo is a
customer-driven company.
Our objective is to meet our
customers' requirements
with a reasonable return
to our investors."
The equipment and
systems employed in
Cameo's FMS shop enable
the company to make its products economi-
cally in small lots. For example, Pursell says,
because they can quickly switch between
various tools and processes, the milling
and turning machines can make all the
machined parts needed for an assembly in
one session. "This results in shorter deliv-
ery time and reduces the amount of work
we have in progress," he notes.
Pursell says automated systems like
this will be the key to the future success
of companies like his. "The bottom line here
is profitability," he says. "Automation will
enable us to lower our costs and become
Some of the components of Cameo's flexible manufacturing systems (FMS)
shop can be seen in this photo: at top, left, the turning and milling machine;
at top, center, a robot that loads and unloads parts for the machine; and at
bottom, right, an automatic guided vehicle that moves parts around the plant.
Pursell, at right, and two workers examine an auto-
mated turning and milling machine, part of Cameo's
modern FMS facility.
more competitive overall."
Pursell's expertise in manufacturing
comes from 30 years of experience in the
field. He began his career in 1962 as a
project engineer at SKF Industries Inc., mak-
ers of ball and roller bearings. He became a
plant manager before leaving in 1973 to join
Reed Tool Co. in Houston as materials man-
ager. He also worked briefly for Hydril Co.,
producers of premium threads on produc-
tion tubing used in oil and gas wells, and for
Hinderliter Energy Equipment Corp., fabrica-
tor of wire-rope sheaves, traveling blocks
for cranes, and low-pressure well heads.
At Cameo, Pursell is responsible for
plant maintenance, purchasing, manufactur-
ing engineering, materials management and
the "direct-hour" employees who run the
machines. When Cameo hires, he says, it
looks for highly skilled and well-trained
workers, as well as degreed mechanical
and electrical engineers with expertise in
manufacturing. "These qualifications add a
degree of sophistication to our manufactur-
ing talents," he says.
Pursell says Cameo is currently review-
ing its entire manufacturing process — from
quotations to shipment — with an eye to-
ward reducing cycle time. "Innovations such
as modular product drawings, paperless
operations, multifunctional task teams, and
work teams on the shop floor are all helping
us achieve our goal of shorter lead times,"
he says. "Automation of not only the manu-
facturing process, but of our communica-
tions systems will be vital to achieving
that goal."
He notes that Cameo is also implement-
ing the concept of factories within factories.
"These individual operating units will have
their own resources and their own work
WPI Journal
15
teams, which will focus on meeting our
customers' requirements, as well as on re-
ducing the cost of parts and improving our
quality. All employees within these factories
within factories will be assigned to one of
these teams."
The team approach is part of Cameo's
total quality management program, aimed,
Pursell says, at meeting customer require-
ments by getting all employees involved in
the process of improving quality. In addi-
tion, Pursell says the company is currently
developing a strategic quality plan "that will
serve as an umbrella for all of our opera-
tions. We've done well despite the ups and
downs of the market. We now have a new
set of challenges facing us. By streamlining
all our manufacturing operations, we will
meet these challenges and build on the
qualities that have made us successful
over the years."
Learning from the
Pioneers at Clairol
Richard R. Nabb 73
Vice President of Manufacturing
Clairol Inc.
Stamford, Conn.
According to Richard Nabb, the market
for consumer hair care products is
becoming more competitive all the time.
Clairol, a subsidiary of Bristol-Myers Squibb
Co., has long been a market leader with fa-
miliar brands like Miss Clairol, Quiet Touch,
Loving Care and Final Net. Today, though,
Nabb says Clairol is looking for new ways
to hold on to that lead.
"Consumers are not as loyal to brand
names as they were 10 years ago," he says.
"Today they can choose from among many
similar versions of the same product, so
they look to get the most value for their
money. Before they buy, they also consider
factors like ease of use, environmental
friendliness, and the number of applications
per package."
Nabb, a 19-year veteran with Clairol (he
held a summer job with the company in
1972, while pursuing his degree in mechani-
cal engineering at WPI, then joined the com-
pany full time as a production supervisor
after graduation), oversees packaging, engi-
neering, processing, packaging materials
and purchasing for Clairol.
Until recently he also handled ware-
house and distribution operations. In an
effort to gain consistency and improve pro-
ductivity, Clairol consolidated the ware-
house, distribution, financial, and customer
service operations of its consumer product
group with those of the Bristol-Products and
Drackett divisions of Bristol-Myers (which
make such health-care products as Bufferin
and Nuprin and such household products
as Windex, Draino and Renuzit).
Recently, Nabb says, Clairol has begun
to focus on issues related to technology and
human resources in an effort to increase its
competitive edge. "With 70 percent of our
product assembly and packaging processes
handled by machinery, we want the manu-
facturing process to work as smoothly as
possible," he notes. "To do this we must pay
Drawing on the ideas of quality
pioneers W. Edwards Deming and
Philip Crosby, Clairol has embarked
on an innovative quality manage-
ment program, Richard Nabb says.
careful attention to the design of our pack-
ages and equipment. In particular, we must
consider whether these designs make good
use of the capabilities of the manufacturing
process as it operates today, and anticipate
rapid changes in manufacturing technology.
A design is useless unless the technology
exists or can be developed to back it up."
One new type of manufacturing technol-
ogy Clairol is evaluating for its packaging
lines is the vision system, a camera that
checks products for defects at various
stages of the assembly process. The system
can also spot potential jams in the flow of
partly assembled products and then stop
the process automatically. "The Japanese
call this "Jidohka" or auto-no-motion,"
Nabb says.
Nabb says Clairol is currently using a
computer system that tracks weights, torque
and productivity during the assembly of
containers of liquid products, like shampoo,
hair color and fixative, to verify that they
are being filled and packaged properly. The
system reduces the number of containers
that must be rejected at the end of the pro-
cess because they do not meet customer
requirements.
Before the computerized control system
was installed, the weight checks were
tracked manually, which was inefficient.
The computer is also much more accurate
than manual weighing, Nabb says, and al-
lows an operator to anticipate problems
and take corrective action, which further
reduces errors.
Drawing on the philosophies of quality
pioneers W Edwards Deming and Philip
Crosby, Clairol is adopting an innovative
quality management program. At the heart
of the program, Nabb says, is an effort to
invest in Clairol's shop-floor employees by
providing them with additional training and
by raising their educational levels. For ex-
ample, through the company's Quality Skills
Enhancement Program, workers can im-
prove their reading and math skills.
The quality management program is an
outgrowth of Clairol's Quality/Productivity
Improvement Process or Q/PIP. Through
training and education, the program encour-
ages workers to become thoroughly familiar
with their jobs and with the processes to
which they contribute. Q/PIP also seeks to
make the workplace a "quality culture" by
teaching workers to embrace diversity and
engage in cooperative problem solving.
Q/PIP is an alternative to traditional
approaches to management, which Nabb
says "are not effective methods to manage
change in the current marketplace." Under
the program, senior managers at each work
site are given responsibility for one or more
of Philip Crosby's steps for implementing a
quality improvement process. These include
measuring quality, setting quality goals and
communicating them to employees, foster-
ing employee education, and striving for
zero defects. Managers are responsible for
analyzing and improving the procedures
and systems at their sites that play a role in
total quality management.
According to Nabb, Clairol will undergo a
complete corporate changeover during the
next few years as Q/PIP is fully imple-
I mented. For example, managers will no
longer simply delegate work to employees;
instead they will become leaders of work
groups that will solve problems coopera-
tively. Developing its employees and giving
them the responsibility to work together to
improve productivity and quality will ulti-
mately give Clairol the competitive edge it
seeks, Nabb says. "The company that can
get and keep the best and the brightest will
be the winner."
16
Winter 1992
Flights of Fancy
Throughout history, architects have enjoyed adding
distinctive flourishes to their designs, personal
touches that add nothing to the structure or func-
tion of a building, but which enhance its visual
appeal. Such embellishments as statues and
gargoyles, decorative cornices and portals,
ornamental stonework, and multicolored
patterns of brick help make structures
more pleasing to the eye, give them
a sense of drama, importance or
even whimsy, and give each
building a unique identity.
While the popularity of
ornamentation waned
during the middle of
this century — a
period that gave
us the sleek but
sterile glass
tower — building designers are again letting their imagi-
nations run free and are accenting their creations
with sometimes unexpected splashes of color,
texture and form.
At WPI, some bits of architectural orna-
mentation are enjoyed by even casual ob-
servers— the arm and hammer weather
vane on the Washburn Shops, for ex-
ample, or the giant concrete seal on
the north face of Goddard Hall.
Others, such as the statue of
Minerva atop Sanford Riley
Hall, often go unnoticed. In
these pages we present a
sampling of flourishes
and embellishments
that give the WPI
campus a look
all its own.
WPI Journal
17
KENNETH MCDONNELL
Making an Entrance
Noted architect Stephen Earle designed Salisbury
Laboratories 20 years after the completion of Boynton
Hall, also his design. He was asked to create a solid,
functional laboratory building to house the college's
science departments. Earle fulfilled his charge, but
allowed the artist within him to break loose here and
there in the otherwise austere design. A close look
reveals how the architect gave various functional
elements a quiet beauty through simple embellish-
ment, such as in this arched brownstone portal
adorned with a terra-cotta Institute seal. Salisbury
Labs was the gift of Stephen Salisbury III in honor of
his father, the first president of the Board of Trustees.
Clear Artistry
Alden Memorial, currently undergoing an ex-
tensive renovation, is considered by many to be
WPl's most attractive building. Named for George
I. Alden, the college's first mechanical engineer-
ing professor and a founder of Norton Co., the
building was a gift of the George 1. Alden Trust.
It is heavily embellished — inside and out — with
ornamental stone carvings and hand-carved
woodwork. A series of 27 stained glass window
medallions in its great hall tell the story of
American history, starting with the early days of
exploration and settlement and ending with the
inventive genius of the likes of the Wright Broth-
ers and Samuel F.B. Morse. These medallions
were designed by Wilbur H. Burnham, whose
work can also be seen in the National Cathedral
in Washington, D.C.
Blowin'inthe Wind
The weather vane on the Washburn Shops
tower is not the same arm and hammer
that adorned the building when it was
completed in 1868. The original, fashioned
from a sketch made by Charles Morgan,
then superintendent of Washburn and
Moen Co. and later founder and president
of Morgan Construction Co., was stolen in
1 975, probably as a student prank, and was
never returned. In 1978 a contractor work-
ing on renovations to Washburn commis-
sioned a metal worker to make a replica
based on photos of the familiar landmark.
18
Winter 1992
Medieval Athletes
The grotesques that circle Alumni Gymnasium, seem-
ingly engaged in a variety of sports, are the work of
Harry T. Easton, a sculptor who specialized in build-
ing embellishments. Many of his stone carvings, in-
cluding the gargoyles, door and window frames, and
steps of Alumni Gym, were carved from limestone
quarried near his home in Bedford, Ind. According to
Easton's son William, he had a whimsical streak
common to many medieval sculptors; he liked to
incorporate the faces of his clients into his work,
although no records exist to indicate whether the
Alumni Gym gargoyles were modeled on the faces of
former faculty or staff members.
CTJ ffl
i?n
The Goddess ofSanford Riley
This statue of Minerva, the Roman goddess of
wisdom, sits high atop the roof of the college's
first residence hall, watching over the occu-
pants of this Tudor-style building. The statue
was the gift of the alumni of R. Sanford Riley's
old fraternity, Sigma Alpha Epsilon. Riley, a
member of the Class of 1896 and president of
Riley Stoker Corp., died in May 1926, shortly
before he was to be elected to the WPI Board of
Trustees. The statue, which served as a finial
to the completed building, was cast from lead.
The Seal of Approval
This 10-foot-tall, 5-ton WPI seal made from
cast concrete is one of the few flourishes
on Goddard Hall, an otherwise spare, mod-
ern building. The seal adorns the wall fac-
ing heavily traveled Salisbury Street, form-
ing an elegant signpost for the thousands
of cars that pass by each week. Completed
in 1965, WPI's centennial year, Goddard is
one of two academic buildings given to the
Institute by the F.W Olin Foundation. Its
neighbor, Olin Hall of Physics, was built in
1 959. Goddard, home of the Chemistry and
Chemical Engineering departments, hon-
ors rocket pioneer Robert H. Goddard '08.
WPI Journal
19
Timeless Beauty
The $500 needed to build the clock that now looks down from the tower of Boynton Hall was raised by the
Institute's earliest students. Ironically, the clock became the bane of many a student in succeeding years as its
gong (removed in 1890) summoned them to classes and tattled on those who tried to slip into their seats a few
minutes late. Not surprisingly, students sought their revenge on more than one occasion by stealing the clock's
gilded hands. Made, in part, from 1 ,500 pounds of cast iron, the clock was crafted by F.E. Howard &Co. in Boston.
It was displayed in a store window in downtown Worcester for a few days before its installation on May 1 7, 1867.
A Face in the Garden
The home of the late Aldus
Higgins, chairman of Norton
Co., Higgins House is an archi-
tectural gem, marked by a de-
lightful mix of materials and
styles. The house is filled with
personal touches and flights of
pure whimsy. The exterior, for
example, is decorated with gar-
goyles of the animals that the
Higgins family spotted on the
property. This face peeks out
from the ivy to greet visitors to
the exquisite English Tudor
gardens, a carefully planned
network of flower beds, arbors,
hedges and brick walks that
adorn the Higgins House
grounds.
20
Winter 1992
Education
On the Front lines
By Cathy H. Kalenian
Manufacturing engineering, WPI's newest
accredited degree program, is preparing
students to help meet the competitive
challenges american industry faces today,
and to create and manage the manufac-
turing companies of tomorrow.
r
LJ or more than 125 years, WPI has been blending
1 the theoretical and practical sides of engineering
A and applied science to produce graduates well-
equipped to manage the manufacturing industries of the
day, and to help create the manufacturing technologies
of tomorrow. That tradition continues today, as the Insti-
tute expands and enhances its unique educational and
research programs in manufacturing.
During WPI's formative years, students balanced
their course work with hands-on practice in a model
manufacturing plant housed in the Washburn Laborato-
Professor Richard D. Sisson Jr. directs WPI's educational programs in manufacturing engineering
ries, the oldest building in the nation used
continuously for engineering education. By
using state-of-the-art manufacturing tools to
actually make useful and marketable prod-
ucts, WPl's early graduates gained insights
into the manufacturing process that helped
them found many successful industrial
firms, including such leading Worcester
companies as Wyman-Gordon Co. and Riley
Stoker Corp.
In more recent years, manufacturing
has been utterly transformed by computers,
robots and advances in materials science.
And while American companies competed
primarily with one another 125 years ago,
today they face a heated battle for survival
in a constantly expanding global market-
place.
To educate a new generation of gradu-
ates to help American industry succeed on
this highly competitive stage, WPI in 1986
launched a new degree program in manufac-
turing engineering. The Institute's newest
accredited academic program, manufactur-
ing engineering is preparing students to
meet challenges WPI's founders could
barely have dreamed of.
The roots of WPI's most recent manu-
facturing program can be traced back a
decade to a large room on the lower level of
the Washburn Shops, the site of the
Institute's original shop program. In 1981
Walter L. Abel '39, then vice president of
research and development at Emhart Corp.
(now part of Black and Decker), and several
fellow Emhart employees set up camp in
that room to help the Institute establish a
brand new laboratory in advanced manufac-
turing called the Manufacturing Engineering
Applications Center (MEAC).
Through this joint venture, Abel, now
president of Management of Technology in
Avon, Conn., hoped to learn about the
"breaking technology" his company and its
many divisions (including the Tru-Temper
Division and the Shoe Machinery Division)
needed to remain competitive.
Emhart donated the lab's first robots and
became its first charter member — followed
quickly by General Motors Corp., General
Electric Co., Norton Co., Digital Equipment
Corp. and Heald Machine Corp. "That was a
time when every company wanted robots,"
remembers current MEAC director Paul D.
Cotnoir. "The drive was to eliminate classic
bottlenecks on the manufacturing floor
through the use of automation. The princi-
pal justification for the use of robots was
labor reduction."
An Emhart division that made door-lock
sets was the first to bring a real-world manu-
facturing problem to MEAC. Working with
Smoothing Out the Rough Edges
No matter how carefully they are
machined, most metal parts must
have their edges smoothed and shaped
before they can be used. For manufacturers
of aircraft engine parts, the processes of
edge contouring and deburring are espe-
cially critical. In aircraft engines, sharp cor-
ners can create stress and adversely affect
a part's service life. On the manufacturing
floor, burrs and rough edges can make parts
hard to handle and assemble. In service,
burrs can break off and pass through the en-
gine, causing catastrophic damage.
In 1991 WPI's Manufacturing Engineering
Applications Center (MEAC) won a patent
for a robotic system it developed in 1988 for
General Electric Co. The system is capable
of precisely contouring the edges of aircraft
parts, while at the same time removing any
burrs it encounters. "GE has been a long-
time member of MEAC, so we're proud to
have earned a patent for the company," says
MEAC director Paul Cotnoir, who completed
his master's thesis while working on the
project.
Drawing on the work of other research-
ers, including a research group at MIT, the
MEAC team tested as deburring tools nylon
brushes impregnated with abrasives, abra-
sive grinding points and various types of
rotary files. Because of their ability to reach
the many recesses of the complicated metal
parts, and because they can remove large
amounts of metal quickly, rotary files made
from tungsten carbide were ultimately
selected.
When the files were attached to a robot
arm selected for its high accuracy and stiff-
ness, the result was a workstation that
could successfully edge and deburr the
titanium and superalloy parts, using the
surfaces of the parts themselves as a guide.
Spinning at 30,000 rpm, the files contoured
the edges of the parts with an accuracy of
two-thousandths of an inch. Just as impor-
tant, the robot finished the task in less than
an hour — about one-sixth the time needed
to complete the operation manually — and
virtually eliminated the need for rework and
quality assurance checks.
Currently, WPI is engaged in a new
deburring project for GE, which came about
when Arthur Gerstenfeld, professor of man-
agement and director of WPI's Center for the
Management of Advanced Automation Tech-
nology, was contacted by the GE Defense
Systems Division in Pittsfield, Mass., which
makes transmission housings for the Brad-
ley Fighting Vehicle. The division wanted to
develop a system to automate the deburring
of the housings, a process now done manu-
ally with hand-held tools. The process is
MEAC engineers, WPI students devised a
robotic system that could undertake the
labor-intensive process of assembling the
various springs, small screws and other in-
tricate parts. But while the system was not a
success — the robot took 30 minutes to carry
out a task that human workers could com-
plete in a tenth of that time — the project
demonstrated the feasibility of automating
a complex manufacturing process.
Another early MEAC project was the
Rivet Tool Test System (RTTS), which auto-
mated the testing of tools for Emhart 's POP
Fasteners Division. Using a robot and other
automation equipment, RTTS replaced
human operators in the repetitive task of
inserting and setting individual rivets and
observing the results over a long period
of time.
For Norton Co., MEAC developed an
automated work cell to unload and stack
grinding wheels before they were fired. The
system paid for itself in less than two years,
based largely on materials savings. While
MEAC has chalked up many other similar
success stories over the years, its mission
has evolved along with the notion of how
automation fits into the manufacturing
process.
Initially, Cotnoir notes, many companies
hoped to see robots replace human workers
in all manner of manufacturing operations,
resulting in significant cost savings. Today,
however, most manufacturing executives
realize that robots are not the answer to
every problem.
"Robots still work well in dangerous or
repetitive operations, like welding," he says.
"But the emphasis is no longer on develop-
ing 'islands of automation,' but on flexible
automation — that is, systems that can re-
spond quickly to design changes and vari-
able product requirements. While labor
savings are still important, increased pro-
duction, efficiency and quality are even
more critical. Now we spend little time
22
Winter 1992
Clockwise from lower left, graduate student Fredric Gold, Reinaldo Niella '92,
MEAC Director Paul Cotnoir and Rodrigo Gutierrez '92 use a brush attached to
a robotic arm to deburr a sample of aluminum taken from a transmission
housing for the Bradley Fighting Vehicle (a complete housing is seen at right).
time-consuming — it takes eight hours to
deburr one housing — and inefficient — 95
percent of the housings need some rework
after the first deburring.
Gerstenfeld referred the request to John
J. Bausch III, assistant professor of mechani-
cal engineering, who completed his master's
thesis at MIT in 1983 developing a similar
deburring system. Bausch, in turn, received
a grant from GE to create the new system.
Working with Bausch and Cotnoir, grad-
uate student Fredric M. Gold has accepted
the task of finding the best way to remove
the burrs. Because the housings are made
of aluminum, a much softer metal than the
nickel-based superalloy used in the aircraft
parts, the burrs need not be removed with
the same degree of precision. Therefore,
techniques may prove effective that were
unsuccessful in the earlier project.
"Although brushes did not work for the
aircraft engine parts, they may work fine for
the aluminum transmission housings," Gold
says. "Although this is not considered preci-
sion deburring, the method we choose must
be thorough, because if a burr comes loose
it can seize the entire engine."
While undergraduates Reinaldo F. Niella
'92 and Rodrigo R. Gutierrez '92, who are
completing work on their Major Qualifying
Project, experiment with different types of
brushes, Gold is investigating other meth-
ods of deburring, including electrochemical
deburring, cascade deburring and tumbling.
The latter two methods use hard particles
that rub against the metal to wear down
the burrs.
"We are experimenting with various
types of media we might use with these
methods," Gold says. "Anything hard can
be used — even walnut shells. We also need
to determine which method will be eco-
nomically feasible for GE."
designing robot systems to do specific
tasks; instead we automate whole manufac-
turing processes using a wide variety of
state-of-the-art tools and techniques. We
look at the big picture, providing solutions
for the entire manufacturing floor."
In recent years MEAC has also turned
its attention to how automation can help
smaller industries that must fight the same
battles for competitiveness as their larger
cousins. With a grant from the now defunct
Massachusetts Center for Applied Technol-
ogy, MEAC helped introduce computer-
aided design and manufacturing (CAD/CAM)
to the state's smaller sheet metal firms to
help them reduce the time it takes to create
new sheet metal designs.
"The system is dead accurate," says
John Colognesi, vice president of South-
bridge Sheet Metal, one of the first compa-
nies to participate in the MEAC project.
"We recently built a large, complicated
frame made of tubular members and
various angles. It would have taken a week
of layout to develop it with traditional meth-
ods; with computer-aided design we devel-
oped it in a matter of a day." Colognesi says
his company had long hoped to implement
a CAD/CAM system, but lacked the time and
resources.
More recently, Bay State Skills Corp., a
quasi-state agency, hired MEAC to help the
sheet metal industry export its products.
"These efforts clearly illustrate the multi-
disciplinary nature of manufacturing engi-
neering at work for area corporations,"
Cotnoir says.
I
n the years after MEAC's founding, the
laboratory — which acquired a host of full-
scale robots and automation equipment
from its industrial partners — became the
centerpiece of a manufacturing research
and education program. In addition to
teaching courses in robotics, manufacturing
technology, materials and computer-aided
design, faculty from the Mechanical Engi-
neering Department and engineers from
MEAC advised hundreds of undergraduate
Major Qualifying Projects and nearly 20
master's theses in manufacturing.
In 1986 the Institute consolidated its
expertise in manufacturing education into
a new undergraduate degree program; a
master's program was added a year later
and the university's first Ph.D. candidate in
manufacturing enrolled in 1989. In 1991 the
programs received accreditation from the
Accreditation Board for Engineering and
Technology (ABET).
"There are only 10 ABET-accredited
bachelor's degree programs in manufactur-
ing engineering in the United States," notes
Richard D. Sisson Jr., professor of mechani-
cal engineering and director of manufactur-
ing engineering. "WPI is one of the few
places that offers B.S., M.S., and Ph.D.
degrees. To date, we've had more than
WPI Journal
23
60 graduates from the undergraduate pro-
gram and five from the master's program."
Reflecting the multidisciplinary nature
of modem manufacturing engineering, the
curriculum is taught by faculty members
from the Mechanical Engineering, Electrical
Engineering, Management and Computer
Science departments. The program includes
four core areas of study: materials and pro-
cesses; product engineering; computer
control and manufacturing systems; and
production systems engineering.
According to Sisson, the program em-
phasizes a systems approach to manufac-
turing, where students are taught to see the
individual parts of the manufacturing pro-
cess— from product design to manufactur-
ing and testing — not as separate, unrelated
processes, but as parts of a unified whole.
WPI's relatively young manufacturing
engineering program has already begun to
garner national attention. In 1990 the Soci-
ety of Manufacturing Engineers recognized
its first student honor society ever — the
society founded by a group of WPI students
led by Theresa A. Schmidt '92. The students
petitioned the national organization when
they realized that manufacturing engineer-
ing was the only major area of study at WPI
that did not have its own honor society.
M
aterials and processes, the first
, core area of study, explores the
properties of modern manufacturing materi-
als and looks at how they react to such pro-
cesses as casting, forging, injection molding
and grinding. Understanding the fundamen-
tal mechanisms by which materials are
shaped and new surfaces are created is
In this 1985 photo, former MEAC engineer Robert Bean, left, and Alan Cloutier of
Norton Co.'s Vitrified Grinding Wheel Division look over a MEAC-designed system
that unloads and stacks grinding wheels, seen at center, before they are fired.
critical in modern manufacturing, notes
Christopher A. Brown, assistant professor
of mechanical engineering, who heads up
this area.
"Many students arrive thinking that
manufacturing is all robots and computer
controls," Brown says. "But if we're only
intelligently controlling the same old pro-
cesses, we haven't necessarily reached our
potential for effective manufacturing. That's
why my teaching and research focus on
where the tool meets the workpiece."
Brown, whose research specialty is con-
ventional and electric-discharge machining,
has been a pioneer in the study of machined
surfaces. To better understand the charac-
teristics of these surfaces he uses fractal
geometry, a new form of analysis he first em-
ployed while doing research on machined
surfaces at the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology in Lausanne.
"Fractal geometry allows us to charac-
terize the essence of complex shapes, such
that their character is represented over a
wide range of scales," he says. "Over the last
few years, we've been able to use scanning
electron microscopes and scanning tunnel-
ing microscopes to generate hundreds of
thousands of bits of data about the topogra-
phy of a machined surface at the atomic
scale. Theoretically, with such data we can
now approach product and process design
issues over a range of scales that extends
right down to the atomic level."
Fractal analysis can prove especially
useful in situations where a designer must
create a part that has to perform different,
seemingly contradictory functions at differ-
ent geometric scales, Brown says. "For ex-
ample," he notes, "a substrate for a coated
cutting tool needs to be smooth at larger
scales, but rough on a fine scale to effec-
From left, graduate students Robert
DeLang and Kris Timmermans and
Professor Christopher Brown test
the effects of electric-discharge
machining on a ceramic sample.
DeLang and Timmermans are
students at Catholic University
in Leuven, Belgium.
24
Winter 1992
tively anchor the coating. Fractal analysis
helps us see how to decouple large- and
fine-scale functions and manufacturing
processes and handle them separately."
At the other end of the manufacturing
spectrum is production systems
engineering — the use of effective manage-
ment and organizational techniques to pro-
duce a high-quality product manufactured
by motivated employees. To accomplish
this goal, production engineers use produc-
tion planning and control, quality planning
and control, risk analysis, and simulation,
among other techniques.
"This fourth core area of study rounds
out a manufacturing engineering degree
program that prepares students to be
equally skilled in areas that range from in-
dustrial robotics to advanced materials and
processes," says Enio E. Velazco, assistant
professor of management. "But in addition
to being technologically ready, graduates
of this program will be prepared to analyze
and improve operational systems from a
human standpoint."
Notes Sharon A. Johnson, assistant pro-
fessor of management, "The kinds of ques-
tions we pose to our students include: What
and how much do I produce this month to
limit inventory, but still satisfy my custom-
ers? Can I economically justify the cost of
a new product design? Can I improve a
process by reducing setup time, while still
maintaining quality? How does automation
affect my company's organization and im-
pact workers?
"We're asking the students to look at the
big picture. Automation and new technology
must be reviewed on the basis of how they
relate to all functional areas within a com-
pany. The human factor is very important."
To learn firsthand how to put these
management tools to work in real-life situa-
tions, students who specialize in production
system design often complete their Major
Qualifying Projects in the field solving
problems for sponsoring companies. For
example, Rosana A. Espino '93, Erik H.
Krauss '92 and Andrea K. Toland '92 are
working with Dover Instrument Corp. in
Westboro, Mass., which customizes preci-
sion air-bearing positioning systems, to
Andrea Toland '92, center,
discusses the computerized
scheduling tool she is
helping develop for Dover
Instrument Corp. with
management professors
Sharon Johnson, left,
and Enio Velazco.
develop a computerized scheduling tool
that will analyze capacity and resource
utilization in the company's manufacturing
department.
The scheduling model, which will be
used to plan projects on a monthly basis,
will provide feedback to the sales depart-
ment, helping the sales force quote ship-
ping dates to customers. Because Dover is
a small company, the students are attempt-
ing to fashion a system that will not require
the firm to purchase new equipment or add
personnel.
Jodi A. Pisinski '93, Jennifer L. Wood '92
and Tara Lynn Zaharoff '92 are working with
Norton Co. to develop a recycling program
for the abrasives the company uses to make
grinding wheels. The students will address
the technical, environmental and economic
feasibility of a recycling program, and
attempt to design a program that will not
adversely affect the manufacturing process.
To prepare students adequately to man-
age modern manufacturing enterprises, the
WPI faculty strive to expose them — in the
classroom and through projects — to the
most current techniques in production man-
agement. More often than not, these are
techniques that were pioneered by Japanese
firms. One example is the Taguchi Method,
a technique based on statistically designed
experiments that allow engineers to analyze
operational systems, identify the effect of
various factors on particular measures of
performance, and prioritize various meth-
ods for improving the manufacturing
operation.
"Our students are learning to be critical
of the status quo, and to always look for
possible areas of improvement," says
Velazco, whose teaching focuses on statis-
tical quality control. In the classroom pro-
jects that Velazco assigns, students are
asked to analyze data that have already
been used by engineers at real companies
to solve manufacturing problems.
"In some cases, the students have come
up with different solutions than the ones the
engineers found," Velazco says. "When time
allows, we meet with the engineers to deter-
mine if improvements can be made based
on the students' findings.
"My effort to present the latest Japanese
manufacturing techniques to students is re-
flected in the number of MQPs and master's
theses that students have undertaken focus-
ing on the Taguchi Method," adds Velazco,
who, with help from a grant from General
Electric Co., is currently developing a new
undergraduate course in Total Quality Man-
agement, another leading-edge management
technique.
Students pursuing undergraduate and
graduate degrees in manufacturing
engineering at WPI can complete their
MQPs, theses and dissertations in industry-
sponsored centers and laboratories in
robotics, flexible automation, process con-
trol, advanced materials processing, and
computer-aided design and manufacturing,
among other disciplines. Students specializ-
ing in the human side of manufacturing can
WPI Journal 25
This Robot's Way Above Par
Computer-integrated systems and
intelligent process controls are as
important to manufacturing opera-
tions as the automatic hardware itself,"
notes John J. Bausch III, assistant profes-
sor of mechanical engineering. "For a great
many traditional processes, better control
software is the only mechanism available
to improve performance.
"One of the long-range objectives of
computer-integrated manufacturing is to
close the gap between design and manu-
facture," he adds. "By combining com-
puter-aided design methods to model a
part with computer-aided manufacturing
methods to produce it, we can completely
automate the manufacturing process."
Working with David C. Zenger and
David J. Olinger, also assistant professors
of mechanical engineering, Bausch is cur-
rently advising three groups of under-
graduates who are studying intelligent
process control by creating a robot that
might seem more useful on the golf course
than on the factory floor. Called the Inte-
grated Putting Robot, the machine can size
up the bumps and contours of a green and
figure out the best way to swing a putter
to drop the ball in the hole.
"Though the end result may not be
closely tied to the typical manufacturing
From left, Sean Doherty '92, John Berube '92, Professors John Bausch and
David Zenger, Michael Vecchione '91 , Professor David Olinger, and James
McCleery '92 form the gallery as the Integrated Putting Robot attempts to
sink a four-footer on this carpet-covered "green."
operation," Bausch says, "the ability to pro-
gram the robot system to analyze the green
surface and adopt the trajectory of its
stroke in real time is extremely valuable.
This is actually a very realistic manufactur-
ing problem."
The robot had its origins in an idea
Zenger had for a fun way to cap his
course in robotics. Each student in the
class develops a program for the robot,
which holds a standard putter in its arm,
and practices putting on a flat green.
complete projects through the Center for
the Management of Advanced Automation
Technology (MAAT), which, under the direc-
tion of Arthur Gerstenfeld, professor of
management, helps industrial sponsors
overcome the obstacles that often stand in
the way of implementing and benefiting
from advanced automation.
The newest center, the Center for Intelli-
gent Processing of Materials (CIPM), is one
of two multidisciplinary research centers
recently created at WP1 as part of the Insti-
tute's Strategic Plan for the 1990s (the other
is the Applied Bio-Engineering Center).
Directed by Richard Sisson, the center is the
umbrella organization for a number of labo-
ratories.
According to Sisson, the goal of the new
center is to create intelligent systems for
the processing of materials by integrating
three fundamental manufacturing sub-
systems: an interactive database of math-
ematical and heuristic models of materials
processes; advanced sensors and data-
acquisition systems that measure key
attributes of the materials; and a supervi-
sory control system that utilizes the models
and the sensors to intelligently control the
processes.
"More broadly," he says, "we will seek to
develop the kinds of integrated, interactive
and intelligent processing systems that
American industry will need to create prod-
ucts that are competitive — both here and
abroad. In the process, we're also providing
a valuable learning experience for WP1
students."
One of the first of the new laboratories
to fall under the CIPM umbrella is a facility
for the study of electric-discharge machin-
ing (EDM). "Through the center we are seek-
ing to advance our understanding of the
spark-erosion process," notes Christopher
Brown, the lab's founder. "The goal is to ex-
tend the capabilities of EDM beyond its cur-
rent applications — primarily machining hard
metals for making tools and dies — to new
areas, like the production of ceramic com-
ponents."
Other CIPM centers include the Center
for Hydrogen Embrittlement of Electro-
plated Fasteners, which addresses the sci-
entific and industrial problems associated
with the fasteners (lost time, accidents and
product liability due to embrittled fasteners
cost corporations millions of dollars each
year), and the Center for Carburization
Heat-Treatment Studies, which helps indus-
tries streamline and optimize the traditional
carburization process, a method of impreg-
nating carbon into metals using heat.
Recently, six WPI researchers, under the
auspices of CIPM, submitted a proposal to
26
Winter 1992
From left, Christopher Maxwell '92, Christopher Kelley '92 and Jeffrey Poggi
'92 work on software that will tell the putting robot how to translate a "putting
plan" formulated by a computer model into the proper swing of the putter.
They then compete against one another,
providing manual feedback to the robot un-
til it can sink a putt on the same green,
which now has a few added contours.
"At Professor Olinger's suggestion,"
Bausch says, "we created this Major Qualify-
ing Project to automate the process of ad-
justing to the changing green surface. Now
the robot will probe the putting surface,
analyze the information, and adjust the
speed and the arc of its swing appropriately.
Our hope is that the robot will do better on
its own than it does under the students'
control during the competition."
To complete the task, one group of
students (Christopher D. Kelley '92, Christo-
pher A. Maxwell '92 and Gregory R. Tucker
'92) is developing a computer model to
predict the path of the ball and choose the
initial ball velocity and direction. Another
team (Jeffrey P. Poggi '92, Johan Van
Achterberg '91 and Michael F. Vecchione
'91) is developing an application program to
generate the surface of the green on a com-
puter screen and simulate the motion of
the robot and the ball.
The third group (John A. Berube
'92, Sean T. Doherty '92 and James A.
McCleery '92) is developing the software
that will translate the output of the mod-
els into the proper movement of the robot
arm. Each "putting plan" will be fed to the
robot and tested; if the robot fails to sink
the ball, the students will reanalyze their
models and assumptions.
Bausch says the most important as-
pect of the project is the fact that it brings
together different specialities within
mechanical engineering to develop a suc-
cessful automated process. "The analysis
group tends to consist of students inter-
ested in aerospace and numerical meth-
ods," he says. "The computer-integration
group consists of ME majors with a broad
interest in advanced computer systems.
And the computer-aided manufacturing
group is more hardware-design oriented."
"Whether at WPI or in the real world
of industry, professionals with varying
specialities must learn to work together,"
says Zenger. "That's the real goal of the
Integrated Putting Robot project. While
each student in this project has his own
expertise, the end process will not be
successful unless there is a group effort
and good communication."
the U.S. Army for funding for a major project
on the intelligent processing of powder met-
als. Notes David C. Zenger, assistant profes-
sor of mechanical engineering, the project
will seek to integrate the various aspects of
powder-metal processing — from the analy-
sis of the metal to the design of the manu-
facturing systems — all of which are now
studied in isolation.
"Our goal is to develop the framework
for an interactive, integrated and intelligent
system so that design and process flow
together concurrently," he says. "Since 70
to 85 percent of product cost is determined
at the earliest stages of product design,
there is an incentive for early optimization
of product design and accurate prediction
of the manufacturing and processing
requirements."
Since its founding days, WPI has mea-
sured its success in many ways, but the
most important bottom line has always been
the success of its graduates. For a young
program, manufacturing engineering has
already achieved its share of success, notes
Sisson.
"Our graduates are doing quite well in
industry," he says. "Many are being hired
by large corporations for their management
and manufacturing engineering training
programs. For example, General Electric's
Manufacturing Management Program hires
many of WPl's manufacturing engineering
and mechanical engineering graduates. In
addition, many graduates are working with
small companies, providing them with state-
of-the-art engineering expertise that will
help them stay competitive."
For these students, the education they
received at WPI — in particular the real-world
projects — have provided a significant edge
in the work place, Sisson says. "Our
approach to manufacturing education lets
students apply their newfound knowledge
and problem-solving skills to real-life situa-
tions. They have to solve problems within
the same cost and time constraints they'll
face once they get out there on the real
shop floor. There is no substitute for that
kind of experience.
"Our students are not working in a
vacuum," he adds. "They are out there in
the field, developing a human touch. Gradu-
ates of our manufacturing engineering pro-
gram will be tomorrow's top manufacturing
executives, leading companies into the 21st
century using skills developed at WPI and
tested in the field."
Kalenian, a free-lance writer living in Prince-
ton, Mass., once ran a manufacturing business
with her husband, Paul A. Kalenian 76.
WPI Journal
27
The Entrepreneurial Spirit
Thirteenth in a Series
Steady as She Goes
By Michael W. Dorsey
hen he can, Robert H.
Beckett '57, chairman
and CEO of Robec
Distributors in Horsham, Pa.,
likes to leave behind the de-
mands of his busy life and go
sailing on the Chesapeake Bay.
Like the countless generations
of watermen who've navigated
this vast inland waterway be-
fore him, Beckett knows that
negotiating the Chesapeake
requires a steady hand on the
tiller and a clear vision of where
you're going and how you're
going to get there.
Beckett has taken a similar
approach to his own career.
Though his desire to create and
manage his own company sur-
faced early in life, he waited
more than two decades until
the time and circumstances
were right to make the leap.
"I started talking about starting
my own business when I was a
senior at WPI," Beckett says.
"But 1 didn't know what to do
or when to do it. Later, I was
concerned about my kids— I
didn't want to jeopardize their
educations. But I always knew
that someday 1 would start my
own company."
That someday arrived in 1978. With his employer,
Decision Data Inc., facing a serious financial crisis, Beckett
was forced to take a critical look at his career options. He
decided the time had come to go his own way. At that time,
desktop computers, which were still in their infancy, were
already making inroads into business and industry, and
Beckett could see that virtually unlimited opportunities
existed for entrepreneurs who could find their own
Robert Beckett '57 in the warehouse of the
105,000-square-foot headquarters of Robec
Distributors in Horsham, Pa.
niche in this rapidly expanding
market.
With G. Wesley McKinney,
a Decision Data sales execu-
tive, Beckett founded Robec
Inc. The company's first ven-
ture was a new software prod-
uct aimed at surveyors and real
estate developers. Given criti-
cal information about a parcel
of land, the product could help
carry out the financial and
technical analyses involved in
turning the land into a finished
development. The software
could even subdivide the land
into lots, add streets and utili-
ties, and draw the results on a
plotter.
"We took the package to the
state surveying show at the
University of Pennsylvania and
immediately got a request to
demonstrate it to the execu-
tives of a large surveying in-
strument manufacturer,"
Beckett says. As a result, Robec
won a contract for nearly $2
million worth of hardware and
software, including 120 Z/80
desktop computers and associ-
ated printers and plotters.
Around that time, Okidata,
a manufacturer of computer
printers, released a new printer for personal computers.
Impressed by Robec's experience with printers and its
sales success, Okidata provided the opportunity for the
company to act as a distributor. Robec agreed, and in the
process firmly established itself as an up-and-coming
wholesale distributor of microcomputers and peripherals.
It's been more than a decade since that day, and Beckett
has never looked back.
28
Winter 1992
ore than anything, it was football
I that first brought Robert Beckett
to WPI. The son of a machine shop inspec-
tor who emigrated to the United States from
Belfast as a young man, Beckett was born in
Trenton, N.J., in 1933. As a student at
Hamilton High School in Trenton, Beckett
excelled at mathematics and physics and
played on the football team. After graduat-
ing in 1951, he spent a year at The Penning-
ton School, a New Jersey preparatory
school.
Beckett's academic credentials earned
him admission to several colleges, including
Lafayette, Delaware and Rutgers, but finan-
cial constraints led him to put off college for
a year. "I had actually enrolled at Lafayette
and attended freshman orientation," he
says, "but I decided not to start until I could
gather additional financial support."
Instead, to earn money for college he
worked in the service department of a local
Ford dealership as a mechanic and a service
salesman. In the evenings he held down a
second job on the night shift at a gas sta-
tion. That fall Beckett's prep school foot-
ball coach told him that Charles McNulty,
football coach at WPI, would be visiting the
area to look for good students interested in
a technical education. Beckett agreed to
meet him.
"McNulty and I talked in December and
he invited me to visit WPI the following
spring," Beckett says. "I had such a desire
to go to college someplace, and I was so
pleased to find someone who seemed will-
ing to help. Not having the financial where-
withal to go to college, and feeling the
frustration that goes along with that — that
was a low point in my life. I've always appre-
ciated how WPI made it possible for me to
get an education."
With the aid of a matriculation scholar-
ship, Beckett enrolled in the fall of 1953.
"I still had to work to earn money for ex-
penses, but I enjoyed my years at WPI. I got
a lot out of my education."
While at the Institute, Beckett was a
member of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity and
joined the Athletic Council, the Varsity Club,
ROTC and the American Society of Mechani-
cal Engineers. He was on the staffs of Tech
News and Peddler, and was elected to the
Tech Senate each of his WPI years, serving
as president his senior year. He also won
election to Skull, the senior honor society,
and Phi Delta Epsilon, the journalism honor
society.
In addition to his activities, he was active
in sports, competing on the swimming and
tennis teams as a freshman and sophomore.
As a guard on the football team, he lettered
as a junior and a
senior and played on
the undefeated and
untied team of 1954.
"I wasn't a star,"
Beckett says, "but I
was a steady player.
I'm still that way. I'm
one of those people
who likes steadiness
and stability. I think
that's one of the
things that has made
Robec successful."
E
arly in his
career, Beckett
learned the rewards
that stability can
bring. After complet-
ing six months of mili-
tary service, he joined
Leeds & Northrup in
North Wales, Pa., a
maker of electronic
recorders, controllers
and test instruments.
On-campus interviews
had earned him offers
from eight other com-
panies, including
Alcoa, Curtis-Wright,
Goodyear and IBM, but none of these firms
could promise Beckett a position that would
let him make full use of his engineering
education.
"I didn't want a position that could be
filled by a nontechnical college graduate,"
he says. "I thought to myself, 'If they don't
put any value on a technical education,
why did I bother to get one?'"
A friend had suggested he check into
Leeds & Northrup, and while he was home
for Christmas vacation during his senior
year he visited the plant. "I was so im-
pressed with the kind of job they offered
me — it just hit me right," he says. "It was
exactly what I wanted."
Beckett started out in field sales in Mil-
waukee. "The Midwest is warm and friendly,
but difficult to penetrate," he says. "But I
outlasted the competition. I was there for
five years, and in that time the Honeywell
representative changed twice. All of a sud-
den, I was the veteran; mine was the face
the customers had seen more often, so I
started to get more business."
From Milwaukee, Beckett was trans-
ferred to Pittsburgh, where he played a
critical role in developing instrumentation
and central control systems for steel plants
Robec's regional distribution centers keep busy shipping
microcomputer systems out to customers around the country.
and plants that processed taconite, a low-
grade iron ore.
"That was a time when industry was just
beginning to centralize operations," he says,
"using miniaturized instruments to gather
raw data from throughout the processing
operation and pulling it into a central loca-
tion. Centralization was an essential step
before you could even consider putting in
a computer. Once you had all the data in
place, you could figure out how to handle
it through mathematical models of the
process."
While at Leeds & Northrup, Beckett
and a fellow employee, Ken Bullinant, were
approached by Don Stein, the president of
a small Glassboro, N.J., instrumentation
company called K-Tron Inc. Stein was inter-
ested in developing some new measurement
devices for industrial processes, and
Beckett and Bullinant spent several week-
ends at K-Tron completing the design for
one of Beckett's ideas, a gravimetric feeder.
All three would ultimately share a patent
for the design.
"A gravimetric feeder measures the
weight of dry granular material as it passes
along a conveyor belt, controlling the vol-
ume of the stream as a function of its
WPI Journal
29
weight," Beckett says. "When you're blend-
ing multiple streams — for example, mixing
other ingredients in with dry cereals or con-
trolling the ratio of raw ingredients feeding
into a plastic extruder — a gravimetric feeder
enables you to get the same formulation all
the time."
Eventually Beckett and Bullinant left
Leeds & Northrup to join K-Tron, where
they converted their original pneumatic
feeder to an electronic device. It was the
first digital feeder on the market and
remains the standard in the field today,
Beckett says.
After five years at K-Tron, Beckett left to
join Decision Data Inc. in Horsham, Pa., a
manufacturer of equipment for IBM System
3 business computers. As manager of OEM
(original equipment manufacturer) market-
ing, Becket sold Decision Data's products —
including card readers, punches, reader-
punches, and printers — to other computer
manufacturers. He also spearheaded the
launch of a new 120-character-per-second
dot-matrix printer.
In 1976 IBM announced its intention to
entirely redesign its System-3 computers,
making many of Decision Data's products
obsolete and placing the company's future
in doubt. For Beckett, it was a critical turn-
ing point — one for which he'd been waiting
for 22 years. By 1978 he would be president
and CEO of his own company.
The qualities Robert Beckett uses to
describe himself — steadiness and
stability — could apply as well to the com-
pany he founded 14 years ago in Montgom-
eryville, Pa., a suburb of Philadelphia. As a
value-added distributor of microcomputers,
peripherals, software and supplies, Robec
Distributors sells its products to about
22,000 customers, who include value-added
resellers (VARs), retailers and other com-
puter businesses that, in turn, sell those
systems to end-users.
Since its birth, Robec has grown at a
quick but steady pace. Starting in 1978 with
a work force of just the two founding part-
ners, Robec grew to employ 20 people and
earn annual sales of nearly $4 million by
1982. Four years later its sales had jumped
to more than $68 million — an increase of
over 1,500 percent — and its work force had
risen to 128.
The company passed the $100 million
mark in sales during its 10th year of opera-
tions in 1988, and today Robec posts annual
sales of more than $200 million with a work
force of 410 nationwide, including 180 in
Horsham, Pa., where the corporate head-
quarters were moved in 1987. This rapid
expansion earned Robec the No. 10 spot
MicroStack and the WPl
Since they were introduced less than
a decade ago, personal computer
networks have helped businesses
boost their productivity by linking indi-
vidual personal computers together,
enabling users to more easily share infor-
mation and data. But even with the most
powerful commercially available networks,
companies can run into problems when
they try to expand their networks to ac-
commodate new users or new technology.
A unique approach to networking devel-
oped by Robec Distributors, with help from
researchers at WPI, promises a simple yet
easily expandable personal computer net-
work. Called MicroStack, the system com-
bines the power and resources of two or
more off-the-shelf personal computers to
create a multiprocessing computer. The
system enables users to share memory,
disk drives, printers and other peripherals
connected to the stack, in much the same
way that users of much more expensive
mainframe or minicomputer systems can.
"Our concept was that all the process-
ing power of a networked system should
be transparent to the user," says Robec
Chairman and CEO Robert H. Beckett '57.
"All he wants to see is that he has the re-
sources he needs to get the job done.
Where those resources are located
shouldn't concern him."
James Duckworth, seated, holds the Bus
Interface Card he developed for Micro-
Stack, Robec's revolutionary networking
solution. David Cyganski stands beside
a MicroStack setup running a test on
TCPserver, the addition he wrote for the
MicroStack operating system.
While MicroStack makes use of hardware
and software sold by other vendors, two key
elements are available only from Robec. The
on Inc. magazine's list of the 500 fastest-
growing privately held U.S. companies
in 1984. The company appeared on the list
again in 1985, 1986 and 1987. Robec's suc-
cess also earned Beckett the title of Dela-
ware Valley Entrepreneur of the Year in 1988
from the Arthur Young Co. and Venture
magazine.
WPl has also honored Beckett, who has
served the college since 1986 as a trustee,
and who, as chairman of the board's Devel-
opment Committee, helped manage the
highly successful Campaign for Excellence.
(Beckett's own gifts to the Institute helped
build the new George F. Fuller Laboratories.)
In 1987 WPI presented Beckett with its Rob-
ert H. Goddard '08 Alumni Award for Profes-
sional Achievement.
Robec's growth has been partly fueled
by acquisitions. In 1985 the company pur-
chased North Carolina-based InterAct Dis-
tributing, which added a network of offices
and warehouses in the South to Robec's
own regional sales offices in Boston, Mass.,
Reston, Va., and Youngstown, Ohio. Other
acquisitions, including the purchases of re-
gional computer distributors in Texas and
California, have enabled Robec to become
a truly national company comprising 20
branch offices from Seattle to Orlando, in-
cluding regional operating and supply cen-
ters in Horsham, Kansas City and Phoenix.
"Territorially, that's all I want to do right
now," Beckett says, "at least until I get all of
our offices as strong as our East Coast of-
fices. We might look at other locations in the
future — potentially in Canada and Mexico, if
trade barriers come down."
Robec's steady growth is particularly
striking when projected against the back-
drop of the ups and downs of the computer
industry over the past decade and a half. As
30
Winter 1992
Connection
first is the operating sys-
tem, called Shared Resource
Architecture, which enables
several PCs to work as one
computer. The other is the
Bus Interface Card (BIC),
the hardware that links the
computers together and
permits the rapid and or-
derly exchange of data be-
tween them.
The BIC, a card that
plugs into each of the PCs
in the stack, was developed
by R. James Duckworth,
associate professor of elec-
trical engineering, working
under contract to Robec.
"There were some special
requirements for this card,"
Duckworth says. "It had to
interface with the rest of their software, it
had to support very high-speed but reliable
communications between a number of PCs,
and it had to be low cost."
Working with graduate student Kenneth
Viall, Duckworth produced a board capable
of transferring data at the rate of 2 million
bytes per second. Key elements of the de-
sign included an advanced microprocessor,
a SCSI controller (normally used to transfer
data between a computer and a disk drive),
and a special memory design that maxi-
mizes the card's throughput.
"We wanted the host PC to be able to
write new information to the BIC at the
same time that the BIC is sending previously
received information out into the stack,"
Duckworth says.
Duckworth not only designed the BIC
and produced a prototype for Robec's
approval, but supervised the manufacture of
the cards by a local company. More recently,
he and another graduate student, Samer
Nubani, produced a new version of the card
with a faster microprocessor and controller
that increased its communications speed to
5 million bytes per second. By integrating
several functional elements of the old card
into a small number of programmable logic
devices, they also made the card easier and
less expensive to manufacture.
Nubani says his work on the BIC was
equivalent to a "year's industrial experi-
ence," and credits the project with helping
him land a job as an engineer with Teleglobe
Inc., an electronics company in Canada.
In addition to supporting the develop-
ment of the BIC, Robec provided computers
and test equipment for WPI's Computer
Architecture Laboratory, where much of the
development work for the BIC took place.
More recently, David Cyganski, professor of
electrical engineering, and graduate student
Michael J. Haley have used the re-
sources of this lab to add a new feature
to the Shared Resource Architecture.
Called TCPserver, the new feature
will allow MicroStack to communicate
with workstations, mainframe comput-
ers and networks that use the Unix oper-
ating system as easily as it now does
with PCs operating under the DOS oper-
ating system. Unix machines generally
communicate with the TCP/IP protocol,
which is incompatible with protocols
generally used in computer networks
that link DOS-based computers.
"This new addition will let Micro-
Stack enter the all-important world of
Unix computing, making its capabilities
available to a much broader range of
computer users," Cyganski notes.
Using the enhanced Shared Resource
Architecture and the BIC, MicroStack
can link up to 63 individual PCs and doz-
ens of peripheraJ devices, and can inter-
face with terminals and PCs hooked into
virtually any type of computer network.
"We think it's a really exciting devel-
opment," Beckett says. "One person
who read about MicroStack said, 'You
don't have an evolutionary product
here — you've got a revolutionary prod-
uct. It changes the whole way of thinking
about networks.' "
Robec completely assembles and tests every
computer system it ships from its warehouses.
Robec's own newsletter noted
in 1986, the market for micro-
computers experienced a "blip"
in 1982 when the IBM Personal
Computer was introduced,
"convincing millions of end-
users that it was safe to go
micro." But after the blip
came the "dip," when the flurry
of demand for computer prod-
ucts that followed the introduc-
tion of the IBM PC began to
taper off.
Later, as the business and
home computer markets be-
came more saturated, the
computer market softened
and many computer makers
went out of business or suffered
hard times. More recently, the
recession has further cut into
the demand for computers and related
products.
What has enabled Robec to sail steadily
on through these sometimes stormy seas?
Beckett attributes much of the company's
success to its unique approach to computer
distribution. Most computer distributors, he
says, have concentrated on selling high vol-
umes of individual components, such as
personal computers, printers and disk
drives. Robec has, from the beginning,
placed its emphasis on selling whole sys-
tems, including everything — computers,
peripherals, software, and networking
equipment — that end-users need to use
computers effectively in their businesses.
"In the beginning, the big distribution
companies were all commodities oriented,"
Beckett says. "The market was growing so
fast, all you had to do was pick up the
phone and you could sell something to
WPI Journal
31
somebody, as long as you kept your prices
low. Robec is dispersed over multiple offices
and our costs are too high to compete on
that level, so we've always worked hard to
keep the commodity sales — what I call the
pull sales — from dominating the higher-
margin system sales — the push sales. We've
kept a balance between push and pull —
between the value-added and commodity
sales. That's really our strategy."
Because Robec 's emphasis is on sys-
tems, rather than components, the company
can also provide its customers with a high
level of support services. For example, it
completely assembles and tests every sys-
tem it sells before it is shipped — often with
all the software installed— to assure that no
problems will develop once the equipment
leaves the warehouse.
"I don't know of many other distributors
who are doing that," Beckett says. "We actu-
ally format the drives, load the operating
system, and log on all the peripherals. When
we ship it to the customer, all he has to do
is set it up and turn it on." Robec is also
one of the few distributors that maintains
an in-house maintenance department.
Unlike most computer distributors,
Robec also invests heavily in education. It
offers seminars and workshops on micro-
computers and software, frequently mounts
multicity tours to introduce its customers to
new technology, and prepares its own corre-
spondence courses. "When you distribute
technology," Beckett says, "You have to
spend a lot of time educating people and in-
troducing them to the things you think will
help their businesses. That kind of leader-
ship is what's helped us be successful."
As the computer market has matured
and competition among distributors has in-
creased, Robec has shifted more and more
of its business into these value-added ser-
vices, which earn much higher profit mar-
gins than volume sales of computers or
commodities. The value-added segment of
his operations grew from 12 percent of over-
all sales in 1987 to 36 percent in 1990. "We're
not the largest distributor in this business,"
Beckett says, "but our model says we don't
have to be because we're the most profitable
distributor. And that's what will sustain our
business.
"As long as we maintain a feeling for the
marketplace and the customers are willing
to pay for the services we offer, we'll suc-
ceed," Beckett says. "A lot of people say they
are value-added distributors, but the only
ones who really are, are the ones whose
customers are willing to pay for that value."
There is no better way to sell people on
an idea than to put that idea to work
yourself," Beckett says. At Robec, that's
more than a philosophy — it's a way of life.
In a business where suppliers and dealers
must convince customers that, given the
right technology and resources, they can
make their business more effective and
efficient, Robec leads by example.
The company recently purchased and
installed its own voice-mail system. It is now
in the process of automating its warehouse
Robec's emphasis on selling complete computer systems enables it to offer cus-
tomers a broad range of services, such as this maintenance and repair facility.
without outside help. Even the company's
modern, 105,000-square-foot corporate
headquarters and warehouse in Horsham
is a monument to this do-it-yourself spirit:
Robec employees planned the renovations
of the original 45,000-square-foot-structure
and supervised all of the work. The com-
pany also acted as general contractor for
the construction of a 10,000-square-foot
office annex and a 50,000-square-foot
warehouse expansion.
Touring the building, a visitor quickly
sees that Robec also practices what it
preaches when it comes to the technology
it sells. Virtually every administrative task
carried out in corporate headquarters
makes use of the microcomputers and
software Robec distributes, and all of the
company's computers — as well as all of its
regional offices — are linked together with
the company's networking systems.
Using the products it sells is the best
way to thoroughly understand how they
work, Beckett says, and to anticipate the
problems end-users may encounter in em-
ploying them in their own applications. To
this end, Robec puts its own business sys-
tems to the test. Consider the tricks it asks
its networks to perform every day:
Each evening, after normal business
hours, computers in Horsham call each
branch office and collect data on the day's
transactions. Data from Robec's entire na-
tional distribution operation is consolidated
and analyzed. The updated results are then
fed back to the regional offices. On top of
this, local networks at headquarters and at
each branch office constantly keep track of
new orders, automatically updating records
in multiple offices, and printing out invoices
and shipping documents.
The company is currently implementing
document imaging, a technology that re-
places traditional paper files with electronic
images that can be easily retrieved and
viewed on a computer screen. "For example,
with the imaging system, all shipping docu-
ments arriving in our receiving department
will be scanned into the computer," Beckett
says. "They will be electronically attached
to the purchase order, which will already
be in the system. The payables department
can then pull these documents up on the
screen, check them over, verify the signa-
tures, and pay the vendors. We may even
scan in the checks and attach them to the
other documents.
"Eventually, we plan to do away entirely
with historical files. After we thoroughly un-
derstand the system, we can educate our
VARs about how to use it and sell it. I be-
lieve there will be a huge market for imaging
systems in the next five years, as the prices
for the technology continue to come down."
32
Winter 1992
^>
Robec Distributors has become a family affair for Beckett. His wife, Pat, above, has long served as his administrative
assistant. His daughter and two sons also work with him at corporate headquarters.
Imaging is an example of how Robec is
expanding into new high-end technology,
instead of into new territory, Beckett notes.
"In addition to imaging, we're getting into
multimedia applications, heavier networks
and network management, and worksta-
tions," he says. "Because of our commit-
ment to service and support, I think we're in
a better position to market these products
than many other distributors."
In addition to products made by other
companies (Robec is an authorized distribu-
tor for about 50 computer and component
manufacturers, including Motorola, Okidata,
Sony, Unisys, Texas Instruments and Wyse),
the company has also from the beginning
developed its own business software.
Its first package, the Robec Simplified
Business System, originally ran on one of
the first Z/80 desktop computers. The soft-
ware provides the kind of real-time business
support (sales-order entry, inventory con-
trol, accounts receivable and payable, pur-
chasing, and so on) that is usually attainable
only on larger computers, and makes it
available on a network of personal comput-
ers. Robec has also developed its own com-
munications software, Solo-Corn, and a
unique, low-cost approach to networking
called MicroStack (see related story).
Most of these packages are the products
of Robec's own research and development
department, which is headed by Alexander
C. Kramer Jr., vice president for advanced
systems technology. Kramer, who earlier in
his career developed one of the first operat-
ing systems for real-time process controls,
is one of four Robec employees who worked
with Beckett at Leeds & Northrup. In addi-
tion to McKinney and Kramer, they are
John P. Puckett, senior vice president and
general manager, and Charles Shaffer, direc-
tor of operations for Base Two, a Robec
subsidiary.
Beckett says the Leeds & Northrup
connection is significant, because that
company's emphasis on system sales and
applications helped shape Robec's own
philosophy. But even more, it is a reflection
of the value Beckett places on loyalty. He
points with pride to the unusually low turn-
over among Robec's employees. "We have
some young people in sales who have been
with us for seven years," he says. "Seven
years in the micro industry is an enormous
amount of time — and they're not the older
salesmen, they're the younger ones."
Beckett says he is also proud that his
family has chosen to join him in the busi-
ness. His wife, Pat, is his administrative
assistant. His oldest son, Robert Jr., is sec-
retary and vice president for marketing
operations. His daughter, Susan K. Childers,
is manager of advertising and publications.
Son Thomas recently joined the firm after
receiving his degree in marketing from Penn-
sylvania State University.
"That's the way this company is,"
Beckett says. "We don't constantly try to
change direction, like some of our competi-
tors. We stay with our people and our strat-
egy, because that's what works the best."
WPI Journal
33
COMMUNIQUE
Climbing Between the Peaks
A successful fund-raising cam-
paign should achieve three
significant outcomes: raising
dollars and pledges for its objectives;
accelerating the process of giving; and
moving the institution to a higher "re-
sults plateau" from which to conduct
future fund raising.
This article will address the third
objective — fund raising between cam-
paigns, or "climbing between the peaks."
Note that I didn't say descending. Experi-
enced mountaineers know that while
going downhill awhile before making
another ascent is refreshing, it makes
reaching the next summit seem all the
harder. Right now WPI is in such an
interregnum — having reached a hard-won
peak of $63.7 million, we are looking ahead
to the next summit.
So what are our plans for the next few
years? For what do we need significant
funding? I'll start with some simple prem-
ises. First, WPI is a distinctive, high-
quality institution that serves students at
the higher end of the talent range. Second,
to continue to offer its considerable diver-
sity of programs, the Institute has been
reaching out to serve students who reside
well outside the founders' "drawing bound
aries" of Central New England.
Most of our current benefactors and
future prospects will likely embrace these
premises, for they want WPI to remain
among the best. But the economic setting
for and societal attitudes about higher
education have changed dramatically,
Figure 1. MARKET VALUE
OF THE WPI ENDOWMENT
120
£ioo
_l
§80
u.
O
CO 60
z
o
-i 40
Current
Value
20
7879 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91
•1978 Base YEAR
particularly in the past two to three years.
These changes have created the need to
build a new framework for our climb — one
that is likely to be pervasive and enduring.
In some respects, our task is easy to
articulate. First, there must be constant
renewal and enrichment of WPI's faculty.
Second, the settings in which faculty con-
duct their activities must be functional
and up-to-date (especially for programs
in science and technology). And third, the
faculty and the settings must appeal to an
increasingly discerning but limited mar-
ket— prospective students.
Faculty and students, of course, can
and do speak for themselves. Settings —
buildings and facilities — cannot. Together,
though, these three interrelated consum-
ers of funding must be kept in dynamic
equilibrium. Satisfying one more optimally
than the others will lead to an imbalance
and, in the long run, to a less attractive
institution.
Figure 2. TOTAL ENDOWMENTS FOR
U.S. COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES
77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87
YEAR
Source: National Center for Education Statistics
It is becoming impossible to satisfy
fully this triad of faculty, plant and stu-
dents, largely because there are too few
donors right now with the necessary
wherewithal and disposition. As provid-
ers of life support to our climbers, we
therefore must work on the most compel-
ling and the most enduring objectives for
the longer run by building WPI's endow-
ment. At the same time, we must pursue
current funding to fill in the outer edge
of the annual institutional budget — what
has often been referred to as the "2 per-
cent margin for excellence."
If you will, endowment builds for the
future, while funds for the operating bud-
get support the present. Success in both
support streams is essential if WPI is to
be the place that all of us want it to be —
now and in the years ahead. (Figure 1
shows the market value of the WPI en-
dowment over the past 14 years; Figure 2
shows the growth of the total endowment
Table 1. ENDOWMENT STRENGTH
Some Representative High-Quality Liberal Arts Colleges
Millions
of Dollars
Total Student
Enrollment
Endowment
Per Student
Amherst $269 1,584 $169,800
Grinnell 287 1,373 209,000
Middlebury 228 1 ,950 1 16,900
Oberlin 245 2,971 82,465
Pomona 296 1,392 212,600
Smith 342 3,673 93,100
Swarthmore 336 1,300 258,460
Wellesley 374 2,214 168,900
Wesleyan(CT) 271 2,863 94,650
Williams 333 2,177 152,960
Some Representative Institutions Similar to WPI
(Principally Science and Technology)
Millions
of Dollars
Total Student
Enrollment
Caltech $467 1,821
Endowment
Per Student
....$256,450
7,090 42,172
563 119,893
4,562 56,993
9,536 147,232
6,556 35,082
4,220 253,080
Stevens 52 3,120 16,540
WPI 98 3,970 24,736
Source: Voluntary Support ol Education 1990, Council lor Aid to Education (CFAE)
Carnegie Mellon 299 .
Harvey Mudd 68
Lehigh 260 .
MIT 1,404
RPI 230 ,
Rice 1,068 .
34
Winter 1992
Table 2. SOME REPRESENTATIVE CHANGES
IN ASSETS, REVENUE AND EXPENDITURES AT WPI
FY1985' FY1991*
(in millions (in millions
of dollars) of dollars)
Endowment 38.2 51.3 ....
Tuition/Fees Revenue 12.4 18.3....
Total Revenues 27.3 32.7....
Instruction & Library 7.8 10.1 ....
Financial Aid 3.9 6.3 ....
Operations and
Plant Maintenance 2.2 2.2 ....
Change
(in percent)
34.3
47.6
19.7
29.5
61.5
0
'Constant dollars. Basis: 1978
(Source: 1990-91 WPI Annual Report)
Figure 3. ALUMNI SCHOLARS
MINICAMPAIGN (1989)
The Objective: Endow a new undergraduate
scholarship fund representing the pooled gifts
of alumni and friends.
The Challenge: Howard G. Freeman '40 and
Robert H. Beckett '57 each pledged $100,000
to launch the fund.
The Audience: 8,000 alumni (an equal number of
prior student-grant recipients and randomly
selected non-grant recipients). Individuals with
outstanding pledges to the Campaign for Excel-
lence were excluded.
Donors: 1,172.
Total Pledged: $229,959 (exclusive of match-
ing gift monies). (This campajgn is ongoing.)
for U.S. colleges and universities over a
similar period; Table 1 compares WPI's
endowment strength to that of several
other institutions.)
The WPI Alumni Fund has provided,
and continues to provide, much of those
needed current dollars. Including donors'
corporate matching funds, but less the
major Reunion class gifts (usually directed
to specific capital purposes), Alumni Fund
contributions account for about 10 percent
of our fund-raising results. However, the
remainder of this article concerns the
need to balance off fund raising for one-of-
a-kind projects, such as the renovation of
a campus building, and the enhancement
of our institutional resources with endow-
ment building.
Most one-of-a-kind projects are either
thoughtfully planned (and often post-
poned!) or opportu-
nistic. The former are
often easier to man-
age from a develop-
ment perspective, but
the latter are often
more seductive. We
know, for example,
that roofs have a
certain lifetime; they
must be continually
repaired and occa-
sionally replaced.
Buildings must be painted — inside and
out — to preserve their structural and
aesthetic value. And from time to time,
they may undergo interior space recon-
figurations to make better use of existing
space. These are planned events.
Opportunistic projects come about
when a new faculty member or a group
of faculty get together to create a new
course, curriculum or research project.
Specialized equipment, dedicated space —
usually with some particularly novel con-
figuration— and new or enhanced support
services are elements of opportunistic
fund raising. That is, they arise somewhat
unexpectedly— and opportunities come
and go quickly — so speed is often of the
essence.
As an example of a planned project, we
are currently completing a full interior re-
furbishment of Alden Memorial, its first in
about a half-century of service. The pro-
ject, which includes adapting existing
space for better usage, will cost $2.7 mil-
lion (roughly four times the original cost
of the building). Currently, we are putting
together the funds needed to create up-
graded facilities for mechanical engineer-
ing in Higgins Laboratories and Stoddard
Labs. Higgins is of the same vintage as
Alden Memorial, and it, too, will be getting
its first major overhaul. The price tag for
installing an elevator, replacing rotted nails
that hold up the roof slates, significantly
enhancing power and other services, and
reconfiguring space for more modern
usage will amount to at least $5 million.
Worth pointing out is that these major
interior renovations continue a long-
standing tradition at WPI — ensuring that
our historic (and hence aging) buildings
are maintained to serve contemporary
needs. So far we have renovated Boyn-
ton, Washburn and Stoddard, Salisbury,
Atwater Kent, the Foundry (now the
Project Center), and AJden Memorial.
When the Higgins restoration is com-
pleted, our only truly "old" academic
building left to do will be Stratton.
But let me get to the essence of the
climb before us. One-of-a-kind and oppor-
tunistic projects have some unique charac-
teristics. For example, they can be post-
poned, neglected or deflected, but doing
so too often will lead eventually to
a physically impoverished institution, one
that is no longer attractive to the very
people who make it what it is today. To
avoid that fate, we must build our endow-
ment— aggressively — along three broad
fronts:
Endowing Financial Aid
Given what WPI is facing, its endowment is
inadequate — though not woefully — for the
long term. For example, our current expen-
ditures for undergraduate financial aid
roughly equal the income available from
our $110 million endowment. (The Board
of Trustees' "spending rule" permits the
Institute to put 5.5 percent of the average
market value of the endowment for the
previous two fiscal years toward current
operations.)
The Trustee Investment Committee is
vigilant in maintaining an "aggressively
prudent" posture in endowment invest-
ments, and it should continue to do so.
But while the financial aid example above
is a bit misleading, since only a portion
of the money we allocate to student aid
comes from endowment income, it does
suggest that were we to try to fund student
aid entirely on our own (unaided by re-
sources such as ROTC scholarships), we
would be able to do nothing else (beyond
what we could raise money for directly).
We can help reduce the amount of the
unrestricted endowment we now spend on
student aid by building up an endowment
specifically restricted to this purpose,
though a look at Table 2 suggests that
we have a ways to go before we reach a
more secure plateau. About 65 to 75 per-
cent of all engineering and applied science
students enrolled at private institutions
receive need-based aid. So unless we cre-
ate new programs that might appeal to a
more affluent constituency, our financial
aid needs will not go away. And since
future enrollment in programs that WPI
currently offers is likely to come increas-
ingly from minority families, our financial
aid costs are likely to continue their
upward spiral.
There is a bit of the chicken-and-egg
issue here. A $1 million expenditure on
financial aid will support about 20 high-
WPI Journal 35
Table 3. DISTINGUISHED FACULTY ENDOWMENTS AT WPI
George I. Alden Chair in Engineering (1970)*
Paris Fletcher Distinguished Professorship in the Humanities (1985)
George F. Fuller Professorship in Mechanical Engineering (1964)
Harold J. Gay Professorship in Mathematics (1968)
Robert H. Grant Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship (1988)
Weston Hadden Professor of Electrical Engineering (1983)
John Woodman Higgins Professor of Mechanical Engineering (1962)
Milton Prince Higgins Professorship in Manufacturing (1988)
Leonard P. Kinnicutt Professorship (1964)
Kenneth G. Merriam Professorship in Mechanical Engineering (1977)
Morgan-Worcester Distinguished Instructorship (1974)
Walter and Miriam B. Rutman Professorship in Chemistry (1986)
Joseph Samuel Satin Distinguished Fellowship in Electrical Engineering .(1982)
Russell M. Searle Instructorship in Mechanical Engineering (1978)
John E. Sinclair Professorship in Mathematics (1915)
Harry G. Stoddard Professorship in Management (1982)
The White Family Professorship (at-large) (1987)
'Year ol Establishment
Table 4. ENDOWED GRADUATE FELLOWSHIPS
AND ASSISTANTSHIPS AT WPI
Arvid and Marietta Anderson '20 Fellowship
Robert H. '08 and Esther Goddard Fellowship
John C. Metzger Jr. '46 Teaching Assistantship
(Chemical Engineering or Chemistry)
Norton Company Fellowship (Mechanical Engineering)
Robert S. Parks 1893 Fellowship
Carl '11 and Inez Weidenmiller Fellowship
Helen E. Stoddard Fellowship in Materials Science
Ralph E. Spaulding '09 Fellowship (Structural or Construction Engineering)
need students for four years. A like
expenditure in programs or facilities, on
the other hand, will have a direct and last-
ing impact on institutional quality. Still,
without good students there would be
no need for enriched programs, and
vice versa.
Some of our readers will recall being
invited in 1989 to support the new Alumni
Scholars Endowment (Figure 3). Since few
donors can afford to contribute the mini-
mum of $50,000 it requires to endow an
individually named scholarship, the
Alumni Scholars Endowment is an ideal
way for donors to commingle their smaller
gifts to build what 1 hope will be a major
income stream for future generations of
WPI students. Incidentally, about $22.2
million of our endowment currently con-
sists of gifts restricted to financial aid.
We would need about $175 million (in
current dollars) to cover our current
student population!
Program
Maintenance
and Enrichment
Endowment
The creation of dis-
tinguished profes-
sorships and gradu-
ate fellowships and
assistantships is a
popular and impor-
tant way for colleges
and universities to
enhance their en-
dowments. This
type of endowment
secures a growing
share of an insti-
tution's instructional
costs — in perpetu-
ity— helping to insu-
late the institution
against ups and
downs in student
enrollment and peri-
ods of economic
stress. Therefore,
not only do named
chairs help recruit
and retain the ablest
faculty, they can re-
lieve the pressure on
operating budgets.
In fact, while
such chairs were
once "add-ons" to
faculty counts, more
and more they are
being used to help in budget relief. If you
were to survey the nation's most distin-
guished institutions, you'd find that re-
stricted endowment building for this ob-
jective is growing apace. In fact, at some
of the richest institutions, you'd discover
that about 25 percent of faculty members
either hold endowed chairs or receive
much of their compensation from endow-
ment restricted to faculty and instruction.
Some $7.9 million of WPI's endowment
is currently restricted to faculty chairs. In
addition, $3.6 million was pledged during
the Campaign for Excellence for this pur-
pose (Tables 3 and 4). I'm pleased that six
endowed chairs and eight fellowships and
assistantships were generated during the
Campaign, but we need a great many
more — of both. (One day I hope we have
a distinguished endowed professorship
named in honor of Robert H. Goddard '08;
Princeton and Caltech do!) In addition,
there are open opportunities at WPI for
endowing the positions of provost, under-
graduate and graduate deans, academic
department heads, head librarian, athletic
director, and so on. We are limited only by
the interest and imagination of our pro-
spective donors!
Building Trusts
I've saved the hardest for last, for here
the climb requires sturdy legs. The need to
build endowments for financial aid and the
faculty are obvious and well-understood.
Without students and faculty, there would
be no institution, and if either is substan-
tially undernourished, the quality of our
outcomes — educated young men and
women — will not command the support of
our most promising future donors. But our
buildings and facilities play an equally vital
role in the success of the Institute.
When Yale University decided to com-
mit a more significant portion of its annual
operating budget and future fund-raising
efforts to rebuilding its long-neglected
physical plant, President Benno Schmidt
suggested that it wouldn't be Yale were the
university to conduct its educational pro-
grams in tents. Vartan Gregorian, president
of Brown University, recently expressed a
similar sentiment. Facing growing pressure
to increase spending for financial aid
(Brown currently provides aid for 38 per-
cent of its student body), Gregorian noted
that if Brown were to respond to that pres-
sure and neglect the other things that
make it an attractive institution — things
like the campus and the faculty — Brown
would not remain an attractive place for
future students.
Repairing roofs, repointing brick
facades and painting classroom walls are
hardly seductive fund-raising targets. And
because buildings don't talk, they are often
neglected or forgotten, as financial re-
sources get stretched to cover other grow-
ing human needs and opportunities.
Universities and colleges mean many
things to many people, but the appearance
of the physical plant is often a common
denominator. While graduates may look
back fondly on notable or caring faculty
members, on friendships gained, on time
spent in intercollegiate athletic competi-
tion, or on the challenge of mental confron-
tation, they almost always remember the
beauty of the campus as it was in their day.
Current students, faculty and staff want
the environment in which they spend
much of their waking hours to be attrac-
tive and well-equipped. Prospective
36
Winter 1992
students, faculty and staff want to know
that the campus is inviting and up-to-date,
and that the library collections, computer
facilities, and out-of-class environments
convey a sense of institutional strength.
A growing number of institutions will
no longer erect new academic space un-
less there is an up-front endowment to
maintain that space. In one of its many
wise and enlightened programs, The
Kresge Foundation focused upon a unique
subset of this issue— keeping teaching
laboratories in the sciences current. WPI
was one of several institutions to receive
a challenge grant from Kresge's Science
Laboratory Initiative. The $325,000 grant
challenged us to raise $1.3 million for an
endowment that will keep current our
new Bioprocess Science and Technology
Laboratory, located in the 102-year-old
Salisbury Laboratories (Figure 4).
In the narrow sense, the foundation
required us to make a major commitment
to ensure the currency and usefulness of
the laboratory in the years to come. In the
larger sense, though, it reminded us that
as a science- and technology-driven institu-
tion, we must think not only about main-
taining our buildings, but what goes on
within those buildings. One of our trust-
ees, S. Merrill Skeist '40, put it well when
he said a modern laboratory is like a preci-
sion machine; both need substantial care
and continuous investment if they are to
remain useful.
So what we are embarking upon is a
special climb to create minimum endow-
ment-maintenance funds, first for our his-
toric buildings — Boynton, Washburn and
Stoddard, Salisbury, Atwater Kent, and
Stratton — and then for all our academic
buildings— Higgins, Olin, Goddard, Kaven,
Fuller, Gordon Library and Alden Memo-
rial. Worth pointing out here is that most
of our academic-use buildings (Higgins,
Gordon Library and Harrington Audito-
rium are major exceptions) were the gifts
of friends, not alumni. At the very least,
we owe it to their memory to care for
these structures.
Long before we thought of doing this,
one discerning donor started a mainte-
nance fund for Harrington Auditorium.
That donor still contributes to the fund
each year, and has already built up nearly
$300,000 for this important initiative.
Properly endowed, maintenance funds
will enable WPI to keep all of its academic
buildings in full repair (Table 5 includes
target endowments for each building).
Figure 4. BIOPROCESS LABORATORY
MINICAMPAIGN (1990)
The Objective: Help raise $1 .3 million to create
a permanent maintenance endowment for
the Institute's new Bioprocess Technology
Laboratory.
The Challenge: The Kresge Foundation pledged
$325,000 toward the construction of the lab if
WPI could raise the funds for the endowment.
The Audience: 6,000 alumni and parents, includ-
ing biology and life sciences majors, and alumni
with little or no giving to WPI since 1986.
Individuals with outstanding pledges to the
Campaign for Excellence were excluded.
Donors: 1 ,320 alumni and 1 ,056 parents.
Total Pledged: $347,248 (exclusive of match-
ing gift monies). $171 ,876 was from alumni and
$175,372 from parents.
(This campaign has been completed.)
However, it should be noted that our
intent is not to provide funds to retrofit
any building for new uses; that would
fall under the heading of a "one-of-a-kind"
project. We've called this new, highly
important endowment initiative Building
Trusts, and have designed a special logo
(Figure 6) to identify it.
Much like the financial aid and aca-
demic chairs and fellowship endowments,
Building Trusts will create an additional,
growing component of our endowment,
making deferred maintenance less depen-
dent on funds from the operating budget.
In a sense, we'll be giving our buildings a
voice of their own.
In summary, our key objective for the
next several years will be to build our
endowment to provide the resources
needed to enable WPI to remain the
special place it has been for so many of
us. While our current resources are the
envy of many lesser institutions, we still
have a long climb to ensure that they can
place us among the very best. And you
know, I just happen to think that that is
where those who will make a difference
want us to be.
— Donald F. Berth '57
Berth is vice president for university relations.
Figure 5. ATHLETIC ENDOWMENT
MINICAMPAIGN (1991)
The Objective: Create an endowed fund to
help sustain an excellent and diverse athletics
program for all students.
The Challenge: George T. Abdow '53 pledged
$1 for every $2 raised, up to $100,000.
The Audience: 8,000 alumni and parents, in-
cluding all Poly Club members, participants in
club, intramural, recreational and varsity ath-
letics, and nonathletes whose cumulative giv-
ing for the previous three years was below
$100. Individuals with outstanding pledges to
the Campaign for Excellence were excluded.
Donors: 890 alumni and 655 parents.
Total Pledged: $1 76,478 (exclusive of match-
ing gift monies). $109,962 was from alumni
and $66,516 from parents.
(This campaign is ongoing.)
Table 5. BUILDING TRUST ENDOWMENTS
FOR MAJOR ACADEMIC/CAMPUS
BUILDINGS*
Alden Memorial $1,630,000
Atwater Kent Laboratories 2,165,000
Boynton Hall 1,230,000
Fuller Laboratories 3,790,000
Goddard Hall 2,450,000
Gordon Library 2,390,000
Harrington Auditorium 3,035,000
Higgins Laboratories 2,055,000
Kaven Hall 1,235,000
Olin Hall 1,315,000
Salisbury Laboratories 2,565,000
Stratton Hall 745,000
Washburn/Stoddard 1 ,465,000
'Basis: Endowments that earn 5.5% (under WPI's
"spending rule," income available for current opera-
tions equals 5.5% of the average market value at
close, June 30, for the previous two years). Each
building's maintenance is calculated at 2% of its
current replacement value.
Figure 6.
BUILDING
TRUSTS
AT WPI
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The Discoverers Michael Dorsey
This year the world remembers a voyage of discovery made five
centuries ago by an Italian cartographer named Christopher
Columbus. Today, modern Columbuses are at work in many fields,
pushing back the boundaries of the unknown. Here are the stories
of seven alumni who've made their own voyages of discovery as
scientists and inventors.
Charting a New Course Michael Dorsey
For centuries, the arts of exploration and mapmaking have gone
hand in hand. Today, at the headquarters of Hammond Inc., one
of the nation's largest publishers of maps and atlases, they are
opening new frontiers in mapmaking itself.
Building a New Window on the World Michael Dorsey
To scientists studying the phenomenon of global change, dealing
with a staggering amount of data on the Earth and its natural
systems can be a major obstacle. Three WPI computer scientists
may have the answer — a brand new way of storing and processing
scientific information.
Al Anderson Starts a New Chapter Bonnie Gelbwasser
For nearly three decades, WPI's modest head librarian has worked
hard to make sure WPI's library has grown and changed with the
changing demands of its patrons. As he approaches retirement,
Anderson looks back on a long and productive career.
DEPARTMENTS
L Advance Word: In Praise of Discovery. Michael Dorsey
61 Final Word: Lighting a Fire in Young Minds. Ruth Trask
On the Coven The world as it was known to 17th century explorers. Story on page 4.
Map courtesy of Hammond Inc. Opposite: An undergraduate finds a quiet spot among the
stacks in Gordon Library to explore a book. Story on page 27. Photo by Janet Woodcock.
Staff of the WPI Journal: Editor, Michael W. Dorsey • Alumni News Editor, Ruth S. Trask • Writers, Bonnie Gelbwasser and Neil Norum • Designer, Carol Hoyle Ballard
• Photographer, Janet Woodcock • Alumni Publications Committee: Samuel Mencow '37, chairman • Paul J. Cleary '71 • James S. Demetry '58 • Judith Donahue SIM '82
• William J. Firla Jr. '60 • William R. Grogan '46 • Carl A. Keyser '39 • Robert C. Labonte '54 • Roger N. Perry Jr. '45 • Harlan B. Williams '50 • The WPI Journal (ISSN 0148-6128)
is published quarterly for the WPI Alumni Association by the Office of University Relations. Second class postage paid at Worcester, MA, and additional mailing offices.
Printed by The Lane Press, Burlington, Vt.
Diverse views presented in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or official WPI policies. We welcome letters to the editor. Address correspondence
to the Editor, WPI Journal, WPI, 100 Institute Road, Worcester, MA 01609-2280. Phone: (508) 831-5609, FAX: (508) 831-5604, Electronic mail (Internet): mwdorsey@wpi.wpi.edu.
Postmaster: If undeliverable, please send form 3579 to the address above. Do not return publication. Entire contents ®1992, Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
ADVANCE WORD
In Praise of Discovery
"The world we now
view from the literate west —
the vistas of time, the land
and the seas, the heavenly
bodies and our own bodies,
the plants and animals, his-
tory and human societies —
had to be opened for us by
countless Columbuses. In the
deep present they emerge
into the light of history, a
cast of characters as varied
as human nature. Discover-
ies become episodes of
biography, unpredictable as
the new worlds the discover-
ers opened to us. "
JOSEPH H. BAILEY. NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY, COPYRIGHT 191
With those words, Daniel J. Boorstin
began his monumental 1983 study,
The Discoverers. This year, as we
observe the 500th anniversary of Christo-
pher Columbus' first voyage of discovery
to what would come to be called the New
World, it seems fitting that we turn our
attention to the men and women who
have followed in the footsteps of the great
explorers, scientists and inventors. They
have pushed back the boundaries of the
known and shed light on the unknown; and
like the protagonists of the popular televi-
sion series Star Trek, they have gone where
no one has gone before.
In tribute to this pioneering spirit, WP1
devoted its 124th Commencement exer-
cises on May 23 to the theme, "Discovery:
Seeking Answers to the Unknown." The
theme provided an opportunity to recog-
nize a number of individuals who have
earned the title "discoverer." They in-
cluded Jane E. Shaw, president and chief
operating officer of ALZA Corp., a world
leader in the development of innovative
drug delivery systems.
Shaw, who received her bachelor's
degree and doctorate in physiology from
the University of Birmingham in England,
spent the years between 1964 and 1970 at
the highly-regarded Worcester Foundation
for Experimental Biology, where she con-
ducted research on prostaglandins, cyclic
fatty acids that act like hormones in the
body, helping regulate blood pressure
and aiding in the contraction of smooth
muscle. She joined ALZA in 1970 and as-
sumed her current post in 1985. A holder
of seven patents and the author of more
than 100 papers in scientific journals, she
is also known for her research in gastric
physiology and the transdermal perme-
ation of drugs.
Commencement speaker Robert D.
Ballard may embody more fully than most
the true spirit of the discoverer. Born in
Wichita, Kan., he earned a bachelor's de-
gree in geology and chemistry at the Uni-
versity of California at Santa Barbara. He
attended graduate school at the University
of Southern California, the University of
Hawaii, and the University of Rhode Island,
from which he received his Ph.D. in marine
geology and geophysics.
Today, Ballard is a senior scientist in
the department of applied ocean physics
and engineering and director of the Center
for Marine Exploration at the Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institute. It is in his capac-
ity as marine explorer that Ballard has
captured the imagination of millions
around the world.
Ballard has led or participated in 50
deep-sea expeditions, exploring the world
under the sea in such submersibles as
Alvin, Trieste II and AT?-/. On one of those
expeditions, mounted in 1974, Ballard rode
in the cramped, dimly lit sphere inside
Alvin nearly two miles beneath the Atlan-
tic— the same ocean Columbus crossed
nearly 500 years before — to get the first
close-up look at the mid-ocean ridge.
Like a 46,000-mile seam that rings the
world, splitting the seabed beneath most
of the world's oceans, the mid-ocean ridge
is the source of the phenomenon known as
continental drift. Searing hot lava emerges
from this rift in the sea bottom, adding to
Spring 1992
the sea floor and pushing apart the plates
on which the continents ride. In fact, were
he to make his voyage today, Columbus
would have to sail a bit farther— about 30
feet— because of seafloor spreading.
Because measurements of the tempera-
ture of the ocean floor near the mid-ocean
ridge showed that the rock there was cooler
than it should have been, given the rela-
tively short (in geological terms) period it
had had to cool, scientists had theorized
that cold seawater must somehow pen-
etrate the crust, pick up heat, and bring it
back to the surface. But no one had ever
seen the vents from which this hot water
must reemerge.
In 1977 Ballard organized an expedition
to a deep ocean rift near the Galapagos
Islands in the Pacific Ocean. An unmanned
vessel called Angus was sent down to find
and photograph any sources of unusually
warm water. When the film was processed,
Ballard and his fellow scientists were
startled to see a strange world populated
by giant, foot-long clams. When he dove to
the vents himself inside Alvin, Ballard found
that tube worms, rattail fish, anemones and
crabs also live in this community, which
thrives thousands of feet deeper than the
last ray of sunlight can penetrate.
Analysis of the water pouring forth from
the vents provided the answer to how these
creatures survived in an environment that
should have been devoid of life. The water
was chock full of hydrogen sulfide (the gas
that gives rotten eggs their foul odor) and
bacteria. The bacteria metabolized the
hydrogen sulfide. In the process they con-
verted carbon dioxide in the water to or-
ganic carbon compounds. The bacteria,
in turn, became food for the community
of vent animals.
On a 1979 dive to the East Pacific Rise off
the coast of Mexico, Ballard and his crew
became the first people to observe "black
smokers," chimneys formed from iron, zinc,
copper sulfides and silver that belch forth
jets of black water hot enough to melt lead.
The flow of dissolved minerals from the
black smokers and the warm-water vents
may explain how the ocean became so salty,
a mystery that has long eluded scientists.
Ballard may be best known for his dis-
coveries of the R.M.S. Titanic in 1985 and
the German battleship Bismarck in 1989.
Both ships were extensively explored by
submersibles, including Argo, an unmanned
vessel loaded with video cameras and
lights, and Jason Junior (JJ), a small robotic
platform attached to Argo by a tether that
can explore and photograph places that are
too risky for Argo — including the interior of
the Titanic. The high-resolution pictures
sent back by these machines painted haunt-
ing portraits of these once-proud ships.
After the Titanic expeditions, Ballard
received hundreds of letters from school-
children seeking information about how he
found and explored the ship. In 1989 he
established the Jason Foundation for Educa-
tion to bring the excitement of undersea
exploration directly to youngsters around
the nation. Using the power of satellite com-
munications, Ballard has taken more than
500,000 schoolchildren with him on explora-
tions of a fourth-century Roman shipwreck
in the Mediterranean, sunken ships from the
War of 1812 in Canada's Lake Ontario, and
the Galapagos Islands.
Named for the mythological Greek ex-
plorer who discovered the Golden Fleece,
the foundation has established primary
interaction sites (PINS) at several locations
around the country. One such site was set
Opposite, technicians prepare to
send a small robotic submersible
called Medea below on a Jason
Foundation expedition. Left, aboard
the research ship Star Hercules,
Robert Ballard points to an image
of the German battleship Bismarck
sent up from the deep by Argo.
up in 1991 at the New England Science
Center in Worcester. Each PIN received a
command center that recreates the control
station on Ballard's ship from which Argo
and Jason, the successor to JJ, are con-
trolled. Students at PINS can watch the
underwater explorations live on large tele-
vision monitors. At a few sites, including the
New England Science Center, students can
even fly the underwater robots.
Throughout his career, Ballard has been
driven by an almost primal urge to see what
no one else has seen, to find the answers
that have eluded others, and to broaden
our understanding of the world in which
we live. That motivation has nudged many
WPI alumni into successful careers as scien-
tists and inventors. In the pages that follow,
you will meet several of them. Two, acousti-
cal oceanographer Herman Medwin '41
(page 7) and entrepreneur Dean Kamen '73
(page 32), joined Ballard and Shaw on the
platform at Commencement recently to
receive honorary degrees.
In this issue you will also meet Caleb
Hammond '37, chairman of Hammond Inc.,
one of the nation's largest publishers of
maps and atlases. Most of us have taken
voyages of our own across strange lands
and seas by delving into the pages of the
family atlas. It may be no coincidence that
Columbus himself was a cartographer be-
fore he convinced Queen Isabella to fund
his first trip across the Atlantic. The desire
to explore and map the unknown is very
likely a basic element of human nature, one
that burns in all our hearts.
As they begin their careers, the WPI
students who recently received their hard-
earned degrees will find no lack of unan-
swered questions and uncharted waters.
But, where once explorers were lured
across oceans and deep into unexplored
continents, today they may find themselves
reaching out to the far side of the universe
or into the very foundation of the atoms
that make up everything we see.
"This is a story without end," Boorstin
wrote. "All the world is still an America.
The most promising words ever written
on the maps of human knowledge are terra
incognita — unknown territory."
— Michael Dorsey
Spring 1992
Discoverers
By Michael Dorsey
Five hundred years ago, Columbus set sail into
unexplored waters in search of a new route to the
Indies. While we remember Columbus this year,
he was just one of countless human beings driven
by the need to go where no one has gone before,
to build what no one before has even dreamed of,
and to understand what once evaded under-
standing. In the following pages are chronicled
the stories of seven remarkable scientists and
inventors who have listened to that inner voice
that calls all of us toward the unknown — toward
that unexplored region just beyond the horizon.
Spring 1992
A Magnificent Career
Driven by Imagination
During a career that has spanned more than four decades,
C. Chapin Cutler '37 has often found himself squarely at
the leading edge of the rapidly changing field of electron-
ics. His inventions in radar and radio, telephone and tele-
vision communications have earned him more than 80 patents and
a worldwide reputation. "I don't think I'm really that smart," Cutler
says as he looks back on those years. "1 just think my imagination got
turned on at an early age and that gave me tremendous motivation."
Cutler says he vividly remembers the moment his interest in ra-
dio caught fire. He was 14 and sitting around with friends at a sum-
mer camp not far from his home in Springfield, Mass. "This one
camper had a yarn," Cutler says. "He said his brother had taken
some old radio parts, built himself a transmitter, and used it to talk
with people all over the world. I didn't believe a word of it."
But the story intrigued Cutler, who went to the Springfield Public
Library to look for books on radio. The only one he could find was a
massive tome by a Columbia University professor. Fortunately, a
friend steered him to a popular pulp magazine that had an article
on building a one-tube "junk-box" radio. With parts purchased at a
local Goodwill store, Cutler assembled the radio, slipped on the ear-
phones, and heard the dits and dashes of a Morse code signal
from a station in Mexico City. He was hooked.
A short time later his father took him to a talk by a
visiting scientist from the recently established Bell
Telephone Laboratories. "The show was called
'The Wonders of Radio and Communication,'"
Cutler says. "The guy modulated a neon bulb,
talked over a light beam, popped corn with
radio waves, and demonstrated inverted
speech. I was on the edge of my chair.
That's when I learned about Bell Labora-
tories, and that's when I decided what
1 wanted to do with my career."
Before he could work at Bell Labs, he
needed an education, so he enrolled at WPI
in 1933. His first concern, though, was not
academics but money. Since his family could
not provide financial help, he had to pay his
own way. With the help of a young in-
structor of English named Paul
Swan, Cutler found dozens of odd
jobs, including cleaning windows
and stoking the boiler in the
president's house and tending
the boilers on winter evenings at
the home of Aldus Higgins (now
called Higgins House).
Cutler began his WPI career as
an electrical engineering major, but
realized after his sophomore year
that the electric power orientation
This rendering of the Cutler Feed
appeared in Time magazine in 1945
of the curriculum wouldn't suit his needs. Against the advice of
several of his professors, he and classmate Nathaniel I. Korman '37
became general science majors and designed their own course of
study, including courses in advanced calculus and advanced physics.
He was hired by Bell Labs shortly after his graduation in 1937.
During his first week he met Ralph Bown, head of radio research, and
it was, Cutler says, "a love affair. There's no doubt about it, he liked
me as much as I liked him." The fatherly Bown took Cutler under his
wing and assigned him to a project team that was designing a 12-
channel transmitter to improve trans-Atlantic telephone communi-
cations. When that project was completed, he became involved in
a crash, multi-corporation effort to design a radio proximity fuse
for anti-aircraft shells. "That and radar won the Battle of Britain,"
Cutler remembers.
Radar, which was just being developed as Cutler joined Bell Labs,
would become his next project. In the fall of 1941 he was asked to
design the waveguide circuitry for a radar that would operate in the
three-centimeter band (called the x-band). Because a radar antenna
must continually rotate through a full 360 degrees, the antenna and
the amplifier can't be connected by a wire or a fixed waveguide — a
special conduit for the microwaves. Rotating joints and a series of
twists and bends in the waveguide are needed to get the
energy into the spinning antenna.
"A buddy and 1 engineered that well," Cutler says,
"but we needed the antenna to terminate the wave-
guide. We acquired the design and reproduced the
antenna, but it didn't work; there was something fun-
damentally wrong with it. I lay awake nights trying
to figure out how to fix it. I went back to the lab, and
with tin snips, ceiling wax and chewing gum, put
together an antenna that worked."
The waveguide-antenna system, dubbed the
Cutler Feed, was produced by the thousands and
was aboard every allied bomber that flew over
Japan during the war. It also earned Cutler his first
patent. "After that 1 became known as an inventor," he
says, "which meant that there was someone from
the Bell Labs patent department looking
over my shoulder for ideas. That's how
I was able to get so many patents. A
lot of them aren't worth the paper
they're printed on. One invention
that I am proud of is the corrugated
waveguide, which was classified in
this country for many years."
After the war Cutler's focus
shifted to microwave amplifiers.
He began by working on thermionic
(triode) tubes adopted for microwave
amplification. However, in 1944
news reached America of Rudolph
WPI Journal
As one of the directors of Project Echo, Cutler started a tape of President Eisen
hower's voice, which became the first signal sent coast to coast by satellite.
Kompfner's invention in England of the traveling wave tube. "It is a
much better amplifier in most respects," Cutler says, "but much work
and many inventions were crucial to making it practical."
In close collaboration with John R. Pierce, who would ultimately
become executive director of research at Bell Labs, and Kompfner,
who became associate director, Cutler contributed many inventions
important to the success of the tube, which is now widely used in
Earth satellite relay systems and in the military.
The launch of Sputnik in 1957 ignited the space race among the
superpowers. A few years later the U.S. launched Echo I, an alumi-
nized balloon 100 feet in diameter designed to study drag in the
upper atmosphere. Bell Labs realized the satellite would make an
excellent testing ground for satellite communications.
Partly under Cutler's direction, Bell Labs built a tracking station
to monitor the satellite as it made its regular passes over North
America. The station was the first to make use of a maser, a new kind
of microwave amplifier that had revolutionary low-noise characteris-
tics. A similar station was set up at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Earth station in Goldstone, Calif., and the first radio transmission
ever relayed in real time by satellite — a recording of President Eisen-
hower's voice — was bounced off the satellite during its first pass.
"I remember starting that tape with my own fingers," Cutler says.
"It was probably the most exciting period in my life, because every-
thing had to be done on the second. We had to have that antenna
pointed exactly right, because this thing went whizzing from horizon
to horizon in just 20 minutes."
After the first transmission, Bell Labs and the Jet Propulsion Lab
scored other firsts, including the first telegraphy and facsimile trans-
missions by satellite and the first interactive voice conversation.
"We were looking for scientific information, too," Cutler says. "For
example: what is the transmission like, can you track the satellite,
and is it reliable? For the first week, we didn't miss a pass. We were
busy around the clock." Later, the Echo team served as technical
advisors to Bell Lab Engineers who developed Telstar, the first suc-
cessful active telecommunications satellite.
While Cutler says the Echo project was one of the most enjoyable
of his career, the work for which he is best known began as a casual
lunchtime conversation in the late 1940s with
Bell Labs colleague William Goodall, who was
applying pulse code modulation (PCM) to the
transmission of television. The technique in-
volved transmitting a television broadcast as
short bursts, or pulses, of digital information.
Goodall had succeeded in digitizing the tele-
vision signal, but Cutler saw an opportunity to
use the digitization process to greatly reduce
the amount of transmission capacity required
for television (1,000 to 2,000 times the band-
width needed for voice transmissions).
A television picture consists of thousands of
picture elements called pixels. A picture is built
up line by line as an electron beam scans back
and forth across the television screen. A com-
plete picture, called a frame, consists of two
interlaced scans and is typically transmitted
every 30th of a second.
Cutler's idea stemmed from the fact that a
television signal contains a high degree of re-
dundancy. One picture element, line or frame
is likely to be similar if not identical to the one that preceded it. In
Cutler's scheme, instead of coding each sample separately, only the
difference between the amplitude of a new sample and the quanti-
tized or coded value of the previous sample is coded. Errors in
sampling are compensated for in subsequent samples and the trans-
mission requirements are greatly reduced. He named the technique
differential PCM or DPCM. In later years, when large signal-storage
systems became available, the idea was extended to include the
correlation of lines and frames of a television picture.
One of Cutler's most important patents, DPCM received little
notice for several years, but eventually the idea resurfaced and
became generalized under the term predictive coding. Today, predic-
tive coding is used in digital television transmissions, digital VCRs,
fax machines, high-definition television, medical imaging systems
and teleconferencing.
In 1963 Cutler became director of electronic systems research at
Bell Labs. In 1971 he was promoted again to director of electronic
and computer systems research. During these years he headed a
research team that performed pioneering work into a new form of
mobile radio that would pave the way for today's nationwide cellular
telephone service.
Cutler's accomplishments as a scientist and inventor have earned
him many honors over the years. A fellow of the American Associa-
tion for the Advancement of Science and the Institute of Electrical
and Electronics Engineers, he has received the IEEE's prestigious
Edison Medal, Centennial Medal, and Alexander Graham Bell Medal.
A member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National
Academy of Engineering, he received WPI's Robert H. Goddard '08
Award for Outstanding Professional Achievement in 1982.
With no advanced degree, other than the honorary doctorate of
engineering he received from WPI in 1975, he has taught Ph.D. candi-
dates at Berkeley, Stanford and Caltech. He retired from Bell Labs in
1979 to become a professor of applied physics at Stanford. Today,
as an emeritus professor, he says he tries to instill in his students
the same love of discovery and fascination for technology that has
driven him since that summer day more than 60 years ago when he
first heard those strange and wonderful tales about radio.
Spring 1992
Listening to Screaming
Infant Microbubbles
Herman Med win, center, and fellow professor O.B. Wilson, left, in 1990 with Rear Admiral Richard
Pittenger, the "oceanographer of the Navy." Pittenger had been Medwin's student 25 years earlier.
I f a raindrop falls in the ocean and no one is around to hear it,
I does it make a sound? The answer is yes, according to Herman
I Medwin '41, professor of physics at the Naval Postgraduate
JL School in Monterey, Calif. The sound, he notes, contains a
wealth of information that can help scientists gain a better under-
standing of such phenomena as weather, climatological change and
global warming.
Medwin is a pioneer in the brand new field of acoustical ocean-
ography, an outgrowth of underwater acoustics. While underwater
acoustics, a science created in the wake of the Titanic disaster of
1912, uses natural sound and sound generated by manmade devices
to locate objects, such as ships, submarines or icebergs, in or on the
water, acoustical oceanography uses the characteristics of sound
propagation and scattering in water to learn about the ocean itself.
Over the last decade or so, acoustical oceanographers have found
ways to use sound propagation to answer a wide range of questions.
For example, using techniques such as acoustical tomography,
doppler sonar and side-scan sonar, acoustical oceanographers can
measure the roughness of the ocean surface, study the characteris-
tics of sediments on the sea floor, and measure the drift velocity of
sediment carried along by ocean currents. By scattering sound off
the air-filled swim bladders of marine organisms, they can track the
migrations of fish and obtain counts of plankton and nekton far more
accurately than with conventional methods.
In recent years, a major focus of acoustical oceanography has
been microbubbles — microscopic spheres of air generated by break-
ing waves and raindrops. Until the mid-1960s, when Medwin first
observed them, many scientists thought microbubbles could not
exist in the ocean.
"Physicists had shown that a bubble will not last in a beaker of
clean water," Medwin says. "Either the bubble pops to the surface
and bursts, or the air gets squeezed out of it in just a few seconds. So
the weight of evidence from the laboratory was that bubbles couldn't
persist in the sea."
But Medwin knew these invisible bubbles had to be there. In 1964
he and fellow acoustician Clarence S. Clay, with whom he later wrote
Acoustical Oceanography, the standard textbook in the field, postu-
lated that there must be bubbles under a rough sea surface. His mea-
surements showed that the many millions of bubbles generated by
breaking waves persisted for long periods as bubble clouds that
could be found as deep as 30 meters below the sea surface.
Medwin soon went back to sea with a laboratory device consist-
ing of a sound source and a reflector separated by about a meter.
After lowering the device into the water, he generated a burst of
sound and observed it as it bounced back and forth between the
sound source and the reflector.
Laboratory work and theory had shown that the frequency of
sound absorbed by bubbles is directly related to their size — the
larger the bubble the lower the frequency it absorbs — so, by measur-
ing sound absorption over a wide range of frequencies, Medwin was
able to make precise counts of the numbers of microbubbles of dif-
ferent sizes. "We found huge amounts of bubbles — just as we had
predicted," Medwin says, "with radii ranging from 20 to 200 microns."
What makes it possible for the bubbles to persist, Medwin says, is
WPI Journal
This plot shows the oscillating pattern of the sound
produced by a "screaming infant microbubble." This
pattern lets scientists identify the size of the raindrop
that produced the bubble.
small particles of plankton, bacteria and dirt that adhere to their sur-
faces, preventing the air from being squeezed into the water. "In fact,
bubbles are excellent scavengers," he says. "They ultimately drag
this material to the surface, where it is deposited. Just as raindrops
help to clear the atmosphere, bubbles help cleanse the ocean."
The junk that enables microbubbles to persist also made it diffi-
cult for optical scientists to verify Medwin's results for many years.
Not all of the dirty bubbles generally show up in photographs, so
most published counts were significantly lower than Medwin's until
just a few years ago, when more sophisticated optical techniques —
including one system that uses a laser to count the bubbles — be-
came available.
When he first observed the bubbles more than 25 years ago,
Medwin says he had no idea how useful they would become in the
study of ocean phenomena. Part of their utility stems from their ten-
dency to oscillate violently for several milliseconds after they are
generated, emitting a loud, high-pitched sound. These "screaming in-
fant microbubbles," as Medwin dubbed them, are like radio transmit-
ters, sending out brief messages about the waves or raindrops that
created them.
In recent years Medwin has made new measurements of micro-
bubbles in the field, including measurements taken closer to the
surface than any observations made before, and at lower frequencies
than ever before. Using an 85-foot-high drop tower fashioned from
a service shaft adjacent to his laboratory in Monterey, he has also
begun observing how raindrops create microbubbles.
The measurements show that raindrops produce microbubbles
in sizes proportional to their own size — in other words, large drops
create large bubbles and vice versa. Since each bubble size has its
own characteristic sound spectrum, the sound created by a micro-
bubble is a precise indicator of the size of the drop that created it,
Medwin says.
"This relationship enables you to dissect underwater sound. If
you listen underwater when it's raining, you'll hear a tremendous
roar, which is caused by the microbubbles. It sounds like a god-awful
mess, but if you do a spectral analysis it turns out that different parts
of the sound spectrum are caused by drops of different diameters. So
you can tell the kind and quantity of rain that is falling and, by infer-
ence, the type of cloud cover."
Medwin has applied for a patent for this technique. He says he en-
visions a network of sonobuoys spanning the Pacific Ocean record-
ing the sound of rainfall across a vast expanse of water for which
JANET WOODCOCK
such data is sparse. More accurate data about rainfall over the
oceans will help improve weather forecasts and enable scientists
to create better models of the Earth's climate.
A better understanding of rainfall patterns over the ocean may
also lead to a better appreciation of global warming, Medwin says.
The oceans are important sinks for carbon dioxide, the gas respon-
sible for the greenhouse effect that causes atmospheric warming.
Like other atmospheric gases, CO2 mixes with ocean water when rain
and waves create bubbles. But without better data on oceanic rain-
fall, it is difficult to say how much CO2 is making its way into the sea.
Studying the ocean was far from Medwin's mind when he earned
his B.S. in physics from WPI in 1941. After working as a weather
observer for the U.S. Air Force in Europe during World War II, he
earned his Ph.D. in physics at UCLA. At that time, the university ran
one of the foremost programs in acoustics, a subject that had long
fascinated Medwin because of his love for the violin. (As a high
school student, he was voted the best violinist in his hometown
of Holyoke, Mass.)
8
Spring 1992
At his 50th Reunion in 1991,
Medwin, who has played the
violin most of his life, was able
to perform with the Medwin String
Ensemble, which he established
through a gift in 1987.
He taught at Los Angeles City College for six years and continued
the work in nonlinear acoustics he had begun as a graduate student.
He then worked briefly for an acoustical engineering firm, where he
analyzed the noise of jet engines and wind tunnels. He also designed
the ventilating towers for the Callahan Tunnel under Boston Harbor,
assuring that the fans that pump car exhaust out of the tunnel would
not disturb the surrounding neighborhoods.
In 1954, deciding he preferred teaching to consulting, he joined
the faculty of the Naval Postgraduate School, where he has been
ever since. "I knew nothing about the ocean then," he says, "but it
was required that one teach courses in underwater acoustics be-
cause the Navy operates in the ocean and acoustics is how you find
submarines."
Since then he has become one of the foremost researchers in his
field. A recipient of WPI's Robert H. Goddard '08 Alumni Award for
Professional Achievement and the Sigma Xi Distinguished Research
Award from the Naval Postgraduate School, he is a fellow and presi-
dent-elect of the Acoustical Society of America. And he is the author
of more than 100 papers in scientific journals and holds several
patents in acoustical oceanography.
When he is not working with students or writing up his latest
research results, Medwin runs a consulting firm, Ocean Acoustics
Associates in Pebble Beach. He also continues to indulge his love
of music by playing violin with a string quartet every week. In 1987
Medwin, who performed with the Worcester Symphony Orchestra
while he was a WPI student, gave WPI a gift with which it established
the Medwin String Ensemble; he later provided another grant to
create scholarships for WPI students who play string instruments.
"My capabilities never showed at WPI," he says, "at least not by
the conventional measures used then. But there are other measures
that are awfully important, and these include tenacity and imagina-
tion. It takes tenacity to study a string instrument and stick with it,
and one needs imagination to perform and interpret music well. A
scientist also needs those characteristics to be successful, but in
reverse order— imagination to develop an idea and tenacity to
see it through."
WPI Journal
Making Photography Simple
Took Complex Engineering
Edwin Land, inventor of the Land Camera and founder of
Polaroid Corp., believed that the true value of a product
could never be adequately measured by the cold, hard
numbers of a corporate balance sheet. Instead, the worth
of a piece of engineering, like the worth of a work of art, was in the
elegance of its design and in the way it fulfilled the goals of its creator.
"The bottom line," he once wrote, "is in heaven."
As he looks back on 26 years as one of Polaroid's chief designers,
John P. Burgarella '50 seems to embody that creative spirit. Describ-
ing the intricate electronic mechanisms and the complex circuits he
designed for Polaroid cameras and the revolution in instant photog-
raphy he helped set in motion, what he remembers most is the
beauty of the engineering itself and how his carefully crafted and
tested electronic designs helped meet one fundamental goal —
making photography a snap for millions of people the world over.
Burgarella, who received a bachelor's and a master's degree in
electrical engineering from WPI, the latter in 1952, joined Polaroid
in 1960 after working for eight years for Doelcam/Honeywell Corp.
in Newton, Mass. While there he developed a DC amplifier that em-
ployed a magnetic modulator with no moving parts. Burgarella
earned the first three of his 25 lifetime patents for the design.
His first assignment at Polaroid was designing a computer-con-
trolled system for a machine that made pack film, a recent Polaroid
innovation. In the summer of 1960 Polaroid introduced the Model 900,
the earliest Land camera with an electrically controlled exposure
system. The camera was a "mechanical nightmare," Burgarella says.
Clearly, Polaroid needed a new concept.
The new concept was the Model 100, a design born in Polaroid's
Applied Physics Laboratory. It would have a fixed-aperture lens and
a shutter controlled by an electromagnet and an electronic timer.
When the shutter button was pressed, the
electronic timer and the magnet (which
: closing, guillotine-type
shutter
Opposite, John Burgarella with some of the revolution-
ary cameras he helped design for Polaroid, including the
Model 1 00, above, the first successful electronic camera,
and the SX-70, below, the first fully automated camera.
blade in place) were energized. At the same time, the opening shutter
blade would be released, and a capacitor that timed the exposure
would be unshorted.
A photocell would regulate the amount of current delivered to the
timing capacitor. The more light falling on the cell, the larger the cur-
rent to the capacitor. The greater the current, the faster the capaci-
tor would become charged and trigger a circuit that shut off the
magnet, releasing the closing blade. The design ensured that the
exposure time would be inversely proportional to the brightness
of the scene the photographer was attempting to capture.
Because of his experience with magnetic devices, Burgarella was
asked to design the electromagnet and the keeper, a small piece of
metal attached to the shutter blade that would hold it firmly to the
magnet. The assignment marked the start of months of design and
experimental work that would ultimately fill dozens of note-
books with drawings, graphs, laboratory results and
Polaroid photographs.
The tiny u-shaped magnet that Burgarella de-
signed could lift more than three-fourths of a pound
with a current of just two-hundredths of an ampere. The
keeper was designed to be as light as possible, so as
not to slow the shutter. Because precision timing of
the shutter was critical to obtaining a correct expo-
sure, Burgarella had to find a way to make the mag-
net release the keeper as quickly and as reliably
as possible.
To do that, he designed a special circuit that
quickly quenched the magnet. He also gave the
keeper a curved face so only a small section of
10
Spring 1992
the metal bar made contact with the
poles of the magnet. Since the air
around the keeper was far less perme-
able to magnetic flux than the metal
of the keeper itself, this curvature
created what Burgarella calls a con-
trolled air-gap that enabled the keeper %■
to break away more quickly than if its
entire face had touched the magnet. The
design allowed precise exposures as short as 1/1, 200th of a second.
The Model 100 was the first camera with an automatic flash. When
a flashbulb unit was plugged into the shutter, it activated a circuit that
selected a shutter speed so that just the right amount of light from the
bulb reached the film. "A flashbulb output peaks at about 12 millisec-
onds," Burgarella says. "But if your subject is only a few feet away,
you may need just l/16th of the total output— about 4 milliseconds
worth." To get such precise "chunks" of light, the closing of the shut-
ter had to be carefully synchronized with the firing of the bulb.
While most of Burgarella's contributions to the Model 100 were to
its electronic systems, he also did a careful mechanical analysis of the
shutter to make sure the jolts caused by its opening and closing would
not affect the operation of his magnet. This work resulted in several
design changes, including a shock-absorbing bumper for the shutter.
He also designed equipment to test his designs, helped set up the
assembly line for the electronic systems at Texas Instruments, and
designed test equipment for the shutter assembly line at Timex.
The electronic systems developed for the Model 100 became
the basis for most of the electronic cameras marketed by Polaroid in
succeeding years. By 1968 Burgarella had become manager of a small
department. Like many Polaroid managers, he was aware that a small
design team was working in carefully guarded secrecy on a revolu-
tionary new camera system. "There were no electronics people in the
group then," Burgarella says, "so they would occasionally come down
and ask me questions without divulging any secrets. Eventually they
said, 'We can't get along without this guy."
Burgarella gave up his department and became an individual con-
tributor to what would become the SX-70, a fully automated single-
lens reflex camera with a new type of film that developed right before
the photographer's eyes.
The initial design called for electromagnets to operate the shutter,
as they had in the Model 100. But after more than two years of work in
that direction, the concept had to be abandoned because the single-
lens reflex design required multiple operations of the shutter to
accommodate both viewing the scene and exposing the negative.
Land decided to replace the magnets with solenoids. "This was
a traumatic period for me because my wife had just been diagnosed
with multiple sclerosis," Burgarella says. "Dr. Land knew 1 didn't like
the idea of the solenoid shutter, but he wanted me to go along with it.
He called me into his office and for the first 20 minutes all we talked
about was my wife. He wanted to know what was going on and what
Polaroid could do to help. It was only after that that he told me why
he had really brought me in there. That's the kind of man Land was."
The SX-70 had several modes of operation. For example, when
the film pack was inserted, the camera had to eject the film cover.
Taking a flash photo required the camera to quickly (within a mil-
lionth of a second) determine which bulb in the flash bar was the
next to be fired.
The most complicated mode was normal picture taking (see
diagram, page 10). To take a photo, the camera had to close the
shutter, release a spring-driven, double-sided mirror that covered
the film pack, reopen the shutter to let light bounce off the mirror
onto the negative, close the shutter, bring the mirror back down,
process and eject the exposed print, and finally, open the shutter
again for viewing.
Each mode of operation was controlled by an integrated circuit.
While Burgarella designed the exposure-control circuits for all of the
cameras before the SX-70, he says Polaroid did not have the expertise
to create these complicated silicon chips. Instead, his team devel-
oped block diagrams and logic tables that showed exactly what the
circuits had to do and when each event must take place. The chips
were designed by Texas Instruments and Fairchild Semiconductor.
Power for the camera was provided by a custom-designed wafer-
thin battery included in each film pack. Throughout the design phase,
Burgarella held the unofficial title of "power czar," as it was his re-
sponsibility to make sure that the various devices that consumed
power — from the solenoids, to the motor that ejected the film, to
the flash bar — stayed within a maximum power budget.
Burgarella's work on Polaroid cameras earned him a number
of awards and honors. In 1964, as a member of the small team that
designed the Model 100, he received the Master Design Award from
Product Engineering magazine. In 1984, WPI awarded him the Robert
H. Goddard '08 Award for Professional Achievement, and he is cur-
rently a member of the Institute's Electrical Engineering Advisory
Committee. In 1981, Polaroid conferred on him the honor of senior
engineering fellow, a title that had previously been bestowed on just
two other Polaroid engineers.
That title recognized more than two decades of fundamental
contributions to technology that literally created the worldwide
electronic camera industry and became the foundation for the
success Polaroid has realized over the past three decades.
It was also a tribute to a job that took Burgarella far beyond the
traditional role of inventor. "There was a lot more to my job than you
might think," he says. "1 had to be a manufacturing engineer, a test
equipment engineer, a mechanical engineer, a manager and, at times,
a diplomat. I could never be just an inventor."
WPI Journal
11
Unraveling the Genetic
Code for What Ails Us
For many years, scientists have known that clues to the
causes of many human ailments are encoded in the enor-
mously complex blueprint of the human genome. But it has
only been within the past two decades that it has been pos-
sible to begin unlocking these secrets with the tools of recombinant
DNA technology.
Armed with this newfound knowledge, doctors can now predict
with great precision who may develop an ever-growing list of disor-
ders, such as the fragile X syndrome, Duchene muscular dystrophy
and cystic fibrosis, and who may pass these inherited diseases on to
their children. Research in this new field, called molecular genetics,
has provided exciting new approaches to identifying the causes of
human disease and offers hope that someday it may be possible to
treat — and perhaps prevent — many human ailments.
For Stephen N. Thibodeau 74, the revolution in medical genetics
arrived at just the right time. Having long been interested in medical
research, he studied chemistry at WP1 and as a senior received a
$5,000 grant from Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester to develop an
antero-venous shunt for use in intensive care patients. He earned his
Ph.D. in biochemistry at the University of Washington in Seattle and
completed a postdoctoral fellowship in clinical chemistry at the
Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
Those were the years when the power of recombinant DNA
techniques was just being realized. The ability to literally chop up
strands of DNA and identify the pieces, or genes, responsible for
specific disorders would soon revolutionize the study of medicine.
In 1981, when Thibodeau became director of clinical chemistry at
The Children's Hospital in Denver, Colo., he joined the revolution. His
first project was to help locate the gene responsible for the fragile X
syndrome, a condition that produces moderate to severe mental
retardation in 80 percent of boys who have fragile X and less severe
symptoms in about half of carrier girls.
Along with a number of others, Thibodeau used linkage analysis
to close in on the location of the gene. Linkage analysis takes advan-
tage of a phenomenon called crossing over, which occurs during
meiosis, the type of cell division that produces sex cells — eggs or
sperm. Humans have 24 different types of chromosomes. Two, the
X and the Y, determine gender and are called the sex chromosomes
(females have two Xs; males have an X and a Y). Normal human body
cells have two copies of each of the remaining 22 chromosomes.
During meiosis, the two members of each chromosome type link
up to form a pair. It is while the chromosomes are paired that cross-
ing over occurs. A break develops in the same spot on each chromo-
some and the broken ends cross over and combine to form two
somewhat different chromosomes. To understand how this works,
imagine two ropes — one red and one blue. Both ropes are cut in the
identical spot and the ends are recombined so there are now two
ropes, each of which is partly red and partly blue.
Each chromosome is actually a long string of genes. The farther
apart two genes are on this string, the more likely it will be that any
one break will occur between them. When two genes are so close
Stephen Thibodeau is using the latest advances
in recombinant DNA technology to diagnose
genetic disorders and chart the success of
cancer treatments.
that they are virtually never separated by chromosome breaks, they
are said to be linked. To locate a gene, scientists search for mark-
ers— sections of DNA with known locations — that are linked to the
gene for which they are searching.
In Thibodeau's laboratory, linkage analysis, using several pos-
sible markers, was performed on DNA collected from the members
of 30 families that have a large number of individuals affected by
fragile X. These studies helped determine which markers provide
a reliable means of identifying individuals with the gene, and also
helped build a genetic map of the region around the gene.
"Once you've placed a genetic locus next to a known marker, the
next step is to characterize that region in more detail," he says. As
the genetic map for the region becomes clearer, scientists look for
candidate genes and then hone in on the one actually associated
with the disease. "There are a number of groups, including ours,
that are using this approach to look at a host of other disorders."
Once a gene is isolated, Thibodeau says, scientists can begin
to understand the underlying cause of the disease and the specific
mutations — substitutions, deletions or insertions in the genetic
code — that can occur within it.
Since 1987 Thibodeau has been director of the Molecular Genet-
ics Laboratory at the Mayo Clinic. In that post he and his colleagues
use the results of research similar to the fragile X project in one of
three primary ways: to identify people who are carriers of genetic
disorders, but who exhibit no symptoms themselves; to diagnose,
while they are still well, people who carry genes for disorders that
12
Spring 1992
COURTESY OF MAYO CLINIC
do not appear until adulthood or people who have a genetic predis-
position to developing cancer and other illnesses; and to spot seri-
ous genetic disorders prenatally.
"Recessive disorders, like cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy,
are good examples of diseases for which carrier detection is impor-
tant," Thibodeau says. "We may see a patient who has a sibling af-
fected with muscular dystrophy. She is thinking of getting married
and wants to know whether she is a carrier for the gene, and there-
fore what her chances are of having a child affected with the same
disease."
One adult onset disorder that Thibodeau has been studying is
familial adenomatous polyposis or FAP, an inherited predisposition
to colon cancer that affects one in every 5,000 Americans. It is char-
acterized by the early onset of colon polyps (affected individuals can
develop several hundred to several thousand polyps). If they do not
receive regular checkups to look for polyps, virtually all patients with
the FAP gene will develop colon cancer and die from their disease.
Recently, several groups of investigators have characterized the gene
associated with FAP and Thibodeau's lab has developed a test to
detect individuals who carry the specific mutations that are believed
to cause the disorder.
Thibodeau has also been looking for the molecular genetic
changes that are responsible for sporadic colon cancer. Although
there is no obvious hereditary pattern for the sporadic form of colo-
rectal cancer, Thibodeau says there is evidence that in most cases,
individuals who have colorectal cancer may have a genetic predis-
position to developing the disease. In fact, it now appears that a
number of genes are involved in the process of tumor formation
in colon cancer.
"The major part of our research,"
he says, "involves taking a close look at
these chromosomes to see if we can find
the genes that might be implicated in
the process of developing cancer."
Thibodeau says each altered gene may
give a cell a specific advantage as it
progresses from a normal cell to a
polyp (a benign tumor) to a carci-
noma to a deadly metastatic lesion.
The genetic tests Thibodeau hopes
to develop for colon cancer will enable
doctors to spot individuals who may
have a strong tendency to develop the
disease and also gain insight into how to
distinguish the more aggressive tumors
from other types. "The process involved
in cancer formation is more complicated
than the other genetic disorders we deal
with and typically involves abnormali-
ties in multiple genes," he says. "The
clinical implications are enormous, how-
ever, given the large number of individu-
als affected by cancer each year."
In addition to identifying individuals
who possess genetic disorders, the tech-
niques Thibodeau uses in his laboratory
can also help measure the success of
treatments for specific diseases, espe-
cially cancers. One example is a type of
Laurie Doud prepares to analyze a DNA sample
in the Molecular Genetics Laboratory at the
Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
leukemia known as chronic myelocytic leukemia or CML. This dis-
ease is thought to be caused by a translocation in which segments
of chromosome 9 and chromosome 22 trade places.
The switch brings a proto-oncogene — a gene that can promote
the growth of cancer cells — from chromosome 9 into proximity with
the so-called bcr gene on chromosome 22. Together they form the
code for a protein that appears to give leukemia cells a selective
advantage. "It turns out that virtually 100 percent of patients with
CML have the 9-22 translocation, which is known as the Philadelphia
chromosome," Thibodeau says.
The 9-22 translocation is typically identified cytogenetically
(that is, by staining the chromosomes and examining them under
the microscope), though Thibodeau says molecular genetic tech-
niques can spot the approximately 5 percent of CML cases that
evade this type of analysis. More important, though, because these
techniques can detect the presence of cells bearing the Philadelphia
chromosome with great sensitivity — often as accurately as one cell in
one million — they can serve as ideal warning systems for a relapse of
CML after treatment.
The laboratory has also developed techniques for monitoring
the success of bone marrow transplants, a treatment sometimes
employed for leukemia— a cancer of the white blood cells that origi-
nates in the marrow. In this type of treatment, a recipient's bone mar-
row is removed and replaced with marrow from a carefully selected
donor. Before the transplant, DNA from the recipient and the donor
are analyzed — a process called DNA fingerprinting.
"Following the engraftment process, we look to see which cells
are present," Thibodeau says. "We should see only cells with the
donor's DNA in the marrow. If we see
the recipient's cells, then presumably
that means the leukemia is beginning
to reappear."
While the primary focus of
Thibodeau's research is to characterize
gene abnormalities and find ways to
diagnose and treat individuals with
genetic disorders like fragile X syn-
drome and colon cancer, he acknowl-
edges that the long-term goal of the
work he and other molecular biologists
are doing is to pave the way for such
not-so-futuristic techniques as gene
therapy, in which defective genes are
actually replaced with good genes, to
keep people from getting diseases in
the first place.
"Certainly, once we've found the
gene for a disease, we want to take that
one step further and find out how to
treat and prevent the disease," he says.
"There's no question that molecular
biology and recombinant DNA tech-
niques are having and will continue
to have a profound impact on all facets
of medicine. However, although we
have made tremendous progress in
the last decade, what we do not yet
know about the human genome is
staggering."
WPI Journal
13
Pushing the
Software Envelope
I n his 1966 book, Men, Machines and Modern Times, Elting E.
I Morrison said, "The computer is no better than its program."
I Since his student days at WPI, Roger J. Heinen 73 has been
JL creating programs that have helped make the computers they
run on powerful, versatile and innovative tools — not to mention
highly successful products.
From his 17-year career at Digital Equipment Corp., where he
helped develop some of Digital's most critical and commercially
successful software products, to his position today as the head of
the Macintosh Software Architecture Division at Apple Computer,
Heinen has continually found himself at the leading edge in software
development. He credits much of his success in the rapidly evolving
world of computing to the start he got at WPI.
Heinen was one of the first students to earn his bachelor's degree
under the project-oriented WPI Plan. For his Major Qualifying Project
he helped develop an automated class scheduling system. "It was
classic computer science," he remembers. "We worried about the
science of it and we didn't step back and ask ourselves how hard it
was going to be to implement and how long it was going to run once
it was started."
While a student, Heinen worked part time as a system program-
mer for New England Telephone Co., an experience that helped him
land a job after graduation as a programmer in Digital Equipment's
quality assurance division. He says the Plan prepared him well for
working at the major computer manufacturer.
"Digital was especially team-oriented in those days," he says. "My
project experience helped me to fit in quickly and to get off and run-
ning right away. It was as if I arrived an already experienced engineer.
That project experience lives with me today in my whole outlook
about engineering."
One of Heinen's early projects was contributing to the initial
release of RSX-1 1M, one of the operating systems for the highly suc-
cessful PDP-11, a member of Digital's original family of minicomput-
ers. Operating systems are the programs that tell a computer how
to do basic functions, like write data to files, compile and run appli-
cation programs, and operate peripheral devices. "RSX-1 1M was the
primary operating system for the PDP-11 from 1975 to 1980," Heinen
says. "It was what made Digital great in those days."
Up until the early 1970s, Digital's minicomputers stood alone-
there was no way to easily move data back and forth between
them or to get them to work together. Heinen's next project was
called DECnet, an early attempt to create a networked computer
system. "Our goal was to get two PDP-1 Is to talk to each other over
a wire; this was a non-trivial job," Heinen says. "But that architec-
ture has stood the test of time. A lot of what we designed and built
in those years helped make Digital's reputation as a networking
company."
When Digital decided to introduce the VAX, a 32-bit computer
designed to overcome many of the limitations of the 16-bit PDP-11
architecture, Heinen, who had developed a reputation as a prolific
software writer, was asked to join a small team assigned to develop
Roger Heinen has been a pioneer in software develop-
ment since his early days as a programmer at Digital
Equipment Corp. nearly 20 years ago.
the VAX operating system, VAX/VMS. Developing this complicated
software package proved a major challenge, though convincing
Digital that it was needed would prove equally taxing.
"The VAX was ahead of its time — ahead of its real market need,"
Heinen says. "In 1975, when the project got off the ground, few at
Digital thought they would ever sell one. It took the sheer willpower
of the management, especially Gordon Bell, to propel the project to
completion." First introduced in 1978, the VAX and VAX/VMS proved
wildly successful and remain the heart of Digital Equipment Corp.'s
business today.
After the VMS project, Heinen decided he had had enough of op-
erating systems and went looking for a new challenge. He found it in
compilers, software that translates a program written in a high-level
computer language into instructions a computer can actually ex-
ecute. In 1977 he joined a four-person team that wrote a compiler for
PL/1, a language widely used in scientific and business applications.
14
Spring 1992
The team took a novel approach to the design of the compiler,
which they later explained in a book on compiler engineering. They
created a "front end" that interacted with the programming language
and a "back end" that generated the machine language. While the
front end would work only with PL/1, the back end was designed to be
language independent, which meant it could be used in virtually iden-
tical form in compilers built to translate other higher-level languages.
In fact, the team used the PL/1 back end to write a compiler for the
language C.
"While no one had ever constructed a commercial compiler the
way we did, now they are all done that way," Heinen says. "There
were a few early pioneers before us, but I think we really made that
way of building compilers a commercial success."
In the early 1980s, Digital introduced the Micro VAX, a minicom-
puter that uses the VAX architecture. Heinen helped develop an oper-
ating system for the MicroVAX called VAX/ELN, the first commercial
object-oriented operating system (see page 24 for a description
of object-oriented programming).
ELN was a pioneer in the field of distributed operating
systems, which meant that it could oversee the operation
of programs that ran in several pieces on multiple com-
puters. "We were forced to push the edge of the technol-
ogy in terms of how we could develop and debug
programs that might be running on multiple machines,"
says Heinen, who won a patent for his work on the
design of the distributed debugger.
During the remainder of the 1980s, Heinen became a
corporate consulting engineer, a title reserved for a select
group of senior engineers at Digital, and was eventually named to
head the company's DECWEST Engineering Group in Seattle, which
was working on new MicroVAX developments.
In 1990 he decided to leave Digital to join Apple Computer and
the fast-paced world of personal computers. As head of the Macin-
tosh software division, he oversees a 1,000-person operation respon-
sible for Macintosh system software, such as the System 7.0 operating
system released a year ago, and tools for Macintosh software devel-
opers. The division also provides support, including technical
advice, documentation and marketing assistance, to the hundreds
of third-party companies that write application packages for the
Macintosh.
Heinen says System 7.0 and its associated software (including a
new multimedia architecture) will be the heart of Apple Computer's
strategy for competing against industry rival Microsoft, which mar-
kets the Windows operating system for IBM-compatible computers.
Like the Macintosh system software, Windows is a graphical user
interface in which users manipulate pictures and icons instead of
typing in instructions.
So far, Heinen says, Macintosh is more than holding its own. "Over
the past two years we've seen a tremendous increase in the overall
market share for Macintosh vs. Windows and PCs. We've also had a
tremendous series of hit software products — we actually think in
terms of hit products; it's a very funny computer business."
While Apple's battle with Microsoft represents a competition for
users who might otherwise choose IBM-based machines over the
Macintosh, the company is also cooperating with Big Blue on
another front. In an historic agreement announced last year, IBM
and Apple will share technology and work jointly to develop a new
generation of software products that will run on either company's
machines, forming a bridge between the two largest sectors of the
personal computer market.
A precursor to the Apple-IBM alliance was a software package
called Pink. Developed in part by Heinen 's division, the package
allowed IBM programs to run on the Mac. The Pink development
effort has evolved into Taligent, a company supported by Apple and
IBM. Another jointly sponsored company, Kaleida, will develop inno-
vative multimedia applications. "That part of the agreement is really
focused on the future," Heinen says. "The object-oriented software
Taligent is developing will solve problems we can foresee out into
the late 1990s."
Heinen's division
at Apple Computer
helped lay the
groundwork for an
historic alliance
with IBM.
Heinen says the Taligent work will address a growing problem
with programmer productivity. While object-oriented programming
has greatly simplified the process of writing complicated programs,
it is still an inefficient and time-consuming process. "Taligent is an
attempt to leapfrog evolution and make a quantum improvement in
programmer productivity, something substantially farther than we
can go on an evolutionary path with today's technology."
While Taligent pushes the software envelope, Heinen says his
Macintosh software division is trying to improve the graphical inter-
face that has been the Macintosh's trademark since it was intro-
duced in the early 1980s. "Graphics interfaces were a big step back
then," he says. "Now we're trying to take them to the next plateau by
using more senses than just sight. For example, we've demonstrated
our voice recognition software because we really believe voice recog-
nition, if done properly, can add tremendous value to the experience
of using a personal computer."
In his role as manager, Heinen says he no longer gets to do much
of the active programming that makes advances like these possible.
Still, he says he doesn't miss the hands-on involvement of his former
life. "I'm always looking for a challenge, and right now my challenge
in leading this organization is bigger that the challenge of writing
some particular piece of software. But who knows, that might change
someday."
WPI Journal
15
Helping Out When
Gods Materials FaH
Each year about 240,000 Ameri-
cans have surgery to replace
their diseased or damaged
hips and knees with artificial
prostheses. The implantation of these
mechanical devices, a type of operation
first performed just three decades ago,
has become a highly successful treat-
ment for severe cases of osteoarthritis
and rheumatoid arthritis, dramatically
reducing the pain these and other debili-
tating joint disorders can cause and
restoring to recipients a near-normal
range of motion and activity.
For the past decade, Joint Medical
Products in Stamford, Conn., has been a
leading innovator in the design and de-
velopment of knee and hip replacements.
Since 1984, when the company sold its
first hip prosthesis, more than 40,000 of
the devices have been placed in patients.
For Joint Medical Products co-founder
Douglas G. Noiles '44, who today serves
the company as executive vice president
of engineering and development, the long
and productive road to his current career
in medical implants has earned him more
than 60 patents.
Noiles left WPI after his sophomore
year to serve in the U.S. Marine Corps
during World War II. He returned to com-
plete his degree in mechanical engineer-
ing in 1947. After graduation, he taught
for three years in WPl's Mechanical Engi-
neering Department before working as an
engineer for Economic Machine Co. in
Worcester, a maker of intricate machines
that automatically affix labels to bottles,
and for Saco-Lowell Shops in Biddeford,
Maine, an old-line manufacturer of textile
machinery.
In 1955 Noiles joined a new Westinghouse division making tubes
for radio and television. While there he was responsible for an inno-
vation that greatly extended the life of television picture tubes. The
change, a loop in a wire that had been subject to mechanical failure
from frequent cycles of expansion and contraction, enabled Westing-
house to extend its warranty from three months to two years.
Noiles then joined Automation Engineering Laboratories Inc.
in Stamford, Conn., a maker of specialized equipment to automate
industrial processes, and became involved in a major project to
develop automation techniques for the garment industry. After a
Above, Douglas Noiles with some of his designs: foreground, right, a stapler that
rejoins the ends of the colon or intestines; to the right, various designs for knee
prostheses; in and near his hands, parts of a knee prosthesis. Opposite, the stem
of the Joint Medical Products knee replacement and, in the box, some of the
tapered porous-metal-coated femoral inserts.
colleague left to work for a new firm in Norwalk, Conn., called United
States Surgical Corp., Noiles decided to join that company as vice
president of engineering. At the time, U.S. Surgical was in the midst
of marketing one of the first commercial surgical staplers.
The surgical stapler was invented in 1908 in Hungary, but the
machines proved too bulky and too difficult to load to find wide-
spread acceptance by surgeons for many decades. In the late 1940s
Russian surgeons, fresh from the horrors of World War II, stepped
up the development of the devices, which enable wounds to be
closed and internal organs to be reconstructed much more quickly
16
Spring 1992
than with conventional
sutures.
One of U.S. Surgi-
cal's first staplers,
used to close the skin
at the end of an opera-
tion, consisted of a
disposable cartridge
that contained the
staples and the staple-
forming mechanism,
and a hand-held
instrument that pow-
ered the cartridge.
The cartridge was not
reliable and the instru-
ment, powered by
compressed carbon dioxide, was fraught with problems, made worse
when it was steam sterilized.
Noiles helped solve the problem with the cartridge and developed
a hand-powered instrument that proved more reliable than the gas-
powered model. He also developed a ligator, an instrument that could
quickly tie off a blood vessel in two places and cut in between, and
contributed to the development of a device that can draw together
the ends of the intestine or colon after a section has been removed
and join them instantly with up to 33 staples. Work on these and
other technologies earned Noiles the Eli Whitney Award from the
Connecticut Patent Law Association in 1985. The award is given
annually to an individual who has made significant contributions
to law or science.
To help get surgeons interested in its stapling products, U.S. Surgi-
cal decided to offer orthopaedic devices. The hope was, Noiles says,
that surgeons would try the implants and, at the same time, discover
the advantages of using staples in this and other kinds of surgery.
"An opportunity presented itself in 1971," he says. "American sur-
geons wanted to do hip surgery, but the acrylic plastic bone cement
developed in Europe for this type of procedure had not yet been
approved by the FDA."
Russian surgeons had developed a hip prosthesis that required
no cement, and U.S. Surgical obtained the rights to it. The hip con-
sisted of two titanium parts that replaced the ball and socket joint
of the hip. A long, tapered stem topped with a cobalt chromium ball
was driven into the top of the femur, while a cup-shaped socket was
inserted into the pelvis. U.S. Surgical added flutes to the stem to en-
able it to resist rotation and replaced the metal the Russians used
inside the pelvic cup with ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene.
The company also decided to develop its own knee replacement.
The knee, a hinge that attached to the femur and tibia, replacing the
function of the patient's own knee, would be a "last resort" prosthe-
sis, to be used in about 5 percent of knee replacements where the
body's own muscles and ligaments are not capable of holding the
parts of the knee joint together properly or where a prior artificial
knee joint has failed.
At the suggestion of surgeons, who noted that the normal tibia
is capable of limited rotation, Noiles designed a shaft and bearing
that enabled the tibia to rotate. He added stops that limited the rota-
tion of the tibia to 10 degrees to either side of center. When tests
showed the design worked well, Noiles increased the range of rota-
tion to 23 degrees. "This turned out to be a relatively successful
device," he says. "We got a patent on it and have licensed several
companies to use the invention."
In 1972 the FDA approved the use of acrylic bone cement, and
interest in the U.S. Surgical hip joint diminished. In addition, by the
end of the decade the company's staplers were becoming great
successes, and its orthopaedic products became less important.
Noiles tried unsuccessfully to sell the hip and knee designs to
other companies.
By this time the character of U.S. Surgical, which had grown from
a small company to a major corporation earning more than $100 mil-
lion, had changed. "I didn't seem to fit in as well as 1 had when the
company was smaller," Noiles says. "So I left U.S. Surgical and contin-
ued to try to sell the technology. I finally decided somebody had to
do something with these devices."
With C. Anthony Whittingham, former vice president for finance
at U.S. Surgical, Noiles founded Joint Medical Products in 1982.
Noiles' first task was to reexamine and improve upon the Russian
hip replacement. Unlike most hip prosthesis then on the market, the
Russian hip was constrained, which meant the ball was enclosed by
the socket and the two pieces could not be separated. The design
made the hip difficult to install and reduced the patient's range of
motion; however, it did prevent dislocation, an occasional problem
in hip replacements.
Noiles created a new socket that would hold the joint parts to-
gether after the surgeon had implanted them separately and joined
them. Noiles also designed the socket so it could be screwed into the
naturally spherical depression in the pelvis. This threaded socket
was eventually replaced with a socket coated with a porous metal.
After implantation, bone would grow into the cavities in the coating,
forming a strong bond that held the cup in place.
Noiles also invented an insert for the socket that could be ad-
justed into a wide range of positions and then locked in place. This
enabled the surgeon to fine-tune the angle at which the femoral
component met the socket. This patented design has been copied
by other manufacturers, but Noiles says Joint Medical Products is
involved in a patent interference proceeding to determine the
technology's rightful inventor.
To make the hip more versatile, Noiles created an extensive series
of tapered inserts that fit into the femur and into which the stem of
the femoral component fits. The porous-metal-coated sleeves enable
the surgeon to custom fit the implant to the interior of the bone and
help distribute the patient's weight evenly over the bone. Noiles also
created a range of sizes for the ball, the femoral stem and the pelvic
socket cup.
Studies have shown that the Joint Medical Products design is
more stable that other designs, Noiles says. "It's also pretty much
accepted as the prosthesis of choice for revision surgery— when a
hip prosthesis must be replaced— because the range of sleeve sizes
we offer enables the surgeon to work with the great range of cavities
that can result when an old prosthesis is removed."
Currently, Joint Medical Products is preparing to introduce an im-
proved version of the knee joint Noiles developed for U.S. Surgical. It
also continues to monitor the performance of its hip joints and to
make design changes as new information and ideas come to light.
"Nobody has the answer to how to build a perfect joint replace-
ment," Noiles says, "because we don't have God's materials. The field
is always evolving, changing rapidly, which is testimony to the fact
that we haven't found the right answer yet. But that also makes this
an exciting business."
WPI Journal
17
Probing the Mysteries of
The "Demon Stars"
I n ancient times, watchers of the evening sky observed a myster-
I ious star that would glow brightly for three nights and then in-
I explicably dim before brightening again and starting the cycle
JL anew. The Arabs called it "Al ghoul" or the demon star. Today,
scientists know that Algol is actually two stars, a small but bright
dwarf and a much larger companion that regularly eclipses it.
Since those days, astronomers have discovered that binary star
systems like Algol occur commonly throughout the universe. Within
the past few decades, they have also come to realize that these sys-
tems hold clues to fundamental physical processes that may help
explain a wide range of cosmological phenomena.
For nearly 30 years, Edward C. Olson '52, professor of astronomy
at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been studying
a class of double stars called close or interacting binaries. The stars
in these systems orbit one another in close proximity and have or-
bital periods ranging from a few days to a few weeks.
What makes interacting binaries especially interesting, Olson
says, is the tendency of matter to flow from one star to the other,
where it forms a broad disk of gaseous material that slowly spirals
inward until it is deposited or accreted onto the surface of the recipi-
ent star. These accretion disks resemble similar structures associ-
ated with a number of other stellar objects.
"Accretion disks are integral elements in the formation of stars
and planets," Olson says. "There are accretion disks associated with
binary star systems that produce regular thermonuclear explo-
sions— so-called novae. And there are probably accretion disks
around quasars and the black holes thought to be at the center of
very active galaxies. The accretion disks we see in relation to inter-
acting binaries are weak, low-density examples, but they are highly
observable, which is why we go after them."
Accretion disks are a normal stage in the evolution of most close
binary systems. Like all stars, the companions that make up a binary
coalesced from clouds of interstellar gas. Eventually, as gravity accel-
erated the collapsing gas
balls, rising tempera-
tures and pressures
reached a point
where hydrogen
atoms began to
fuse to form he-
lium. The energy
from this thermo-
nuclear reaction
stabilized the
collapsing bodies,
which settled into
life as small, hot stars
called dwarfs (our own
sun will remain in this
stage of evolution for
another four billion years).
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In interacting binaries, gaseous matter flows from a
giant star, right, to a dwarf, forming an accretion disk.
Edward Olson has spent nearly 30 years studying
close binary star systems, which may help explain
such celestial phenomena as black holes, quasars
and the formation of stars and planets.
Eventually, a dwarf star will consume all of the hydrogen in its
core. As the atomic furnace cools, the energy that has kept gravity
at bay subsides and the star begins a brief period of collapse. At
some point, though, gravitational pressure ignites a thin shell of
hydrogen around the collapsing core, causing the star's outer
envelope to expand into a giant reddish ball.
Because the masses of the partners in a close binary
system are rarely identical, one star
inevitably uses up its fuel before
the other. As the spent star
becomes a red giant, the
gravitational force of its
companion distorts its
expanding gas envelope
into a teardrop shape.
Eventually, the peak of
this teardrop (called the
Roche lobe) passes the point
between the two stars where
their gravitational effects are in
equilibrium. Like water reaching
the top of a dam and overflowing,
gas streams from the giant star to
the dwarf at hypersonic speeds. If
18
Spring 1992
the stars are close enough, the gas stream may strike the surface of
the smaller star directly. But more often, it passes behind and wraps
around the star to form the characteristic accretion disk.
Because of their proximity, close binaries appear as single points
even in the most powerful optical telescopes. Therefore, scientists
like Olson must use creative techniques to pick apart the light arriv-
ing from a binary to "see" the physical processes occurring on each
of the stars and in the accretion disk.
Olson, working in collaboration with Paul Etzel, an astronomer at
San Diego State University in California, has been observing binaries
for many years through a one-meter reflecting telescope at the
Mount Laguna Observatory, operated jointly by San Diego State and
the University of Illinois about 50 miles east of San Diego. The tele-
scope is equipped with a charge-coupled device or CCD, an elec-
tronic detector that builds up a charge when it is exposed to light.
After an exposure, the charge is read from the CCD in digital form.
The process is faster and more sensitive than the photographic
methods once used in astronomy.
The CCD can also be linked with spectrographs, which, like
prisms, break the light from a binary system into its component
spectra. These spectra show whether the stars or the accretion disk
absorb or emit energy at specific frequencies. The combination of
absorption and emission lines in the spectra indicate which elements
are present in the objects and also serve as their unique signatures.
Seen through the spectrograph, an accretion disk produces a
characteristic double-peaked hydrogen emission spectra. The two
peaks are produced by the opposite sides of the disk — one spins to-
ward the Earth and is therefore shifted by the Doppler effect toward
the violet end of the spectrum; the other spins away from the Earth
and is Doppler-shifted toward the red end. The extent of the Doppler
shift indicates how fast the disk is spinning.
By viewing these spectra under varying conditions, Olson gleans
clues about the structure and behavior of the disk. Observations like
these may provide an answer to one of the great mysteries associ-
ated with accretion disks: what causes the gas to spiral in and be-
come deposited on the star?
Scientists believe that a process called viscous damping is re-
sponsible, but to date they have not been able to fully explain how
it works. The viscosity of the disk — the property that causes the gas
particles to lose their angular momentum and fall toward the star —
may result, in part, from collisions of gas molecules in the disk. As
they collide, they give up energy as heat. Gravitational effects from
the two stars and, perhaps, weak magnetic forces in the disk itself
may also contribute.
"There's a lot going on and it's always a question of just how
much we'll be able to understand," Olson says. "It's quite a challeng-
ing process. All you see is that little point in the telescope. The rest
of it is solving puzzles."
For several years, Olson has been at work on a computer model
he hopes will become a powerful tool for unraveling many of those
puzzles. The base for the model, the first ever developed for this
class of binary star system, is the data from the observations Olson
and Etzel have made of 12 binary star systems. Olson says the
model, still in development, will be used to make predictions about
how the disks should behave— predictions that can then be com-
pared to the results of actual observations.
"The model is really a diagnostic tool that probes the tempera-
tures, pressures, rotations and viscous dissipation in the disks,"
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Accretion disks produce characteristic double-peaked
spectra. The peaks are caused by the edges of the
spinning disk, each of which is Doppler shifted toward
a different end of the spectrum.
Olson says. "We should be able to investigate many of the important
mechanisms associated with accretion disks using the model and our
observations. Our hope is that the model will agree with the observa-
tions, although that doesn't always guarantee that it's the right
model."
Olson says his interest in astronomy was sparked at a young age.
He majored in physics at WP1 because it would provide the best
possible foundation for a career studying the interactions of celestial
objects. After graduation he taught for a year at WPI before he was
drafted into the U.S. Army. He spent two years as a physics assistant
studying the performance of Nike and Ajax missiles at the White
Sands Proving Grounds in New Mexico, and then, in 1961, earned his
Ph.D. in astronomy at Indiana University, where he studied asymme-
tries in solar absorption lines caused by convection and turbulence
in the Sun's atmosphere.
He continued studying the solar spectrum at Smith College as
a member of the faculty of the Four-College (now Five-College)
Astronomy Department in Western Massachusetts. It was during
those years that he first became interested in close binary systems,
a subject he continued to pursue at RPI and at the University of Illi-
nois, which he joined in 1966. "The first ideas about how these sys-
tems evolve were just being advanced," he says. "But the observed
details were not very well in hand."
In the intervening years, Olson says, it has been the quest to fill
in those details that has kept his work exciting. "Astronomy has
always had major puzzles throughout its history," Olson says. "The
situation today is not that different, in that sense. The nuts and bolts
of practicing scientists is solving puzzles and understanding chal-
lenging situations."
WPI Journal
19
Charting
A New Course
By Michael Dorsey
in its maplewood,
n.j., offices,
Hammond Inc.
is using a
revolutionary
computer system
to make maps.
in the process,
this 92-year-old
company is taking
the ancient art
of cartography
to places it has
never been
BEFORE.
Caleb Hammond '37 with just a few of the maps and atlases published by Hammond Inc.
Over the course of his 55-year
career, Caleb D. Hammond '37,
chairman of Hammond Inc., the
nation's second largest publisher
of maps and atlases, has seen the world
change a great deal. Nations have come and
gone, borders have shifted, cities have worn
new names, rivers have been diverted, and
islands have risen from the sea. But of all
these transitions, the rise and fall of the
Soviet Union has a special place among
Hammond's memories.
In 1939, after two years as a lubrication
and sales engineer with the Texas Co., the
forerunner of Texaco, Hammond joined the
family-owned company founded by his
grandfather nearly 40 years before. He was
on the job only a short time when the Soviet
Union signed a nonaggression pact with
Hitler's Germany and rolled into the Baltic
Republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
"At the time we were doing an atlas
jointly with the Encyclopaedia Britannica,"
Hammond remembers. "We decided we
were going to show these republics as part
of Russian territory. The U.S. government
saw the atlas and said we should show them
as independent republics, since the U.S.
had not recognized the occupation. They
wanted us to call the atlases back, but they
finally decided there was nothing they could
do about it."
Fast-forward 54 years. On the heels of
an unsuccessful coup, the U.S.S.R. is literally
falling apart and those same three Baltic
republics have earned their independence
20
Spring 1992
once again. This time the winds of change
are less kind to Hammond Inc. Sitting in a
warehouse are thousands of copies of the
latest edition of Hammond's Citation World
Atlas, which includes maps of a complete
Soviet Union.
"Fortunately, many of those copies were
unbound," Hammond says. "We are cur-
rently reprinting the first 72 pages, which
include maps of the U.S.S.R. and the coun-
tries that border it. This Russian thing has
been a pain in the neck, but it's changes like
this that keep us in business. This year the
Russians just overdid it."
Change has been a fact of life for Ham-
mond Inc. since its founding in 1900. The
story goes that Caleb Stillson Hammond,
a sales manager for Rand McNally & Co.,
asked for a $5-a-week raise from his
employer. When he was turned down, he
decided to quit and set up his own map-
making business.
One of Hammond's first products was a
wall map with the United States on one side
and the world on the reverse. The world
map was drawn with a revolutionary new
projection that showed countries in the
northern latitudes more accurately than
conventional maps. A world atlas soon fol-
lowed and in succeeding years Hammond
stayed on top of social trends and world
news, publishing special maps and collec-
tions tied to such events as the San Fran-
cisco fire, Commodore Perry's trek to the
North Pole, and World Wars I and II.
The company survived lean times in the
1930s and arrived at its golden anniversary
in 1950 a thriving enterprise. That year cor-
porate offices were moved from Manhattan,
where Hammond had established the
nation's first map store in 1911, to the New
Jersey site the company has occupied ever
since. Today Hammond continues to serve
many of the markets it has developed dur-
ing its first 92 years.
For example, it produces the maps in-
cluded in encyclopedias published by such
companies as Encyclopaedia Britannica,
World Book, Funk and Wagnalls, and
Groliers. It publishes an extensive series
of maps and atlases for use in schools. Its
maps and reference and travel atlases find
large markets in bookstores and map and
travel shops. And the company produces
a wide variety of items used as promotions
and incentives by companies and organiza-
tions ranging from Time Inc. and Reader's
Digest to Ciba Geigy.
Through all this change, Hammond Inc.
has remained a family business, though that
almost changed a few years back. Caleb
Hammond became president of the com-
pany in 1948, upon the death of his father
and uncle, and chairman in 1968. At the age
of 62 he retired to accept the post of chair-
man of the board of the Maplewood Bank
and Trust Co. At the time, his brother,
Stuart, was president of Hammond Inc., his
son, Caleb Dean Hammond III, was executive
vice president, and his daughter-in-law,
Kathleen Hammond, a former advertising
executive with the New York Times, was vice
president in charge of marketing.
For some time, Stuart Hammond and sev-
eral other relatives had been entertaining
offers from potential buyers. When a cousin
decided to place her sizeable share in the
company on the auction block, Caleb
Hammond and his son and daughter-in-law
decided the time had come to act. They
pooled their resources and bought the
relative's holdings, along with several
smaller shares, gaining a controlling interest
in the firm. In the aftermath, Hammond re-
joined the firm as chairman; his son, Dean,
became president; and Kathleen Hammond
was named executive vice president.
What they found themselves in control
of, Hammond says, was a company that had
been languishing for several years as rela-
tives debated its future direction. To revital-
ize Hammond Inc., the company's new
executives settled on a
radical plan that would
not only change the face
of this 85-year-old firm,
but the state of the art
of cartography itself.
While the technology
of mapmaking had
evolved considerably
from the days when
craftsmen laboriously
drew each map by
hand, it was still a time-
consuming and largely
manual process. Artists
and draftsmen, working
at drawing boards, hand-
crafted maps with the
help of editors, who drew
on the latest information
carefully stored in banks
of file cabinets to assure
the accuracy of names,
river courses, mountain
elevations and so on.
The finished drawings
were photographed and
turned first into negatives
and then into plates for
the printing press. Updat-
ing maps meant retrieving
old drawings from stor-
age, pulling off old, incor-
rect labels, redrawing
outdated features, and
redoing indexes — a
process that could easily consume several
months. Hammond's new management team
looked at the significant inroads computers
were making into other areas of business —
including the printing and publishing indus-
tries— and wondered why their business,
too, could not benefit from the computer
revolution.
The company began to build what it now
calls the Hammond Digital Cartographic
Database (HDCD), a comprehensive file
of information about the entire world that
enables Hammond Inc. to generate maps
of virtually any area at scales as small as
1:500,000. The first step in creating HDCD
was to acquire a public-domain database
created by the U.S. government. The com-
pany also purchased about $5 million in
computer equipment, including specialized
graphics terminals designed for carto-
graphic work and made by Intergraph
Corp. in Huntsville, Ala.
While a useful starting point, the govern-
ment database was less than perfect, Ham-
mond says. "We discovered that it had
many, many inaccuracies. Also, we found
out early on that there were a lot of things
we wanted to do that the government never
Caleb Hammond watches as his company's chief
draftsman, Herbert Pierce, touches up the negatives
for a new map of the world.
WPI Journal
21
worried about. For example, we had to
spend a lot of time making sure that one
section of the world would line up accu-
rately with the sections around it."
To create the software that would make
this and other vital tasks possible, Ham-
mond hired several computer programmers
and called on a number of computer
experts. Most notable among these was
Mitchell J. Feigenbaum, professor of math-
ematics and physics at Rockefeller Univer-
sity in New York. Kathleen Hammond had
met Feigenbaum at Cornell University in
1970, when she was an undergraduate and
he was completing postdoctoral work.
After two years at Cornell, Feigenbaum
completed another two years of post-
doctoral studies at Virginia Polytechnic
Institute and then joined the staff of Los
Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico,
where in 1976 he discovered universality, a
theory that explains what happens as natu-
ral systems, such as flowing water, clouds
or rising smoke, make the transition from
orderly to turbulent or chaotic behavior.
The discovery was a critical step on the
road to chaos theory, widely considered
one of the most important scientific ad-
vances of modern times.
Using the techniques of object-oriented
programming (see story, page 24), Feigen-
baum developed the algorithms that knit
the information in the database into a seam-
less representation of the globe (one that
would cover two-thirds of a football field
if printed out at the nominal scale of
1:3,000,000). He also developed techniques
that enabled the computer to adjust the
level of detail displayed depending upon
the scale of the map.
For example, the complicated coastline
of Maine can be shown in far greater detail
on a map that displays just the state itself
than on a map of the whole Eastern Sea-
board. The software Feigenbaum developed
also enables the computer to choose a
projection for each map that displays that
region of the world in the most realistic and
accurate manner.
Another key piece of software, on which
a patent is currently pending, places type —
such the names of cities and towns — on
the map, a task that can be challenging in
heavily developed areas where population
centers lie close together. "Initially, we
would have crashes in these areas where
the names would just run into each other,"
Hammond says. "Feigenbaum developed a
way of handling this by relocating names in
an orderly way if they start to crash. This is
something the government has been trying
to do for 25 years."
To date, the development of the data-
base has consumed five chronological years
and 150 man-years of effort. There are two
types of data in the database. Linework in-
cludes more than 1,000 types of geographic
features, including coastlines, rivers, moun-
tains, islands, roads, canals, railroads and
political boundaries. Some details can have
complex codes that include information that
may show up only at certain map scales.
For example, a detailed map might show the
exact width of a river along with the courses
of all of its tributaries, while a map with a
broader scale may simply show the path
of the main branch.
Textual information is stored separately
within the same database. Each population
center is coded with its local name, its stan-
dard name as determined by the U.S. Board
of Geographical Names, and its historic
name or names. The company is also trans-
lating these names into multiple languages
for maps and atlases published internation-
ally. In addition to its name or names, each
city and town is coded with its population.
The population data determines how large
the locality's name will appear on a map
and — depending upon the map's scale —
22
Spring 1992
whether it will appear at all.
There are no actual maps in the system.
Working at computer terminals, a cartogra-
pher creates a map by retrieving from the
database information about an area bound
by designated coordinates. The computer
automatically draws in the appropriate bor-
ders and map scales. The cartographer can
choose from a wide range of colors and pat-
terns to indicate geographic features, can
use any of dozens of symbols for points of
interest, and can select appropriate fonts
for the type.
Finished maps can be output in a num-
ber of ways. For proofing, they can be
printed on color computer terminals or on
a host of high-resolution plotters and print-
ers. Information can be stored on magnetic
tapes or disks. And maps ready for publica-
tion can be sent to a device that generates
four-color negatives for printing.
While the creation of the database was
largely the work of computer experts, its
maintenance will fall to Hammond's staff of
editors. "The world is constantly changing,"
Opposite, cartographers update a computer-generated map of
the Indian subcontinent. Above, Caleb Hammond looks over
one of the thousands of maps in the Hammond Inc. archives.
Hammond says. "Everybody hears about
changes like Leningrad becoming St. Peters-
burg once again, so you have to get those
right. But there are so many other changes
that happen all the time that few people
hear about. The nice thing about this data-
base is that you only have to make a change
once. Whether it's a name change or a
change in the course of a river, once it's in
the database that change will be made for
every map we produce with the computer."
So far, Hammond has produced just a
few products electronically, most notably a
l:4,000,000-scale map of the Indian subconti-
nent created last year for an international
book fair. In addition, a computerized collec-
tion of world flags was recently used in the
production of wall maps of the United States
and the world (the maps themselves were
produced conventionally).
Currently in production is the new
Hammond Atlas of the World, a 304-page,
ll-by-14-inch volume that will go on sale in
September — by far the most detailed and
accurate atlas the company has ever pro-
duced, Hammond says.
All of the more than 200
maps in the collection
are being created with
the HDCD. When the
atlas is complete, the
database will be em-
ployed to produce a
wide range of other
products, including
many more area maps
for travelers, small
pocket-sized atlases,
school atlases and —
should a comprehen-
sive road network be
added to the data-
base— a series of road
maps.
Caleb Hammond,
who is a member of the
American and Royal
Geographical societies,
a former director of the
Association of Ameri-
can Publishers (then
known as the American
Textbook Publishers
Institute), and a trustee
emeritus of WPI (from
which he recently re-
ceived the Robert H.
Goddard '08 Award for
Professional Achieve-
ment), says the data-
base will enable the
company to easily pro-
duce specialty maps of
all sizes, in a variety of
custom styles, and with an infinite variety of
information tailored for individual custom-
ers. A good example, he says, are the ency-
clopedia publishers with which Hammond
has worked for decades.
"In the past we've been able to give
these companies maps at whatever size
they wanted, but they all received basically
the same maps," he says. "They've always
wanted their maps to look different than
anyone else's. Now it will be possible for us
to do that. We'll be able to give them their
own selection of areas and color treatments.
They can choose to show mountains or not,
and so on. We think this will open up brand
new areas for us."
With the computer it will be possible to
produce all of these products in a fraction
of the time that was once necessary. For ex-
ample, creating the map of the Indian sub-
continent from scratch, a task that might
once have consumed six months of time for
a team of editors and designers, took only
a few weeks. Twice that much time would
have been required to assemble the map's
index of town names (something the com-
puter now does automatically in seconds)
in the "old days." Hammond says that in
time, as the company gains experience with
its computer system, the process should
become even faster.
While Hammond will create nearly all of
its future maps and atlases with the comput-
erized database, Caleb Hammond says there
will always be products that can better be
created or updated in a more traditional
manner. These include special topical maps
in various school atlases on things like in-
fant mortality and the location of fossil de-
posits. In addition, he says, the company
has thousands of maps in its archives, some
of which will continue to be updated from
time to time and reused. Work like this will
keep the company's staff of draftsmen, some
of whom have been with the company for
decades, busy for years to come.
Currently, Hammond Inc. has the field
of commercial computerized cartography
virtually to itself. No other major mapmaker
has created the type of advanced carto-
graphic tools that Hammond has pioneered
over the past five years. "I've enjoyed
watching this progress," says Hammond,
who adds that he may retire once again
when the new atlas finds its way to book-
stores this fall.
"This is going to be the future of our
company, and I couldn't be happier. In truth,
I had no business buying out that relative,
but I could see sections of the company
withering and dying on the vine. I said,
'Damn it, we're going to stick with it and
turn this company around.' That's what
we're trying to do."
WPI Journal
23
Building a New Window on the World
By Michael Dorsey
A NEW APPROACH TO
DESIGNING LARGE SCIENTIFIC
DATABASES PROMISES TO GIVE
GLOBAL CHANGE RESEARCHERS
A POWERFUL NEW TOOL FOR
UNDERSTANDING OUR PLACE
ON THE PLANET.
In an office of the not-too-distant future,
a climatologist sits down at her com-
puter workstation and types in a simple
question: Has the rainfall across Southern
California been affected by the shrinking
rain forests of Brazil? In a few moments, the
screen is filled with a patchwork of images,
icons and menus.
Using the computer's mouse to link
together certain pictures and icons, then
typing simple answers to questions the
computer poses, she sharpens her search
and then goes beyond her initial query,
drawing in data on wind patterns, atmo-
spheric gas exchange and solar radiation —
some of it gleaned from computers located
thousands of miles away — and integrating
it with information coded in weather satel-
lite photos pulled from a data bank in Wash-
ington, D.C. Finally, she displays the results
of her new computer model as a time-
sequenced series of high-resolution maps.
It may sound like science fiction, but a
system like this is the ultimate goal of a new
project being undertaken by a research
team consisting of three faculty members in
WPI's Computer Science Department and a
professor of geography at Clark University.
With a two-year, $315,000 grant from the
National Science Foundation, the team
hopes to take the first steps toward a radi-
cal new way of handling the huge amounts
of information that confront scientists study-
ing the phenomenon of global change.
WPI was one of 1 1 colleges and universi-
ties around the nation (out of 1 15 that sub-
mitted proposals) to receive funding in the
first round of a new NSF initiative aimed at
finding innovative ways to manage large
scientific databases. The goal of the program
is to overcome the limitations of the data-
base software commonly used in scientific
research, most of which is modeled after
packages designed for business applications.
For the most part, current scientific data-
bases can't easily handle the staggering
quantity of data often gathered in geographic
or climatological research (weather satel-
lites, for example, collect billions of bits of
data every day). In addition, business-ori-
ented databases generally lack the flexibility
to adapt easily to new types of data or to
new ways of analyzing it. This quality —
called extensibility — is also required to
accommodate metadata, or data about the
data, which can include information about
how, when and where the data were created,
and about how they have been processed or
recalibrated in the meantime.
"As we looked at existing software," notes
Nabil I. Hachem, assistant professor of com-
puter science, "we also found that most
24
Spring 1992
JANET WOODCOCK
concentrates either on the management of
data or on the analysis of data. We wanted
to find a way to integrate these functions."
Hachem says the researchers also noted
that most existing database systems de-
signed for geographic and cartographic
research— so-called geographical informa-
tion systems or GISs — deal adequately with
either spatial data (data that describes the
distribution of things in space) or temporal
data (which describes how something
changes over time). A goal of the global
change database project is finding a way to
integrate spatial and temporal data, making
it easier for researchers to study how global
Graduate students Yu-Hong Zhang,
left, and Ke Qiu are developing parts
of a new database program that may
revolutionize the way geographic
and cartographic information is
stored and analyzed.
systems change over time, and to model
how they may change in the future.
To meet these challenges, the research
team, which also includes Assistant Pro-
fessor Michael A. Gennert and Associate
Professor Matthew 0. Ward of WPI's Com-
puter Science Department and Clark Univer-
sity Professor J. Ronald Eastman, is turning
to a technique called object-oriented
programming.
A traditional program is a long list of
instructions — called code — that tells a com-
puter how to find and analyze data and what
to do with the results. Sometimes hundreds
of thousands of lines long, such programs
can become so unwieldy that they are
virtually impossible to update or even
understand.
Object-oriented programs consist of dis-
crete, self-contained modules called objects.
Most objects describe specific entities, for
example a thunderstorm over Kansas or the
annual snowfall on Mt. Kilimanjaro. Encoded
within the object is a description of how it
behaves. For example, the snowfall object
might include daily totals for snowfall and
the program for computing a yearly aver-
age. Metadata about the object can also be
bundled into the object itself.
With object-oriented techniques, com-
puter programs no longer need be hand-
crafted, as most are now. They can be
assembled from existing objects, much
like computers themselves can be pieced
together from off-the-shelf components. In
addition, objects are easily extensible— they
can even evolve into new objects with new
characteristics as the demands on them
change. For example, the annual snowfall
object can easily become a monthly snow-
fall object or an annual rainfall object.
"This is one possible solution to the
problems posed by large scientific data-
bases," Gennert says. "We think it's a good
solution, but we'll have to prove that. One
of the reviewers who read our proposal
said our idea is either brilliant or it will
never work."
The idea for the global change database
began about four years ago when Gennert
and Ward became interested in finding ways
to automate the process of creating and
manipulating maps. They visited the U.S.
Geological Survey in Reston, Va., to learn
about the most pressing needs in automated
cartography. Then, with faculty members
from the Electrical Engineering Department,
they put together a proposal to the NSF and
the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Administration (DARPA) for funding for a
knowledge-intensive map analysis program.
While the proposal was not funded, it led
Gennert and Ward to do further research and
develop, with the help of a graduate student
and an undergraduate completing his Major
Qualifying Project, a prototype map-display-
ing program. In the meantime, the U.S.G.S.
announced its intention to begin funding
research on global change — a broad area
that encompasses the complex relationships
among the Earth's physical and biological
systems and how they are affected by the
activities of man. The causes and conse-
quences of global warming, the destruction
of the Earth's ozone layer, and the deforesta-
tion of the tropics are all subjects that fall
within the realm of global change.
With the U.S.G.S. announcement as an
incentive, Ward and Gennert drafted a white
paper in which they refined their ideas and
proposed a new software architecture that
appeared to solve the needs of global change
research. "This system would be able to store
and manipulate data in a more general and
powerful way than what the U.S.G.S. had
envisioned," Gennert says. "We thought it
was the right kind of forward-looking system,
one that the field would need eventually."
Gennert and Ward sketched out a working
diagram of their system on a blackboard in
Gennert 's office and modified it on a regular
basis. As the system developed, the two re-
searchers realized they were straying further
and further from their own areas of expertise,
which include image processing, image
understanding, artificial intelligence and
visualization. "We realized that this is really
a large database problem," Ward says. "The
ranges of types of data and the sizes of the
WPI Journal
25
Left to right,
Professors
Michael Gennert,
Matthew Ward and
Nabil Hachem.
databases posed problems that went
beyond our abilities."
They enlisted Hachem, whose area of
interest is very large data and knowledge
bases. Shortly after Hachem joined the
group, the NSF put out a request for propos-
als for new approaches to designing scien-
tific databases. "They wanted a system that
was appropriate for a specific field of current
importance, but which incorporated ideas
that could be extrapolated into scientific
databases in general," Hachem says.
Knowing that scientific databases often
fall short because database designers focus
on technology instead of the needs of the
people who will use that technology, the
team forged a link with the George Perkins
Marsh Institute in the school of geography
at Clark University. "We felt that being part
of an interdisciplinary team would help
us understand the needs of global change
researchers," Hachem says.
Those needs are considerable, as
Hachem, Gennert and Ward have discovered.
Scientists in this field deal with a wide range
of data types, including cartographic data,
such as elevations and information about
land use and water runoff; satellite images of
vegetation and weather patterns; point data
on rainfall and solar radiation; and the out-
put of mathematical models of groundwater
flow and atmospheric circulation.
"We've had weeks of discussions just to
define what data is," Ward says, "and to con-
vince ourselves that our system can cover a
significant portion of the various types of
data that global change researchers use. We
don't want to leave out anything that's going
to prevent our system from being useful."
The diversity of data is only one of the
challenges the researchers will face as they
develop the global change database. Further
complicating their work is the fact that the
data are recorded in a wide variety of ways.
Notes Ward, "Everything has a different file
format. And it's all recorded at different res-
olutions, different scales, and with different
accuracies. How do you compare apples
and oranges? You can either mold one type
of data into another, or find some middle
ground and hope you haven't lost too much
of the data in the conversion."
With object-oriented programming, each
data object can contain a description of the
characteristics of the data it contains. Other
objects can be programmed with rules for
how different types of data can be manipu-
lated in a sensible way. "For example," notes
Gennert, "it makes sense to ask for annual
rainfall by summing the rainfall totals for
each month. On the other hand, it doesn't
make sense to get population growth by
totaling the population totals for each month.
You have to know how the data can be prop-
erly interpreted, interpolated, extrapolated,
predicted and calibrated."
"Our goal," Ward says, "is not to solve all
these problems, but to create an environ-
ment in which they can be solved. Extensi-
bility is a requirement for doing that. As
people come up with new needs, new abili-
ties and new data, the system will have to
grow with it."
By making each type of data a separate
object, the researchers hope to make the
system easy to modify. Adding new data
types or new analyses, for example, should
be as easy as plugging new objects into the
database or modifying existing objects.
Another important goal of the global
change database project is making the
program as easy to use as possible. To do
that, they will place a visual interface — a
sort of interpreter — between the user and
the software. Ph.D. candidate Yu-Hong Zhang
is currently developing a system that will
enable users to ask questions about natural
phenomena that change in both space and
time — such as a moving cold front or the
changing boundary between climatological
zones — by manipulating images instead of
typing long queries in an arcane computer
language.
"With most databases, forgetting one
component of the query can result in a long,
senseless search," Ward says. "We want to
avoid that. We also want to have reasonable
default specifications so people don't have
to specify 20 things before they get some-
thing out of a search. So we're creating a
hybrid visual-text system that will enable
users to both extend the system and get
information out of it."
Another Ph.D. candidate, Ke Qiu, is
at work designing the model for the data
objects, and is also developing the system
that will retrieve data and guide its analysis
in response to a user's queries. "We don't
want the user to have to go through all the
steps he or she must do now — finding the
data, converting it to common scales and so
on. We also want the user to be able to take
the whole sequence of operations the com-
puter might perform on a certain type of
data and turn that into a new object that
can be used again and again."
Over the next two years, the team will
develop a working prototype of the system
that will then be tested with a wide range of
geographic and cartographic data provided
by Clark University. While the early proto-
types of the new global change database
software will be tested with data residing on
computers at WP1 and Clark, the designers
would ultimately like to give their system
the ability to tap into international computer
networks to gather information from diverse
and potentially incompatible computer
systems located around the world.
26
Spring 1992
Al Anderson Starts a New Chapter
By Bonnie Gelbwasser
Here's a riddle: Which word describes some of the
materials in the George C. Gordon Library and the
man who has presided over WPI's library collections
for more than a quarter century? To those who know head
librarian Albert G. Anderson Jr., the answer is simple:
"reserved."
"Maybe it's my Scandinavian
upbringing," says Anderson,
who will retire on June 30 after
29 years as the library's top ad-
ministrator. Only the sixth librar-
ian in the college's history — and
the only man to have held the post— Anderson was preceded
by Emily M. Haynes, who served from 1902 to 1942, and
Bonnie-Blanche Schoonover, who was head librarian from
1942 to 1963.
Ask him about the hundreds of books and the primitive
art that line the walls and shelves of his office on the first
After nearly three decades as the head of the
Institute's innovative and extensive collections,
WPI's library director is set to retire.
floor of the library and all he'll volunteer is, "The library is
not my whole life. I have many other areas of interest." But
ask this private man about the library and he becomes
instantly loquacious.
Anderson, who was born in Fargo, N.D., earned a bachelor's
degree from North Dakota State
University, a master's from the
University of Wyoming, and a
master's in library service from
the University of Illinois.
In the early 1960s he was
living in Ann Arbor, Mich., and
working as head of technical information for the Bendix Corp.
and as a consultant for General Electric when he met Albert
M. Demont '31 , a WP1 trustee. Demont mentioned the meeting
to M. Lawrence Price, then dean of faculty at the Institute,
and when Bonnie-Blanche Schoonover announced her retire-
ment, Price invited Anderson to apply for the post. "When I
WPI Journal
27
Students take in an exhibit on the Tiananman Square
uprising in the third-floor gallery in Gordon Library-
saw Worcester on the map," he says, "I thought
it must be pronounced 'Worchester.' Upon my
arrival I was put straight."
Anderson selected a propitious time to
relocate to the city. When he arrived on
campus in 1963, WPl's library was actually
eight separate collections in six different
locations. Humanities and social science
publications were housed in a one-room
library in the basement of Alden Memorial;
the Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
departments shared shelf space in Goddard
Hall; and the Physics Department and the
Civil, Electrical and Mechanical Engineering
departments maintained their own separate
collections.
Anderson immediately became part of
a team, lead by Harry P. Storke (who had
assumed the presidency of the Institute the
year before) that was planning a new library
that would house these varied collections.
"President Storke wanted a library-museum,"
says Anderson. "He believed in creating a
building to contain the printed word as well
as artifacts of the past."
When he learned that the idea would be
too expensive to implement, Storke champi-
oned the creation of a state-of-the-art library
— one designed, Anderson recalled in a
1987 article in the WPI Journal, as "a campus
showcase... what a building in WPl's future
would look like."
Completed at a cost of
$2.5 million Qargely funded
by a $5 million bequest from
George C. Gordon, a Cleve-
land industrialist who gradu-
ated from WPI in 1895), the
65,000-square-foot Gordon
Library brought all the infor-
mation on campus together
under one roof to be super-
vised by a staff of trained
professionals. The building,
the first campus structure to
be centrally air-conditioned,
became a model for other
college libraries.
Gordon Library had space
for 200,000 books and 450
patrons. It featured carpeted
meeting and seminar rooms, a
first-floor music room, space
for the Institute's archives,
and many areas for study or
relaxation. While not Storke's
vision of a museum, the
library incorporated display
space for paintings, photo-
graphs, prints and pottery
in the lobby and in the wide
third-floor corridor. The bot-
tom floor housed the Worces-
ter Area Computation Center
(WACC). There were 1,700 students on cam-
pus and 40,000 books on the shelves when
it opened in the fall of 1968.
Twenty-five years after its dedication,
Gordon Library remains ahead of its time,
although today it is almost as different from
the building it was the day it opened as the
new library was from the original discon-
nected collections. WPl's student popula-
tion is now about 3,800 and the building
is bursting at the seams with more than
350,000 volumes, nearly one million pieces
of microfilm and microfiche, about 1,500
magazine and journal titles, and some 2,000
videotapes of course lectures.
"This library is a dynamic facility that
meets the times and the needs of the
people," says Anderson. "Thirty years ago a
library was basically a collection of books,
monographs, periodicals, reference materi-
als and technical reports — mostly in paper
copy. Over the years, microfilm came into
existence, which saved space by putting
materials on a single image that people
could access with a special reader.
"As computers became more sophisti-
cated, information could be stored in a
different form, and a whole new world
opened up for the user and the librarian,"
he explains. "As a result, the reference area
of the library has changed drastically. There
the printed word and the computer coexist
to serve the patron. On the practical side,
there is just so much basic material that can
be stored in a college library. Our job is to
open doors and windows to information in
other libraries through on-line databases."
Throughout his WPI career, Anderson
has made a point of ensuring that Gordon
Library has always met the needs of its
patrons. "Three decades ago a typical engi-
neering student was taught from the text
and the library wasn't really needed for un-
dergraduate students — it served the faculty
and the graduate programs.
"With the implementation of the WPI
Plan, the whole concept of learning changed
and this library became a major component
While it serves a much larger constituency than it did 25 years ago,
Gordon Library has remained a state-of-the-art facility by embracing
the technological advances of the computer revolution.
28
Spring 1992
in that element of education. We had basic
collections in the humanities and social
sciences, but when the Humanities Suffi-
ciency was added to the Plan we began co-
operating with other Worcester academic
libraries so we could share materials."
In 1968 Anderson became the first chair-
man of the Worcester Area Cooperating
Libraries, a joint effort of 15 academic,
public and special libraries sponsored by
the Worcester Consortium for Higher Educa-
tion. Its purpose was to facilitate the sharing
of resources among member institutions
and assist in the introduction of advanced
library technology.
Through WACL, library patrons now
have access to more than three million
volumes and serial subscriptions. "Since
1974, WP1 has participated in the Online
Computer Library Center Inc., the world's
largest and most comprehensive database
of bibliographic information," Anderson
says. "The installation of a campus com-
puter network, along with active coopera-
tion from the Institute's College Computer
Center, has enabled the library to expand its
services. Faculty members and students can
now 'use' the library from any location that
has a connection to the network."
"I have great respect for Al," says Susan
Baughman, university librarian at Clark
University's Goddard Library, which is part
of the WACL. "He's forward-looking, very
analytical, imaginative — and he very much
believes in interlibrary cooperation."
Ever the pragmatist, Anderson views this
cooperation as a way to put patrons in touch
with as much information as they need.
"Worcester is rich in museums and libraries
and sources of information," he says. "It's
almost unique to have so many colleges in
the system. We could not exist without our
current programs with Clark, Holy Cross and
the University of Massachusetts Medical Cen-
ter, supplemented by the Worcester Public
Library, Worcester State College, Assumption
College, the American Antiquarian Society
and the Worcester Art Museum. And, of
course, we can go one step further: less
than 50 miles to the east are the collections
of Harvard and MIT."
As head librarian, Anderson, who man-
Chemical engineering graduate
student Emel Inane prepares
to peruse a few of the 350,000
books housed in Gordon Library-
Today, through a consortium of
area libraries, students have
access to more than three
million volumes.
ages a staff of 30 and a budget equal to
about 3 percent of the total Institute budget,
says he views himself as a catalyst. "The
heart of any library is its staff," he notes.
"They interpret to a great degree what is in
a collection. They help build a collection,
and they help in utilizing the collection by
the patrons. My philosophy is, let other indi-
viduals develop and let them set their mark,
as long as it fits within the confines of the
library.
"Our librarians have expertise and inter-
ests that contribute significantly to their
work here. For example, Diana Johnson
[reference and interlibrary loan librarian]
has a degree in chemistry; Don Richardson
[reference and technical reports librarian]
has expertise in the area of bibliographic in-
struction through formal and computer pro-
grams; Margaret Riley [circulation librarian]
and Deborah LaCroix [senior library associ-
ate/cataloger] are musicians.
"Lora Brueck [archivist, special collec-
tions librarian and cataloger] is a photogra-
pher who has brought many interesting
exhibits to campus, and Helen Shuster
[who will become interim head librarian
after Anderson steps down] is an expert
on automation. Carmen Brown [associate
librarian and head, public services] ensures
that all programs benefit the needs of the
patrons, especially the students. They are
the ones who pay the bills and enable us
to serve. The result is that while Gordon
Library is small and has a small staff, it
has done more to innovate than some of
the larger libraries in the country."
"Although he doesn't say too much, Al
Anderson is very supportive of his staff,"
says Diana Johnson. "My feeling is that
he cares about us very much; I know he is
always open to new ideas that are properly
proposed."
Anderson says his successor faces some
significant challenges. "The library is run-
WPI Journal
29
Scott E. Lewis '95 receives some help in his search for information from
reference librarian Joanne L. Williams. Williams and the library's other 29
staff members are the "heart of the library," notes director Al Anderson.
ning out of space. We need to expand shelv-
ing for books and periodicals into the 10,000
square feet of space on the lower level that
was used by the College Computer Center
until Fuller Laboratories was completed in
1990. We need to create additional reading
space for patrons, space for our staff, and
space for the ongoing changes in technol-
ogy. The building is tired. Its heating and air-
conditioning system needs to be replaced,
and the furniture needs to be renovated to
create a fine aesthetic place that's enjoyable
to be in."
Despite the challenges, Anderson says
this is an excellent time for someone to step
into his shoes. "We're on the cutting edge of
changes in library information," he says.
"The whole aspect of adapting a building to
meet the changing needs of the patrons is
exciting."
The new director will succeed, Anderson
believes, if he or she continues the concept
of the library "as a service organization,
with staff members who are willing to adapt
as adaptation is needed, and willing to be of
service to whoever needs it."
Anderson's own interests are reflected
in the library's collection of materials about
author William Faulkner, which he describes
as "equal to, if not better than, almost any
other collection in the city." It can also be
seen in an excellent art and architecture
collection, which serves the Worcester Art
Museum, as well as art students at various
other colleges.
"My opinion of Al is that he is truly a
gentleman in the accepted aristocratic
sense of the term," says Louis J. Curran Jr.,
associate professor of music, who has been
Anderson's friend since the librarian first
joined the staff. "Al has a splendid eye for
antiquities and things of beauty, which is
reflected in the number of displays and exhi-
bitions in the library.
"While he would never mention the fact,
Al was instrumental in preserving the por-
traits of the college fathers. I found them in
disastrous condition in the Boynton Hall
tower. Al arranged for them to be restored
at the Worcester Art Museum and hung in
the great hall of Alden Memorial, where they
were recently returned when renovations to
that building were completed.
"He's private even with his friends, but
is extremely kind," Curran adds. "He and his
wife were a great help to me when I was in
the hospital a while back. He also has a pi-
quant sense of humor and he loves plays
on words."
Anderson and his wife, the former Ann
Lee O'Connell of Worcester, live with their
daughter, a college student, in Holden,
Mass., where they are active in several area
organizations. "Retiring won't be any big
deal," he says. "I'm looking forward to it. 1
hope to volunteer, but not necessarily in the
field of librarianship. My work at WPI has
been very pleasurable, but in retirement I'll
detach myself from that and go into some-
thing totally different."
I hese days a good library
I is like a magician's top
hat. While prestidigitators amaze their
audiences by pulling doves, rabbits and
scarves from tall black hats, today's
librarians bring forth a vast universe
of up-to-date information on virtually any
topic from a constantly expanding system
of computers and electronic networks.
David Cyganski 75, professor of elec-
trical engineering, has witnessed the
changes that the Gordon Library has
undergone over the past two decades.
Cyganski enrolled as a freshman in 1972
and went on to earn a bachelor's, a
master's and a doctorate. He joined the
faculty in 1980 and from 1989 to 1991 was
vice president for information systems
and services and vice provost, a post that
included oversight of the library budget.
"A good engineer uses the library
every day— for research, for information,
and to make classroom learning easier
and more meaningful," Cyganski says.
An avid reader with an interest in a wide
range of scientific and technical topics,
as well as music and gardening, he says
he is probably one of the library's biggest
patrons. He borrows books and has art-
icles copied almost every day, and says
he appreciates the changes Al Anderson
has brought to Gordon Library.
"Nowadays, it's a whole new world,"
says Cyganski. "We're at the pinnacle of
on-line service, because of the way the
library has embraced the computer. All
a person has to do is log into our campus
network and type 'library' to gain access
to the world's largest on-line database.
Without ever leaving your desk you can
search the library's entire on-line catalog
and the catalogs of more than 30 other
schools. You can find out where a paper
or publication is held and arrange for all
sorts of materials to be delivered, faxed
or photocopied."
Jeffrey A. Bloom '87, a WPI student
since 1983 (he has completed his bache-
lor's and master's degrees in electrical
engineering, the latter in 1990, and is now
working on his Ph.D.), uses a modem to
tap into this wealth of information from
his home. He says the library's electronic
services have come a long way since his
30
Spring 1992
Electronic Sleight of Hand
Brings Users a Universe of knowledge
Archivist Lora Brueck, standing, helps a student learn to use the Gordon Library's on-line catalog, which replaced the
card catalog. With computers, patrons can now access a wide range of information from libraries all across the country-
early years as a graduate student. Back
then, he notes, only a few databases could
be searched with computers that were
sometimes difficult to use.
"Because of those limitations, computers
were just a supplement to the more tradi-
tional information search using the card
catalog," he says. Today the card catalog
itself is accessed with a computer.
Cyganski illustrates the speed and user-
friendliness of the library's on-line services
by accessing UnCover, a magazine database
available through the Institute's computer
network. He types in a request for informa-
tion about Papoulis' Generalized Sampling
Algorithm and in less than 10 seconds the
computer searches through some 10,000
journals to produce a list of articles and
their locations.
While the computer network allows
him to spend less time there these days,
Cyganski says there is still ample reason
to visit the library building. "When stu-
dents complain they are having trouble
understanding their textbooks, I tell them
to go to the library and look through other
books that cover the same material," he
notes. "There's always a big selection —
there may be as many as 150 books on a
particular topic. I tell these students to look
through these other books until they find
one that speaks their language, and to use
that book to help follow the lectures."
Bloom says he's used the library in just
this way. "As an undergraduate, I appreci-
ated being able to go to the audiovisual
room and watch a lecture on videotape. It
was a real help to be able to see a professor
(even if it wasn't the one who was teaching
your course) explain the material and pin-
point the things you didn't understand.
You could always rewind the tape if you
needed to clarify the topic or problem."
Cyganski says the new library technol-
ogy has also changed the way he teaches.
"1 expect my project students to be able to
do more — to check more references — and
as a result, to present work that is better
considered and more organized. Being
able to access everything everyone else
has done on a particular topic allows you
to be more original. It's bound to lead to
better projects.
"You know," he adds, "Stanislaw Ulam
said that the most difficult unsolved prob-
lem in mathematics is knowing whether
someone has solved it before. In this age
of library science, the computer is helping
users tackle that dilemma."
— Bonnie Gelbwasser
WPI Journal
31
FINAL WORD
Lighting a Fire in Young Minds
It looks like Dean L. Kamen 73
will have to change his busi-
ness cards. The cards identify
him as Dean Kamen, N.D. The
N.D., he says, stands for no de-
gree, but the 41-year-old entre-
preneur and science educator
recently received an honorary
doctorate in engineering from
the institution he left two de-
cades ago before finishing his
bachelor's degree in physics.
In awarding such a presti-
gious honor to one so young,
WPI recognized both Kamen's
impressive professional accom-
plishments and his commitment
to helping young people learn
about the excitement of scientific
discovery and the joy of creating
new technology to solve real
human problems — qualities that
have been the driving forces in
his own career.
Kamen credits at least some
of his fascination with science
and engineering, as well as his
love of hard work, to his father, a
free-lance cartoonist and illustra-
tor, and his mother, a teacher of
bookkeeping and accounting
(both help out today with his
various businesses). Jack and
Evelyn Kamen encouraged all
four of their children to indulge
their imaginations and natural curiosity
about the world.
More often than not, while their friends
read comic books and played baseball,
Dean and his older brother, Bart (now a
physician), could be found in the cellar of
the family home on Long Island with their
Erector Sets, model trains, slot cars, chem-
istry sets, photographic equipment and
electronics.
By the time he enrolled at WPI in 1969,
Successful entrepreneur Dean Kamen wants to help young
people know the joys and rewards of science and technology
Kamen's curiosity and imagination had
already begun to bear fruit. With Bart's
help, he designed a portable medical infu-
sion pump called the Auto Syringe. The
device gives diabetics and other patients
whose lives depend on frequent doses of
medication a greater degree of freedom.
It also lets the terminally ill receive pain-
killing drugs in their own homes. In hospi-
tals, the pump relieves nurses from having
to constantly monitor transfusion patients.
As news of Auto Syringe
spread through the medical
literature, the product became
a huge success and Kamen
found he was spending too much
time running his business to
attend classes. Still, he managed
to engage selected professors in
spontaneous four-hour discus-
sions in their offices. (He and
Harold W Hilsinger, associate
professor of physics, still brain-
storm occasionally.)
The business soon outgrew
the family basement, so Kamen
moved it first to a nearby indus-
trial park, and then to Hooksett,
N.H. In 1982 he sold Auto Syringe
in a multimillion-dollar deal to
Baxter Health Care Corp., a sub-
sidiary of Baxter International,
but he kept the research and
development end of the busi-
ness, named DEKA Research and
Development Corp., and set up
shop in Manchester, N.H.
Kamen also owns three
buildings in Manchester's old
Amoskeag millyards, as well as
Telectrol Systems, which manu-
factures energy management,
automation control and digital
control systems, and Enstrom
Helicopter, a Menominee, Mich.,
company that builds helicopters
sold and serviced by companies around
the country, including Copters Unlimited
in Laconia, N.H., which Kamen owns.
In 1986 he purchased North Dumpling
Island off the Connecticut coast. He rents
the two-acre island, which has a renovated
lighthouse with its own desalinization
plant and generator and a replica of
Stonehenge built by a former owner, to
corporations and individuals for confer-
ences and other events. To them, Kamen
32
SPRING 1992
is Lord Dumpling, who edits his own
tongue-in-cheek newspaper, issues visas,
and even prints his own currency, called
dumplings.
Although he is king of his own island,
Kamen has down-to-earth ideas on how to
boost interest in science and technology in
the United States. All of the income he real-
izes from renting his island is used to fund
U.S. FIRST (Foundation for Inspiration and
Recognition of Science and Technology), an
organization he founded in 1989. Designed
along the lines of the U.S. Olympic Commit-
tee, the not-for-profit alliance of business,
education and government leaders seeks to
promote science and mathematics literacy
by sponsoring special events for young
people across the country.
Kamen and associate professor Harold
a long talk about physics since Kamen'
Recently, it held the first Maize Craze,
through which dozens of companies and
universities — including AT&T, Boeing,
IBM, Xerox, Harvard, MIT and WPI—
adopted high schools in their communi-
Nicole Weiner, center, and Scot Trudeau, right, of the Doherty High School team
watch as their robot's take of tennis balls is tallied during the Maize Craze.
W. Hilsinger (left) have shared many
s days as an undergraduate at WPI.
ties. Engineers from each institution
helped students design and build remote-
controlled vehicles made from kits of
motors, controllers and related materials
provided by U.S. FIRST. The vehicles
competed in Manchester to see which
could pick up the most tennis balls in a
set amount of time while maneuvering
across a floor littered with cracked corn.
First place went to the Clinton (Mass.)
High School team sponsored by NYPRO
Inc., whose president, Gordon B. Lankton,
is a WPI trustee. In second place was a
team from Doherty High School in Wor-
cester, which was sponsored by WPI.
The winners received their awards from
D. Allan Bromley, science and technology
advisor to President Bush, and the Clinton
team was invited to the White House to
meet with the president.
Kamen also founded the Science
Enrichment Encounters Museum (SEE) at
his Technology Center in Manchester. He
says the museum is his way of sharing
with young people his passion for the
natural world. An avid reader of the origi-
nal works of scientists like Archimedes,
Galileo and Newton, Kamen says he wants
to persuade a new generation of children
that superconductors can be just as inter-
esting as the Super Bowl. "If I could con-
vince children who are enamored of
football to pursue science first, later they
could buy the NFL and put it in their back-
yard," he says.
Kamen says his own goal in life is far
removed from the NFL or even the success
of his own bustling business empire. "I
hope when I die that I will leave the world
with significantly less ignorance," he says.
— Ruth Trask
Inside:
A tribute to discovery and the
many WPI alumni who, as
scientists and inventors, are
opening up new frontiers of
knowledge and understand-
ing, and proving that— 500
years after Columbus first
set sail— there is no short-
age of unknown territory ,
yet to explore.
INSTITUTE
SUMMER 1992
>9:
*.>
New Worlds
Of Computing
WPI Journal
VOLUME XCV NO. 3 SUMMER 1992
10
15
20
26
CONTENTS
The Soul of a New Center Diane Benison
WPI's new Center for High-Performance Computing has catapulted the
Institute into the big leagues of computer research and development.
Here's the story of the center's birth and of its mission to transfer high-
power computing technology into industry.
Divide and Conquer Michael Dorsey
How do you build a computer that can process a trillion instructions in the
blink of an eye? The answer is massive parallelism — splitting up problems
among hundreds or even hundreds of thousands of individual processors.
First, Do No Harm Diane Benison
Organ transplants. Hospital crash carts. Genetic therapy. The high technology
that has permeated the practice of medicine has altered the age-old relation-
ship between physician and patient— and not for the better, says bioethicist
Thomas A. Shannon.
Meeting the Need to Lead Francis C. Lutz
In his first address to incoming freshmen as dean of undergraduate studies,
Lutz offers a personal vision of the Institute's unique educational program and
its potential to prepare students to take on the challenges of a new age and a
changing world.
DEPARTMENTS
Z Advance Word: A Trillion Here, A Trillion There. Michael Dorsey
3 Letters: Where Does the Money Go?; Hitting the Ceiling.
4 Investigations: Making Cancer Killers Deadlier; Probing Shrimp Genetics;
Improving Laser Eye Protection. Michael Dorsey
0 Explorations: Engineering a Roller Coaster; Flying by the Power of the Sun;
Making a Warehouse More Efficient. Bonnie Gelbwasser
32 Final Word: The Nancy Drew of the Crime Lab. Ruth Trask
Front Cover A supercomputer was used to assemble this view of Venus from data sent back to
Earth by the Magellan probe. Building the next generation of high-performance computers is the
goal of WPI's new Center for High-Performance Computing. Story on page 10. Photo courtesy of
NASA. Opposite: A summer scene in front of the "Wedge" between Daniels and Morgan halls. Photo
by Janet Woodcock. Back Coven Alumni of the classes of 1 942 and earlier enjoy the annual 50-Year
Associates Dinner in the great hall of the newly renovated Alden Memorial during Reunion in June.
Watch for a photo essay on the restoration of Alden early next year. Photo by Janet Woodcock.
Staff of the WPI Journal: Editor, Michael W. Dorsey • Alumni News Editor, Ruth S. Trask • Writers, Bonnie Gelbwasser and Neil Norum • Designer, Carol Hoyle Ballard
• Photographer, Janet Woodcock • Alumni Publications Committee: Samuel Mencow '37, chairman • Paul J. Geary 71 • James S. Demetry '58 • Judith Donahue SIM '82
• William J. Firla Jr. '60 • William R. Grogan '46 • Carl A. Keyser '39 • Robert C. Labonte '54 • Roger N. Perry Jr. '45 • Harlan B. Williams '50 • The WPI Journal (ISSN 0148-6128)
is published quarterly for the WPI Alumni Association by the Office of University Relations. Second class postage paid at Worcester, MA, and additional mailing offices.
Printed by The Lane Press, Burlington, Vt.
Diverse views presented in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or official WPI policies. We welcome letters to the editor. Address correspondence
to the Editor, WPI Journal, WPI, 100 Institute Road, Worcester, MA 01609-2280. Phone: (508) 831-5609, FAX: (508) 831-5604, Electronic mail (Internet): mwdorsey@wpi.wpi.edu.
Postmaster: If undeliverable, please send form 3579 to the address above. Do not return publication. Entire contents "'1992, Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
ADVANCE WORD
A Trillion Here, A Trillion There. . .
T
I he late Senator Everett
I Dirksen is alleged to
A have said once, "A bil-
lion here and a billion there
and pretty soon you're talking
big money." Maybe it's infla-
tion, or perhaps it's the nature
of progress, but a billion just
isn't what it used to be.
Once upon a time Ameri-
cans gasped at multibillion-
dollar federal budgets; now
our budget deficits alone run
into billions — some 400 bil-
lion at last report. As for the
budgets themselves, they've
already broken through the
$1 trillion mark and they
show no signs of stopping
there. Major corporations now
measure their revenues in
billions of dollars, tapping into markets for
consumer electronics, cars and computers
that run well into the trillion-dollar range.
It seems that if you want attention
these days, you'd better be talking tril-
lions. That is especially true in science.
Chemists once seemed content to measure
things in parts per billion, but now they
routinely hunt down that one atom in a
trillion. A new accelerator under construc-
tion in Texas will push subatomic particles
along with an astounding 20 trillion elec-
tron volts of energy (assuming it doesn't
get cut out of that $1 trillion-plus federal
budget). And, as you'll read in our cover
story, computer scientists are now souping
up their computation engines with hopes
of breaking the trillions-of-instructions-
per-second barrier.
But what's most amazing about this
rush to count higher, measure finer and
compute faster is just how blase we've
become about really big numbers. As we
casually bandy about the latest federal
budget proposal or the newest advance in
scientific technology, do we really know
what we're talking about? Does anyone
truly know how big a trillion is?
It may simply be beyond our capacity to visualize very large
numbers like the 100 billion stars in the known universe or the
trillions of instructions high-performance computers may soon
be able to process in the space of a second.
Sure, on paper it seems simple. A trillion
is 1012 or the number 1 followed by 12
zeros. Looked at another way, it's a million
million or a thousand billion. But frankly,
knowing that doesn't make it any easier to
visualize. The fact of the matter is, it simply
requires more imagination than the human
brain can muster.
It would seem we are most comfortable
with numbers we can see. For example, on
a clear, dark night you can see up to 6,000
stars with the naked eye (depending upon
how good your naked eye is). That's a
reasonably big number, but you can still
see it. There they are — 6,000 stars. But tell
someone that there are another 100 billion
stars out there in the known universe that
he can't see, and you may as well be talking
about the number of angels dancing on the
head of a pin.
In cases like this, science writers natu-
rally turn to comparisons. For big numbers,
the comparison of choice seems to take the
form, "if a trillion objects (bricks, volley-
balls, science writers) were laid end-to-end
or stacked like cordwood, how far would
they stretch?" In his delightful children's
book, How Much is a Million?, David M.
Schwartz uses this and
other approaches.
In words and illustra-
tions, Schwartz tells his
young readers that a mil-
lion kids perched on one
another's shoulders would
stand more than 46 times
taller than the highest plane
has ever flown; a billion kids
would stretch three times as
far as the Moon; a trillion
kids would nearly reach the
rings of Saturn. What if you
wanted to count to a trillion?
Schwartz asks. Well, count-
ing to a million would take
23 days. Counting to a billion
would take about 95 years.
And, if you could keep count-
ing for more than 190,000
years, you might just reach a trillion.
It's pretty clear that no matter what
comparison you choose, you've got to use
some pretty big numbers or expansive
concepts to convey the idea of a trillion.
Just how far are the rings of Saturn, any-
way? (They're about 800 million miles
away from Earth, in case you didn't know
— it took the first Voyager probe 38 months
to reach them). How long is 190,000 years?
Of you could go back that far in time you'd
find Homo sapiens still in the process of
evolving from our ancestral species on
the plains of Africa.)
Perhaps it is enough simply to be
amazed by concepts like a trillion — to
know that they are beyond our ability
to understand (which is, in itself, a sort
of understanding). Perhaps by over-
analyzing, we lose the sense of childlike
wonderment that goes along with thinking
about the astounding scale (both small
and large) of the universe around us. As
playwright Eugene lonesco once wrote,
"Explanation separates us from astonish-
ment, which is the only gateway to the
incomprehensible."
—Michael Dorsey
Summer 1992
ffim^^^^MaBi^^BBgBWMBSBBiaflBSHWBMlMKl^JWIIilllilll IIIHIflll'lgBB8Heaa^WB3HB«pa^W«B
"Where is the Money Going?"
To the Editor:
I am truly amazed at the lack of outcry
about the way WPI spends its money.
Either nobody reads the Journal, or no-
body really cares. I'm not sure which I find
more frightening.
In the Winter 1992 issue I found an
article entitled "Climbing Between the
Peaks." In it I discovered yet another pitch
to alumni for more money. The justification
presented was incredibly weak. However,
what really disturbed me was Table 2
(reprinted here). WPI's endowment has
increased by roughly 6 percent per year in
constant dollars since 1985!
That means endowment funds have
increased by over $2 million each year
after inflation is accounted for. Tuition
revenue has increased by almost 8 per-
cent each year after inflation! And still
our beloved alma mater cannot make ends
meet. Where is the money going? Indus-
try salaries have not even come close to
keeping pace, before inflation. Entry-level
salaries — in constant dollars — have actu-
ally decreased over the same period.
In the Summer 1991 issue of the Journal
I found an article that proudly trumpeted
WPI's $450,000 landscaping budget. Even
at the ludicrous current tuition rate, a
Hitting the Ceiling
To the Editor:
The Spring 1992 issue was an excellent one.
I particularly enjoyed your series "The Dis-
coverers." But I was seriously jarred when
I came across the term "ceiling wax"
(page 5, column 2).
I'll grant that sealing wax (once widely
used to seal letters, batteries, jars and,
possibly, vacuum systems) is not often
seen these days. But how often do you
see anyone waxing a ceiling?
I hope there are a few literate engineers
still around, and that I'm not the only one
who noticed.
Charles H. Chandler '84
Lexington, Mass.
Table 2. SOME REPRESENTATIVE CHANGES
IN ASSETS, REVENUE AND EXPENDITURES AT WPI
FY1985*
(in millions
of dollars)
FY1991*
(in millions Change
of dollars) (in percent)
Endowment 38.2 51.3 34.3
Tuition/Fees Revenue 12.4 18.3 47.6
Total Revenues 27.3 32.7 19.7
Instruction & Library 7.8 10.1 29.5
Financial Aid 3.9 6.3 61.5
Operations and
Plant Maintenance 2.2 2.2 0
"Constant dollars, Basis: 1978
(Source: 1990-91 WPI Annual Report)
50 percent cut in landscaping would pay
for 10 full scholarships. I have been told
the landscaping is necessary to attract
students. I suggest the best way to in-
crease enrollment is to reduce tuition.
In times of recession, real-world organi-
zations must carefully consider and priori-
tize their spending. Everything must be
evaluated for its contribution to the core
business. If you are truly planning for
future growth, you should first market
your organization carefully. What could
be a better marketing tool than a satisfied
alumnus? I suspect alumni are responsible
for far more enrollments than shrubs or
stone monuments.
Second, you should invest only in
facilities and tools directly related to
current production, as well as in research
devoted to advancing your future busi-
ness. I'm sure a renovated Alden Memorial
will be beautiful, but how does it contrib-
ute to engineering and science education?
Alden is a fringe benefit, not a prerequisite.
The third thing you should do is care-
fully invest in areas that will produce
revenue indefinitely. A large portion of
WPI's income comes from alumni. Why
not invest in programs that produce more
alumni? How much income does Alden
Memorial generate yearly? How much
will we get from the new headstone on
Institute Road?
In my opinion, the priorities for spend-
ing should be (1) student financial aid or
tuition reduction, (2) faculty compensa-
tion, (3) direct-impact facilities such as
classrooms, laboratories and student
housing, and (4) administrative expenses.
All other items are optional, and should
be paid for by alumni who think them
important.
I believe WPI is not being managed
responsibly. I call on the administration
to justify how it can spend millions of
dollars each year on things like landscap-
ing and marble facades when there are
thousands of bright, creative kids in
desperate need of scholarship aid.
If there is not enough money to go
around, I recommend administrative staff
and salary cuts. That's what we are facing
in industry today. When intelligent
businesspeople are short on resources,
they cut overhead, not production. If
WPI's administrators cannot find a way to
live on a budget that increases every
year — even after inflation — they should
resign in favor of others with the neces-
sary competence. I might suggest that
future hirings be made from industry,
rather than academia. WPI could use a
large dose of real-world expertise.
If you agree, I suggest you contact the
administration and let them know. Con-
sider designating your contributions to
WPI for financial aid only. If you disagree,
contact them anyway. They need to know
someone is keeping an eye on them. The
time for fiscal responsibility at WPI has
come, and it's going to be here for a good
long while.
Peter M. Schoonmaker '80
Woburn, Mass.
WPI JOURNAL
INVESTIGATIONS
Making Cancer Killers Even Deadlier
While the many forms of cancer
that can attack the human body
remain major killers, treat-
ments that employ carefully administered
doses of radiation or chemical agents have
proven highly effective in destroying tumors
and prolonging the lives of cancer victims.
But the success of radiotherapy and chemo-
therapy strongly depend upon the degree
to which tumor cells are oxygenated, a con-
dition that has proven difficult to either
measure or control.
With a three-year, $180,000 grant from
the Biomedical Engineering Research Grants
Program of The Whitaker Foundation of
Mechanicsburg, Pa., Christopher H. Sotak,
assistant professor of biomedical engineer-
ing, is developing a new noninvasive tech-
nique for measuring tumor oxygenation that
should make cancer treatments more effec-
tive. The method employs magnetic reso-
nance (MR), a powerful diagnostic tool that
combines a strong magnetic field and radio
waves to produce highly detailed images of
the body.
Radiation and many types of chemo-
therapy are most effective when tumor cells
receive adequate levels of oxygen (a few
chemical agents actually work best when
oxygen levels are low). Radiotherapy works
by removing electrons from the DNA of
tumor cells. If molecular oxygen is present,
it binds to the sites from which the elec-
trons were removed, preventing the cells
from either carrying on life-sustaining func-
tions or reproducing.
Unfortunately, the rapid growth of most
tumors outpaces the ability of the body to
supply them with oxygen. As a result, cancer
cells that are not near blood vessels tend
to be oxygen deprived, a condition known
CF,-CF,-CF,-CF,
CF,-CF,-CF,-CF,
Above, Sotak in WPI's Magnetic Resonance Imaging Laboratory. Below, the
magnetic resonance spectrum for a perfluorinated hydrocarbon. This spec-
trum changes in response to changes in tissue oxygenation, making these
compounds ideal noninvasive probes for this parameter, which can affect
the success of cancer treatments.
as hypoxia. To overcome this problem,
radiotherapy is usually administered in a
series of doses, with the first dose killing
well-oxygenated cells that lie near blood
vessels and subsequent doses attacking
more distant layers of previously hypoxic
(and hence radioresistant) tumor cells that
frequently become reoxygenated after the
death of the intervening cells.
"The problem is," Sotak says, "tumors
reoxygenate at different rates. The ideal
time to administer another dose could be
several hours later or several days later.
We'd like to be able to monitor the time
course of reoxygenation and determine
the most efficacious time to administer
subsequent doses."
To increase the effectiveness of any
one dose of radiation, physicians can use
chemicals called adjuvants that prepare the
tumor by increasing the oxygen flow to the
hypoxic cells. But gauging the effectiveness
of adjuvants in the laboratory has proven
a difficult, laborious process and their
effectiveness in actual practice is not well
understood, Sotak says.
Using the method he is developing in
WPI's Magnetic Resonance Imaging Labora-
tory at the Massachusetts Biotechnology
Research Park in Worcester, Sotak says it
should be possible to accurately monitor
changes in tumor oxygenation after an adju-
vant is administered and determine the opti-
mal time after its injection to start radiation.
Sotak's method makes use of chemicals
called perfluorinated hydrocarbons, which,
because they can dissolve up to 50 percent
of their own weight in molecular oxygen,
have been employed for many years as arti-
ficial blood substitutes. When administered
as emulsions in large doses, perfluorinated
hydrocarbons will accumulate in the reticu-
loendothelial system of the liver, spleen and
bone marrow. But they are also captured by
macrophages, cells that protect the body
from infection and foreign particles.
Because macrophages tend to congre-
gate at the sites of tumors, Sotak in earlier
research was able to use perfluorinated hy-
drocarbons as contrast agents — chemicals
that make tumors stand out more readily in
MR images. But what makes them especially
valuable in his current research is the fact
that a property of the signal they emit in an
MR scanner is directly proportional to the
amount of oxygen in the tissue surrounding
them. That makes them ideal noninvasive
probes for measuring tumor oxygenation.
Summer 1992
In work already completed, Sotak and
a team of graduate students that includes
Paul S. Hees (who will receive his Ph.D. in
biomedical engineering from WPI this sum-
mer), Bernard J. Dardzinski, and Limin Li,
a postdoctoral fellow in physics, have used
perfluorinated hydrocarbons to measure
oxygen levels in tumors and have moni-
tored changes in tumor oxygenation follow-
ing the administration of nicotinamide, an
adjuvant for radiotherapy.
"We've convinced ourselves that the
method works and that we can measure
physiologically relevant changes in oxygen
tension as a result of administering these
pharmaceuticals," Sotak says. The next
steps will be to study additional adjuvants
and then to begin looking at how oxygen-
ation within tumors changes after radiation
or chemotherapy are administered, he adds.
The studies Sotak's research team has
done to date have employed a technique
called magnetic resonance spectroscopy,
which measures the average oxygenation
level for an entire tumor. Since oxygen
levels can vary widely within the same
tumor— a fact that may prove vital in plan-
ning a course of radio- or chemotherapy—
Sotak is also developing a method that will
display a color-coded, two-dimensional map
of tumor oxygenation throughout a tumor.
This technique should prove useful in eval-
uating spatial differences in the response
of a tumor to treatment.
The ultimate goal of the project, Sotak
says, is to translate the new technique and
the software for displaying the oxygen map
from WPI's research machine to the larger
MR scanners used in clinical practice. To
help make this transition, Sotak will work
with Dr. Thomas Griffin, director of clinical
research in the oncology division of the
University of Massachusetts Medical
School, who serves as a consultant on the
work funded by The Whitaker Foundation.
Once in routine use, perfluorinated
hydrocarbons should prove valuable in
the evaluation of a host of other medical
conditions — including heart disease and
stroke — that are either caused by or result
in changes in tissue oxygenation, Sotak
says. "We believe this method will have
a wide range of applications, and should
open up new doors for clinical diagnosis
and treatment."
The Whitaker Foundation was estab-
lished in 1976 by the late Uncas A. Whitaker,
founder and chairman of AMP Incorporated,
now the world's leading producer of electri-
cal and electronic connecting devices. Bio-
medical engineering has always been the
principal focus of the foundation.
laser protection
In the Blink of an Eye
I lying low above the Persian Gulf,
a U.S. Navy pilot rolls his A-6 and
descends toward an unidentified
destroyer. As the plane levels off, the ship's
crew switches on a laser tracking system
and the beam catches the pilot squarely in
the eye. Blinded and in pain, the airman
loses control of his jet, which spirals into
the gulf and explodes.
While that scenario is fictional, U.S.
military planners worry that as lasers come
to be employed more and more in modern
weapons systems, the potential for dis-
abling eye injuries among military person-
nel—whether accidental or caused by
offensive laser devices — is growing apace.
Of equal importance is the threat lasers
pose to the delicate optical sensors often
used in battlefield equipment.
Spurred by these concerns, the Penta-
gon has been funding efforts aimed at devel-
oping new forms of laser eye protection.
This new technology should also find appli-
cations in civilian research laboratories, on
the manufacturing floor, in medical facili-
ties, and in other places where lasers are
routinely used.
As part of this program, William G.
McGimpsey, assistant professor of chemis-
try, and Stephen J. Weininger, professor of
chemistry, are using a sophisticated laser
technique to create chemical compounds
that might be suitable for use in these new
forms of laser eyewear. Over the past two
years McGimpsey and Weininger have re-
ceived nearly $200,000 in funding for their
research from the U.S. Army Research,
Development and Engineering Center in
Natick, Mass.
One of the goals of this work is to de-
velop eye protection that overcomes the
limitations of laser goggles now commonly
worn to protect the eyes from exposure to
laser beams. "Laboratory eye protectors
use colored filters to block out the intense
light produced by lasers," McGimpsey
says. "Unfortunately, these goggles greatly
reduce the amount of light that reaches
the eye and may also prevent a pilot or
soldier from seeing certain colors, with
potentially dangerous results."
In addition, McGimpsey says, conven-
tional laser goggles can block only selected
frequencies of light. Since many weapons
systems now employ lasers that can be
quickly tuned to any of hundreds of frequen-
cies, the Pentagon wants to develop laser
eyewear that can block a broad spectrum.
"Ideally, these goggles should be clear
in normal light," Weininger adds, "but
when struck by the beam from any laser
should darken enough to cut light trans-
mission by a factor of about 10,000. Then,
just as quickly, they should become clear
Weininger, left, and McGimpsey in the Laser Flash Photolysis Laboratory.
McGimpsey holds a sample of a compound being evaluated for its potential
use in a new form of laser eye protection.
WPI Journal
again. This should all happen within a few
trillionths of a second, so the person wear-
ing the goggles won't even know anything
has happened."
Finding chemicals that will meet those
stringent requirements is a daunting task,
McGimpsey says. To test candidates, he
and Weininger are using a technique called
two-photon-induced photoelectron trans-
fer. The technique takes advantage of the
fact that the coherent light from a laser is
far more intense than normal light from
lamps or the sun and can induce chemical
changes that will occur only upon laser
irradiation.
Working in the Laser Flash Photolysis
Laboratory in the basement of Goddard
Hall, the researchers first expose a chemi-
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In this example, a laser flash excites a com-
pound to an elevated energy state. Before it
can return to ground state, a second flash
bumps it to a higher energy state.
cal sample to a brief pulse of laser light.
Molecules in the sample absorb a photon
from this burst and are excited to a higher
energy state. Before the sample can return
to its original ground state, it is hit with a
second laser pulse, which elevates it to a
still higher energy plateau.
As the sample decays from this higher
energy state to the ground state, it can un-
dergo chemical changes that don't occur
when the same chemical is allowed to de-
cay from a lower energy state. While they
are induced with two separate laser bursts
in the lab, these two-photon reactions can
also occur when a chemical absorbs two
photons from a single laser exposure. Nor-
mal light, on the other hand, is too weak to
cause such two-photon reactions.
The goal, McGimpsey and
■ Weininger say, is to find chemi-
i cals that remain clear at lower
i energy states, but which be-
• come opaque when bumped
] to a higher energy state by
j laser-induced two-photon reac-
j tions. So far, the chemists have
tested about a dozen candidate
molecules. To determine which
organic compounds to test,
Weininger, whose specialty is
organic chemical synthesis,
begins with the qualities de-
sired in the final product and
then works backward on pa-
per through the intermediate,
light-induced chemical reac-
tions to arrive at a promising
starting point.
The chemicals Weininger
->l
synthesizes are actually systems that in-
clude electron donor and electron acceptor
molecules. The transfer of electrons be-
tween the chemicals in these systems allows
them to quickly return to their clear ground
states after they have been darkened by la-
ser light.
Because it is unlikely that any one
chemical system will respond to all frequen-
cies of light, McGimpsey and Weininger say
the goggles that may ultimately result from
their work will probably consist of multiple
thin layers of polymer, each of which will
respond to a different frequency or band of
frequencies. As the work progresses, they
hope to begin testing candidate chemical
systems to see whether they can be suc-
cessfully incorporated into clear polymers.
McGimpsey, who has been working with
two-photon reactions for several years,
says the techniques he and Weininger are
using in this project have many other appli-
cations. For example, in photochemical
machining, two intersecting lasers tuned
to different frequencies can be used to
create highly complex molds by causing
two-photon reactions in specific areas of
a polymer. The reactions degrade the
affected molecules, which can then be
easily removed, leaving behind precisely
hollowed-out spaces.
The Laser Flash Photolysis Laboratory
includes a pulsed Nd/YAG laser, a tunable
flashlamp-pumped dye laser and an Exci-
mer laser, all integrated and controlled by
a computer system. The three-year-old lab
has been equipped, in part, through grants
from the U.S. Army and the Petroleum
Research Fund.
Genetics and the Great Shrimp Deficit
What type of seafood is favored
over all others by people in
every corner of the United
States? If you guess shrimp, you're right.
Each year Americans gobble up millions
of pounds of these squiggling marine crus-
taceans. To satisfy that gargantuan appe-
tite, huge quantities of shrimp must be
imported each year from other countries.
In fact, only 30 percent of the shrimp Ameri-
cans consume each year is caught or grown
in the U.S.
In part, this need for foreign shrimp —
a need that results in an annual trade defi-
cit exceeding $2 billion — is due to the fact
that the species of shrimp Americans
favor— Penaeus vannamei — grows only in
warm water and can, therefore, be harvest-
ed only in the southernmost states. This re-
quirement for warm waters has also limited
shrimp farming in the U.S. to a few locations
in Florida, Hawaii, South Carolina and Texas,
with the result that only a tiny fraction of
the annual U.S. shrimp consumption — about
one hundredth of a percent — comes from
these farms.
To find a way to reduce the annual
shrimp trade deficit, the Gulf Coast Research
Laboratory Consortium, a group of eight uni-
versity and independent laboratories, has
launched the U.S. Marine Shrimp Farming
Program. The goal of the consortium, which
includes the School of Veterinary Medicine
at Tufts University in Grafton, Mass., is to
improve the productivity of U.S. shrimp
farms by developing high-quality, disease-
resistant strains of P. vannamei in much the
same way that agricultural experts have
developed robust strains of poultry and
livestock over the years. Funding for the
program is being provided by the U.S.
Department of Agriculture.
One thrust of the program is to find
strains of shrimp that can resist viral dis-
eases that have already wiped out shrimp
Summer 1992
Buckholt, left, and Bagshaw examine a Southern blot from the shrimp
Penaeus vannamei (the blot is shown below). The dark bands on the blot
correspond to specific fragments of DNA. The technique is used to look for
genetic markers in the shrimp genome.
production in Taiwan and now threaten not
only the farming industry in Southeast Asia
and Central America — the largest such
operations in the world — but wild shrimp
populations, as well. In addition, the consor-
tium hopes to gain a better understanding
of the genetics of P. vannamei in hopes of
finding genetic markers linked to qualities
that enhance shrimp growth and hardiness.
Under subcontract to Tufts University,
Joseph C. Bagshaw, professor and head of
the Biology and Biotechnology Department,
is tackling the latter task. Bagshaw, who has
spent the last two decades studying the ge-
netics of the genus Artemia, which includes
brine shrimp — small crustaceans often used
as food in aquaculture and in home aquari-
ums— is one of the world's foremost experts
on crustacean molecular genetics.
"I have a freezer full of Artemia clones
that we can use as genetic probes in this
work," Bagshaw says. "I also know how to
work with these genes, and I know some
tricks we can use to get these answers
faster." Those tricks will come in handy as
Bagshaw and postdoctoral fellow Michael
A. Buckholt, who recently completed his
Ph.D. in biology at WP1, attempt to locate
suitable markers in the shrimp genome,
a process Bagshaw likens to finding a
needle in a haystack.
"We'll be using the same techniques
geneticists use to find the genes for hu-
man diseases," Bagshaw says. "But unlike
those searches, where the basic biochemi-
cal defect is often understood, we have no
idea what makes shrimp grow faster or
larger. We'll have to do it pretty much by
hunt and peck."
In his research on Artemia, Bagshaw
became the first geneticist to find repeat-
ed sequences — segments of DNA that are
repeated over and over
again — in the genome of a
crustacean, and he says
he and Buckholt will most
likely find similar sequences
in P. vannamei. If so, these
sequences might be employ-
ed as markers, Bagshaw says.
A marker is a gene that
lies near the gene for a dis-
ease or other characteristic
one is studying. Because of
their proximity, the genes
are said to be linked because
they are rarely separated
when segments of DNA
change places or cross over during cell
division. The researchers will find out
how well the repeated sequences work
as markers by seeing if they are linked to
genes that give shrimp the ability to grow
even faster.
"We'll have to do some honest-to-
goodness shrimp genetics," he notes.
"We'll breed the shrimp and test them for
the presence of the markers, and then see
which of the markers always shows up in
the fast-growing individuals. It's a lot of
empirical work."
Once enhanced growth characteristics
can be linked to specific markers, Bagshaw
says, the chromosomal regions adjacent
to these markers can be examined in more
detail in an effort to characterize the spe-
cific genes that impart those favorable
characteristics.
Bagshaw will also search the shrimp
genome for a class of genes found in most
organisms that seem to be related to
growth. Research has shown that small
segments of these so-called homeotic
genes are almost identical from one spe-
cies to another. Using a technique called
the polymerase chain reaction, Bagshaw
and Buckholt will zero in on these seg-
ments and then clone the regions around
them many times over to get enough DNA
to study.
"The genes in these regions should be
associated with shrimp growth," Bagshaw
says, "though we won't know exactly how.
But they are obviously going to be desir-
able markers for favorable growth charac-
teristics."
Armed with the knowledge that will
come out of Bagshaw's lab, shrimp farmers
should be able to develop new strains that
will enable them to grow more shrimp and
to get them to market faster (the process
now takes about six months). Using similar
techniques, other researchers are hoping
to find genes that will give the shrimp
a selective resistance to disease. "This
research should give the U.S. a virtual
monopoly on the production of superior
strains of high-quality, specific-pathogen-
free shrimp," Bagshaw says.
But his research could be taken one
step further, he adds. "1 would like to think
about the prospect of literally genetically
engineering shrimp the way we now engi-
neer other domestic animals," he says. "We
could produce shrimp that can grow even
faster — maybe even shrimp that can grow
well in the colder waters of the rest of the
United States. 1 think this will be doable
someday."
— Michael Dorsey
WPI Journal
EXPLORATIONS
Designing Better Ups and Downs
Major Qualifying Project (MQP) by Heather M. Harrington '92,
Peter A. Manor '93 and Sean P. Moore '92.
Advisor: Frank D. DeFalco, professor of civil engineering.
It's been said that what goes up must
come down. That's especially true of
roller coasters, where the secret of a
thrilling ride is not only how high up you
go, but how fast you come down — and, of
course, the lifts, loops, banks and curls in
between.
With guidelines, specifications and de-
signs provided by two roller coaster com-
panies, and with the benefit of their own
research into roller coasters at Busch Gar-
dens, Disney World, and other theme and
amusement parks, civil engineering majors
Harrington, Manor and Moore used com-
puter-modeled structural analysis and de-
sign techniques to plan their own steel
roller coaster. Theirs was one of three
projects in civil engineering to receive
WPI's 1992 Provost's MQP Award.
In their report, the students explain
that it is not speed alone (up to 60 miles
per hour in some rides) that gives roller
coaster riders that characteristic rush of
adrenaline. Through strategic twists and
turns, the truly great rides keep passen-
gers in suspense by preventing them from
seeing too far ahead. This limited line of
sight provokes screams of terror and de-
light by creating the illusion that the cart is
about to collide with a steel girder or ca-
reen off the track, until — at the last mo-
ment— it miraculously veers off onto a
safer path.
To design their roller coaster, the stu-
dents used ISDS/STAAD, a structural engi-
neering program. In completing the design,
they considered the geometry of the track,
the effects of varying the heights of the
peaks, the gravitational forces that would
be experienced by the carts and their pas-
sengers, and the various loads on the
structure — including those created by
wind and ice. They also had to think about
the thrill the design would provide riders
and about the aesthetics of the finished
product.
"Roller coasters have to appeal to the
eye of potential riders," they say. "The best
ones have some sort of geometry that will
make spectators want to experience the
ride — things like vertical loops and cork-
screw-like sections."
At 283 feet long, 106 feet
wide and 85 feet high, the
students' roller coaster
would fit on an average foot-
ball field. It would begin
with a lift and then a drop of
more than 73 feet, which
would provide the momen-
tum needed to propel the
cart through the remainder
of the 1,202 feet of track.
Traveling at an average
speed of 25 miles per hour and hitting a top
speed of just over 45 miles per hour, riders
would experience one vertical and one hori-
zontal loop before reaching the end.
"Civil engineers most often deal with
project management, water works, the envi-
ronment, roads, parks, subdivisions and
bridges," the students say. "Structural engi-
neering is one aspect of civil engineering
that can provide solutions to a host of other
Standing, from left, Manor, Moore and Harrington.
Randall W. Levere '93, seated, created the sim-
ulation seen on the screen.
construction-related projects. One less
obvious challenge is the roller coaster."
For the student team, the roller coaster
project was a chance to use modern tech-
nology and sound design principles to
break new ground. In their words, "this
project provided the opportunity to use a
civil engineering education to engineer a
solution to a problem that does not have
a textbook answer."
Flying by the Power of the Sun
MQP by Agnes Chan '92, Kwok-Hung Cheung '92, Kristin Conley '92, Paul Crivelli '92,
Christian T. Javorski '92, Nancy P. Torrey '92, Michael Traver '92, Freddy Mathias
Pranajaya '94, Jeffrey D. Rembold '93 and Sujay R. Setlur '93.
Project Director: Andreas N. Alexandrou, associate professor of mechanical engineering.
Advisors: William W. Durgin, professor of mechanical engineering;
Ralph F. Cohn and David J. Olinger, assistant professors of mechanical engineering.
Graduate Assistant: Charlotte Cody '90 (master's candidate).
E
nvironmental problems such as the
depletion of the ozone layer are spur-
I ring scientists and engineers to con-
sider solar power as an ecologically sensi-
tive alternative to fossil fuels to power
everything from automobiles to aircraft.
The students, working in four teams,
designed and constructed the Multi-
purpose, Remotely Piloted Vehicle
(MPRPV), a prototype of a design that
could be used in surveillance and recon-
naissance missions. The ultimate goal of
the plane, which the students named
"Surya," the Hindu word for sun, was to
demonstrate the effectiveness of solar
power as an alternative energy source.
In June the design team presented a
paper on the MPRPV at the Eighth Annual
Summer Conference of NASA/USRA Uni-
versity Advanced Engineering Design
Program for Space and Aeronautics.
The University Advanced Engineering
Design Program brings together NASA engi-
neers and students and faculty from engi-
neering schools around the nation by inte-
grating current and future NASA engineer-
ing design topics into the university cur-
riculum. Selected universities, including
Summer 1992
Saving Time and Money
MQP by Michael C. Helm '92 and
Elizabeth A. Plessis '92.
Advisor: Enio £ Velazco,
assistant professor of management.
Sponsor Digital Equipment Corp.
Digital Equipment Corp.'s Westmin-
ster, Mass., facility is the company's
primary finished goods distribution
and consolidation center in the U.S. Be-
cause of the tremendous volume of trans-
actions processed at this distribution cen-
ter, Digital has been working for several
years to implement time- and money-sav-
ing improvements through its own total
quality management program.
To improve competitiveness, the com-
pany must identify customer requirements
and ensure that Digital personnel and pro-
cesses meet those needs. In addition to
producing high-quality, reliable products,
Digital has recognized that customers'
expectations must include accurate billing
and fast, safe deliveries.
To address these issues, Digital has
developed a methodology called AAT to
help employees decrease hidden waste
in manufacturing and administrative pro-
cesses. Digital requires that problems be
addressed and solutions conform to
ISO 9000, a certification that any company
planning to do business with the European
Economic Community must obtain.
Helm and Plessis were the first to intro-
duce AAT to employees at the Westminster
warehouse. At the request of the sponsor,
they focused on analyzing the receiving
and storage processes for incoming mate-
rial. In the course of their research they
interviewed engineers and other Digital
employees working in the process. They
also examined the processes through
observation and hands-on experience.
The students separated each step in
each process, designed flow charts, com-
piled a list of forms, and identified poten-
tial areas for improvement within each
process — such as idle time, double han-
dling of goods, and bottlenecks. They de-
termined that delays in data entry kept
workers idle for short periods of time, and
that delays in checking materials resulted
in bottlenecks in quality control.
Their recommended improvements
included moving data entry (currently
housed in separate quarters) to the ware-
house floor to eliminate lag time and enable
data-entry employees to assume more re-
sponsibilities. They suggested eliminating
duplicate forms, storing software in a single
area, and, ultimately, converting to bar
From left are Helm, Velazco
and Plessis.
codes to identify all items in the warehouse.
"The work these students did at Digital
was of great value to the company," says
Velazco. "Digital was preparing to be au-
dited for ISO 9000 certification at the time
the students were working on their MQP in
Westminster, and their findings assisted
the company in improving this facility."
"Digital has a strong policy of involve-
ment with local universities," says Ken
Kaminsky, a logistics analyst at Digital. "By
providing students an opportunity to gain
real business experience, we benefit from
their knowledge and application of the
latest technologies. This project, one of
four our facility sponsored this year, gave
us a fresh look at the work we do. It has
resulted in real process improvement."
From left with the Multi-Purpose Remotely Piloted Vehicle (MPRPV) are Chan,
Conley, Traver, Javorski, Torrey, Crivelli and Cheung.
WPI, are aligned with various NASA cen-
ters. Students choose design projects in
consultation with NASA, which provides
technical expertise and guidance for the
duration of the project. The projects must
culminate in an oral presentation at the
annual conference.
The WPI teams designed the MPRPV to
perform a sustained figure-8 flight pattern
at an altitude of 50 meters using only solar
power. Four test flights at WPI's Alumni
Field were videotaped and shown during
the NASA presentation.
The plane was constructed by hand
using composite materials, especially a
carbon-fiber-epoxy laminate selected for
its strength and light weight. The design
resembles a glider and measures about
2.5 meters from tip to tail. Its wings spans
4.5 meters and support 120 solar cells
donated by Mobil Solar Corp. The tail is
constructed of balsa wood and plastic
foam; its supporting spar is made of
carbon-fiber composite materials.
"The test flights demonstrated the
aircraft's stability and controllability,"
Durgin says. "During March the solar angle
became sufficient to provide energy for
the maintenance of level flight with a slight
reserve for climbing. This thin power mar-
gin was the crux of the design effort. The
trade-off between solar cell area and air-
craft weight provided students a highly
challenging design constraint."
— Bonnie Gelbwasser
WPI JOURNAL
The Soul of a New Center
With the creation of the new Center for High-Performance Computing,
WPI has become a major player in the hottest quest in computing — the
race to develop a new generation of massively parallel high-performance
computers that will revolutionize the practice of science and engineering.
By Diane Benison
r
kg or computer scientists, they are the equivalent ol
I the Holy Grail. They call them the three T's: tips,
1 terabytes and terabps (pronounced terabips). In
laymen's terms, they translate to computation speeds in
the range of trillions of instructions per second, memories
capable of storing trillions of bytes of information, and
communications systems that can send information over
an optical fiber at the rate of trillions of bits per second.
In each case, the goals are to increase the power of
today's best supercomputing systems by a factor of a
few hundred to a few thousand. Around the world, a
small number of corporate, university and government
laboratories are pursuing this dream, hoping to be the
first to make machines and systems that meet the
challenge of the three T's.
In the United States, these efforts have been bolstered
by a major commitment from the federal government,
which sees the tera race as a way to help America capture
the lead in what may well be one of the most important
technological developments of the 1990s. The High-
Performance Computing and Communications Initiative
(HPCCI), passed by Congress and signed into law by
President Bush late last year, will allocate to eight federal
agencies — including the Pentagon's Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA)— $3 billion over the
next five years to fund research and development work
in the three Ts.
One of the overriding goals of the push toward tips,
terabytes and terabps is the creation of computing tech-
nology with which scientists can attack the "grand chal-
lenges." A decade ago, Nobel Laureate Kenneth Wilson
drew up a list of 10 scientific problems whose solutions
will require computing power far in excess of what is now
available. In describing the scope of the HPCCI last year,
the president's science advisor, D. Allan Bromley, restated
these challenges. They include such massive problems as
deciphering the human genome, predicting global climate
change a century in advance, and taming nuclear fusion.
In a far-reaching move last October, WPI entered the
tera race (and in the process, took a giant step into the
national spotlight) when its Board of Trustees approved
the creation of the Center for High-Performance Com-
puting (CHPC). With the birth of the center, WPI was
transformed overnight from a minor player in high-
performance computing to a major player, notes WPI
President Jon C. Strauss.
"Launching CHPC was an opportunity for WPI to play
a major role in the development of a field of significant
importance — not just to this institution, but to our soci-
ety," Strauss says. "High-performance computation will
be one of the keys to improving all aspects of American
technology for the next decade and beyond."
Strauss took part in a press conference at the Massa-
chusetts State House on March 4, 1992, during which
CHPC was formally announced (the center had been
placed in operation earlier in the year). At that press
conference, Massachusetts governor William F. Weld said,
"The Center for High-Performance Computing is another
example of how we've embraced technology transfer in
Massachusetts. As the largest center of its kind on the
East Coast, it bolsters our national leadership in this im-
portant initiative and puts us in a strong position to reap
the best developments from federal research."
The center is the "jewel of the East Coast in the tech-
nology transfer movement," added Steven Tocco, state
economic affairs secretary. "It's a linchpin in our efforts
to make sure we don't get devastated by the downturn
[in defense spending in Massachusetts]."
CHPC was the brainchild of David Cyganski 75,
professor of electrical engineering at WPI, and Thomas
A. Probert, the center's founding director. The two began
talking about the idea last June when Probert, who was
then director of research for Encore Computer Corp.,
learned that Encore, having acquired the computer divi-
sion of Gould Computer Systems from Nippon Mining Co.
of Japan., was planning to move its research division
from Marlboro, Mass., to its headquarters in Ft. Lauder-
dale, Fla. Probert says the company's high-performance
computer research group was reluctant to go. When
Encore and the researchers could not reach an agreeable
solution, Probert and Cyganski proposed an alliance
between the Encore group and WPI.
Prior to Encore's announcement, the company had
developed a close working relationship with the Institute,
primarily through the efforts of Cyganski and Probert. For
example, Cyganski, who in addition to his faculty position
was then vice provost and vice president for information
systems and services, was involved in WPI's decision to
10
Summer 1992
Holding a prototype of one of the products of the Center for High-Perf ormance Computing, director
Thomas A. Probert, center, poses with his staff in the computer room of CHPC headquarters in
Marlboro, Mass. The center is developing a new computer system that will process trillions of
instructions per second.
CHRISTOPHER NAVIN
purchase three of Encore's multiprocessing computers
and communications equipment used throughout the
Institute's campuswide computer network. In addition, he
and Probert, as liaisons for their respective institutions,
had begun to forge links between Encore's research team
and researchers at the university.
In their conversations, Cyganski and Probert outlined
an arrangement that would enable the Encore research
staff to continue its long-standing relationship with
DARPA, while at the same time opening the door to fur-
ther collaborations in high-performance computing be-
tween Probert's group and faculty researchers, graduate
students and undergraduate project teams at WPI. The re-
sult of this brainstorming was CHPC, the Institute's new-
est multidisciplinary research center.
My idea was that building a functional, self-supporting,
academically important, multidisciplinary research cen-
ter can be a hell of an expensive and risky proposition,"
Cyganski says. "I thought this would be an interesting test
of an altogether different approach — and it has worked. It
is self-supporting. And it is contributing to our academic
excellence in a variety of ways."
When the proposal to acquire the Encore research
group was announced on campus, it received the quali-
fied endorsement of the faculty. (Concerned about
the financial risks the center might pose, the faculty
requested that those risks be covered from the endow-
ment and not the operating budget.) But at their meeting
last fall, the Board of Trustees decided the potential ben-
efits of the center (including increased recognition for the
Institute, the enhancement of WPI's research activity, and
the boost the center might offer to the recruitment of new
faculty members and students) outweighed the risks, and
they approved the center unanimously.
Since CHPC has been set up as a cost center, it will
derive no operating funds from the university; instead it
will be supported entirely by federal and industrial mon-
ies. Still, Strauss acknowledges that some of the initial
concern about CHPC will likely linger — on and off cam-
pus— until the center acquires new federal contracts and
until an anticipated growth in nongovernment funding
begins to occur.
Funding, in fact, was one of the key concerns as the
center was being planned. While he says he was confident
DARPA would agree to transfer some of its research mon-
ies from Encore to WPI, Probert was relieved last Novem-
ber when the agency announced it was awarding CHPC a
$10.6 million contract to develop new high-performance
computing technology for the Army and the Navy (see
related story, page 15).
The center has already completed a contract from the
Open Software Foundation to develop a distributed file
WPI Journal
11
David Cyganski, left, and Frederick W. Wheeler '90, who recently received a master's degree in electrical engineering,
work on a problem in image recognition. Understanding the benefits that could accrue to WPI from the center, Cyganski
helped lay the groundwork for CHPC and became its major advocate on campus.
server for its Mach operating system. The
contract is part of a larger project to de-
velop a real-time version of the operating
system for parallel processing computers.
In addition, the center will be seeking funds
from other government agencies, including
the National Science Foundation and the
departments of Commerce and Energy.
Strauss says WPI would not have re-
ceived the DARPA funding without the
Encore group, but Probert credits the com-
bination of his group's previous work with
DARPA and the university's unique educa-
tional program for securing that first con-
tract. Prior to receiving the grant, he notes,
Cyganski gave a briefing on the WPI Plan, the
Institute's project-based undergraduate cur-
riculum, to DARPA officials, who seemed in-
trigued by this innovative educational model.
When WPI created CHPC, it hired as
regular, full-time employees the 25 profes-
sionals and five support staff members who
constituted the Encore research team. The
university decided to locate these new em-
ployees in Marlboro, about 14 miles to the
east of Worcester, because of a lack of ad-
equate space on campus and because most
of the CHPC staff live between Marlboro and
Boston.
Its location and the makeup of its staff
(predominantly full-time professionals,
rather than faculty members and graduate
students) are not the only characteristics
that distinguish CHPC from WPl's other
multidisciplinary research centers; the cen-
ter will also operate according to a different
model. Probert says CHPC is committed to
taking the knowledge and technology it de-
velops in the course of its work and trans-
ferring it rapidly into commercial use.
"Our purpose is to transfer technology,"
he says firmly when asked to define his
vision of the new center. Speaking with the
animation of a man with a mission, he says
he sees CHPC as a change agent, transfer-
ring technology out of the lab, out of the
classroom, out of the world of academic
publication, and into prototypes for prod-
ucts that will then be taken to market and
supported by industry.
Probert, who became familiar with this
process as a principal scientist at MITRE
Corp., as a consultant to the deputy
undersecretary of defense for research and
engineering, and as a founding director of
the Computer and Software Engineering
Division of the Institute for Defense Analy-
sis, says it currently takes far too long for
technological research and development
to make its way into commercial use.
"I spent 10 years in the Department of
Defense working with 'Beltway bandits' and
aerospace contractors," he notes. "I saw
some pretty neat stuff being invented and
developed within university and research
labs, and then saw it sit on the shelf because
12
Summer 1992
it was too advanced, because there was no
market for it at the time, or because it was
just thrown over the transom for the devel-
opment guys to do something with. The
development guys would say, 'We don't
understand this; it wasn't invented here.'
Then they'd go and reinvent the wheel.
"I did a series of studies at DOD looking
at how technology is moved from R&D and
into industrial practice. In the U.S. it can
take 15 years from the time something is
first published to the time 40 percent of it
shows up adopted in industry. It's true
across disciplines. And it's largely a people
problem." Probert says the same process
takes about eight years in Japan, a target
he'd like to aim for at CHPC.
Part of the problem, Probert says, is a
difference in the way the two nations view
base technologies. Japanese manufacturers,
he says, regard base technologies like new
multiprocessing architectures as sharable;
only the specific products that grow out of
those technologies are jealously guarded. In
America, antitrust laws, regulations and cor-
porate suspiciousness make sharing base
technologies difficult. Therefore, competing
companies must each go through the time-
consuming and costly process of inventing
these technologies on their own.
Probert says the CHPC model, which
calls for getting industry directly involved in
the center, is designed to overcome some of
these obstacles to technology transfer. Indi-
viduals and corporations can join CHPC in
a number of ways (see box), each of which
carries with it a different level of financial
and personal commitment and a different
set of benefits.
The highest level of involvement is spon-
sorship, which corporations can earn with
an annual fee of $48,000. The fee entitles
sponsoring companies to bring their own
technology problems to the center for con-
sulting help. It also enables them to set up
bridge programs to transfer technology
prototypes developed at CHPC into early
versions of actual products — called beta ver-
sions— that can then be tested in the field.
Not unlike the Japanese model, the
center's base technology — much of it devel-
oped with the support of government agen-
cies that want to see this new technology
put to widespread use — will be available
to all sponsors, while the details of specific
bridge contracts will be carefully guarded.
Money alone, however, will not get a
company into a bridge program. Bridge par-
ticipants must send two high-level employ-
ees to work with the CHPC staff as the tech-
nology makes its way from research lab to
test site. Probert says he sees this as critical
to the success of the transfer process.
Making the bridge program even more
WPI President Jon C. Strauss, center, speaks to reporters at a State House
press conference held earlier this year to announce the formation of CHPC.
Massachusetts Governor William F. Weld, left, and CHPC director Thomas A.
Probert look on.
attractive is the fact that CHPC will charge no
licensing fees for the technology it develops
under government contracts. Sponsors will
be able to make use of the technology at no
charge, with the proviso that they pay royal-
ties to the center on any product that results
from it. But it is the collaboration between
co-located employees and CHPC staff that
will truly be the key to the successful trans-
fer of technology, Probert notes.
"Technology does not move through dia-
grams and patents, through formulas or
specifications, through literature, or even
through prototypes," he says. "Technology
moves through people. So you put people
together and they develop credibility with
each other, and then they actively transfer
the technology.
"We're going to show them how to take
the things we know how to do and translate
them into products. Then they'll go away and
build those products. We may build them the
beta versions, but they'll build the final prod-
ucts— and they'll sell and support them. But
this is the magic: they won't walk away with
just a thing; they'll have an understanding
that will allow them to modify the technology,
to further it, and to extend it to meet their
particular product dimension."
In attracting potential sponsors, Probert
says the experience of his research and devel-
opment team has been a plus. That experi-
ence includes the successful development of
a number of hardware and software products
for Encore, including a version of Mach for
Encore's parallel processing computers;
the first parallel implementation of Ada, the
programming language used by the defense
department; and a small-scale version of
GigaMax, an early attempt at a massively
parallel computer.
That experience can save sponsors from
making costly mistakes, as one company
(now a sponsor) found out when it visited
the center. "They were trying to build an ag-
gressively packaged processing module and
put it on a board," Probert says. "We said,
'Don't do that. We tried it and found that the
board will delaminate if you use that bond-
ing technology.' They immediately saved
$850,000 by moving the project in a different
direction."
Because building technology bridges is
as much a process of education as it is of
research and development, Probert says
it was a natural move to associate his re-
search group with a university. Strauss
says he agrees, adding that the goal of the
center — finding real-world applications for
leading-edge research — is a particularly
good fit with WPI's "Two Towers" tradition
of combining the academic and the practical
(a philosophy captured in the Institute's
motto, "Lehr und Kunst," which is usually
translated as learning and the skilled arts).
Strauss says he is as enthusiastic about
CHPC as Probert, but for different reasons.
While Probert is excited about the possibil-
ity of changing the way and the speed with
which industry incorporates new computing
technology, Strauss sees a strong relation-
ship developing between CHPC's research
directions and the interests of WPI's Com-
puter Science and Electrical and Computer
Engineering departments.
"I hope some of our regular faculty mem-
bers will become engaged — either as con-
sultants or as staff — in some of the ongoing
WPI Journal
13
Building Bridges:
How to Get Involved in CHPC
One of the primary goals of the
Center for High-Performance
Computing, according to its founder,
Thomas A. Probert, is getting new develop-
ments in computer technology incorporated
into actual products as quickly as possible.
To meet that goal, the center has invited in-
dividuals and American high-technology
companies to become directly involved in
the center.
Currently, CHPC offers four levels of in-
volvement, each of which provides different
advantages, and each of which has a differ-
ent cost associated with it. Here is a quick
look at how individuals and companies can
join the technology transfer process:
Membership: This is intended for indi-
viduals. It is the least expensive level and
entitles one to receive a periodic newsletter
from the center that reviews its research
and technology developments. Members
may also attend an annual symposium on
high-performance computing sponsored
by the center.
Cost: $350 per year
Associate: This level is aimed at compa-
nies. In addition to the benefits of member-
ship, it offers access to the center's in-depth
analysis and technical reports. The reports
focus on specific topics and contain infor-
mation on what the CHPC R&D team has
found — through its own experience and its
industry contacts— to actually work.
Cost: $9,500 per year
Sponsorship: This level is also aimed at
companies. It includes the benefits of the
associate level, plus consulting by the cen-
ter staff to address technology issues on a
time-and-materials basis.
Cost: $48,000 per year
Technology Transfer Programs:
These are sponsor-specific bridge programs
aimed at getting core technology incorpo-
rated quickly into a sponsor's products.
Cost: Negotiated individually on
basis of scope of project
Currently, the emphasis is on signing up
sponsors and developing technology trans-
fer programs. By early summer, CHPC had
four sponsors: Encore Computer Corp., Mer-
cury Computer Systems Co., Data General
Corp. and the Open Software Foundation
(OSF). Some of these members have also
provided the center with equipment. For
example, Data General has leased to CHPC
$750,000 worth of its new Aviion computers
at a substantial discount. In return, the cen-
ter will develop a version of the OSF Mach
operating system to run on the Aviion.
Probert says he expects the center to
have 20 sponsors by the end of its first full
year of operation. Long-term plans call for
the center to sign an unlimited number of
members, 200 associates and 75 sponsors.
He says he also expects that the center will
ultimately be able to handle about 10 bridge
contracts at any one time. To date, two
bridge contracts have been completed and
a third is anticipated.
CHPC work, be it hardware or software de-
velopment," he says. "I would expect that
some of our graduate students would be
supported as research assistants through
CHPC and that more and more of our under-
graduates would do their Major Qualifying
Projects as part of the CHPC's work.
"In addition, I would expect that we will
draw more and more on the CHPC profes-
sional staff to serve as adjunct faculty mem-
bers, teaching courses and possibly some
special professional seminars under the
auspices of WPI. Several staff members are
Ph.D.-trained and fully qualified to accept
faculty appointments."
One of those is Probert, who earned his
master's and doctoral degrees in computer
and information science at the University of
Massachusetts after completing graduate
work in biology at Northeastern University.
In fact, he served as an adjunct professor at
WPI in the 1970s and says he may be back in
the classroom early next year.
Cyganski says Strauss' hopes are already
being realized. "We now have a constant
pump of high-technology information into
our educational program," he notes. "We
have members of the center's staff giving
lectures and co-teaching courses. We have
graduate students completing theses work-
ing hand-in-hand with WPI faculty and CHPC
staff. We have several proposals for further
academic research that have been co-auth-
ored by researchers from the Institute and
the center. I can't believe how much has
happened in just a few months."
Strauss says he sees other benefits ac-
cruing to WPI from the creation and success
of CHPC. In particular, he says the center's
DARPA funding and its ability to attract fed-
eral and industrial sponsors for itself and
for other WPI programs will enhance WPI's
own reputation and credibility among these
funding sources.
"I was a strong proponent of establishing
this operation," he says. "But I'm more ex-
posed on this than I am on most projects,
because generally in my role as facilitator,
I'm promoting an existing faculty member
who is taking on or developing a new enter-
prise. In this instance, we brought in a tailor-
made enterprise and assumed more risk
than the majority of our faculty was com-
fortable with. We could not have done
that without the strong support of Dave
Cyganski and others who have signifi-
cant credibility — well earned and well
deserved — with their faculty colleagues."
Strauss says he hopes alumni and the
rest of the WPI community will share his
vision. "This is an exciting venture that has
excellent promise of success — success that
will be to the benefit of WPI on both the aca-
demic and the recognition fronts," he says.
"I'd like our folks to be excited about the
possibility of making a difference in an im-
portant area. The grand challenges of com-
putation are all means to an end. The end, of
course, is the computational ability that will
enable us to do better science and to learn
more about our world."
Probert echoes Strauss' hopes. "I want to
be in the situation of MIT's Draper Labs," he
says. "Draper turns down hundreds of mil-
lions of dollars of research work and con-
tract work every year. They do that based
on the fact that they're full up; they can't
take any more.
"But there's not a single military radar
project in the country that doesn't go
through Draper Labs. Draper is the place
to go to understand radar. You cannot get
a project funded, and it will be questioned
in Congress and in the military, unless you
have a Draper guy look at it. That gives you
an idea of their reputation. We want that
reputation for CHPC."
A former newspaper editor, Diane Benison
is now a free-lance writer and editor who
also teaches journalism in Clark University's
College of Professional and Continuing
Education.
14
Summer 1992
Divide and Conquer
The secret to building computers that
can handle trillions of instructions per
second lies in splitting problems into
pieces and solving them simulta-
neously on hundreds— or even hun-
dreds of thousands — of individual
processors. Here's an introduction to
the brave new world of high-perfor-
mance computing.
By Michael Dorsey
In 1959 WPI purchased one of its first
digital computers, an IBM 610 Autopoint.
Running at peak speed the machine
could execute a few thousand instructions
each second. Over the next few decades,
computer speeds increased dramatically. By
1980, when the Institute acquired a Digital
Equipment Corp. DEC-20, mainframes were
routinely cranking through programs at the
astounding rate of a million instructions per
second (mips), or about 1,000 times as fast
as the IBM 610.
Today, just over a decade later, the stage
is being set for a million-fold jump in speed
over computers like the DEC-20. The latest
generation of supercomputers are already
processing billions of instructions per sec-
ond (bips), and a growing number of high-
tech companies are setting their sights on
the trillions of instructions per second (tips)
mark. (Last fall, Cambridge-based Thinking
Machines Inc. announced it had crossed
that magic boundary in the laboratory with
its newest Connection Machine.)
How fast is a trillion instructions per sec-
ond? Think about it this way: An excellent
typist may tap out about 75 words a minute.
If the average word is about six characters
long, that amounts to 450 characters per
minute or 7.5 individual keystrokes— just
over one word — a second. In one second the
IBM 610 could have processed at least 1,000
characters, or about the number of words
To Mesh Router
VME
Interface
T
r^
Cache
Cache
Cache
Cache
The Lynx node being developed by the Center for High-Performance Com-
puting consists of four powerful Motorola 881 10 processors with their own
memory caches, 256 million bytes of memory and devices that will connect
the module to a fiber-optic network.
on two-thirds of a double-spaced typewrit-
ten page.
In one second the DEC-20 would have
gone through a million characters, or about
the number of words in two 250-page nov-
els. By contrast, a one-tips computer could
race through a trillion characters in that
same second. That's like typing all of the
words in 2,000 novels in the blink of an eye.
The increase in computing speed achieved
over the past three decades is akin to taking
a jet that can fly 1,000 miles an hour and
turning it into a starship that can travel
1,500 times the speed of light.
Reaching for the tips prize has required
a new approach to computing. Traditionally,
a computer has consisted of a single proces-
sor, some form of storage or memory, and
various input and output devices like key-
boards and printers. Like a lone typist who
completes a manuscript one character at
a time, a single-processor computer plods
through programs in serial fashion — one
instruction at a time.
To make computers faster, designers
have turned to faster processors and have
found ways to pack components closer to-
gether on integrated circuits to shorten the
distance electrons must travel as they whiz
around these chips (see illustration, pages
16 to 17). But designers who follow this ap-
proach ultimately run up against barriers
caused by the physical limitations inherent
in the materials they use to make computer
chips. Even exotic substances like gallium
arsenide, which may be used in the next
generation of supercomputers, have inher-
ent speed limits.
But there is another avenue to greater
speed. Just as one can get a 10-chapter book
typed 10 times more quickly by giving each
chapter to a different typist, a computer can
work through a computer program much
faster if the program is first split into pieces,
each of which can then run on a separate
processor. This technique, called multi-
processing or parallel computing, is the
(Continued on page 18)
WPI Journal
15
The Road to the Tips Machine.
1
Computing in a
Straight Line
Traditionally, computers have
performed tasks in a serial or
step-by-step fashion, the way an
individual craftsman builds a
product. In these machines,
which include most personal
computers and mainframes,
a single processor carries out
one instruction at a time.
) Faster,
il. Faster, Faster
The first supercomputers achieved
high speeds by accelerating the
computer's internal clock, making
the processor race through instruc-
tions at a faster pace. This was
accomplished by building smaller,
faster circuits that could process
information much more quickly.
Some designers have experimented
with still-faster materials, such as
gallium arsenide, but so far these
have proved difficult to work
with and are less reliable than
the silicon traditionally used in
computer chips.
3 Racing Down
the Pipeline
There are physical limita-
tions to how fast one can make
components or how closely one
can pack them together. To
add more speed, some super-
computer designers split the
central processor into sub-
processors, each of which
carries out just part of an in-
struction— much like workers
on an assembly line each do
one part of a task. As the second
subprocessor does its job, the
first can be starting on the next
instruction and so
on, saving time.
16
Summer 1992
4
Vectoring
for Speed
Many supercomputers use a
vectored architecture in which
several subprocessors simulta-
neously perform the exact
same operation on every num-
ber in an array of data, called
a vector. Today the dominant
supercomputer design is sev-
eral vector processors linked
together. These machines gen-
erally run at the low end of the
bips range (that's billions of
instructions per second).
5 In Numbers
There is Speed
The latest trend in super-
computing is called the massively
parallel machine, in which prob-
lems are broken up into many
pieces and run on hundreds or
even thousands of processors.
Some of these designs operate on
the principle of single-instruction,
multiple-data (SIMD — pronounced
sim-dee), in which each active pro-
cessor is always performing the
same task as every other processor.
To reach the tips range — trillions
of instructions per second — SIMD
computers require many thousands
of processors.
6 Processors
With Minds of
Their Own
The other approach in massively
parallel computers is the mul-
tiple-instruction, multiple data
(M1MD, or mim-dee) mode, in
which a smaller number of pro-
cessors work independently,
performing different operations
on different pieces of data. The
major challenge in using either
SIMD or MIMD machines is writ-
ing programs that effectively
break down problems to take
advantage of the speed inherent
in having many, many processors
working as a team.
WPI Journal
17
(Continued from page 15)
one most designers of high-performance
machines are turning to.
There are two basic approaches to multi-
processing. The first is called single instruc-
tion, multiple data or SIMD (pronounced
sim-dee). In SIMD machines the processors
behave like galley slaves, each performing
the exact same operation at the same time
on different bits of data. In an image pro-
cessing application, for example, one might
want to quickly change the color of every
picture element in a television image. With a
SIMD computer, you'd assign one processor
to each element, allowing the computer to
accomplish the changeover in one step (on
a single-processor machine, in contrast, the
changeover would take as many steps as
there are picture elements).
SIMD computers derive their speed from
sheer numbers, rather than from the power
of the individual processors (one Connec-
tion Machine currently on the market em-
ploys 128,000 processors). But to use this
computing horsepower, one needs a prob-
lem that can be broken into many essen-
tially identical pieces. But most scientific
and engineering problems require a more
flexible approach. That's why most multi-
processor computers are MIMD or multiple
instruction, multiple data machines.
In a MIMD computer, a problem is bro-
ken into units that are assigned to a com-
paratively small number of powerful
processors. Unlike the galley-slave
synchronization of SIMD machines,
each processor in a MIMD architec-
ture can perform a different opera-
tion on the data in its memory and
can proceed at its own pace.
"MIMD is far more powerful and
far more general than SIMD," notes
Thomas A. Probert, director of WPI's
Center for High-Performance Comput-
ing (CHPC), who says that MIMD is
the path CHPC is following. Currently,
engineers at the center are develop-
ing a MIMD processor called Lynx as
part of a $10.6 million contract with
the Defense Advanced Research Pro-
jects Agency (DARPA). Each Lynx unit
or node will consist of four Motorola
88110 microprocessors joined by a
fiber-optic bus. These extremely fast
(50 megahertz), reduced-instruction-
set-computing (RISC) processors,
along with 256 million bytes of mem-
ory and an interface device, will fit
in a box about the size of a slide
projector.
By itself, Lynx would make an im-
pressive small supercomputer. At a
normal operating speed of 200 million
instructions per second (that's the equiva-
lent of 200 DEC-20s), it is faster than many
machines currently on the market. But what
makes it a contender in the tips race is its
scalability. Put two Lynx nodes together and
you double their speed; add 98 more, and
you've got a computer operating at nearly
20 billion instructions per second. In theory,
there is no limit (other than price) on the
number of Lynx nodes that can be joined
into a single computer.
"We've simulated up to 2,000 intercon-
nected Lynx nodes," Probert says. "We've
taken actual instruction traces from serial
computers and fed them through the simu-
lation, validating that the program does the
right memory references and so on. We
know it will work."
The Lynx processors can be hooked to-
gether by Galactica Net, a unique two-
dimensional fiber-optic highway that can
move data about at the rate of a million bits
of information per second. Each processor
is connected to a device called a router that,
in turn, is linked to four other routers and
so on. Galactica Net connects the proces-
sors to each other and to a shared memory.
While it can be slower than some other
connection schemes used in multicom-
puters, Probert says the simple mesh has
two important advantages. First, it is easier
to scale up a mesh into the type of mas-
sively parallel machine needed to reach the
tips benchmark. And second, because the
connections between the processors and
the mesh are fairly simple, there is no need
for the specialized hardware that must be
designed for some architectures — including
the popular hypercube, which places the
processors at the corners of a multidimen-
sional cube.
Galactica Net is a distributed, shared-
memory architecture, which means that all
of the Lynx processors make use of the
same distributed, shared memory. To mini-
mize what is known as data contention,
which occurs when several processors try
to manipulate the same piece of data at the
same time, Probert says the CHPC designers
have given each processor its own memory
cache.
When several processors need the same
data, each writes the information to its own
cache. Only one processor can change the
data; the others check to see whether they
might need to alter it. When the first proces-
sor is finished updating the data, it writes
the new value into the caches of the other
processors and into the shared memory.
Another processor then gets the go ahead to
change the data, and the process continues.
Probert says CHPC has filed for a patent
on the memory protocol and also has a
patent pending on Galactica Net and the
software that drives it. He notes that the
center has deliberately placed much of the
complexity of its multicomputer into this
software, rather than into the hardware
itself, even though the latter approach often
results in a boost in operating speed. He
Hundreds of Lynx nodes can be joined together by Galactica Net, a mesh-like fiber-
optic network. Each Lynx node is connected to a router, which, in turn, is linked to
four other routers. The routers connect the processors to each other and to a large
shared, distributed memory.
18
Summer 1992
** We 'ue simulated up to 2, 000 interconnected Lynx nodes. We 've
taken actual instruction traces from serial computers and fed
them through the simulation, validating that the program does
the right memory references and so on. We know it will work. "
— Thomas Probert
says the CHPC team has learned the value of
this approach through experience.
When CHPC's 25 engineers and designers
constituted Encore Computer Corp.'s high-
performance computer design group, they
worked on a project called GigaMax under
an earlier DARPA contract. The goal was to
develop a bips computer, but the project
became bogged down by the difficulty of
designing and building hugely complex cir-
cuit boards. "We learned that attempting to
place all the complexity in the hardware to
gain speed leads to problems," he notes.
"We had to build 14-inch-by-l 7-inch com-
puter boards that were 14-layers thick and
that had components mounted on both
sides. The state of the art in layout tools
couldn't handle the complexity of those
boards, so we had to do a lot of the layout
by hand. It was almost impossible to imple-
ment. Now we've moved a lot of that com-
plexity into the software, which is far more
flexible and much easier to modify."
That does not mean that Lynx is not
complex, Probert says. In fact, the sheer in-
tricateness of the processor is the primary
reason it exists now only in their minds and
in computer simulators. "When you have
things that are operating at 100 mips or
more, you have to anticipate every single
possibility," he notes.
"That's where people fail. You just can't
forget one condition. Since the programs
execute so quickly, you can guarantee that
almost every path through a circuit will be
used at least once. If you've forgotten some-
thing, you'll fail. And once you've built the
thing, it's almost impossible to find where
the problem is. With a parallel machine, a
program might run differently each time
through, and a bug may not show up every
time you run it."
Such seemingly random variations in the
way the same program may run on the same
machine is just one of the qualities of multi-
computers that make programing them
more challenging than writing instructions
for serial computers, Probert says. To help
users deal with these complexities, CHPC is
developing a powerful suite of programming
tools called Insight. One of the unique fea-
tures of Insight is its ability to give a multi-
computer a sort of introspective quality.
"Insight enables one set of processors —
through memory — to watch another set,"
Probert says. "The advantage is that it is
nonintrusive; it does not obstruct the in-
struction stream. No one else has anything
like this. It's unique in the industry."
Probert says using Insight is like plac-
ing a glass window over the computer and
watching how it goes about executing a pro-
gram. To use the tool, a user installs small
programs called observers. The observers
attach themselves to specific locations in
the computer's memory and keep track of
all the operations that use those locations.
By providing feedback on potential prob-
lems with a program and by pinpointing
ways the program may not be using the
computer efficiently, Insight will help users
write effective application software without
having to be intimately familiar with the
workings of the computer.
Insight should help third-party software
developers create libraries of application
software for parallel computing, something
that has not happened yet because of the
limited marketplace for multicomputers
(they currently account for just one-tenth of
one percent of all computer systems in the
U.S.) "Parallel processors are not available
because the broad exposure is not there
yet," Probert says. "Without the machines,
application programmers don't write pro-
grams for parallel machines. Without the
programs, people don't buy the machines."
Probert says university programs like
CHPC may play a role in breaking this circle
by giving students access to parallel com-
puting and encouraging them to explore its
possibilities. He says the advent of personal
computers with multiple processors — which
should be on the market around the middle
of the decade — may also help shift the bal-
ance toward parallel computing.
As that shift takes place, Probert says
myriad applications should open up for
multicomputers. Many will be in science,
where massive problems like studying
changes in ecosystems or predicting the
weather require the manipulation of mas-
sive amounts of data. But, he notes, there
are many other applications in manufactur-
ing, biotechnology, business and other fields
that can use the speed and power of parallel
computing. Eventually, he predicts, all com-
puters will be parallel.
Many of these applications will have
to operate in real-time, with the computer
working fast enough to respond to events
as they happen. Probert, David Cyganski,
professor of electrical engineering, and
John A. Orr, professor and head of the
Electrical and Computer Engineering De-
partment, are anticipating a grant from
DARPA that will fund the development of
a three-dimensional user interface that,
when integrated to Lynx and Galactica Net,
will enable users to manipulate satellite
images in real time.
Called Visual Lynx, the system will dis-
play a three-dimensional representation of a
picture as it is beamed down from the satel-
lite. The user, whether a military analyst in
Washington or a fisheries biologist out at
sea, will be able to indicate a section of the
image he'd like to view in more detail and
direct the satellite to zoom in on it or em-
ploy a different sensor to study it.
"You've got a satellite up there and it's
moving at 18,000 miles an hour and taking a
picture," Probert says. "If it takes too long to
do the processing and send the command,
by the time the signal gets back up there the
sensors will be pointing at something else.
This is different from the traditional super-
computer application, in which someone
goes off and runs a program that might
compute for minutes or even hours."
While Visual Lynx will take a few years to
develop, the first working prototype of the
Lynx-Galactica Net system should be up and
running in January 1993, Probert says. "We
won't lay anything out before November.
Now it's all staging, design, simulation and
so on. Once it's built, it's built. We won't
change it. That's why we'll do as much as
we possibly can before we get to that stage."
While this new multicomputing archi-
tecture will be available to CHPC's spon-
sors— and will, most likely, end up being
transferred to many real products — Probert
says the first "customer" for the system
will be the federal government, which will
decide whether Lynx or one of a few other
"shadow technologies" being funded by
DARPA will be adopted as a primary high-
performance computing platform for the
U.S. Navy. "If we're successful, this technol-
ogy could be inserted into a major program.
This is the kind of thing that makes compa-
nies. The stakes are high, as are the risks,
but the payoff could be very high indeed."
Reporting by Diane Benison contributed
to this article.
WPI Journal
19
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First,
Do No Harm
More than two thousand years ago,
Hippocrates set forth that simple
rule for physicians. But as modern
technology has transformed the
practice of medicine, enabling
doctors to postpone death and
manipulate the genetic code that
is the root of human life, the line
between healing and harming
has been blurred. As professor
of religion and social ethics,
Thomas Shannon works to bring
the ethical issues of modern medi-
cine into sharp focus.
By Diane Benison
"I observe the physician
with the same diligence
as he the disease."
— John Donne
I'm not against technology. I'm not against its proper use.
What bothers me is its improper use, or its overuse," Thomas
A. Shannon says. Shannon, a bioethicist, has spent his adult life
thinking and writing about the appropriate use of technology in
health care, a topic he also focuses on in the classroom with his
students at WP1.
Because his expertise is recognized nationally, mainstream media
call him occasionally for comment when the use of medical technol-
ogy becomes news. But he's not likely to make the Oprah-Donahue-
Povich circuit anytime soon. His story about being a guest on a 1977
David Suskind Show on euthanasia explains why.
"They interviewed me in advance over the phone," he remem-
bers. "At one point the staff person said, 'You know, you're really
too mild. Can't you take one extreme or the other?'" Shannon says
he was startled. He'd been trying to identify the issues, methodi-
cally examine the underlying values, and then weigh those values
against one another. "They didn't want that," he says. "They wanted
entertainment."
Shannon is thought-provoking, a quality not often thought of as
entertaining by the electronic media. But if the standing-room-
only crowd of alumni at Reunion in early June was any indication,
Shannon is worth listening to. They sat and stood with focused
attention during his 50-minute presentation. When his talk about
ethics and health care ended, he spent another 15 minutes with the
small group that stayed behind to ask questions.
Shannon, professor of religion and social ethics in WPI's Humani-
ties Department, has published his ethical arguments on a wide
range of issues— including bioethics, theology, and peace and war-
in the 15 books he has authored or edited and in 25 articles in
scholarly and mainstream publications. He has also delivered more
than 40 presentations at professional meetings.
Among the honors he has earned at WPI for his scholarship and
teaching are the Paris Fletcher Distinguished Professorship in the
Humanities, which he currently holds, and the 1988 Trustees' Award
for Outstanding Creative Scholarship.
In his writings, Shannon advocates the adoption and use of
medical technology within the context of meeting human needs.
Those needs, he emphasizes, are not just biological, but may be
emotional, psychological and spiritual, as well. More and more,
though, as technology has come to drive medical decisions, a patient's
biological needs are the only ones that are considered and valued,
Shannon says. When that happens, the emphasis of the medical
profession shifts from caring to curing, which may not be appropriate
in all cases.
Shannon says he believes the unintended consequence of tech-
nology-centered medicine is materialistic, reductionist thinking that
WPI Journal
21
a
sees people as merely means to an end. He says this outcome
was evident recently in the much-publicized case of a couple
who conceived a child because they needed a compatible bone
marrow donor for a daughter with leukemia. But more than
anything, Shannon says, it is the neglect or disregard of those
other human needs that concerns him.
Though they are much more complicated, divisive and
publicly discussed today, the primary ethical issues surround-
ing modern medical technology and
its use are "the same ones that have
been around since the early days of
bioethics about 25 years ago," Shan-
non says. "Abortion, euthanasia,
genetic screening, organ transplanta-
tion, the definition of death, informed
consent, research on human sub-
jects— it's the standard list."
Despite two and a half decades of
discussion, Shannon says these
issues are not any better resolved
today than they were when he re-
ceived his Ph.D. from the division of
theological and religious studies at
Boston University in 1973 (he also
holds a bachelor of arts degree from
Quincy College in Quincy, 111., a
bachelor's of sacred theology from
St. Joseph Seminary in Teutopolis, 111.,
and a master's of sacred theology
from the Boston University School of
Theology).
"I think the positions are staked
out better. What's changing is the so-
cial policy and the social practice —
and we're not getting much more unity
of desire for legislation," he says, though he adds that legis-
lation on such complex issues is not always a good idea, as
laws — which are often too specific or too vague — can undercut
privacy, personal autonomy and the medical doctrine of
informed consent.
A realist, Shannon says he doesn't expect to see the resolu-
tion of any of the ethical issues raised by the use of medical
technology anytime soon. "One thing that's remained constant
over the last two decades is that technology continues to
outpace ethics and the law," he says. "I think that's partly
cultural, because in our country we take the position that
nothing can be stopped. Instead, we implement technology as
soon as it's available.
"When problems do arise, we have to stop and say, 'Oh, now
what are we going to do about this?' Then we try to regulate
something that is already in motion, something that people are
already using, and something that people claim they have a
right to — even though it may be really problematic."
In a sense, many of the ethical problems in medicine can be
traced to the great success the medical profession has had in
recent decades in developing new forms of treatment and
disease prevention, Shannon says. As new ways of diagnosing
and curing illnesses — things like CAT and MRI scanners, nuclear
medicine and heart transplants — have entered the mainstream,
physicians and patients alike have continued to look for even
more powerful and exotic technologies.
But placing new medical devices and procedures into ser-
vice too quickly can be risky, Shannon says, because it is often
difficult to anticipate the ultimate effects of a new technology.
ne thing that's remained
constant over the last two
decades is that technology
continues to outpace ethics and
the law. I think that's partly
cultural, because in our country
we take the position that nothing
can be stopped. Instead, we
implement technology as soon as
it's available. When problems do
arise, we have to stop and say,
'Oh, now what are we going
to do about this?'
He cites the invention of the automobile as an example of a
machine that has had broad and unintended consequences,
impacting both social patterns and the environment. Shannon
says he doubts Henry Ford considered these implications when
he started building cars.
One of the general effects of new and more elaborate medical
technology has been the rising cost of health care, Shannon
notes. "Now the major problem is often not that we can't cure,
but that when we do it requires ever
more money and time."
Shannon says he is not eager to
belittle the advances of medical tech-
nology. But he says he believes the
tendency of physicians today to pay
attention to data instead of to pa-
tients' feelings is a problem inherent
in that technology. "High-tech medi-
cine is better at treating individual
organs than individuals as a whole,"
he says.
The phenomenon of "medical op-
tions that quickly become obliga-
tions" (as when hospitals feel they
must always use intravenous feed-
ing, resuscitators and defibrillators
to keep critically ill patients alive) is
another consequence of modern
medical technology, Shannon says.
When the obligatory use of such
technology results in highly visible
cases of persistent vegetative state
(PVS) — like those of Karen Ann
Quinlan and Nancy Cruzan — people
become worried about getting
trapped by the technology.
That, Shannon worries, may cause some people to reject
potentially helpful treatments, because they believe they won't
be allowed to stop treatment once it has been started. He says
he believes this fear of being trapped by high-tech medicine has
helped drive the euthanasia movement, and also ignited inter-
est in living wills and durable powers of attorney.
The fear of being held hostage to modern medicine is a
consequence of our inability to distinguish between caring and
treating, Shannon says. "We have the sense that if we stop
treating, we've stopped caring. That's a bad distinction. In some
cases people simply cannot be cured, but we certainly can still
care as they go through their illness. But our culture is bad at
this. We'd like to turn it over to someone else — or to technology.
You get the sense that the only thing that can stop treatment
sometimes is a cosmic power failure — like the Northeast black-
out— and that's awful to think about."
Shannon says he is equally concerned about how that same
technological imperative (a medical option becoming an
obligation) has insidiously impacted our thinking about organ
transplantation — with even broader social consequences. Con-
stant advances in the technology of organ transplantation —
and the resulting growth in the need for donor organs — are
behind the ongoing debate about brain death and the growing
movement to redefine what constitutes death, he notes.
The first attempt in U.S. history to redefine death was a 1968
article in the Journal of the American Medical Association that
established criteria for irreversible coma. The article's primary
purpose was to set forth a basis by which physicians could
determine when a comatose patient could be declared dead.
22
Summer 1992
A,
The criteria listed by the authors were unreceptivity and
unresponsivity (total unawareness of externally applied stimuli
and inner need), lack of movement, breathing and reflexes, and
a flat electroencephalograph (EEG) for 24 hours.
"Today we continue to define death according to brain
criteria," Shannon says. "That's okay, because given the technol-
ogy we have to maintain heart and lung function, death can be
masked. What's critical is that death must now be 'whole brain,'
including the brain stem," which regu-
lates basic biological functions.
The authors of the 1968 study gave
two important reasons for their new
definition, Shannon points out. "One
was to empty hospital beds in inten-
sive care units; the other was to get
fresh organs." He says such utilitarian
thinking is at the heart of most of his
concerns about medical and biologi-
cal ethics.
The need for donor organs for trans-
plants is undeniable. "More people
need organs than get them," he says,
noting that the reasons for the organ
shortage include religious beliefs, the
reluctance of many people to allow
their bodies to be used for spare
parts like so many junkyard cars, the
lack of information about how to
become an organ donor, and fear —
perhaps not always openly
expressed — that the medical estab-
lishment cannot be trusted.
The organ deficit has led to pres-
sure to find ways to increase the
supply, and that pressure has led to
further efforts to redefine death, on the one hand, and new
strategies to obtain organs — human or animal — on the other.
Among those strategies are broader education efforts, as well as
required request and opt-out programs.
Most states have laws establishing required request pro-
grams, which mandate that physicians and hospitals ask dying
patients and their families for permission to remove useful
organs immediately after death. While they can put pressure on
families, Shannon says such laws protect an individual's right to
decide what happens to his body.
Currently, there are no U.S. states with opt-out laws, though
some European countries have adopted them. The underlying
assumption of such laws, which allow physicians to take a
patient's organs after death unless he has requested in advance
that they not be removed, is that, "when you die, you become the
property of the state." If you can become the property of the
state when you die, Shannon reasons, what will prevent the state
from starting to see you as its property before you die?
"One might think of fetal tissue transplantation," he says.
"It's one thing for a woman to donate tissue from an abortion.
It's another to simply take those tissues. That's an example
where needs could drive practice. It's unlikely that the practice
would be extended to the taking of blood, bone marrow or
organs from living people, but the wedge would be there. It's a
wedge issue."
Shannon is equally critical of thinking that leads to the
conclusion that, because the technology exists to transplant
organs, because there are people whose lives could be extended
through this technology (or who can afford to pay for the
person may value the
ability to reason abstractly, but
that capacity isn't explicitly
what gives a person value.
At least I wouldn't think so.
You can't define a person
exclusively in terms of any one
particular value. It's not any
one thing — or even the sum of
all our particular capacities —
that make us valuable. I think
it's something that goes a
little beyond that.
technology), and because there are insufficient organs to sup-
ply all those who could benefit, we should increase the supply
by loosening the accepted definition of what constitutes death.
He says he is especially concerned that the definition is becom-
ing centered more on the cognitive function of the brain,
rather than on the whole person.
Shannon says he does not believe technology and science
are value-free, but rather are driven by underlying social
values. And the value that underlies
the attempt to redefine brain death
overemphasizes the ability to think
abstractly. He says he questions why
intelligence and the capacity for
abstract reasoning should be valued
more highly than other human
qualities.
"A person may value the ability to
reason abstractly, but that capacity
isn't explicitly what gives a person
value," he says. "At least I wouldn't
think so. You can't define a person
exclusively in terms of any one par-
ticular value. It's not any one thing —
or even the sum of all our particular
capacities — that make us valuable. I
think it's something that goes a little
beyond that."
In his 1985 book, What Are They
Saying About Genetic Engineering?,
Shannon argued that the tendency in
our society to equate mental ability
with human value sometimes leads
us to socially disvalue people — such
as individuals with Down's syndrome,
sufferers of Alzheimer's disease,
elderly patients in nursing homes or students in special edu-
cation classes — who have a diminished capacity for abstract
reasoning.
This tendency to equate human beings with fully function-
ing brains was reflected dramatically in a recent court battle in
Florida over a baby born with anencephaly, a nearly always
fatal condition in which most of the brain is missing. The
parents of Theresa Ann Campo Pearson were willing to have
her declared brain dead to assure that her organs could be
removed for transplantation while they were still usable. How-
ever, the fact that her brain stem was functioning precluded
doctors from making this declaration.
The arguments made in the case included the idea of
excluding "infants without intact brains from the current defi-
nition and to consider them dead by virtue of brain absence,"
Shannon notes. It was, in effect, an attempt to redefine brain
death solely in terms of higher brain functions.
"Such a shift in definition assumes a normative link be-
tween biology and personhood and comes close to deriving
personal status — if not personhood itself — exclusively from
neural activity," Shannon wrote in a recent paper on the case.
In that paper he concluded that singling out one aspect of a
human being and valuing it above all other aspects demeans
human dignity.
"In one sense, human value is an abstract concept," he says.
"On the other hand, we certainly have to concretize it in some
form, but once you begin to concretize it outside of a certain
context, you blow it. As soon as you isolate it for study, you kill
it." This phenomenon is not unlike Heisenberg's uncertainty
WPI Journal
23
JLar
principal, which says that the more accurately one measures
the velocity of a moving particle, the more uncertain its location
becomes, and vice versa.
"A lot of times, when you study something by isolating it
from the whole system, you lose a big part of it," Shannon says.
"For example, the first patient a doctor treats is a cadaver. On
the one hand, you can learn a lot from that. But on the other
hand, there is a lot missing."
Shannon says a host of similarly
unarticulated and unexamined social
and ethical issues surround biotech-
nology, especially in such areas as
genetic engineering and genetic
screening. For example, he says he is
concerned about the fact that as a
society we often fail to distinguish
between a carrier of a genetic disease
and someone who has the disease.
"A carrier is not afflicted by the
disease," he says. "Genetic screening
programs can identify both types of
individuals, but if the distinction
between them is misunderstood or
confused, carriers could be prevented
from receiving insurance policies or
other health care benefits because of
a wrong assumption that they are
unhealthy.
"Not only might such individuals
be unjustly deprived of a variety of
benefits, they are unfairly labeled , and
this can serve as a basis of discrimina-
tion." Already, he notes, a number of
corporations and government depart-
ments have attempted to use genetic
tests to screen out employees with
genetic traits that might make them
more susceptible to the harmful
effects of chemicals or other occupational hazards.
However the ethical issues of genetic engineering develop,
Shannon, who is about to begin work on a new book on the
topic, will be there. He is also part of a research group at the
Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS) that is
studying the theological and ethical issues raised by the human
genome project with a $400,000 grant from the National Insti-
tutes of Health (NIH). The Human Genome Initiative, as it is
officially known, is a massive national project aimed at mapping
the location of every human gene, a development that will have
unimaginable implications for genetic technology.
CTNS launched its study in the fall of 1991 to bring together
geneticists, theologians and ethicists "to discuss the implica-
tion of human genome research for understanding the relation-
ship between God's creativity and human creativity, biological
determinism and free will, our ethical responsibility for the
future, and the role Judeo-Christian religions play in cultivating
social attitudes and offering genetic counseling."
The grant for the CTNS study came from funds specifically
reserved by NIH for looking at the social issues surrounding
the human genome project. "Three percent of the budget is
earmarked for analysis of its social and ethical implications,"
Shannon says.
These issues might include who will control the intimate
details about individuals that will be revealed as the genome is
deciphered. "People are talking about having genetic screening
art of the problem I see
in the genome project is that not
all the communicators
sufficiently attend to the
context in which the gene
operates — namely an organism or
an environment. The fallacy that
underlies genetic therapy, for
example, is the assumption that if
you have good genes you are
going to be healthier. But there
are environmentally caused
diseases. You can have a decent
set of genes and still get sick.
done at birth," he says, "so we have a privacy issue here: Who
controls your genetic profile, you or the state?
"The issue of control is significant and a major question we
have to deal with. We don't want to make genetic information
the exclusive basis for how we treat people. Genes are not the
sole determining cause of who we are."
Shannon says the expectations many scientists appear
to hold for the genome project worry him. He says many
researchers have expressed the hope
that "we're going to be able to cure
diseases and make people the way
we would like them to be — to be in
charge of evolution. I don't think
that's going to work."
To begin with, he says, there are
often complex relationships between
genes that are not illuminated by
simply knowing their locations. For
example, the gene that makes one a
carrier of sickle cell anemia also im-
parts an enhanced immunity to ma-
laria. But beyond those concerns,
geneticists must keep in mind that
not all diseases have genetic causes
and not all human qualities have
genetic origins.
"Part of the problem 1 see in the
genome project," he adds, "is that
not all the communicators suffi-
ciently attend to the context in which
the gene operates — namely an
organism or an environment." In par-
ticular, he says, environmental
effects on health are sometimes
overlooked. "The fallacy that under-
lies genetic therapy, for example, is
the assumption that if you have good
genes you are going to be healthier.
But there are environmentally caused diseases. You can have
a decent set of genes and still get sick. The bottom line is: be
careful of exaggerated claims."
Shannon says he is also wary of the consequences of
knowing too much about one's genetic makeup. "It's clear that
some of what we learn might be bad," he notes. "It may also be
problematic." For example, he asks, will learning that your
genetic constitution might make you susceptible to heart
disease at a young age spur you on, or leave you overwhelmed
by the prospect of a potentially shortened or constrained life?
One question the NIH is not asking, Shannon says, is
whether the human genome project should be carried out at
all. Despite that omission, he says this "set-aside" will make
possible the ongoing evaluation of ethical issues as the project
moves forward, enabling the discussion to keep up with
technological developments, instead of following them, as
most often happens.
The need for that kind of thinking and discussion is urgent,
Shannon says, because we have already seen how technolo-
gies can have unexpected implications and unanticipated
applications. "Until we had good technologies for screening
genetic diseases — and now genetic tendencies and traits — we
couldn't attempt it," he says by way of example. "Now, because
we can do it and because it's cost effective, there's more of an
incentive for insurance companies to use the technology
[to evaluate people]. So now we have a new problem."
24
Summer 1992
X
For Shannon, this is another example of how technology
can come to drive human action, rather than carefully thought
out human values determining when and how a particular
technology will be used. He traces this anomaly to the values
of the free market system and to our notion that progress is
linear. Not all cultures share this notion, he says; some don't
even have a model of progress.
Indian culture, for example, has historically been
governed by a cyclical model of time.
"Obviously, you progress in time,
but it's not directional," he says. "We
in the West have the sense that we're
going somewhere, even though we
may not know where that somewhere
is. The direction is typically upward
and clearly forward."
The hospital "crash cart" is an
example of how progress can be
seen as inevitable. Every hospital
floor has a crash cart for emergency
resuscitation, Shannon says. "Well,
there it is. Now what happens if you
don't use it? Well, you get chewed
out for having equipment that you
don't use. And because you're not
using it this year, you can't buy any
new technology next year. So you
use it. And you don't always ask,
'Should we use it?' Its very presence
there — and the economic context —
really mandate its use."
Shannon has applied his willing-
ness to ask questions and peel back
each layer of an issue to a number of
other polarizing topics, including
abortion. In doing so he has often
taken a careful look at the science
behind the issues. For example, in a paper titled "Reflections on
the Moral Status of the Pre-embryo" published in Theological
Studies, Shannon and Allan B. Wolter, O.F.M., examine in meticu-
lous detail the development of the fertilized egg in an attempt
to establish when one can begin to refer to it as an indi-
vidual human being. Their goal was to encourage theologians
to take biology into account in discussions about abortion.
"The best of medieval theologians argued within the
context of their knowledge of biology," Shannon says. "We're
simply doing the same thing with our model. It seems to me
that the only reasonable way to discuss any kind of biological
entity is to discuss it within the frame of reference in which
you understand it, which is biology. But it's a model capable
of enormous revision, so you have to keep rethinking in
light of new knowledge."
In his classes at WPI, Shannon tries to get his students to
apply similar analyses to ethical issues. In particular, he
teaches them that there are such things as better arguments
and worse arguments and urges them to learn to distinguish
one from the other, not only in his class, but in the work they
will do as engineers, scientists and managers. This approach
has helped make him one of the Institute's most popular
instructors (he was rated the best college professor in the city
in a Worcester Magazine readers' poll a few years back).
Students say Shannon's classes challenge them to express
their thoughts and feelings, and to marshall arguments to
support their views.
he best of medieval
theologians argued within the
context of their knowledge of
biology. We're simply doing the
same thing with our model. It
seems to me that the only
reasonable way to discuss any
kind of biological entity is to
discuss it within the frame of
reference in which you understand
it, which is biology. But it's a model
capable of enormous revision, so you
have to keep rethinking in light
of new knowledge.
Shannon says his own views about ethical issues have
been shaped, in part, by his moral and religious background.
He entered a seminary as a young boy, an experience he says
exposed him to the world of scholarship — a world for which
he seemed well suited. He was later ordained a Catholic
priest, though by the time he reached his early thirties he
had come to realize that he was better suited temperamen-
tally for a secular life. He requested and was granted a
dispensation from his vows.
His leaving the priesthood was
not, however, a departure from the
Catholic Church. His years in the
church helped shape his
views on medical ethics and the
morality of war, and also gave rise
to an ongoing interest in method-
ology, especially in Roman Catholic
moral theology. Shannon is re-
spected in Catholic theological
circles, even if his views are not
always in sync with the highest
levels of the church. For example,
his article on the moral status of the
pre-embryo prompted a six-page
letter from the National Council of
Catholic Bishops, which noted that
the views he and Wolter expressed
were "open to dispute."
Shannon's debates with Catho-
lic dogma stem from his dedication
to weighing, not just theological
and moral issues, but the most
up-to-date research in biology
and medicine. His arguments have
also benefited from his efforts to
experience firsthand the reality of
modern medical practice. Since
1987 he has been a member of the Ethics Committee of
Memorial Hospital in Worcester (now the Medical Center of
Central Massachusetts — Memorial), where he goes on ob-
stetrics and gynecology rounds with physicians and nurses
and also conducts regular ethics rounds, particularly in the
neonatal unit.
"The purpose of ethics rounds is to alert physicians to
the fact that the issues they face are not exclusively medical,"
he says, "that there are ethical issues, value issues, choice
issues (the patient's), and cost issues that go along with a
particular treatment."
For several years Shannon was also a part-time associate
professor of medical ethics at the University of Massachu-
setts Medical Center in Worcester, the only teaching
hospital in the state university system. While there he
directed the ethics segment of a program that instructed
young physicians in patient care.
With those young physicians, as well as with the students
who take his courses at WPI, he has always endeavored to
impart a sense that there are no questions that can't be asked,
for it is only by avoiding the tough questions that our society
will continue to blindly embrace new technology.
"Don't be afraid of progress," he says, "but don't let it
become our master. We have to recognize that as human
beings we have built-in limits. So we have to think about our
sense of priorities, and be cautious in our expectations of
what modern medicine can do for us."
WPI Journal
25
Meeting the Need to Lead:
Thoughts on the WPI Experience
m-+-m
By Francis C. Lutz, Dean of Undergraduate Studies
Editor's note: Each fall WPI's New Student Orientation gives entering freshmen a chance to get used to their new
school — and to learn about the ins and outs of student life at the Institute — before the rush of classes begins.
In between the talks on residence hall living, the grading system, computer resources and so on, these young
scholars spend a few minutes with the dean of undergraduate studies, whose duty it is to share with them his own
vision of what makes the Institute a special place, and to introduce them to the intellectual adventure on which
they are about to embark.
The following is excerpted from the talk Frank Lutz gave last fall to the students of the Class of 1995 and their
parents — his first such address as dean of undergraduate studies. As the WPI community prepares for the start
of yet another academic year — with all of the achievements and challenges it will bring — we thought it might be
worthwhile to take a look back at this timely message.
26
Summer 1992
n
m ood afternoon. As members of the Class of 1995, you
I W are now part of a community of scholars in a place
■ ■ where liberal learning and creativity are held in
V^^ honor. In fact, the faculty here value learning so
much that two decades ago they created a curriculum that,
with proper effort on your part, will prepare you uniquely
well for the challenges that face this nation and the world
as we approach the next millennium.
Today I'd like to tell you how I think a WPI education will
help prepare you for the future. But before I do, let me tell
you something about myself. I came to WPI in 1972 as an
assistant professor of civil engineering. I'd intended to stay
for just a year or two, but have instead been here for nearly
two decades. I hope you find the same feeling of community
that keeps me here. (Of course, I hope you earn your de-
grees in fewer than 20 years!)
In 1974 my wife and I moved to Washington, D.C., to open
WPI's first off-campus project center. The year before, I and
the students selected to undertake the first projects in Wash-
ington had traveled there to meet with representatives of the
agencies that proposed those projects and to lay the ground-
work for the center. While in Washington, we stayed at the
Howard Johnson Hotel from which the Watergate break-in
had been coordinated.
It was a memorable experience to be establishing a pro-
gram in our nation's capital while impeachment proceedings
were under way against the president of the United States.
Since then, some 600 students have completed projects in
Washington — something of which I am quite proud.
What else of consequence was happening around that
time? Well for one, most of you were born. In addition, New
York's World Trade Center was completed; Billy Joel released
his Piano Man album; Thomas Pynchon published Gravity's
Rainbow; the Apollo moon landing program ended; Skylab
was launched; and the selective service ended, as did two
decades of U.S. military involvement in Vietnam.
The parents here today have quite personal memories of
those events; the students remember them as history — as
you would any event that occurred before your birth. Years
from now, you will have vivid memories of some of today's
events, especially the turmoil taking place in Russia. The
coup placed Glasnost and Perestroika in jeopardy, but
freedom is too appealing to be denied. The free-market
economy, even with its imperfections, is a better provider
than communism.
The world is changing, and it will continue to change rap-
idly. Germany's reunification came upon us with surprising
speed. The European Economic Community is poised to be-
come a formidable global economic force. In 1997 Hong Kong
will no longer be a British colony.
Each of these events — and the manner in which our lives
are influenced by them — will be colored by the technological
advances of your lifetimes. But the social and cultural forces
at work are also critical to an understanding of how these in-
fluences will be felt by the people of the world.
The sense of ethics that led to the resignation of Richard
Nixon, the craving for freedom moving Eastern Europe to-
ward democracy, the fear of the unknown and the repudia-
tion of the past that Russians feel today, the genuine desire
for German to reunite with German, and the concern moth-
ers and fathers in Hong Kong feel for the futures of their chil-
dren— these are all elements of our world that deserve your
The late professor Thorn Hammond, left, with two
WPI students in the early days of the Washington,
D.C., Project Center. Founded during the Water-
gate crisis, the center opened in 1974, shortly
after the resignation of President Nixon.
study. At WPI you will have the opportunity to meet fellow
students from these and other regions of the world — to learn
from them and to benefit from the differences they share
with you.
We are each of us different. And in an atmosphere of re-
spect for intellectual discourse, we should celebrate those
differences. We should be moving closer to achieving Martin
Luther King's dream of a world where all people are judged
not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their
character.
There are many things to learn beyond the world of aca-
demics, and you will be encouraged to learn them while you
are here — things like a code of ethics, a standard of conduct
and a sense of honor. It's from these sources of learning that
hope for the future draws its strength.
I'd like to share three quotations with you. The first is by
Mark Twain, who once said — and I'm paraphrasing — that
when he was a boy of 14, his father was so ignorant he could
hardly stand to have him around. But when he got to be 21,
he was astonished at how much the old man had learned in
just seven years.
The second is by Plutarch, who wrote that the mind is
not a vessel to be filled, but a flame to be kindled. The last
is from a Commencement speech that Rossiter W. Raymond
delivered at WPI in 1879. Speaking about WPI's educational
program, Raymond said:
"First, it is an experiment; secondly, as far as the experi-
ment has gone, it has resulted in a highly satisfactory degree
of success. The problem of education is a progressive one.
The conditions are perpetually changing, and to a certain
extent, these changing conditions peremptorily dictate
corresponding changes in means and methods."
These quotations convey much about WPI: about the
WPI Journal
27
Above, Professor Fred J. Looft III, left, and Dino Roberti '85 look over the first
MITRE/WPI experiment package. For Randall Briggs '86, opposite, an IQP was
the start of a research project that led to his pursuing a Ph.D. at WPI.
faculty's focus on education as a continual
process of learning that there is always
more to learn; about the emphasis we place
on creativity and inspiration, which provide
the motivation to learn; and about the inno-
vative spirit of experimentation and striving
to be more than we would otherwise be,
which we seek to instill in our students.
As you think about the time between
now and May 1995 (a time that will pass
all too quickly), I hope you keep these
thoughts in mind. As you prepare yourself
to play leadership roles in engineering, sci-
ence, business, education, politics or gov-
ernment, these aspects of a WPI education
will serve you well.
WPI's educational program is particu-
larly well-suited to those students who feel
what I have come to call the need to lead.
Who are these people? They are
• Those who recognize the country's need
for leaders who can recapture our inter-
national competitiveness
• Those who take no pride in the failure
of our elementary and secondary edu-
cational systems
• Those who recognize that we will need
new design approaches to keep our
country's man-made infrastructure from
collapsing
• Those who see the enormously impor-
tant wave of economic and social change
sweeping the world as a movement in
which to participate, not just observe
• And those who see as a social need and
a vast economic opportunity the con-
struction of an infrastructure to help
meet the needs of Eastern Europe,
Russia, Southeast Asia, Latin and South
America, Africa and the lesser-developed
countries
Before I talk about the special attributes
of WPI's academic programs, it might be
valuable to go over some of the unique
aspects of the WPI Plan. Our academic year
consists of four seven-week terms. Students
take three courses each term (each is worth
1/3 unit — 16 units equals four years of
study; 15 units are needed to graduate). The
only grades awarded are A, B and C (grade
reports that are blank because a student
earned less than a C in every course are
called snowflakes in WPI slang).
To graduate, a student must complete
four physical education courses, broad dis-
tribution requirements in areas of study per-
tinent to his or her major, two social science
courses, a Major Qualifying Project or MQP
(which deals with a problem in one's major
field of study), an Interactive Qualifying
Project or IQP (which relates science and
technology to social concerns and human
needs), and a Sufficiency or minor in the
humanities.
Now, how does this hodgepodge prepare
you for leadership? Well, the faculty might
say that you will never be marked with a fail-
ing grade for trying to master the content
and concepts of any course at WPI, for if
you are indeed lamps to be lit, and not buck-
ets to be filled, we shouldn't dampen your
spirits by labeling you a failure.
Equally important, with seven-week
terms you will not be burdened to the point
of distraction by juggling six courses at the
same time, struggling to master more facts
than you can possibly assimilate. At WPI
you will be responsible for three courses or
their project equivalents at any one time. Of
course, you will be responsible for learning
the content of those courses fully, a respon-
sibility that should require more of you than
you might think.
Then there are the projects — the MQP,
IQP and Humanities Sufficiency. The prac-
tice of engineering, the conduct of scientific
inquiry, and the management of organiza-
tions do not depend on turning in home-
work, but on completing projects on time.
To tackle projects one needs a mastery of
technical disciplines (you will develop that
by turning in your homework), a command
of scheduling, the ability to work as part of
a team, and communication skills. Above all,
one needs the ability to synthesize informa-
tion and solve problems.
Certain of the projects prepare you for
challenges that lie beyond the narrow con-
fines of your technical discipline. Few engi-
neers and scientists remain strictly within
their original disciplines for more than a
decade or so. Successful practitioners often
move into management, where they must
work with and compete against graduates of
liberal arts programs. In addition, engineers
and scientists must offer leadership — not
just in technology development, but in the
public use of that technology.
No matter what your major, the MQP
should provide a culminating experience in
that discipline, help you develop self-confi-
dence, enhance your communication skills,
and ensure that you can synthesize the fun-
damental concepts of the field. If your major
is chemistry, you will achieve these goals in
the laboratory, using state-of-the-art tech-
nology to examine advancing theory. If you
major in management, your MQP will likely
focus on the increasing role that technology
plays in modern production. In mathemat-
ics, you might complete a theoretical thesis
exploring graph theory or the motion of
stellar systems.
With the diversity of intellectual oppor-
tunities available — a real strength of the
MQP program — the learning experience
can be tailored to the educational needs
and individual interests of each student.
Still, this diversity can get in the way of
forming a true picture of the benefits of the
MQP. Because so many of you are engineer-
ing majors, and because design is so integral
28
Summer 1992
to the engineer's experience, let me use a
group of engineering-design projects as an
example of the substantive experience of
the MQP.
The M1TRE/WPI space shuttle projects
program produced an experimental pay-
load that was launched on the space shuttle
Columbia on June 5, 1991. We are now de-
coding and analyzing the experimental data
that the package gathered. The experiments
were developed by undergraduate students
working with WP1 faculty in MQP teams and
were financially and technically supported
by NASA, MITRE Corp., AT&T, Raytheon,
Digital Equipment Corp., Norton, General
Electric and many other sponsors. (MITRE's
support has been continuous since the start
of the program in 1982; the corporation is
now helping WPI students develop a second
set of experiments we hope to launch during
your academic careers here.)
Among the experiments was one that
sought to grow large and potentially
valuable zeolite crystals in microgravity.
Another studied the behavior of fluids in
space. Student teams also developed an
electronic system to record data on the en-
vironment inside the canister that housed
the experiments; the power supply and dis-
tribution systems; the control and monitor-
ing systems; and a physical structure to
support and protect all of this. Typical of
WPI, the payload also carried an experiment
on film fogging designed by a sixth-grader.
Just as engineers in the real world must
face trade-offs, the students had to deter-
mine how much of the package's limited
space and weight to allocate to each experi-
ment and how much battery power each
would be allowed. This was a valuable ex-
perience. As a result, 1 can assure you that
while there is a lot of good solid science and
engineering in the experiments, there is also
a lot of camaraderie, long nights of trial and
error, friendships and linked careers.
Some of you may find the idea that your
graduation will depend on the completion
of a project like this a little intimidating. I
can assure you that the shuttle program
students had the same feeling when they
were starting their college careers. They
stretched themselves, and their project
advisors were there to help. Think of the
special feeling those students (now alumni)
must have today. Then think about how the
faculty must feel about the accomplish-
ments of those students.
Just as it will not be possible for a truly
educated person of the next century to be
ignorant of technology, nor can a techni-
cally based education be thought of as well-
rounded unless it has a strong liberal arts
component. Recognizing the growing impor-
tance of the interaction between technology
and society, the WPI faculty developed the
idea of the IQP in the early 1970s.
Today WPI is providing opportunities for
students to complete their IQPs at project
centers around the world. In addition to the
center I helped establish in Washington,
D.C., we now have residential programs in
London, San Francisco, and San Juan,
WPI Journal
29
Christina G. Correia '92 worked on basic research in
genetics for her MQP, one of a wide range of ways
undergraduates can complete this versatile project.
Puerto Rico. We have project programs in
Bangkok, Hong Kong, Taipei and Venice. WPI
has also established foreign exchange pro-
gram agreements with technical universities
in Belgium, Canada, Ecuador, France, Ger-
many, Ireland, Italy, Russia, Sweden and
Switzerland. The learning opportunities
in these countries create an atmosphere in
which students can fully appreciate the glo-
bal scope of the interactions between social
and technical forces.
As you might imagine, topics for IQPs
cover a broad spectrum. For example, one
IQP group, working with the National Asso-
ciation of Manufacturers at the Washington,
D.C., Project Center, reviewed federal policy
on Superfund cleanups and its likely impact
on corporate decision making. Several years
ago a student analyzed the potential envi-
ronmental impacts of mining on the moon.
He recently received his Ph.D. in chemical
engineering at WPI, completing his doctoral
thesis on the feasibility of mining ilmenite
on the moon to extract oxygen for a lunar
base. I think Robert Goddard, a member of
WPI's Class of 1908, would be proud.
Interactive Qualifying Projects like these
have reinforced in the minds of the faculty
the notion that integration is a powerful
educational concept. At WPI that notion is
particularly true in the humanities. A few de-
cades ago, dissatisfied with the superficial
approach to the humanities traditionally
taken here and at other colleges and univer-
sities of science and engineering, the Insti-
tute created the Humanities Sufficiency. It
has become the core of the college's com-
mitment to the humanities as an integral
part of the education of
scientists and engineers.
Perhaps the best way to
illustrate the nature of the
Sufficiency is to provide two
examples. To complete this
degree requirement, students
must take a thematically re-
lated sequence of five humani-
ties courses and complete a
culminating research project.
Here are the courses one
student took:
• History of Technology
• European Technological
Development
• American Science and
Technology to 1859
• American Science and
Technology from 1859
• Science, Technology
and Society
His Sufficiency was called
Yorktown and Gettysburg: A
Comparative Study of Strategy,
Tactics and Technology.
Another student took these courses:
• History of Technology
• Concepts in Philosophy and Religion
• Religion and Social Ethics
• Religions of the World
• Religions of the East
The Sufficiency was titled The Engineer
as a Whistle Blower.
You may not have given much thought to
how the humanities can make you a better
electrical engineer; please give it consider-
able thought.
I've said the WPI Plan will prepare you
for the future. But what will that future hold
for you? Well, the engineer of the third mil-
lennium will probably have to make more
out of less, designing to conserve already
severely depleted resources. She will work
with machines so complex that design ad-
justments will be made to "words" in com-
puter programs, rather than to actual bolts
or nuts.
Her education must give her a breadth
of vision sufficient to see real social needs,
as well as a depth of technical competence
that will enable her to design more than just
"gadgets of gratification." In short, it must
be an education that is professional in con-
tent and liberal in scope.
What else will your future hold, and how
will your world differ from mine and that of
your parents? My generation saw the con-
struction of the Berlin Wall; it also saw John
Kennedy predict its demise with the simple
but powerful declaration, "Ich bin ein Ber-
liner." Most of you were alive for neither
event, but in typically unpredictable fash-
ion, you saw the wall come tumbling down.
No matter how encouraging, the changes
we are observing in Russia and Eastern
Europe are a beginning, not an end. What
we are seeing is the consequence of man's
Many students, including Beth A. Buscher '89 and Michael J. Carroll '89, standing,
complete their IQPs by helping improve science education in the public schools.
30
Summer 1992
From left, Daniel J. Smith '91 , Tony M. Yee '91 and James C. Wilkinson '91 completed
an IQP at WPI's London Project Center, one of several international project programs.
desire for freedom. These events hint at a
more hopeful time than we've known before,
but putting in place the economic infra-
structures of a free enterprise system in
those regions will be an arduous task, re-
quiring truly educated leadership. I chal-
lenge you to make your contributions, and
to take your places among those leaders.
When the European Economic Commu-
nity unites at the end of 1992, it will mount
an extraordinary challenge to America's
economic future; that challenge will also be
an extraordinary opportunity for the begin-
ning of the third millennium. It is an oppor-
tunity for which you will be well-prepared.
You will also be well-prepared to appreci-
ate the plight of the children of Hong Kong
in 1997, and perhaps to lend them a hand.
Last year a group of WPI students com-
pleted an IQP there in cooperation with the
Office of the Registrar General. They sat
over strong tea and discussed the implica-
tions of changes to Hong Kong's Basic Law.
Other WPI students with equally important
projects to undertake will assume their
places in Hong Kong, in Washington D.C.,
in San Francisco, in Venice, in London, in
Bangkok, in Taipei, and in San Juan. Where
will your place be?
Alvin Toeffler's Future Shock of two de-
cades ago brings to mind our inability to re-
spond to rapid change. We at WPI must, as a
recognized world leader of innovation in un-
dergraduate education, be comfortable with
change and encourage change relevant to
the professions to which our students aspire.
For example, we have a special obliga-
tion to help improve precollege education
in America. The parents here today should
realize that their sons' and daughters' gen-
eration includes shocking numbers of indi-
viduals who will never acquire even the
basic skills of literacy. They will be the core
of America's work force, the men and women
with whom your children — our students —
will work to produce the world's goods and
services.
We must take our obligation to improve
precollege learning quite seriously. In that
vein, I ask every student here today to con-
sider volunteer service during your college
career. Think of how you might contribute to
the learning process for someone less fortu-
nate than yourself— a youngster struggling
with concepts you've already mastered. De-
velop a pattern of giving of yourself.
Feeling comfortable with change requires
dialogue, thoughtful reflection and rational
debate— that's what we do well here at WPI.
Our curriculum is designed to develop these
critical thinking skills, to make you aware of
your responsibilities to society, and to help
you apply your technical abilities and know-
ledge to the solutions of significant problems.
Without doubt, given enough resources,
time and effort, today's technology can solve
many problems, and can advance our collec-
tive understanding and social accomplish-
ment significantly. Already during my lifetime,
I've seen the development of a polio vaccine,
the untold promises of recombinant DNA
technology, the Apollo program's giant leap,
satellite communications, and the explora-
tion of the solar system. But technology can
bring unanticipated problems as well as ben-
efits. The challenge to today's generation is
to answer the question of which technology
should be brought to bear on which of
society's problems.
WPI is much more than an academic
community of high intellectual standards. It
is also an environment carefully crafted to
allow each student to meet those standards
in his or her own way. College is many things
to many people: it's the making of lifelong
friendships; it's the process of learning to
learn; it's a passage to scholarship; it's a com-
munity of traditions and common values; and
it's a spirit of respect for intellectual inquiry.
At WPI, the college experience includes
feeling Alumni Gymnasium shake from the
roar of the crowd at a home wrestling match;
walking through Alden Memorial on a rainy
day and sharing thoughts with the portraits
of the Institute's founders; and walking in
the footsteps of former students like Robert
Goddard.
It's remarkable that WPI's faculty has
remained true to the commitment to educa-
tional innovation that Rossiter Raymond ad-
mired in his Commencement address more
than a century ago. The consequence of that
commitment is that the WPI curriculum is an
innovative, substantive response to the need
to lead.
It's a preparation for those who have the
potential to recognize their deeper responsi-
bilities to society, and to accept a leadership
role, helping to set the direction of techno-
logical advancement for the country. It's a
preparation that results in scientific and
quantitative competence, a humanist's under-
standing of the applications of science and
technology, and an appreciation for the social
and cultural influences of the world in which
we live. In Mark Twain's view, it leads one to
appreciate all we have yet to learn.
I hope your time at WPI will prepare you
well to seek that undiscovered knowledge. I
hope you will find as you receive your degrees
four years from now that we have met our
obligation to you and to Plutarch, to fire your
imaginations, to kindle your creative spirit
and to ignite your hunger to learn. And once
lit, I hope your flames burn brightly and truly
illuminate the world.
WPI Journal
31
FINAL WORD
Karen Berka:
The Nancy Drew of the Crime Lab
As a young girl, Karen M. Berka '86
was addicted to Nancy Drew mys-
tery novels. Today, like the young
heroine of those stories, Berka also helps
track down criminals and solve mysteries.
But as a forensic chemist at the Indiana
State Police Laboratory in Indianapolis,
she uses tools and techniques that Nancy
Drew might have found quite remarkable.
"I detect crime not with a badge and a
gun, but by applying natural science to
matters of law," Berka says. The daughter
of Ladislav H. Berka, professor of chemis-
try at WP1, and Barbara Berka, a science
teacher at the Bancroft School in Worces-
ter, she majored in chemistry at the Insti-
tute and received her bachelor's degree
with distinction. Inspired by a television
interview she had seen as a seventh-grader
with a woman chemist in the Boston Crime
Lab, she went on to earn a master's degree
in forensic science with a concentration
in criminalistics at the University of New
Haven in Connecticut.
Criminalistics is the branch of forensic
science concerned with the examination of
evidence, such as blood, body fluids, hair,
fibers, drugs and arson accelerants. While
at the University of New Haven, Berka did
a summer internship in the criminalistics,
fingerprint and firearms sections of the
Maine State Police Crime Laboratory. She
says observing actual casework and help-
ing chemists and state police officers
proved to be a valuable experience. "It
was interesting to see how evidence was
received and examined in the real world."
As a graduate student, Berka worked
as a teaching assistant in the chemistry
department and as a research assistant
in the University of New Haven's forensic
science department. In 1988, through a
grant from the National Institute of Jus-
tice, she began working for the forensic
science department full time as a principal
research associate.
Before joining the Indiana State Police
Laboratory, Berka conducted research at
the Connecticut State Police Crime Labora-
tory, where she helped develop reliable
methods for identifying human skeletal
remains. "The work was based on the fact
that human bone contains red and white
blood cells," she says, "These cells contain
genetic material, such as blood-group sub-
"I detect crime
not with a badge
and a gun,
but by applying
natural science
to matters of law."
stances and DNA. We used the genetic in-
formation we obtained from the bones to
individualize them."
This technique should prove useful in
identifying victims of airplane crashes or
explosions, when forensic scientists may
have only bone remains to work with. In
cases where only bone fragments are
found, it will be possible to determine if
they come from more than one person.
The method may also help in the identifi-
cation of the remains of soldiers missing
in action in Vietnam and other wars.
From 1988 to 1990, Berka and her col-
leagues worked to refine the method used
to identify victims' ABO blood types from
genetic material found in the bones. Start-
ing in 1990, they concentrated their efforts
on recovering sufficient amounts of DNA
to further narrow the identification of
bone samples.
Berka and her research group pub-
lished their findings in several national and
international forensic science journals and
made presentations at FBI symposia and at
professional meetings around the world.
Last year she attended the International
Association of Forensic Scientists' triennial
meeting in Adelaide, Australia, where she
presented the data in a poster session.
Delegates to the meeting came from all
over the world, including Australia, En-
gland, France, Germany, Japan and Russia.
"I made valuable contacts with many
scientists and police investigators,"
Berka says. After the meeting she toured
Australia and visited the forensic labs in
Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. She says
she found it fascinating to see how another
country deals with the analysis of crime
scene evidence. She says she hopes to
visit European forensic labs when she
travels to the next international meeting
in Germany in 1993.
In addition to performing research,
Berka has taught an introductory course
on forensic science for undergraduates at
the University of New Haven. She belongs
to Phi Lambda Upsilon, the chemistry
honor society, and the chemistry and law
section of the American Chemical Society.
She is a trainee-affiliate of the American
Academy of Forensic Science.
Berka, who worked in blood and body-
fluid analysis during a six-month training
period at the Indianapolis crime labora-
tory, says she is enjoying her new job.
"I'm looking forward to eventually giving
testimony in the courtroom," she says.
She adds that she still enjoys reading
mystery novels and hopes to write her
own mystery story based on her knowl-
edge of and experience in forensic science.
Several of her poems have already been
published in local literary magazines.
—Ruth Trask
32
Summer 1992
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WPI Journal
VOLUME XCV NO. 4 FALL 1992
8
13
17
22
26
36
CONTENTS
':■ . . .'
Walking the Talk Diane Benison
Everybody's talking about total quality management these days, but it takes
more than talk to adopt this hot new approach to managing enterprises.
Xerox Rises from the Ashes of Failure Diane Benison
Plagued by arrogance and lackluster products, Xerox seemed doomed to failure.
Then it discovered TQM. What followed was a remarkable corporate turnaround.
Midwives to Change Diane Benison
At Motorola, Bausch & Lomb, Hamilton Standard and Polaroid, WPI alumni
are helping give birth to highly successful TQM programs.
Fall Madness
In just a few, frenetic days each fall, life at WPI is utterly transformed as
the students return and make the campus theirs, once more.
A Stellar Achievement Michael Dorsey
It seemed an impossible dream: build a major crystal growth experiment for a
NASA space lab in just 18 months. Here's how a team from WPI beat the odds.
Court of Honor Ruth Trask
His compassion and fairness on the bench and his efforts on behalf of the rights
of victims earned Ernest Hayeck '47 the title of America's top judge.
DEPARTMENTS
2 Advance Word: Not so Wild a Dream. Michael Dorsey
3 Letters: Here's Where the Money Goes at WPI;
Big Numbers and "Wet Paint" Signs; Perspectives on Technology and Society.
6 Communique: What Does Quality Mean at WPI? Diran Apelian
40 Final Word: Bob Sinicrope 71 Finds Joy and Fulfillment in All That Jazz. Ruth Trask
Front Cover: Paul Allaire at Xerox headquarters in Stamford, Conn. Story on page 13. Photo by
Ted Kawalerski. Opposite: Ernest Hayeck '47 in his Worcester courtroom. Story on page 36. Photo by
Janet Woodcock. Back Coven Astronauts Dick Richards and Bonnie Dunbar float before WPI's Zeolite
Crystal Growth Experiment aboard the space shuttle Columbia in June. A photograph of Albert Sacco,
head of WPI's Chemical Engineering Department, can be seen by Richard's left hand. Story on page 26.
Photo courtesy of NASA.
Staff of the WPI Journal: Editor, Michael W. Dorsey • Alumni News Editor, Ruth S. Trask • Writers, Bonnie Gelbwasser and Neil Norum • Designer, Carol Hoyle Ballard
• Photographer, Janet Woodcock • Alumni Publications Committee: Samuel Mencow '37, chairman • Paul J. Cleary '71 • James S. Demetry '58 • Judith Donahue SIM '82
• William J. Firla Jr. '60 • William R. Grogan '46 • Carl A. Keyser '39 • Robert C. Labonte '54 • Roger N. Perry Jr. '45 • Harlan B. Williams '50 • The WPI Journal (ISSN 0148-6128)
is published quarterly for the WPI Alumni Association by the Office of University Relations. Second class postage paid at Worcester, MA, and additional mailing offices.
Printed by The Lane Press, Burlington, Vt.
Diverse views presented in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or official WPI policies. We welcome letters to the editor. Address correspondence
to the Editor, WPIJournal, WPI, 100 Institute Road, Worcester, MA 01609-2280. Phone: (508) 831-5609, FAX: (508) 831-5604, Electronic mail (Internet): mwdorsey@wpi.wpi.edu.
Postmaster: If undeliverable, please send form 3579 to the address above. Do not return publication. Entire contents ®1992, Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
ADVANCE WORD
Not So Wild a Dream
On a cold, sunny day early in 1991, a
group of restless elementary school
students files into the gymnasium of
their school in central Massachusetts and
the students sit in rows on the floor. They
quickly settle down when the principal
stands to introduce a tall, muscular man
dressed in the familiar blue jumpsuit worn
by U.S. astronauts. The speaker switches
on a slide projector and instantly trans-
ports his young audience to a dreamlike
world where people float gracefully
through the air and gaze down on the
brilliant blue-green planet below them.
As an alternate payload specialist for
the first United States Microgravity Labora-
tory (USML-1), one of the most ambitious
missions ever flown aboard a NASA space
shuttle, Albert Sacco Jr. has already visited
nearly 3,000 children in schools like this
around the country, explaining how astro-
nauts live and work in space and trying to
get the next generation excited about the
prospect of someday traveling into the fi-
nal frontier as scientists and engineers.
For Sacco, head of WPI's Chemical
Engineering Department, talking to young
students about space is truly a labor of
love, for it was as a youngster growing up
in Belmont, Mass., that he himself caught
the space bug. He was in second grade
when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik.
Later, as a sixth-grader, he thrilled to the
exploits of Gagarin, Shepard and Grissom.
In those early days of manned spaceflight,
he decided that he, too, would one day
know the thrill of riding a pillar of flame
into orbit.
Over the years, when he was not work-
ing at Mario's, the Boston restaurant and
bar owned by his former-prizefighter
father, or making touchdown passes as
the quarterback on the Belmont High
School football team, he watched the
launches and splashdowns on TV and
filled a scrapbook with news clippings
about the men who rode the rockets of
Mercury, Gemini and Apollo.
He graduated from high school in 1968,
just a year before Neil Armstrong took his
giant leap for mankind. Though his father
had hoped he might become a professional
football player, Sacco's sights
were still set on space.
Knowing NASA would need
chemical engineers to design
waste recycling systems for space-
craft, he enrolled as a chemical en-
gineering major at Northeastern
University. In 1973 he was ac-
cepted into MIT's Ph.D. program
in chemical engineering. With a
scholarship from NASA, he found
a way to use the Bosch process,
which converts carbon dioxide
and hydrogen into water and car-
bon, in regenerative life-support
systems.
In 1976, married and the father
of two daughters, he applied to
become an astronaut. One year
before, three U.S. astronauts had
docked their Apollo capsule to a
Soviet Soyuz, bringing to an end
the first great era of American space explo-
ration. That era included Skylab, the first
U.S. space station, which had proven that
astronauts can perform worthwhile scien-
tific research in the microgravity environ-
ment of low Earth orbit. Sacco knew that
the space shuttle would build on that suc-
cess, initiating a new era of space explora-
tion that would demand a new breed of
astronauts — space travelers drawn not
from the ranks of military pilots, but from
the cadre of university researchers.
After NASA turned him down, Sacco
became convinced his chances of follow-
ing his heroes into space had evaporated.
But, as you'll read in the article beginning
on page 26, 14 years later, having forged
a successful career as an educator and re-
searcher at WP1, he got a second chance.
While he is a step closer to realizing his
dream, his role as an alternate payload
specialist did not prove his ticket into
space. Having completed NASA's rigorous
astronaut training and flown a successful
experiment aboard USML-1, Sacco says
his chances of flying on a future mission
should be good, providing he is willing to
go through all over again the more than
two years of intensive preparation re-
quired for the USML-1 mission.
As a NASA payload specialist, Chemical
Engineering Department Head Albert
Sacco Jr. has talked to nearly 3,000
schoolchildren around the nation.
"I didn't have a vacation or a holiday
during those two years," he says. "I didn't
see my family but maybe 10 or 20 times
during that whole period. That was a big
sacrifice. Was it worth it? I think so."
Sacco won't say whether he will grab
the chance to be part of another shuttle
mission in a few years, should NASA ex-
tend the offer. It's just too soon to know
how he will feel then, he explains. But in
the end, his quest to be a space traveler
may simply be too big a dream to set
aside. As he told a writer for a Boston
newspaper last year, "It's what could
be that matters, not what is."
—Michael Dorsey
Fall 1992
LETTERS
Here's Where the Money Goes at WPI
To the Editor:
Ever since reading the letter by Peter
Schoonmaker '80 (Letters, Summer 1992),
I have been troubled about how to re-
spond. This is not because I disagree with
Peter's facts, and certainly not because 1
disagree with the priorities he advances
for WPI. It is the case, however, that we
have been implementing the very priori-
ties he outlines: "(1) student financial aid
or tuition reduction, (2) faculty compensa-
tion, and (3) direct impact facilities such
as classrooms, laboratories and student
housing." That is, in fact, exactly where
the money has been going!
Interestingly, the numbers Peter quotes
from the 1990-91 annual report support
this assertion. Table 2 from the Spring
1992 WPI Journal has been reprinted here,
once again; I've augmented it with several
additional numbers and have changed the
FY 1991 figures to include institutional
work study as financial aid, as it was in
the FY 1985 numbers.
Table 2 (augmented) shows that total
expenditures for financial aid were in-
creased by 69.2 percent (9.2 percent aver-
age annual compounded) in constant
dollars between FY 1985 and FY 1991. This
is significantly more than other expendi-
ture increases during that period. More-
Table 2 (Augmented) SOME REPRESENTATIVE CHANGES
IN ASSETS, REVENUE AND EXPENDITURES AT WPI
FY 1985*
(in millions
of dollars)
FY1991*
(in millions
of dollars)
Change
In percent)
Compound
Avg. Ann.
Change (%)
Endowment
Tuition/Fees Revenue
38.2
51.3
....34.3
5.0
6.7
3.0
4.1
9.2
22.7
12.4
18.3
....47.6
Total Revenues
.27.3
32.7
....19.7
Instruction & Library 7.8
Financial Aid 3.9
(including institutional work study)
Institutional Financial Aid 1.2 ....
9.9
....26.9
6.6
....69.2
4.1
..241.7
Operations and
Plant Maintenance
2.2 ....
2.2
0.0
0.0
Student Services
1.02 ..
1.29
26.4
4.0
General Administration
and Institutional
1.32 ..
1.53
15.9
2.5
WPI Tuition and Fees
(in thousands of 1978 $s)
4.8 ....
6.6
37.5
5.5
'Constant Dollars, Basis: 1978 (Source: 1990-91 WPI Annual Report)
over, the average annual percent changes
in expenditures in constant dollars for the
components of financial aid from institu-
tional, endowment and external funds
during that period were 22.7, 3.1 and -2.4,
respectively.
In other words, during that six-year pe-
riod, when we increased total revenues (in
WPI President Jon Strauss talks to alumni at Reunion in a renovated Alden Memorial.
constant dollars) at an average annual rate
of 3.0 percent, tuition and fees revenue at
an average annual rate of 6.7 percent, and
tuition and fees themselves at an average
annual rate of 5.5 percent, we increased
financial aid expenditures from institu-
tional funds at an average annual rate of
22.7 percent— nearly 3.5 times faster than
tuition and fees revenue. During this pe-
riod, undergraduate institutional financial
aid grew from 10 percent to 23.5 percent
of undergraduate tuition revenue. That
sounds like a priority to me!
Also, as that period ended, we elected
not to increase tuition rates for 1991-92
and have increased rates for 1992-93 by
only 3 percent — essentially zero growth in
constant dollars and about half the in-
creases implemented by most of our peer
institutions. That, too, sounds like a prior-
ity! Moreover, with our need-blind admis-
sions policy, we work quite hard to make
it possible, financially, for any qualified
applicant to attend WPI.
Our priority on faculty compensation
is more difficult to demonstrate from
these data. Table 2 (augmented) shows
that average annual expenditure increases
(in constant dollars) were greater for in-
WPI Journal
struction and library (4.1 percent) than
for student services (4.0 percent), gen-
eral administrative and institutional
(2.5 percent), or operations and plant
maintenance (0 percent). Much of the
real increase in instructional expenses
was directed to a 10 percent increase in
tenure-track positions over the period,
undertaken both to accommodate a 7
percent increase in enrollment and to
provide faculty more time for scholarly
activities.
In recent years, we have kept our
average salaries for assistant profes-
sors at the top of our comparison
group in the Association of Indepen-
dent Technological Universities in or-
der to be able to attract and retain the
very best young faculty. Unfortunately,
the pressures of financial aid and our
efforts to moderate our tuition in-
creases have caused the average sala-
ries of associate and full professors to
slip to about the median of this com-
parison group. Providing competitive
compensation to our productive fac-
ulty and staff is one of our highest
priorities for the future.
The priorities expressed in our capital
improvements in recent years (Founders
Hall, Fuller Laboratories, Institute Hall, the
new Biosensor, Bioprocessing and Ceram-
ics laboratories, the communications net-
work, and classroom, laboratory and
residence hall improvements throughout
the campus) conform well to Peter's
stated priorities: "direct-impact facilities
such as classrooms, laboratories and stu-
dent housing." And, while Peter refers to
the renovation of Alden Memorial (funded
totally from external sources) as "a fringe
benefit," the hundreds of students involved
in our various performing arts programs
and the many students, alumni and friends
who benefit from the new meeting facilities
in Alden would disagree vehemently.
Our latest physical improvement
project, the new Fitness Center in Alumni
Gymnasium (funded by gifts from the anni-
versary classes of 1952, 1953, 1967 and
1968) might also be questioned for how
"it contributes to engineering and science
education." But the more than 1,500 stu-
dents and faculty who signed up to use it
in its first week of operation would prob-
ably argue that this facility will help pro-
duce more of the "satisfied alumni" to
which Peter alludes.
Moreover, this past year our students
(customers, in our new jargon borrowed
Fuller Laboratories is an example of a recent
capital improvement that has had a direct
impact on educational excellence.
from industry) and faculty have recom-
mended very strongly that a new campus
center be given the highest priority in our
capital project planning.
Peter faults our $450,000 landscaping
budget without noting that it includes all
costs for maintaining more than 60 acres
of campus — including personnel, equip-
ment, materials, snow removal, athletic
field maintenance and, yes, even new flow-
ers. That aside, it should also be noted
that the total real expenditures for main-
taining the physical plant did not grow
during this six-year period, while new and
renovated facilities added significantly to
the underlying costs. Despite Peter's sug-
gestion to the contrary, we find that our
alumni, faculty, staff and students — and
particularly prospective students and
their parents — place a great deal of em-
phasis on the quality and attractiveness of
our campus, both buildings and grounds.
Peter makes a clarion call for greater
efficiency and more tough-mindedness on
the part of WPI administrators and sug-
gests, "WPI is not being managed responsi-
bly." Without meaning to sound defensive,
1 suggest that WPI has been mindful of the
changes in the society around it and quick
to adopt those industrial practices that
will improve its effectiveness as well as
its efficiency.
While serving as an aide to former
Education Secretary William J.
Bennett, Chester E. Finn Jr., a profes-
sor at Vanderbilt University, received
a lot of press attention for advocating
the "no-frills university." We at WPI
are quite mindful of the best implica-
tions of this concept, as evidenced by
our success at continuing to improve
quality while restraining prices.
We are not, however, about to
sacrifice the very things that make
WPI so special to us all in a mindless
race to a generic engineering school
model. And, our alumni, our students
and our prospective students have
made it clear that many things
Chester Finn and Peter Schoonmaker
would consider "frills" are important
to their decisions to matriculate at —
and their continuing enthusiasm
for— WPI.
This past year has seen any num-
ber of significant accomplishments at
WPI that have been chronicled in the
pages of the Journal and the WPI Wire,
including the retention of our No. 1
ranking among comprehensive univer-
sities in the North by U.S. News and World
Report, the reaffirmation of our institu-
tional accreditation by the New England
Association of Schools and Colleges, the
continued enhancement of our Global
Perspectives Program, the establishment
of the Center for High-Performance
Computing, and the initiation of the
Massachusetts Academy of Mathematics
and Science at Worcester.
These notable accomplishments, to
say nothing of the extraordinary quality
of the education we offer our students,
the scholarly contributions of our aca-
demic programs, and the many services
performed in support of our society, were
made possible, in large measure, by the
dedication and hard work of almost every
member of the WPI family and by the fiscal
responsibility that is a watchword of this
distinctive institution. And, most of these
contributions would not continue without
the strong advocacy and generous finan-
cial support of alumni and friends.
Having said all this, I certainly do
agree with Peter's concluding notion that
readers of the Journal should make them-
selves heard. If one measure of that is
more giving designated for financial aid,
there could not be a better outcome.
Jon C. Strauss
President of WPI
Fall 1992
Perspectives on Technology and Society
To the Editor:
I was particularly interested in Diane
Benison's piece on Thomas Shannon's
work and thoughts on bioethics ("First, Do
No Harm," Summer 1992). It is interesting
that a research group such as the Center
for Theology and Natural Sciences has
been founded to attempt to bridge the gap
between the underlying traditions of soci-
ety and their perceived conflicts with sci-
ence. However, it is somewhat frightening
that many researchers (and society itself)
seem to place such confidence in the abil-
ity of technology to lead us into the future
through projects like the Human Genome
Initiative. It reminds me of the old story
about a man who could solve almost any-
thing, if he could only figure out what the
problem was.
In his 1985 book, The Closing of the
American Mind, Allan Bloom asked many
penetrating questions about the historical
position of the natural sciences in Western
traditions. He urged us to reexamine why
"natural" science has become so estranged
from philosophy and the humanities. This
question is worth more than the lip ser-
vice it is so often given, and I believe its
examination is part of the key to resolv-
ing many of the agonizing issues we face,
when, as Shannon suggests, "technology
continues to outpace ethics and the law."
One need only attend a public hearing on
health risks from "hazardous" waste, and
to observe the predictably emotional re-
sponse often given to a dry presentation
of toxicological data, to appreciate the in-
herent cross-cultural mismatch, suspicion
and distrust that can so easily occur.
In the last 25 to 30 years we have wit-
nessed the ostensible decline (for better
or for worse) of many of the underpin-
nings of our traditional models of social
guidance (i.e. religion and family). What
is the relationship (if any) between these
events and our increasing distance, as a
society, from the complex world of special-
ized technology? The distrust in many
traditional forms, including technology —
especially by the young — and the simulta-
neous emergence of a myriad of "growth
centers" seeking spiritual or psychological
renewal (and not, incidentally, rejecting
much that is material and technical), seem
to be obvious manifestations of a society
searching for a more balanced approach
to living.
At the same time, few would disagree
that the awe-inspiring discoveries of this
period have evoked an almost religious
sense that science is "truth," on the one
hand, while on the other hand eliciting an
intuitive feeling that this is not all of the
truth — that somehow we must examine
and appreciate things in a more humane
context if true understanding and the best
use of these discoveries is to be achieved.
In a second glance at several of the ar-
ticles in the Summer Journal, I was struck
by the use of spiritual metaphor. In "The
Soul of a New Center," the Holy Grail is
equated to new supercomputing systems;
in "Genetics and the Great Shrimp Deficit,"
we learn we can now engineer domestic
animals; and in "A Trillion Here, A Trillion
There," there is an expressed sense of
amazement at the incomprehensible, end-
Big Numbers and "Wet Paint" Signs
To the Editor:
Re: "A Trillion Here, A Trillion There"
(Advance Word, Summer 1992). I agree,
the proliferation of large number usage
by scientists, government agencies and
politicians has numbed the mind of the
general public to their real significance
and meaning.
The largest numbers the average per-
son will encounter in day-to-day activities
relate to insurance, mortgage balance and
miles shown on an automobile odometer.
We can still relate to some degree when
we hear of millions, but when we get to
billions, trillions and light years our under-
standing goes off-track.
That is why it is comforting to see a
"Wet Paint" sign. Now, here is something
we can relate to; we can even test its valid-
ity with a single finger. Perhaps what the
world needs are more "Wet Paint" signs to
reassure us that there is still something in
this high-tech world we can take comfort
in being able to understand.
Richard C. Olson '50
Shrewsbury, Mass.
ing with a wonderful quote by the play-
wright Eugene Ionesco. Perhaps this comes
a little closer to the practical man's ac-
knowledgment that there is an increasingly
important necessity to question the rela-
tionship between relatively abstract tech-
nological concepts and the everyday world
in which we live. Perhaps we must even de-
vote more than "three percent of the bud-
get" to those profoundly human questions
— including those that arise from our mysti-
cal and poetic sides — that are essential av-
enues for balancing our lives and culture.
Albert Einstein was able to see far be-
yond his own arena, as in these remarks
quoted in The New York Times in 1952: "It
is not enough to teach a man a speciality.
Through it he may become a kind of useful
machine, but not a harmoniously devel-
oped personality. It is essential that the
student acquire an understanding of and a
lively feeling for values. He must acquire a
vivid sense of the beautiful and of the mor-
ally good. Otherwise he — with his special-
ized knowledge — more closely resembles a
trained dog than a harmoniously developed
person. He must learn to understand the
motives of human beings, their illusions,
and their sufferings in order to acquire a
proper relationship to the individual man
and to the community."
In the end, the quality of the work of our
era is likely to be judged in relation to the
service rendered to society by craftsmen
from all trades striving toward more holis-
tic goals. Enlightened self-interest requires
another look at our approach to the ques-
tion, "what should these goals be?"
Peter F. Kuniholm '61
Pound Ridge, New York
P.S. As a practicing consulting engineer
who shares many of the concerns ex-
pressed in Peter Schoonmaker's letter
(Letters, Summer 1992), I nevertheless
find myself hoping that WPI, while main-
taining the New England practicality that
so many of us have benefited from, will all
the same resist the call to become too nar-
rowly focused on financial matters for their
own sake. Surely we must be prudent, but
1 would urge emphasis on the seemingly
abstract but critically important human
questions of the sort being raised by
Shannon. However, as with the concept
of total quality management, the commit-
ment to do so must come from the top if
it is to be effective.
WPI Journal
COMMUNIQUE
What Does Quality Mean at WPI?
It was a beautiful New England spring
day. Corporate recruiters were on
campus and the seniors were anxious,
as their futures were beginning to take
shape. Returning to Boynton Hall with just
a few minutes to pick up some documents
before heading out to yet another meeting,
I bounded up the stairs to find that every
available space in the second-floor recep-
tion area — from the chairs in the confer-
ence room to couches in the sitting
area — was occupied by a student stooping
over some papers.
I also noticed Joan Szkutak 79 of
Procter & Gamble Co., whom I had visited
just a few weeks before in Cincinnati. We
greeted each other and I asked what was
going on. She said the students were being
tested — our students, who were being re-
cruited by Procter & Gamble, were being
evaluated by a company test!
1 vividly remember that experience,
because it made me think about an impor-
tant question, one that I have been asking
as a matter of course since then: who are
WPl's customers? Certainly, our students
are our primary customers, but they are
by no means our only customers. As my
experience that spring day reminded me,
the industries that hire our graduates are
also our customers. The parents of our
students are customers, as are their
friends. Our customer base also includes
our alumni, our neighbors, the companies
and agencies that support research at WPI,
and the people who read about that re-
search in academic journals. In a sense,
the whole of society is a customer of WPI.
We also have internal customers.
For example, faculty members who teach
upperclass courses are, to a large extent,
the customers of those faculty members
who teach the freshman courses. Assess-
ing the needs of all of our customers —
external and internal— and ensuring
that those needs are not only met, but
exceeded — that is what quality should
mean at WPI.
In my address before the 1990 Aca-
demic Convocation, I noted that Xerox
Corp., under its CEO, Paul Allaire '60, had
recently won industry's most coveted
prize: the Malcolm Baldrige National
Quality Award. I proposed that WPI
strive to achieve a similar level of excel-
lence. But the question left unanswered
was how does one implement a quality
program — one aimed at meeting customer
needs — within higher education? One can
start by looking at the criteria for the
Baldrige Award. They are:
Leadership, the sustaining of a clear and
visible value system that guides the activi-
ties of the institution,
Information and Analysis, a quality-
related database supporting a system
that insists upon management by fact,
Strategic Quality Planning, the integration
of quality improvement efforts into the
overall short- and long-term planning
processes,
Human Resource Utilization, the provid-
ing of quality education and training, and
the tying of performance measurements to
quality objectives,
Quality Assurance of Services, the sys-
tematic and continuous improvement of
critical processes within the organization,
Quality Results, the examination of quality
indices (internal and external to the insti-
tution) based on analyses of customer re-
quirements and expectations, and
Customer Satisfaction, being able to deter-
mine customer requirements and expecta-
tions, measure customer satisfaction, and
improve the relationship/process once
problems are identified.
These are laudable and appropriate
criteria, and we in higher education need
to adapt them to the management of our
institutions. But where do we begin? For
the members of WPI's Blue Ribbon Task
Force, a committee of faculty, staff, stu-
dents and trustees that has been charged
by the trustees and WPI President Jon C.
Strauss to recommend measures to bring
about financial stability at the Institute,
based on a new vision for WPI and work-
ing within the framework of its strategic
plan, that starting point was a training
session at Xerox — at the invitation
of Paul Allaire — on the principles and
tenets of quality management.
The time we spent at Xerox was
meaningful. But as we left corporate
headquarters that day, we knew the
challenge before us was to adapt the
principles Xerox has used so successfully
to our own business — higher education.
As we thought about that challenge, a
number of paradoxes kept creeping up.
For example:
Student learning is difficult to measure.
We do teaching evaluations in which
students answer such questions as "Was
the teacher well-prepared?" and "Does
he or she present the material in an orga-
nized and clear manner?" But teaching
evaluations are not exactly learning
evaluations.
Student grades may be misleading
indicators. The WPI Competency Exam
seems like a better system than grades
to assess learning. This terminal degree
requirement, adopted and implemented
by the WPI faculty as part of the WPI
Plan, but later phased out in favor of dis-
tribution requirements, asked students
to marshal all they had learned at the
Institute to solve a real problem.
Academic freedom of the faculty and
student satisfaction cannot and should
not be in conflict. The faculty and the
students should be partners in the learn-
ing process, each striving for the same
goal: a challenging experience for stu-
dents that stretches them intellectually
and creates in them a passion for learn-
ing that will stay with them for life. In
that endeavor, the faculty's need for
freedom and the students' demand for
Fall 1992
a satisfying educational experience should
be consonant.
These paradoxes are not impediments;
rather they point out that we need a new
model for higher education — a new para-
digm based on quality principles. There
are compelling reasons to consider adopt-
ing such an approach. Here are four:
• A significant portion of what many of us
at WPI do could be classified as rework.
We fix problems that keep repeating.
• Miscommunication seems to abound
among the members of our community.
• Shared governance on campus seems to
mean shared authority and not shared
responsibility. Authority and responsibil-
ity ought to be inseparable.
• There is a great deal of "talking about
each other," rather than "talking with
each other."
WPI is a special place. The intellectual
vibrancy and the commitment of the fac-
ulty and the staff to the Institute's mission
is genuine. Institutional pride is abundant.
Adopting quality principles will alleviate
the process problems we've experienced
and take us to a higher level of satisfaction
about all we do.
So far I've addressed quality principles
in a general way. Quite specific to our cul-
WPI, like all
institutions of
higher education,
can benefit from
the quality princi-
ples being adopted
successfully by
major corporations
like Xerox, notes
WPI's provost,
Diran Apelian.
ture in higher educa-
tion, I am proposing
that we consider the
following imperatives:
1. Synergisms and
consonance of goals
are required at all lev-
els— from the presi-
dent, to the provost, to
the department heads,
to the faculty, and to
every member of the
staff. Shared gover-
nance (shared respon-
sibility, not just shared
authority) between the faculty and the ad-
ministration needs to be reinforced.
2. Decisions must be based on facts. This
applies to policy and operational decisions
and requires that every one of us be knowl-
edgeable in assessing, evaluating, measur-
ing and distilling the facts out of the data.
3. We must concentrate on fixing the
process, not the problem. That means
getting to the root cause of problems and
fixing the underlying processes that give
rise to them.
4. We need to benchmark at all levels.
We must measure our strengths, our vul-
nerabilities and our opportunities against
those of our competitors.
5. Training — at all levels — should be a
high priority. In general, universities do
not do a good job in this arena. We need
to infuse much of our energies and re-
sources into training and educating our
staff. In addition, recognition, reward and
performance evaluation should be aligned
with the institution's quality objectives,
which in turn should be based on its value
system and its vision.
Benchmarking is an interesting case
in point. It is crucial, for example, that the
faculty be cognizant of the needs of indus-
try. They should know what the industries
that hire our graduates look for. They
should also know the reasons why some
industries don't hire our graduates.
But it is not enough to benchmark; we
must work together to use the information
we gather. It is important, for example, that
our "production team" (the faculty) and
our "marketing team" (our Career Develop-
ment Office) work together to meet the
needs of our industrial customers. Perhaps
5 percent of the faculty (on a rotational
basis) should be involved with the
Institute's placement function.
Similarly, the production team and
the "sales team" (the Admissions Office)
should be better aligned, perhaps by hav-
ing 5 percent of the faculty be involved
with the admissions function of the Insti-
tute. The way we run our "business" will
dramatically change if we develop such
cross-functional relationships.
The five imperatives I outlined above
call for change. Such change will bring
about total empowerment, a united com-
munity and an environment in which
every person in the organization knows
how crucial his or her job or function is
to the institution's well-being.
It will bring an inner satisfaction to
every member of the community to know
that his or her contributions make a sig-
nificant difference. But change is not easy;
more accurately, it is very difficult. It re-
quires shedding old views and rethinking
anew. As John Kenneth Galbraith ob-
served, "Faced with the choice between
changing one's mind and proving that
there is no need to do so, almost every-
body gets busy on the proof."
At WPI we have committed ourselves to
opening minds. We have worked to create
an environment in our classrooms and
laboratories that encourages students to
question, to analyze and to synthesize.
Now it is time for us to consider how qual-
ity initiatives can help us do these jobs
even better. As I noted in my 1990 Convo-
cation address, "Let us be recognized for
our total quality program in everything
we do. We will be the only college in the
nation that will have implemented such
a philosophy. Let us be the envy of our
peers, and the college of choice for all po-
tential students. 1 know we can do it; there
are no limits to what we can do together."
— Diran Apelian
Apelian is WPI's provost and vice president
for academic affairs.
WPI Journal
Walking the Talk:
Managements New Philosophy of Quality
By Diane Benison
Before too long, there may be
just two kinds of companies in
the world: those that follow
the philosophy of total quality
management and those that
go out of business. Here is the
story behind this powerful
technique and a look at how
it's turned the tide for several
major American corporations.
Editor's Note: It's hard to pick up
a professional publication in any
discipline these days without
reading something about total
quality management (TQM), or
continuous improvement, as it is
also called. This approach to man-
aging organizations first took
hold in industry but is now finding
advocates in all sorts of institu-
tions (see Communique, page 6,
for a look at how TQM may find a
home at WPI). In the pages that
follow, the Journal explains how
TQM works, how it can help
make a corporation more com-
petitive, and the steps an organi-
zation must take—and the
commitment it must make — to
adopt it. Then, starting on page 13,
you'll find out how five major
American corporations — and
WPTs own Management Depart-
ment— are putting the principles
of TQM to good use.
HP
1 otal quality management isn't for
I! everyone. Most certainly, it's not
1 for the faint of heart, the impatient,
■ the autocratic, or those who feel
^L they've paid their dues and want to
maintain the status quo until death or retire-
ment, whichever comes first.
But establishing a corporate culture
based on a philosophy of continuous im-
provement may be the single most impor-
tant step a company can take to gain and
maintain an edge in today's highly competi-
tive marketplace. Some TQM proponents
will go so far as to say that companies that
don't institutionalize the philosophy of con-
tinuous improvement will simply not sur-
vive as global competition intensifies.
Xerox Corp., which was humbled in the
1980s as customers judged its products and
services inadequate, credits its turnaround
to a decision to adopt TQM (see page 13).
Company representatives candidly explain
that making the shift took more time and
was far more difficult than expected. They
also say the process of change was filled
with setbacks.
But by sticking with TQM through these
ups and downs, Xerox engineered a highly
celebrated comeback. Its products are once
again held in high esteem in the market-
place— something clearly reflected in its
bottom line. And, as a result of adopting
quality programs, the company won the
Department of Commerce's prestigious
Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award
in 1989 (see story, page 11).
Most consumers would agree that
when they say a product has quality
they mean it works well and doesn't break
right away. But in the last decade the word
has come to stand for much more than that.
As defined by companies that espouse
KEY REQUIREMENTS OF
A QUALITY PLAN
Understand customers' needs
Evaluate & improve processes
to meet needs
Develop measurement systems to
track progress
Educate, reward, communicate
Set reach-out goals
continuous improvement, quality products
and services are those that satisfy customer
expectations for function, performance and
price. In the world of TQM, they note, it is
the customer who defines quality, not the
designer, the engineer, the assembler or the
accounting office.
But the organizational model that still
prevails in much of the U.S. workplace is an
autocratic, hierarchical one where workers
are told what to do by the layers of manage-
ment above them. For this reason, imple-
menting continuous improvement takes
top-to-bottom change. First and foremost,
it requires workers and managers to change
their attitudes about each other, and to
examine how they think about work.
Implementing a TQM program also
means learning to use complex statistical
and analytical tools. It means abandoning
turf wars and politics-as-usual. It means
replacing serial, segmented product devel-
Fall 1992
opment and design with the principles
of concurrent engineering. And it means
learning to work cooperatively, listening to
others, and empowering subordinates to act
in the best interests of the customer.
Change of this magnitude is difficult, but
the rewards are great, say those who've
made the change, for a philosophy of con-
tinuous improvement can make a company
more effective, efficient and profitable.
Among other benefits reported by TQM
companies: the time needed to move from
conception to market with a new product
is significantly shortened; scrap is reduced,
saving money on raw materials and pollu-
tion control; fewer errors are made, saving
employees time and customers aggravation;
the cost of manufacturing is lowered; and
customer satisfaction and loyalty are in-
creased.
There is another benefit, one not often
stated explicitly. While innovation can give
a company a big boost in market share, and
even create new markets (Xerox's 914 plain-
paper copier and Polaroid's first instant
camera are good examples), it is continuous
improvement over time that truly gives a
company an incremental advantage over
its competitors. To survive and prosper,
companies need innovation and continuous
improvement.
Whether it's called total quality man-
agement or continuous improvement,
the goal of this new management approach
is simple, to deliver a consistent product or
service that does exactly what the customer
wants. But how does a company go about
turning that austere philosophy into a con-
crete approach to running a real organization?
What follows are 1 1 practical rules for
doing just that. They are based on ideas
culled from interviews with alumni at five
major corporations and with researchers
in WPI's Management Department.
1. Use Fewer Vendors and Make
Them Part of the Quest for Quality
Companies that adhere to the principles
of continuous improvement treat their ven-
dors as partners. They tend to have fewer
suppliers than most other companies and
they hold them to the same standards of
quality they apply to their own products.
They also bring suppliers into the design
process as new products are being devel-
oped. This allows suppliers to enhance new
products with their own technological ex-
pertise. Many TQM companies also have
vendor certification programs that require
suppliers and prospective suppliers to dem-
onstrate that they can adhere to the firm's
quality standards.
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But What do They Actually Do?
The Problem Solving Process is very
flexible, with application to a wide variety of
District concerns. You will want to use this
process when:
•There is a gap between what is happening
and what you want to happen
•You want to move from a vague dissatisfac-
tion to a solvable, clearly defined problem
•You're not sure how to approach an issue
The Problem-Solving Process (PSP) has six
basic steps. Often they are shown in the
familiar wheel:
Like most companies that adopt total quality programs, Xerox has developed
formal quality procedures and tools for its employees. Two key tools em-
ployed at Xerox are a nine-step quality improvement process, left, and a
six-step approach to solving problems.
As it moved along the quality path,
Xerox cut the number of vendors from
which it purchases parts from more than
5,000 to about 450. At the same time, it in-
creased the quality of the material and
components it buys. TQM companies often
open their training classes to their vendors,
teaching them right along with their own em-
ployees to use the statistical and procedural
tools needed to identify problems, reduce
variation and produce consistent quality.
2. Let the Voice of the Customer
Drive the Quality Process
Just as TQM companies must treat their
vendors differently, they also change the
way they interact with their customers.
They listen to customers and gather data
about them by observation. They find out
how well their products are meeting the
needs of their customers, and how those
needs may change in the future.
When customer surveys uncover dis-
satisfaction, TQM companies find out what
went wrong and work to fix it right away.
More important, they delegate to the lowest
possible level of the corporation the author-
ity to make those fixes, and give workers
the information they need to make the best
possible business judgments.
These companies make sure the field
reports filed by sales and service people
about their products — and the problems
customers have with them — quickly get into
the hands of designers, marketers and fac-
tory technicians, who just as quickly find
solutions to those problems. This feedback
loop assures that changes appear in a
matter of days, instead of the months often
required under the old, top-heavy system.
3. Fix the Process, Not the Problem
One of the underlying principles of TQM
is that to create defect-free products and
services — known as zero variation — you
have to fix the process, not the problem,
whether that process involves manufactur-
ing, service or administration. Any company
can fix a problem that crops up in its copier,
computer, avionics component or contact
lens, but by finding the cause of the problem
and fixing it at its source, one can eliminate
the chance that similar problems will arise
in the future.
While the idea is simplicity itself, imple-
menting it is not. Sometimes the problem in
a process involves people, sometimes it
stems from a poor work flow, sometimes it's
due to inadequate measurement or statisti-
cal process control — sometimes it's every-
thing. To fix a process one must use solid
data and careful analysis. The bottom line in
process improvement is reducing variation,
which helps curtail the need for inspection
— and correcting defects — at the end of the
process.
Richard W. Anderson, a general manager
at Hewlett-Packard, is often quoted in corpo-
rate training materials because he expresses
this principle so succinctly. "The earlier you
detect and prevent a defect," Anderson
says, "the more you can save. If you catch
a two-cent resistor before you use it and
throw it away, you lose two cents. If you
WPI Journal
PRODUCT / PROCESS IMPROVEMENT
FLOW DIAGRAM
6-
7-
PRIORITIZE OPPORTUNITIES
FOR IMPROVEMENT
SELECT THE APPROPRIATE
TEAM
DESCRIBE THE TOTAL
PROCESS
PERFORM MEASUREMENT SYSTEM
ANALYSIS
IDENTIFY AND DESCRIBE THE POTENTIAL 1
CRITICAL PROCESS /PRODUCT 1
ISOLATE AND VERIFY THE
CRITICAL PROCESSES
PERFORM PROCESS AND MEASUREMENT }
SYSTEM CAPABILITY STUDIES J
CAPABLE
PROCESS
PROCESS
NOT CAPABLE
ACTION REQUIRED ON PROCESS
EQUIPMENT /PROCESS REDESIGN
PRODUCT REDESIGN
MANAGEMENT ACTION
IMPLEMENT OPTIMUM OPERATING
CONDITIONS AND CONTROL METHODOLOGY
• TARGET/TOLERANCES • PROCESS CONTROLS
■ PREVENTIVE ACTION PROCEDURES
■ CORRECTIVE ACTION PROCEDURES
MONITOR PROCESSES OVER
TIME / CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
10-
REDUCE COMMON CAUSE VARIATION
TOWARDS ACHIEVING SIX SIGMA
IS Cp > 2.0
AND
Cpk> 1.5
YES
I
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
®
MOTOROLA INC.
Semiconductor Products Sector
don't find it until it has been soldered into
a computer component, it may cost $10 to
repair the part. If you don't catch the com-
ponent until it is in the computer user's
hands, the repair will cost hundreds of
dollars. Indeed, if a $5,000 computer has
to be repaired in the field, the expense
may exceed the manufacturing cost."
4. Design Quality Into Products
TQM principles hold that many quality
problems are the product of faulty design.
Robust design is one way to overcome the
limitations of traditional design methods.
A robust design is one that takes into ac-
count the inherent limitations of a particular
manufacturing process, but still produces a
reliable product time after time.
But quality designs are worthless if it
takes so long to produce them that the com-
petition gets its product to market faster.
Concurrent engineering is a way of stream-
lining the design process and making it less
wasteful of human energy.
Lew Veraldi, vice president of Ford
Motor Co., who led the team that brought
the Taurus to market, defined the problems
of the traditional, serial design process:
"What someone designs and styles may be
Companies like Motorola
have developed formalized
procedures, left, for
achieving continuous
improvement. At Motorola,
the ultimate objective is
reducing variation in its
products to the level of six
sigma, below, or 3.4 defects
per million opportunities.
quite another matter to engineering. And
by the time it reaches manufacturing, there
may be some practical problems inherent in
the design that make manufacturing a night-
mare. The people who actually build the
vehicle haven't been consulted at all. And,
marketing may well discover two or three rea-
sons why the consumer doesn't like the prod-
uct, and it is too late to make any changes."
In concurrent engineering, everyone who
will make decisions about a new product
gets involved from the start. Potential prob-
lems in engineering, manufacturing and mar-
keting are identified at the beginning of the
design stage, when it is less expensive —
and time consuming — to correct them. And,
by carrying on the processes of design, engi-
neering, manufacturing engineering and
marketing simultaneously, the whole thing
goes much faster and products get into
customers' hands in a fraction of the time
needed under the old model.
5. Use the Right Statistical Tools to
Reduce Defects and Boost Quality
To statisticians and industrial engineers,
sigma (O), the 18th letter of the Greek
alphabet, means standard deviation, a
measurement of the range of variation in
an object or process. In the world of TQM,
sigma — preceded by a number — has come
to connote the concept of quality.
SIX SIGMA
Virtually
ZERO DEFECTS
(3.4 ppm)
^
Virtually
ZERO DEFECTS
k (3.4 ppm) f
1 — I — r*-^ — I \
V
-6©~ -5<r -4a -3c -2cr -i<r
("" SIX SIGMA CAPABILfTY LIMIT
r*-
\& z<r 3<r *<r 5a 6er
>— — — H
10
Fall 1992
The higher the sigma number, the fewer
the variations from specification and, there-
fore, the greater the quality. As William
Wiggenhorn explained in a 1990 article in
Harvard Business Review, "In plain English,
six sigma translates into 3.4 defects per mil-
lion opportunities, or production that is
99.99966 percent defect free. By contrast...
five sigma is 233 defects per million, and four
sigma is 6,210 per million opportunities."
Eliminating defects calls for some detec-
tive work. The first step is to make variation
visible by gathering and analyzing data as-
sociated with the process. Then, through
experimentation and careful tracking, one
must find out what's causing the manufac-
turing process to produce too great a range
of variation. Accomplishing these tasks
requires sophisticated measurement and
statistical tools and a work force trained
to use them.
In fact, the ability to understand and use
the tools of measurement and statistics is
fundamental to total quality management.
There are hundreds of statistical methods —
commonly lumped together under the
rubric of statistical process control (SPC) —
that can be used in designing and optimiz-
ing processes and products. Millions of
words have been written about these tools.
For example, Motorola University, an educa-
tional subsidiary of Motorola, is compiling
what will ultimately be an 18-volume, 7,000-
page collection of statistical tools, case
studies and literature called the Six Sigma
Owner's Manual.
Once a company has realized a quality
gain through the use of SPC, it is important
that that accomplishment be codified in the
form of a new standard, and that the road
that led to the quality boost be carefully
documented. If similar processes are used
in other areas of the company, managers
there must be told how they can realize
similar gains in quality by conforming to
the new standard.
6. Don't Limit the Pursuit of Quality
to the Manufacturing Floor
The concepts that make it possible to
better control the manufacturing process
can also be employed to improve adminis-
trative functions like accounting, service,
sales and shipping. Just as with manufactur-
ing, one must collect data about how the
process works, analyze the causes of the
most significant problems and design a new
system that offers less opportunity for error.
Is it worth it? Imagine an accounting of-
fice that typically records a million entries
for its month-end closing. If the data it re-
ceives is 95 percent accurate, that means
there will be 50,000 errors. Correcting those
errors will cost money and lower morale.
Competing for Quality's
Biggest Prize
T
I he Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award
I was established by Congress in 1987 to promote
JL quality awareness and encourage the develop-
ment of successful quality strategies by recognizing
the achievements of U.S. companies. Named for the
late secretary of commerce, the award is adminis-
tered by the Department of Commerce and the Na-
tional Institute of Standards and Technology, with
help and financial support from the private sector.
A company that believes itself to be a leader in
total quality management may apply for the award in
one of three categories: manufacturing companies or
subsidiaries, service companies or subsidiaries, and
small businesses. Up to two awards may be given
each year in each category. Award winners agree to
share their successful quality strategies with other
U.S. organizations.
Applicants are judged on their performance in
seven categories (see Communique, page 6), each of
which is worth a specified number of points. A perfect
score is 1,000. Written applications are evaluated by members of a board of examiners, and
high-scoring applicants are selected for site visits. Award recipients are recommended to the
secretary of commerce by a panel of judges from among the applicants who receive site
visits. All applicants receive written assessments that summarize strengths and identify
areas that can be improved. The American Society for Quality Control helps administer the
examination process.
Instead of waiting to catch thousands of
errors at the end of the process, a company
can use SPC to seek out and eliminate the
root cause of those errors, saving time,
money and materials — and improving em-
ployee morale and customer satisfaction.
7. Make Sure the Commitment to
Quality Starts at the Top
The alumni interviewed for this article
agree that the person at the top must lead
the TQM movement in his or her company;
that responsibility cannot be delegated. Part
of the struggle for senior management, they
say, especially in the early stages of change,
is balancing long-term quality goals against
the short-term need for financial perfor-
mance. If the company's top person doesn't
make continuous improvement the highest
priority, it simply won't happen.
Senior management must also make sure
quality goals are linked to the strategic plan-
ning process. The chief executive officer
has to "walk the talk," as they say in TQM
circles. If he or she doesn't, then in the
words of one quality manager, "don't even
bother; find another job."
8. Clearly Tie Rewards and
Recognition to Meeting Quality Goals
As any industrial psychologist will ex-
plain, people do what gets them rewarded.
Many companies have found themselves
midstream in a culture change, but still not
making the progress they think they should.
When senior management digs for the
source of the problem, it often discovers
that workers are still being rewarded for
things that have little to do with quality. For
example, in many companies rewards are
tied to meeting shipping or sales quotas,
even if that means sending out defective
products or promising delivery dates that
can't be met.
TQM companies often link rewards — es-
pecially promotions — to employees' adop-
tion and use of quality tools and processes.
Xerox, for example, has gone so far as to say
WPI Journal
11
PLANNING
ANALYSIS
INTEGRATION
ACTION
MATURITY
cc
)MPETITIVE BENCHMARKI
KEY PROCESS PHASES
NG
1. IDENTIFY BENCHMARK OUTPUTS
"
2. IDENTIFY BEST COMPETITOR
"
3. DETERMINE DATA COLLECTION METHOD
J
4. DETERMINE CURRENT COMPETITIVE "GAP"
"
5. PROJECT FUTURE PERFORMANCE LEVELS
"
6. ESTABLISH FUNCTIONAL GOALS
' COMMUNICATION ■ S ACCEPTANCE '
| OF | | OF |
a DATA - a "ANALYSIS" _
7. DEVELOP FUNCTIONAL ACTION PLANS
'
'
8. IMPLEMENT SPECIFIC ACTIONS
~T
9. MONITOR RESULTS/REPORT PROGRESS
^r
10. RECALIBRATE BENCHMARKS
LE*
PR(
KDERSHIP POSITION OBTAINED
3CESS FULLY INTEGRATED IN OUR P
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ICES
that managers must achieve "role mode!"
ratings in the implementation of its "Leader-
ship Through Quality" philosophy. No role
model rating, no promotion; it's that clear.
Another way to reward people is through
recognition. At least once a year, most TQM
companies have programs similar to a trade
show that bring together teams that have
made quality improvements to demonstrate
their projects. Some companies, like Xerox
and Motorola, invite external suppliers and
customers. The programs give public recog-
nition to successful quality efforts and
stimulate still more.
9. Measure Your Performance
Against the Best
Benchmarking, or comparing yourself to
the competition, has been around in various
forms for a long time. But some bench-
marking efforts are better than others.
Benchmarking is more than comparing
head counts or financial ratios. Any product
or process can be benchmarked. The goal
should be to benchmark one's procedures
for making products or providing services
against those of other companies that have
reputations for doing an excellent job. De-
pending on what's being benchmarked,
the companies chosen as yardsticks need
not be industry competitors. Xerox, for ex-
ample, benchmarked itself against American
Express when it wanted to reduce customer
complaints about billing.
It's important to remember that bench-
marks have a limited shelf life. Markets and
customer demands are constantly evolving,
and a company's benchmarks must change
with them. To be truly useful, benchmarks
must be continuously updated.
10. Remember That Quality has Costs,
Though Ignoring Quality is Costlier
There are two ways to look at the cost
of quality: the price of conformance and the
price of nonconformance. The price of non-
Xerox, like all TQM
companies, benchmarks
its performance in a wide
variety of areas against
other companies known to
be leaders in those areas.
As step 1 0 in this Xerox
procedure indicates,
benchmarks must be
continuously updated.
conformance is the money a company
spends doing things wrong. It includes the
cost of labor and material to correct errors,
rework defective products, process com-
plaints and make repairs under warranty.
It also includes opportunities lost because
the marketplace doesn't trust you anymore.
The price of conformance is what it
takes to make things right the first time.
Experts agree that conformance is signifi-
cantly cheaper than nonconformance.
11. Allow Enough Time for
Quality to Take Hold
Some companies talk about the move
to continuous improvement as a renewal;
others call it a revolution. But they all cau-
tion that it takes time. Those who venture
on this path have to be prepared for set-
backs and failures. Some quality gurus say
it can take 10 years to fully implement a
TQM process in a large organization.
The concept of continuous improvement
is profoundly conservative at the same
time that it is immensely revolutionary. Its
conservativism lies in its goal of making a
company as competitive as possible within
its marketplace, thereby increasing profits.
That goal is as old as business itself.
But where TQM truly breaks new ground
is in its rejection of the hierarchical corpo-
rate model so pervasive in industrial his-
tory. It replaces this entrenched concept
with a model in which people at all levels
of an organization have the power to make
meaningful decisions about how best to
serve the customer. For customers, the
most revolutionary aspect of TQM may
be the fact that they no longer need to
enter the marketplace with the caution
caveat emptor— buyer beware — foremost
on their minds.
Diane Benison is a former newspaper editor
who now works as a free-lance writer and
editor and teaches journalism in Clark
University's College of Professional and
Continuing Education. She wrote about the
Center for High-Performance Computing and
the bioethics research of Thomas Shannon
for the Summer 1992 WPI Journal.
12
Fall 1992
Like the Phoenix,
Xerox Rises From the Ashes of Failure
On the Wings of Quality ^m
By Diane Benison
In retrospect, Xerox Corp.'s story is
simple. It had a technology break-
through (the plain-paper copier) and
cornered the copier market. It made
enormous amounts of money and
quickly grew to become a Fortune 500
company. Then, because of a constellation
of mistakes and miscues, including corpo-
rate arrogance and denial about the threat
of competition, it squandered its market
dominance.
In Prophets in the Dark, the book he
wrote with management consultant David
A. Nadler, former Xerox chairman David
T. Kearns said that by the early 1980s he
believed Xerox faced the real prospect of
being a failed company sometime during the
1990s. As early as 1980, he wrote, "there was
beginning to be a sickening self-doubt within
the company that we were basically living
on borrowed time."
Happily for Xerox stockholders and its
more than 100,000 employees, the company
used that time wisely. Today Xerox has
regained some of its market share and is
a respected player, not only in its original
market, but in the emerging "document"
market. So strong has that turnaround been
that a recent story in The New York Times
described Xerox's Model 5100 copier as a
"case study in how to beat the Japanese."
But few stories, particularly comeback
stories, are simple or quick. Comebacks,
especially on the scale achieved by Xerox,
usually reflect painful introspection, recog-
nition of a need to change and summoning
of the will to make that change happen.
Xerox needed to overhaul its corporate atti-
tude and behavior. And, as Xerox employees
who lived through that cultural change will
tell anyone who'll listen, it required persis-
tence, determination, patience, discipline
and still more introspection. It is, they add,
easier to say those things than to do them.
The doing, and the resulting cultural
growth and maturation, is the real Xerox
story. Xerox, which today calls itself "The
Document Company," is now known for its
philosophy of "Leadership Through Qual-
ity." Developing and defining that philoso-
phy, instilling it in its employees, and training
those men and women to make it inform
their work each day, is what enabled Xerox
to engineer its own turnaround. As Kearns
proudly points out in his book, "Xerox did it
without government subsidies, protective
tariffs, or voluntary import quotas."
Paul A. Allaire '60, current chairman and
CEO, has spent more than 26 years at Xerox
and was part of the senior management
team responsible for salvaging the company.
Today Allaire, a WP1 trustee, is leading
Xerox through the next phase of its evolu-
tion into total quality management (TQM)
by changing the "architecture" of the com-
pany. Having successfully spread quality
messages and practices throughout Xerox,
he is guiding the corporation through a new
period of transition.
In terms of its impact on society, many
observers compare the invention of the
plain-paper copier to the invention of move-
able type. Like the latter invention, the tech-
nology of plain-paper copying helped
democratize the flow of information. That
fact probably explains why the demand for
copying machines was so great and grew so
rapidly — much more than Xerox itself ever
expected when its Model 914, the world's
first plain-paper copier, was announced in
1959. Until the commercial introduction of
the 914, copiers required special paper much
Now chairman and CEO, Paul Allaire
helped engineer Xerox's turnaround.
like that used by most fax machines today.
The success of the 914 and the growth it
set off caused some of Xerox's problems. By
1972 the company controlled 60 percent of
the overall $1.7 billion copier market and 95
percent of the plain-paper copier market. In
December of that year the Federal Trade
Commission filed a complaint against Xerox
for restraint of trade, charging, among other
things, that Xerox illegally monopolized the
market for copiers. As part of a settlement
reached with the FTC in 1975, Xerox agreed
to license its technology for plain-paper
copying to other companies — including
Japanese firms.
Once Xerox was forced to license its
technology, competitors began to nibble
away at its business, starting at the low
end of the market. More significantly, after
the FTC settlement, Japanese companies
targeted Xerox and the copier industry.
Xerox, by then a Fortune 500 company, was
WPI Journal
13
H;
President Bush presents the Malcolm Baldrige
Award to former Xerox chairman David Kearns.
earning a 19 percent return on assets, but
that success had its price. The company
had become arrogant. It felt unthreatened
by the prospect of competition. Fiefdoms
had grown up within the organization and
their internal politics hindered cooperation.
More serious, Xerox, in Kearns words, was
making "inadequate products."
Between 1976, when the FTC settlement
was handed down, and 1982, Xerox's share
of U.S. copier installations dropped dramati-
cally. As market share fell, so did profits.
The layoff of thousands of employees as a
cost-cutting measure did nothing to address
the deep-rooted organizational and opera-
tional problems that beset the company
during this period.
So Kearns, Allaire and the rest of the
senior management lead a year-long revo-
lution to change the corporate culture at
Xerox. Their goal was to make the quality
of Xerox products so good — and so respon-
sive to customer needs — that the company
would regain market share, profitability
and return on assets. That conviction fueled
the company's revival and helped win it the
coveted Malcolm Baldrige National Quality
Award in 1989.
ow did Xerox do it?
It was, in the end,
the result of a number
of relatively indepen-
dent developments that
occurred within the
same period of time.
One of the first
happened not at Xerox
headquarters in Stam-
ford, Conn., but in the
countryside of Maine.
In 1979, Robert Camp,
an inventory control
analyst at Xerox, de-
cided to undertake a
benchmarking project,
determined to find a
better way to handle
distribution. He made a
trip to L.L. Bean to find
out how the company
had achieved its repu-
tation for excellence in
wholesale distribution.
Camp discovered
that Bean was using bar
codes to label every
item in its warehouse.
In addition, its computer
ordering program was
written so that when a
customer's order was
printed and handed to a
warehouse employee to
be "picked," the items were printed in the
same sequence in which they were stored in
the warehouse, reducing the time needed to
fill orders. The visit
sold Camp on the
value of benchmarking
and he became an ad-
vocate for the practice
within Xerox. Bench-
marking was adopted
companywide in 1981.
Kearns, meanwhile,
had begun making trips
to Japan to visit Fuji
Xerox, of which Xerox
was a partial owner. In
1980, when Fuji Xerox
won the Deming Award,
Japan's national quality
prize, Kearns began
to analyze the differ-
ences he saw between
Xerox's Japanese and
U.S. operations.
He also set up an
internal team at Xerox
to study the organiza- The success Xerox
tion and recommend paper copier, the 91
changes, and in 1982 he hired consultant
David Nadler. The following February he
took a major step: he organized and led a
three-day meeting of 25 senior managers
at the company's Leesburg, Va., training
center. It was that group, which included
Allaire, that developed the Leadership
Through Quality process. Kearns had
come to believe that the company would
not change unless that change was driven
from the top. The Leesburg meeting was
his starting point. The rest is history.
Some of the things that helped bring
about change at Xerox, including bench-
marking and statistical process control,
were not new when Xerox began using
them. Xerox's most significant achievement
was changing the way people worked to-
gether, the way they communicated with
each other and the way they cooperated
to solve problems.
Organizations, like individuals, have
psychologies, although at the organizational
level they are usually called corporate cul-
tures. Until a corporate culture supports
and encourages genuine employee involve-
ment and communication — up and down
the hierarchy and across functional areas —
the use of quality tools alone will not
achieve total quality.
Every business or institution that
decides to move to a TQM process must
change the way it thinks and the way it does
business. Xerox made quality its basic busi-
ness principle, and it spread that principle
and a clear definition of what it meant
throughout the company. Its mission
realized after it introduced the first plain-
4, in 1959 bred arrogance and complacency.
14
Fall 1992
statement makes that clear: "Xerox is a qual-
ity company. Quality is the basic business
principle for Xerox. Quality means providing
our external and internal customers with in-
novative products and services that fully
satisfy their requirements. Quality improve-
ment is the job of every Xerox employee."
Xerox tells employees that its definition
of quality differs from the "conventional
view" in at least four respects:
"Whereas the conventional definition
of quality reminds us of words like
'goodness' and 'luxury' Xerox de-
fines quality as conformance to
customer requirements.
"Whereas the conventional perfor-
mance standard for quality is some
acceptable level of defects or errors,
the quality performance standard in
Xerox is products and services that
fully satisfy the requirements of our
customers.
"Whereas the conventional system
of achieving quality is to detect and
correct products after they have
been completed, Xerox emphasizes
the prevention of errors.
"Whereas the conventional system
for measurement of quality relies on
indices, Xerox measures quality by
the costs we incur when we do not
satisfy customer requirements."
Changing the attitudes and behaviors of
managers and workers, as well as the way
departments interact, is fundamental to
TQM. By the time Kearns and his senior
managers launched Leadership Through
Quality, Xerox employees had become
skeptics, if not cynics, as one senior man-
agement initiative after another quickly
failed. Internally, Xerox employees referred
to each new management proposal as the
"flavor of the month." For a long time, Lead-
ership Through Quality was seen as just
another flavor that would soon be replaced
by something else.
That attitude slowly changed as manag-
ers began to "walk the talk." It started with
something called "cascade training." First,
Kearns was trained in problem-solving and
quality-improvement methods. He then led
the training for the managers who reported
to him— his "family group." Each member
of that group, in turn, was responsible for
training his or her subordinates.
Managers were assisted by professional
trainers, but they were expected to do the
bulk of the work themselves. The idea was
to avoid the pitfall of managers sending
their subordinates off to learn how to inter-
act in new ways, only to have them return
to the same old environment and the same
old ways of doing things. In time, the les-
sons of quality cascaded through the organi-
zation and the rhetoric began to be backed
by new behaviors.
Today, Xerox uses five mechanisms to
assure that it stays on the path of continu-
ous improvement. They are:
Standards and measurements: These
include statistical tools, a six-step problem-
solving process, a nine-step quality-improve-
ment process, competitive benchmarking,
an emphasis on error prevention and doing
things right the first time, and techniques
for determining the cost of quality.
Called a "case study in how to beat the Japanese," Xerox's new Model 5100 copier is
a reflection of how the company has become more responsive to customer needs.
Recognition and reward: Xerox encourages
and motivates its employees to practice
Leadership Through Quality by publicly
recognizing and praising quality improve-
ments. They range from a companywide
quality day, where teams demonstrate their
projects and discuss their achievements, to
simple thank-yous and cash bonuses.
Communications: Xerox uses formal
vehicles, such as magazines and films, and
informal means, such as staff meetings, to
talk about quality and meeting customer
requirements and expectations.
Training: Xerox still uses the family-group
approach to teach problem solving and
quality improvement. That approach is
designed to ensure that managers get in-
volved in training their subordinates. Xerox
calls this a "learn, use, teach, inspect" ap-
proach to reinforcing the quality improve-
ment objectives of training.
Management: Xerox believes managers
must set the example of using the quality-
improvement process and problem-solving
tools. Promotion at Xerox is tied to a
manager's success at being a role model
in the use of continuous improvement.
Xerox, like most other companies that
have adopted the continuous improvement
philosophy, has developed its own language
and formal procedures around the process.
The six-step problem-solving process and
the nine-step quality-improvement process
(see page 9) are examples.
Xerox expends a lot of effort assessing
how well it is meeting customer expec-
tations and determining what customer
requirements will be in the future. It sends
out more than 40,000 surveys a month to
customers; with a return rate of 35 percent,
that's a lot of feedback. The results of each
month's survey are distributed to all areas
and unfavorable or neutral surveys get
follow-ups. The goal is to use the surveys
to find and fix systemic problems.
When asked how it is possible to make
a company as large as Xerox more market-
driven, Allaire cites an example of some-
thing the company does to keep employees
focused on customers. "We start each of
our internal meetings, no matter who we're
with, by going around the table and asking,
'What have you learned from a customer
since our last meeting?' Clearly, that sets
an example, because it means all the senior
people have to be out talking to customers,"
he says.
"It is somewhat symbolic, but it is impor-
tant," he adds. "We have as much customer
contact as we can possibly get. I visit cus-
tomers on a continuous basis. We measure
WPI Journal
15
Xerox's
International
Center for Training
and Management
Development near
Leesburg, Va., is
a centerpiece in
the company's
efforts to train its
employees in TQM.
customer satisfaction more effectively, and
focus more on the metrics of market share,
than we ever have in the past. We spend a
lot of our training for our technical commu-
nity on what marketing means — what it
means to be market-driven."
Xerox, Allaire says, has worked hard
to change the company from a product-
oriented focus to a real market-oriented
focus. It has also worked to change the atti-
tudes of engineers, who in the past have felt
successful if they simply met the specs they
got from the product planners. Now Xerox
engineers understand that success is de-
fined in terms of how well a product sells,
how profitable it is, and how much value it
creates for customers. "We're going to be
a market-driven company," Allaire says.
"We really use the customer to integrate
everything we do."
With the recent reorganization of
Xerox's copier and printer busi-
nesses, Allaire, who was named president
of the company in 1986, CEO in 1990 and
chairman in 1991, says he hopes to change
the basic "architecture" of Xerox. "We have
substantially changed the way we are orga-
nized," he says. "We have changed the
company from a functional, vertical, fairly
monolithic entity to one that is organized
by divisions and teams within divisions.
Now we have nine business divisions; within
those divisions are 30-plus business teams,
which really have accountability for their
part of the business."
With the change, decision-making au-
thority and responsibility have been pushed
down to the nine new divisions. In addition,
a new "corporate office" has been estab-
lished, consisting of Allaire and five senior
executives.
The reorganization should enable Xerox
to take the kind of work that has been done
within the company by cross-functional
problem-solving and quality-improvement
teams — work that helped Xerox implement
its Leadership Through Quality process —
and weave it into the fabric of daily opera-
tions and decision making throughout the
corporation, Allaire says.
The way Xerox went about planning this
latest change is indicative of how communi-
cations within the company have changed
as a result of continuous improvement. The
company made no secret of its plan to reor-
ganize and restructure the business. The
two teams that labored over the course of
15 months to develop the new structure
did so openly. As a result, Allaire says, by
the time the new plan was put in place,
"there was already a lot of buy-in."
This was more than an exercise in rear-
ranging the boxes on an organizational
chart, Allaire says. It was an effort to de-
velop a team environment where business
decisions can be made based on customer
requirements. He stresses that the new
organization is not designed to be static.
"We designed it so that it can flex, so it can
change as the market changes," he says.
Allaire says he is optimistic that the
company, having won the Baldrige Award
and a new market recognition for its quality
products, will not become complacent. "We
have bright, capable people," he says.
"They're well-motivated. We have no lack
of challenges, so we have no need to be-
come complacent. There are also enough
of us around who know how large a price
we paid for our complacency in the 1970s.
Nobody from that era is ever going to
become complacent again."
16
Fall 1992
Midwives to Change
The story of how alumni at Motorola, Bausch & Lomb,
Hamilton Standard and Polaroid
Helped Bring TQM to Their Companies
By Diane Benison
Just as every couple with a new baby
has a personal story to tell about its
arrival, every firm that aspires to
become a TQM company or makes
the transition has its own, unique
tale about the birth of its continuous
improvement program.
Many of those stories have already been
told in books, business school case studies
and articles in publications like the Harvard
Business Review. What follows are brief
glimpses into the very different experi-
ences of four major corporations that have
successfully implemented quality pro-
grams or are in the process of doing so.
These stories are told through the eyes of
WPI alumni who have been at the center
of those changes.
Motorola Finds There are
Special Challenges to Implementing
TQM in an Administrative Area
Motorola started its journey down
the quality road in the late 1970s
when Robert Galvin, then CEO,
launched two efforts aimed at educating
the company about new statistical tools
and new technology. His efforts, however,
did not produce the results he wanted. The
basic problem, as many companies have
learned, is that new tools and technology
don't automatically engender new ways
of thinking and doing, especially if they
threaten the tribal customs that are inevi-
tably part of every organization's culture.
Out of Galvin's frustrations came the
Motorola Executive Institute, a one-time
course for 400 executives "that tried to
give them an M.B.A. in four weeks," William
Wiggenhorn wrote in a 1990 issue of Harvard
Business Review. "The participants learned a
great deal, but again, the ultimate results
were disappointing."
But in that disappointment were the
seeds of fundamental cultural change. Gal-
vin's next move was to set up the Motorola
Training and Education Center (MTEC). It
had its own board of directors that included
Galvin, two of his top executives and senior
managers from every Motorola operating
unit. The center's goals, Wiggenhorn, the
center's president, wrote, were "to expand
the participative management process and
to help improve product quality tenfold in
five years."
While MTEC, or Motorola University, as it
is also known, would emphasize retraining
workers and redefining jobs, its main goal
was to change attitudes and behaviors. It
did this with a five-part curriculum that in-
cluded courses on using statistical process
control, solving problems, presenting con-
ceptual material, running effective meetings
and setting goals.
But as Motorola learned in the early
1980s, telling employees that there is an-
other, more effective way to work is not
enough; they must be motivated to change.
So the company focused its attention on
finding ways to create that motivation.
"In the end, we had to let people know
that 'poor performance' included an unwill-
ingness to change, and was grounds for dis-
missal," Wiggenhorn wrote in that Harvard
Business Review article. "We had to abandon
paternalism for shared responsibility."
As that message began to filter through
the organization, Motorola discovered that
workers and middle managers who were
trying to apply the lessons they learned in
training programs were too often frustrated
by senior managers who failed to reinforce
that training with a genuine new emphasis
on quality.
WPI Journal
17
A training session under way at Motorola University.
MTEC asked two universities to study the
problem and evaluate the company's return
on the money it was investing in training.
The studies found that in those plants where
the work force absorbed and used the statis-
tical tools and process skills — and were
reinforced by senior managers — Motorola
realized a $33 return for every dollar spent.
Plants where workers used either the statis-
tical tools or the process skills — but not
both — and were reinforced by their superi-
ors, broke even. Plants that taught all or part
of the curriculum, but did not reinforce it,
had a negative return on investment.
Galvin decided the best way to get the
message across to senior management was
to shift the emphasis
to quality at opera-
tions review meetings.
Wiggenhorn reports
that Galvin "insisted
that quality reports
come first, not last, on
the agenda, and then
he left before the
financial results were
discussed."
Garvin's success
in changing the focus
and behavior of se-
nior management
was the catalyst that
pulled everything
together at Motorola.
The company's suc-
cess in making the
change was confirmed when it became one
of the first winners of the Malcolm Baldrige
National Quality Award in 1988.
One of the lessons Motorola has learned
in its quest for quality is that it is easier to
apply the tools of TQM (the company calls
it Total Customer Satisfaction or TCS) on
the factory floor than in an administrative
area, according to Theodore J. Jaros '54,
vice president and director of services and
planning, world marketing, in Motorola's
Semiconductor Products Sector.
"As you get outside of the factory, one
of the questions you face is how to measure
quality," says the 25-year Motorola veteran,
who supervises a 1 75-person work force
that is split evenly between serving internal
and external customers. "First, you have to de-
fine the best metrics that will contribute, in a
meaningful way, to continuous improvement."
Asked how progress is measured in his
area, Jaros quips, "I wish I had the final an-
swer to that. We're still in the process of evolv-
ing." But he says he does have some progress
to report. One of the groups that reports to
Jaros is responsible for distributing literature
about Motorola products and parts via an
electronic network. To measure the sigma
level of its performance (see page 10), the
group established goals for the time it should
take to respond to requests for information.
Another group works with customers to
design application-specific integrated cir-
cuits. After it has completed a project, the
group asks the customers to evaluate various
aspects of its performance, including their
satisfaction with the technical aspects of the
work and with the group's response time.
The answers are then translated into num-
bers that can be analyzed and used to evalu-
ate the group's response to customer needs.
For those who work in administrative
areas, Jaros says one of the most useful
applications of continuous improvement is
called process mapping. In this technique,
employees are trained to use quality tools
to map a work process, figuring out each
step needed to complete a task. They then
determine which of those steps add no
value to their work and eliminate them, re-
ducing opportunities for error and shorten-
ing the time needed to complete projects.
How Bausch & Lomb's International
Division Meets the Demands of
Customers in More Than 100 Countries
Bausch & Lomb's International Division
has 5,000 employees who speak more
than 15 languages and work in 30
countries. They man 15 manufacturing
plants around the world, making products
that are sold to some 200,000 customers in
more than 100 nations. Trying to make qual-
ity part of the corporate culture in an orga-
nization with that structural breadth and
complexity presents significant challenges,
according to division president Ronald L.
Zarrella 71, a WPI trustee.
Zarrella, who holds the additional title of
executive vice president of Bausch & Lomb,
says the concept of TQM, or Total
Customer Responsiveness (TCR),
as it's known within the corpora-
tion, is not well-developed in many
of the countries where his division
does business. In particular, he
says he and his senior managers
must do basic "missionary work"
to explain TCR to customers and
employees in some of the lesser-
developed countries where
Bausch & Lomb operates. "To
make this successful you have to
(Continued on Page 20)
TQM has helped Bausch & Lomb be more
responsive to customer needs worldwide,
says Ronald Zarrella.
18
Fall 1992
How WPFs Management Department
Practices What It Teaches
There's an old saying that those who
can't do, teach. The men and women
who constitute WPI's Management
Department are working hard these days
to show that when it comes to total quality
management, they can teach and do. Hav-
ing already developed courses that intro-
duce students to the latest approaches to
organizational management, the depart-
ment is now putting those techniques to
work to better manage its own efforts.
Assistant Professor Enio E. Velazco is
one faculty member who has managed to
not only teach the tools of TQM, but to use
those tools to become a better teacher. In
particular, Velazco, who has been teaching
TQM for five years, says he applies the
principles of continuous improvement and
focusing on customer needs to his work in
the classroom.
For example, after teaching a course on
quality planning and control for the first
time, he changed the emphasis and im-
posed stricter math prerequisites based
on feedback from his on-campus custom-
ers (students) and off-campus customers
(prospective employers of WPI graduates).
Since then he has expanded his continuous
improvement efforts by talking to recent
graduates about how well the course pre-
pared them for the world of industry.
Velazco says the department is also try-
ing to benefit from the concept of cross-
functional management, an element of
TQM that emphasizes cooperation among
departments within a company to the ben-
efit of the entire organization. As an ex-
ample, he cites a recent $10,000 grant from
General Electric Co.'s Continuous Improve-
ment Education Fund, which will support
the development of a new graduate course
in total quality management.
The researchers on the project repre-
sent two academic departments. Along
with Velazco, who is the principal investi-
gator, they include Assistant Professor
Michael B. Elmes from management, and
Professor and Associate Department Head
Richard D. Sisson and Assistant Professor
David C. Zenger from mechanical engineer-
ing. Velazco has also formed an informal
advisory board of 22 quality professionals
from business and
industry. Their role, he
says, is to provide "peer
review" of the syllabus.
Because of its mis-
sion of teaching the
latest techniques in
organizational manage-
ment, the Management
Department often finds
itself at the center of
campus discussions
about TQM, notes Helen
G. Vassallo, professor
and department head.
She says those discus-
sions have "been a
bridge for us to colla-
borate on research and
teaching efforts across
departmental lines."
One development
that helped make that
bridge stronger, Velazco adds, was the
creation within the Management Depart-
ment of the Center for Productivity and
Quality Improvement. Launched in March
1991, the center is part of the department's
pilot program for implementing TQM in an
academic environment. The center's mis-
sion, he says, is "to provide a focus for
faculty activities in management involving
teaching innovation, scholarship and spon-
sored research."
One of the most basic questions
Vassallo and her colleagues have had to
grapple with is just what quality means
in an academic setting. The management
faculty have tackled that question, as well
as how to apply the principles of TQM
within the department, at annual retreats.
"At the 1990 retreat," Vassallo says, "we
decided to focus on the issues of innova-
tion, entrepreneurship, productivity and
quality improvement. Afterward, people
began to have brown bag lunches to talk
about how to deal with these issues." One
of the results was an increased emphasis
on interdepartmental teaching and re-
search. Velazco's General Electric grant is
one outgrowth of that emphasis.
After a retreat in 1991, the department
Helen Vassallo and Enio Velazco are helping the
Management Department adopt a total quality program.
began to consider its own goals in the
context of the six goals of the Institute's
strategic plan. The product of those dis-
cussions is a "road map," still under devel-
opment, that will guide the department in
its quality efforts. The map begins with the
department's mission statement, from
which stem several specific goals. Strate-
gies are being developed for achieving
each goal. From these will arise lists of
concrete actions that must be taken to
implement the strategies. The final step
will be assigning those actions to indi-
vidual faculty members and determining
how many new resources, if any, will be
needed to carry them out.
Vassallo says she knows the road map
is only a start. Like many of the companies
that have implemented TQM programs,
the department will likely revise this plan
many times as it is put into action. But
Vassallo says she hopes that the ideas in
the map will become a model for a true
culture change at WPI. In fact, the depart-
ment has developed a similar road map
concept for the entire college that will
help guide the efforts of the new Blue
Ribbon Task Force as it plots out new
directions and goals for the Institute.
WPI Journal
19
Employees share successful ideas
at a Bausch & Lomb quality day.
(Continued from Page 18)
keep a high level of corporate involvement
— that's me," he says.
One of the competitive advantages TCR
has given Bausch & Lomb is a reputation for
paying attention to customer needs. "We
were always known for high-quality prod-
ucts and technological leadership," Zarrella
says, "but we weren't so good at listening
to customers."
Listening to customers is especially im-
portant for Bausch & Lomb, as its product
line includes sunglasses and contact lenses.
Since ideas of beauty and fashion vary from
country to country, products designed and
made for customers in the U.S. won't neces-
sarily meet the cosmetic or functional needs
of consumers in other countries. TCR helped
Bausch & Lomb begin to recognize the im-
portance of those differences, Zarrella says.
The International Division has done con-
siderable training on the principles of un-
derstanding and responding to customer
needs. As a result, the division, which won
the Bausch & Lomb President's Quality
Award in 1990, has been able to document
significant increases in customer satisfac-
tion with its products and services. But
Zarrella says he thinks his division will get
its best leads on how to respond to custom-
ers by asking noncustomers why they don't
buy Bausch & Lomb products, something it
started to do this year.
"The underlying premise of TCR is that
only the customer can provide the direction
for enduring success," he adds. And for
Bausch & Lomb, which posted revenues
in 1991 of more than $1.5 billion — of which
more than 45 percent came from regions
outside the United States — keeping its
worldwide customers satisfied adds up
to a significant competitive advantage.
Hamilton Standard Embraces Quality to
Bolster its Competitive Stance in a Changini
Like many other companies, Hamilton
Standard, a division of United Tech-
nologies Corp., turned to TQM after a
painful experience. By late 1986 it had lost
more than $100 million and was the focus of
a comprehensive government audit that
identified many quality- and system-related
problems at the maker of aerospace sys-
tems, components and services. The audit
would eventually show that problems in the
areas of product quality, cost control, timely
deliveries and customer satisfaction needed
immediate attention.
In early 1988 the company's senior man-
agers, sobered by the red ink and the fed-
eral audit, decided to act. They began by
looking at companies like Xerox, Motorola
and IBM that had successfully adopted the
total quality philosophy. They came to the
conclusion that Hamilton Standard needed
a major culture change; by September 1988
they had hired a consulting firm to help
them achieve it.
Early in the process, these 15 executives
went through eight days of training to learn
about continuous improvement and how
Hamilton Standard's Gordon Sigman Jr.
Hamilton Standard might implement it.
During that 1988 training session the
company's first vision statement was de-
veloped and the firm committed itself to
emphasizing teamwork, consensus build-
For Polaroid Corp., Implementing a Continuoi
Has Meant Top-to-Bottom Change
In some ways it's not surprising that
Joseph J. Kasabula '68 is in his present
position. He says he first began to think
about the nature of quality when he was
a student at WP1. Those thoughts were
aroused one day in chemistry class when
the professor read a quote by noted 19th
century English art critic John Ruskin.
"Quality is never an accident," Ruskin said.
"It is always the result of intelligent effort.
There must be the will to produce a supe-
rior thing."
Kasabula says those words have stuck
with him. Today he puts that philosophy to
work as quality strategy manager for prod-
uct development and worldwide manufac-
turing at Polaroid Corp. in Cambridge, Mass.
He is one of several quality ownership ex-
ecutives working to bring Polaroid's man-
agement process, which combines total
quality concepts and tools with its own
employee ownership concept (Polaroid is
20 percent owned by its employees), to the
company that is most famous for its inven-
tion of instant photography.
As far back as 1982, Polaroid had begun
to gain experience with statistical engineer-
ing and process-control tools. By 1990, when
the company was aligned around four busi-
ness units (Family Imaging, Business Imag-
ing, Technical and Industrial Imaging, and
Electronic Imaging), it was also beginning
to develop a companywide process called
Total Quality Ownership or TQO.
The original TQO design team was
formed in September 1989; Kasabula joined
it three months later. The team began by
looking at 1 1 large companies that had al-
ready started continuous improvement pro-
grams. In September 1990 training in what
Polaroid has called Quality Strategy started
at the top when Polaroid CEO I. MacAllister
20
Fall 1992
erospace Industry
ing, process improvement, employee own-
ership, employee development and cus-
tomer focus.
Like other companies, Hamilton Stan-
dard has found that it takes considerable
time just to complete the initial training of
its employees. By mid-1992, though, more
than half of its 9,500-member work force
had been taught to put the tools of con-
tinuous improvement to work in their jobs.
All manufacturing and factory employees
are also being trained to achieve a basic
competency in statistics and manufactur-
ing process analysis.
One of the major goals of the culture
change set in motion by Hamilton Standard
is to develop a more proactive way of oper-
ating. "We value solving problems; what we
need to value more is solving problems
before they occur," the company tells em-
ployees in an internal publication. "Con-
tinuous improvement requires a culture
change away from autocratic to participa-
tory management. If we really desire to
value people, then we must practice par-
ticipatory management. People closest to
the work must have the authority to make
decisions based on a shared understanding
of the company vision."
According to Gordon H. Sigman Jr. '59,
vice president and general manager at
Hamilton Standard and a WP1 trustee, U.S.
companies still dominate the world's aero-
space business. "But you can see the Euro-
peans and the Japanese are working hard
and these guys are going to be capable com-
petitors. If you go back to the early 1980s,
you had a technology discriminator, but
things have a way of equalizing." Sigman
says the competitive battlegrounds of the
future will be quality, reliability, price and
the ability of companies to support their
products.
Hamilton Standard, Sigman says, is now
committed to a "total understanding of cus-
tomer needs." The company, which hopes
to be a serious contender for the Malcolm
Baldrige Award in 1994, has conducted
Baldrige-like assessments of its progress to
date. The results of those assessments — the
good and the bad — are shared with employ-
ees through regular newsletters.
While there are still pockets of autocratic
management within Hamilton Standard,
more than three years of effort has paid off,
Sigman says. Despite the fact that the com-
pany is still training its work force, it has
realized documentable improvements in
customer service. These include greatly
reduced turnaround times for repairs and
service (from an average of 1 1 7 days to
eight) and equally dramatic reductions in
products returned due to defects.
Hamilton Standard's road to total quality
has been especially challenging, given the
fact that its efforts have coincided with a
downturn in the U.S. and world economies.
Tough economic conditions and related job
instability can be serious obstacles to con-
tinuous improvement.
To compensate for these added chal-
lenges, Sigman says the company is working
harder to make sure recognition for quality
is consistent and public. Sometime next
year that effort will get a boost when the
performance and merit review systems are
changed to reward managers and employ-
ees who focus on continuous improvement.
lprovement Program
Booth and several senior managers
attended a four-day seminar developed and
arranged by Kasabula. The three-ring binder
that held the reading materials for that
seminar weighed more than seven pounds.
Led by a team of quality strategy ex-
perts that included Bradley T Gale '64,
managing director of the Strategic Planning
Institute at MIT and a member of the board
of overseers for the Malcolm Baldrige
Award, David A. Garvin of the Harvard
Business School and Don 0. Clausing of MIT,
that group of senior executives covered a
lot of ground. They started with the basics
— the philosophies and approaches of
three of America's original quality experts,
W. Edwards Deming, Joseph M. Juran and
Philip B. Crosby — and moved on to the
elements of Quality Strategy.
Polaroid's TQO program was formally
launched in the winter of 1991 when Booth
Joseph Kasabula of Polaroid Corp.
held a series of 1 1 meetings with the
company's top 200 executives. By the end
of 1991 nearly all 8,000 U.S. employees had
participated in initial training in the con-
cepts of TQO. This year the initial training
was adapted and given to employees of
international subsidiaries, as well.
Also this year, Polaroid began pilot
programs for an effort called TQO Action,
which is aimed at helping business improve-
ment teams select, analyze and solve prob-
lems in their work areas. Having studied
how other companies have implemented
total quality and ownership programs,
Polaroid is using a pilot approach — blending
work and learning processes, testing them
on small groups, revising them based on
feedback, and then using them on a
companywide basis.
One of the characteristics of a company
beginning to make the change to a total
quality environment is that information
about what's happening around the organi-
zation begins to flow in ways it never has
before. For some managers that can be
unsettling. As Kasabula observes, "As Total
Quality Ownership moves into the organiza-
tion, you have to relax. Things seem to get
worse, but really what's happening is you're
getting far more information than you ever
have before. I think this has been the learn-
ing experience of 1992 for us."
WPI Journal
21
Fall Madness
Each spring after classes have ended and Commencement is a pleasant memory, the WPI campus
settles into a quiet but purposeful calm, not unlike the tranquility parents experience after sending
their young children off to school for the day.
With the pace of day-to-day life slowed, there
is time to make repairs, update records, paint
walls, mow lawns, attend conferences, and
spend more time in the lab doing research.
But then, one day in late August, the sum-
mer calm is shattered in a flurry of vans,
trucks and U-Hauls bringing a new crop of
freshmen and their parents to town for the
start of another school year. It's the begin-
ning of Fall Arrival, a weeklong marathon in
which hundreds of undergraduates move into
the residence halls, more than 600 freshmen
get a thorough orientation to the campus and
to the challenges and rewards of college life,
I
WPI Journal 23
anxious students flock to Harrington Auditorium to
sign up for courses or make course revisions, smiling
faces appear before cameras to be recorded on ID
cards, and young men and women — course schedules
in hand— scout the bookstore for the latest tomes on
electrodynamics, fluid mechanics, calculus and the
modern American novel.
It is a time that reminds every member of the WPI
community— should they have forgotten— just why it
is they come to work each day. For it is the students
and their hunger for a superior education that form
the motive force that drives the Institute's well-oiled
machinery. So integral are these young men and
women to the life and cadence of the college that,
once the annual fall madness is over and the class-
rooms hum once more with the electricity of learning,
and the dining halls ring with the clatter of plates and
the chatter of young voices, and the athletic fields
come alive again with the raw energy of competition,
it is hard to believe they were ever really gone.
24 Fall 1992
WPI Journal 25
4
The mission was simple:
grow large crystals in space.
But achieving that goal would
require two years of hard work by a
dedicated team of WPI researchers
who beat the odds and the clock to build
an experiment for a NASA space laboratory. For
one of those researchers, the Zeolite Crystal
Growth Experiment would nearly prove the
answer to a childhood dream— to fly in space.
A Stellar
By Michael Dorsey
Achievement
hey're barely one-hundredth of a millimeter on a side,
these perfect little cubes; to get a good look at one you
need an electron microscope. They're made from a
simple combination of three of the most common
elements on Earth. Yet to a team of researchers in
WPI's Chemical Engineering Department, these tiny
objects are more precious than gold.
This rare booty is a collection of zeolite crystals manu-
factured in space, where the absence of gravity enabled
them to grow much larger and more perfect than zeolites
typically grown on Earth. They are the product of an
experiment conceived and designed by WPI researchers
and built by engineers and technicians from two major
American engineering firms.
The experiment was part of one of the most extensive
and successful science missions ever flown aboard an
American spacecraft, the first United States Microgravity
Laboratory (USML-1), which was carried into orbit by the
space shuttle Columbia this past June. For the WPI team,
the flight culminated two years of hard work that would
ultimately bring national recognition to the Institute. They
were years that would also lead one of those researchers
to the brink of space itself.
For WPI, the road to USML-1 began one evening in 1983 in a
small restaurant near the WPI campus. Over pizza
and beer, Albert Sacco Jr. and the late Leonard B. Sand,
colleagues from the Chemical Engineering Department,
chatted in the easygoing manner of co-workers who have
also become good friends.
At 61, Sand was one of the world's most respected
researchers in the field of zeolites. Educated as a geologist
and mineralogist, he had worked for Standard Oil and
taught at the University of Utah before taking a position at
Norton Co. as chief of a research and development unit
creating synthetic zeolites. Made of alumina and silica,
zeolites have a highly uniform network of microscopic
pores that make them useful as molecular sieves and cata-
lysts in a variety of chemical industries — especially petro-
leum refining. About 40 varieties of zeolites occur naturally;
most now used in industry are synthetic varieties.
In 1967 Sand left Norton to join WPI, where his enthusi-
asm for the seemingly mundane zeolites convinced other
faculty members to join him in learning more about how
they work and how to make them better. In time the
Institute developed the largest zeolite research program of
any U.S. university.
On that evening in 1983, Sand hoped to get Sacco
excited about zeolites. Then as now, Sacco's research
focused on catalysis and solid-gas reactions. But growing
up in the 1960s, he had also developed a keen interest in
space (see Advance Word, page 2). Sacco made a deal with
Sand: if they could find a way to combine Sand's research
with Sacco's fascination with space, he'd join the team.
That intersection would be a student project to design
and build a zeolite crystal growth experiment that flew
on a space shuttle in June 1991 as part of a package of
student-built hardware sponsored by MITRE Corp. The
experiment was designed to test the hypothesis that, free
from the pull of gravity, zeolite crystals will grow to un-
precedented sizes.
Checking the literature, Sand and Sacco had learned
that the largest natural zeolites are found in ancient lake
beds. These irregular, impure crystals grew gradually over
the course of centuries while chemical nutrients slowly
diffused around them. In the laboratory, zeolites grow in
thick, milky "gels" formed by mixing alumina and silica
solutions. Heated in metal autoclaves, the crystals grow
rapidly, reaching their maximum size in a matter of days.
"On Earth, the zeolites settle out of solution and you
get a cake of crystals at the bottom and an essentially
clear liquid at the top," says Robert W Thompson, pro-
fessor of chemical engineering. As the crystals settle, he
WPI Journal
27
WPI's first venture into growing
zeolites in space was this student-
designed experiment, which flew on
a space shuttle in 1991. But the
experiment sat on the ground too
long, yielding poor results.
notes, growth subsides and then stops. By
using techniques that control nucleation
(the process by which crystal growth begins),
Sacco and other WPl researchers have pro-
duced crystals substantially larger than those
typically used in industry. But no matter how
careful, every zeolite grower eventually runs
up against the effects of gravity.
"Len and I knew that if you could sus-
pend a crystal indefinitely and bring a nutri-
ent stream past it, it would continue to
grow," Sacco says. What better way to do
that, they reasoned, than by moving the
whole process into space.
Len Sand died in 1985, just two years af-
ter that conversation over pizza and beer.
When Sacco looks back over what's tran-
spired in the intervening years, he is quick
to credit Sand with many of the insights that
made those achievements possible. As a re-
minder of those contributions and of the
friendship they shared, Sacco, who became
head of the Chemical Engineering Depart-
ment in 1989, keeps Sand's photograph in a
prominent spot on his office wall.
While advising the students developing the
space-based crystal-growth experiment,
Sacco began giving talks at professional
meetings on growing zeolites in space. One
such talk, before a conference of the Society
for the Advancement of Material and Pro-
cess Engineering, brought him to Seattle in
1985. In the audience that day was William
Jameson, an engineer from Grumman Corp.
who had been hired by NASA to evaluate
potential research focuses for the agency's
efforts to exploit the commercial potential
of space.
"He thought zeolites had a lot of promise
and believed NASA should push ahead with
that area," Sacco says. "As a result of that
lecture and a meeting we had with Jameson,
NASA chose zeolites as one focus."
Because of its reputation in the zeolite
community, WPI was chosen by NASA as a
founding member of the Clarkson University
Center for Commercial Crystal Growth in
Space, one of several centers formed
around the country in 1986 to lay the
groundwork for space commercialization.
Later, WPl was also invited to join the NASA-
funded Battelle Advanced Materials Center
in Columbus, Ohio, where researchers were
interested in finding ways to process cata-
lysts in space.
As a member of the Clarkson and
Battelle centers, WPI has received more
than $3 million over the past five years from
NASA and commercial sponsors to develop
a zeolite growth experiment for the first
United States Microgravity Laboratory, a
23-foot-long cylinder designed to fly in the
cargo bay of the space shuttle. USML-1
was expected to be a showcase for Amer-
ican microgravity research in crystal
growth, fluid dynamics, combustion,
biotechnology, "astroculture" and
space medicine.
Before designing the Zeolite Crys-
tal Growth Experiment (ZCG), the WPI
research team, which included Sacco,
the principal investigator, and chemi-
cal engineering professors Thompson
and Anthony G. Dixon, had to solve a
number of problems, most of which
revolved around the challenge of tak-
ing a process developed over many
decades to work well in gravity, and
making it succeed when gravity was
no longer a dominant force.
"In space, secondary forces be-
come dominant," Sacco says. "Instead
of gravity-driven convection, you get
concentration- or temperature-driven
convection. You also get situations in
which one liquid phase pulls away
from another due to differences in
surface tension."
These secondary forces threatened to
thwart a fundamental requirement of zeolite
synthesis — the need to start with a uniform,
well-mixed gel. "The makeup of the gel de-
termines which zeolites you get," Sacco
says. "If you don't mix the solutions homo-
geneously before the gel sets up, you get the
wrong silica/alumina ratios — which means
you get an uncontrolled mess."
To overcome these problems, one can
mix the solutions on the ground before
launch. This is what Russian and European
scientists have done; it was also the tech-
nique chosen for the WPI student experi-
ment. Unfortunately, zeolite crystals begin
forming soon after the two solutions are
mixed. Chemicals can be added to delay
crystal formation until after the experiment
is in orbit, but these don't always work. And
if the launch is delayed, the experiment can
be ruined, as the WPI team well knew. While
the mixture used in the student experiment
was stabilized for about three weeks, the
experiment sat on the ground for more than
three times that long. "We knew we were in
trouble right from the start," Sacco says.
"The hardware worked fine, but the crystals
were garbage."
The WPI team decided its solutions
would have to be mixed in orbit, but learn-
ing how to do this would prove no small
task. The Space Projects Laboratory on the
second floor of Goddard Hall became a hot-
bed of fluid dynamics research as Sacco,
Dixon, Thompson and a team of graduate
students and postdoctoral fellows devel-
oped techniques to overcome secondary
forces and produce a uniform gel. To fine-
tune the techniques, Sacco took test auto-
claves aboard NASA's KC-135. Nicknamed
Sacco, right, and fellow APS Joseph Prahl
test zeolite autoclaves on a KC-135 flight.
28
Fall 1992
the "vomit comet," the
plane provides brief pe-
riods of microgravity as
it flies through a roller-
coaster-like sequence
of parabolas.
As a final check of
their ideas, Sacco con-
vinced NASA to add
an experiment to the
tightly structured time-
line for USMM. In it an
astronaut would mani-
pulate 12 clear-plastic
autoclaves inside a
glove box, testing sev-
eral mixing schemes to
see which produced the
most uniform solution.
In 1989, NASA put out a
call for candidates to fill
four payload specialist
positions for USML-1.
Unlike full-time mission
specialists, who are ca-
reer astronauts, payload specialists are sci-
entists chosen to carry out particularly
complicated experiments or to take charge
of highly specialized payloads on specific
shuttle missions.
Two of the payload specialists for USML-1
would actually fly on the shuttle; the others
would be backups who would undergo the
same training and be prepared to join the
mission in the event that one of the primary
specialist was unable to fly. One mission and
one backup slot each would go to experts
in fluid dynamics; the other positions were
The crew of USML-1 pose before the space shuttle Columbia. Front row, left to right, payload comman-
der Bonnie J. Dunbar, mission commander Richard (Dick) N. Richards and pilot Kenneth D. Bowersox.
Back row, left to right, Sacco, mission specialist Dr. Ellen S. Baker, payload specialist Eugene H. Trinh,
mission specialist Carl J. Meade, payload specialist Lawrence J. DeLucas and Prahl.
Sacco and fellow crystal growth expert DeLucas
train in the spacelab mock-up in Huntsville, Ala.
reserved for specialists in crystal growth.
The announcement rekindled Sacco's
childhood space dreams; almost instantly,
he was on the phone to a colleague, who
agreed to nominate him. Remembering
an earlier, unsuccessful application to the
astronaut corps, he waited anxiously for
word from NASA. This time, he was not dis-
appointed; he had made the semifinals and
would compete along with seven other
scientists for the four positions.
The culling process included a grueling,
week-long physical and psychological exami-
nation. "We were then given an enor-
mous amount of material to read — a
whole file cabinet full of technical
information," Sacco says, "and were
quizzed on various aspects of it by
members of NASA's Investigators
Working Group."
On Aug. 6, 1990, Sacco received
word that he had made the cut. To
reach space, though, he still had to
convince NASA to pick him over his
competitor, Lawrence J. DeLucas, an
expert in protein crystalization at
the University of Alabama, whose
experiments had flown on several
previous shuttle missions.
The road to the final decision
started later that summer, when
Sacco, DeLucas and the two other
payload specialists began traveling
two weeks each month to the uni-
versities, corporations and NASA
centers preparing more than 30 ex-
periments to be flown on USML-1.
"Once we were thoroughly familiar with
the experiments," Sacco says, "we started
working in the Payload Crew Training Com-
plex at the Marshall Space Flight Center in
Huntsville, Ala., where they had a complete,
working mock-up of the spacelab. The only
thing it lacked was microgravity."
Working 12-hour days, the payload spe-
cialists and the five-person USML-1 crew
(commander Dick Richards, pilot Ken
Bowersox, payload commander Bonnie
Dunbar, and mission specialists Ellen Baker
and Carl Meade) ran through the mission
timeline again and again, evaluating and
fine-tuning the planned activities. The time-
line mapped out the crew's actions over the
13-day mission in excruciating detail. Every
activity — from running experiments to eat-
ing and sleeping — was broken down into
five-minute intervals.
The crew's training also prepared them
for daily life in the space shuttle, the world's
most sophisticated spacecraft. They learned
how to handle materials in an environment
where a tiny drop of water floating free can
be disastrous. They were taught to survive
emergencies, to communicate with people
on the ground, and to do the most mundane
things — from moving about to going to the
bathroom — in the absence of gravity.
To experience the sensation of riding
a rocket into orbit, Sacco was spun in a
centrifuge at more than three times the
acceleration of gravity and wisked through
high-speed aerobatics in a T-38 jet high
over the Gulf of Mexico. To learn to sur-
vive a water landing, he donned a 90-pound
WPI Journal
29
spacesuit and was dropped 30 feet into a
swimming pool, where he had to swim out
from under a waterlogged parachute and
tumble backward into a life raft.
He scrambled through escape drills in
a shuttle mock-up and jumped out of air-
planes to prepare for a launch disaster. He
practiced crawling through the spaceplane's
top windows and rappeling down its sides
so he could flee a crash-landed shuttle. He
learned to use a fire hose to create a curtain
of water so he could survive a launchpad
fire. And, he studied everything from emer-
gency medicine to using the many shuttle
and spacelab computer systems.
To prepare physically, Sacco followed
an aerobic exercise and weight-training pro-
gram custom tailored to his body, submit-
ting to frequent physical exams that charted
his progress. And he let a NASA dentist drill
out and replace his fillings to eliminate air
pockets that could cause painful swelling in
the reduced atmospheric pressure inside
the shuttle.
Near the end of the first year of train-
ing, NASA made its final selection: barring
unforeseen circumstances, Sacco would re-
main on the ground. "As you can well imag-
ine, this was not the news I wanted to hear,"
he wrote in a memo to the chemical engi-
neering faculty. "I will continue to do my
best to help USML-1
be a successful mis-
sion for this nation."
While training con-
tinued, Sacco did his
best to carry out his
duties as Chemical
Engineering Depart-
ment head, conduct-
ing business during
daily phone calls to
Worcester. He also
supervised the devel-
opment of the Zeolite
Crystal Growth Ex-
periment, the work of
a design team consist
ing of Sacco, Thomp-
son, Dixon, Giacomo P. Ferraro Jr., the
department's principal lab machinist, and
Nurcan Bac, a visiting professor from Middle
East Technical University in Turkey.
The ZCG comprised two primary pieces
of hardware: the autoclaves in which the
alumina and silica solutions would be mixed
and in which the crystals would grow, and
a furnace in which to heat the autoclaves.
Sacco sketched out the basic design for the
furnace, a 70-pound cylinder roughly the
Below, Sacco inserts an autoclave in the back-up ZCG
furnace, which was used in the control experiment at
WPI. Above, he undergoes NASA water survival training.
size of a small microwave oven. Running
the length of the cylinder were 19 aluminum
tubes into which 38 autoclaves (19 primary
units and 19 backups) would be placed.
The tubes were arranged into three zones:
a center tube surrounded by a circle of six
tubes surrounded, in turn, by a circle of 12.
The three zones would provide ideal
growth environments for the three zeolites
WPI planned to grow during the mission.
Since each zeolite grows best at a different
temperature, it would be necessary for
each zone to be maintained at a distinct
temperature setting, ranging from 1 75° C
at the center to 95° C in the outer ring. To
confirm that the furnace could accomplish
this using the 100 watts of power NASA had
allocated the experiment, Dixon developed
a computer program to model the device's
thermal behavior.
With just a year and a half remaining
to develop flight-ready hardware, Sacco,
Ferraro, Bac and Douglas White, the depart-
ment's electronics technician, spent two
weeks turning Sacco's sketch into a working
prototype. "We called on WPI alumni who
gave us bargain basement prices on some
of the components we needed," Sacco says.
"As a result, we built it for just $40,000."
With actual hardware in hand, the team
fine-tuned the design. At the same time,
Dixon used the prototype to test the pre-
dictions of his computer model. "Since the
predictions and the real data didn't always
agree," he says, "I used my best judgement
to develop the temperature profiles that ul-
timately appeared in the crew procedures.
During the mission, the temperatures we
saw agreed very well with those profiles,
which made a good impression at NASA."
While work progressed on the furnace,
Bac and Ferraro designed the autoclaves.
Machined from aluminum, steel and tita-
nium, these tubes contained separate
30
Fall 1992
chambers for the alumina and silica solu-
tions. When turned with an electric screw-
driver, a teflon paddle inside the autoclaves
pressurized one chamber, forcing its con-
tents into the other. Running the screw-
driver in reverse pulled the mixture back
into the empty chamber. Several complete
cycles — called activations — were needed
to thoroughly mix the gel.
The task of building prototype auto-
claves fell to Ferraro. "His expertise as a
precision machinist made it possible,"
Sacco says. "He was so good, NASA machin-
ists wanted to fly out here to learn how to
build these things to such tight tolerances."
After it had received NASA approval (the
documentation to satisfy the agency's safety
and design requirements would ultimately
fill two file cabinets), the furnace design was
turned over to Teledyne Brown Engineering
in Huntsville, Ala., and Intech Inc. in Santa
Clara, Calif., which produced a flight-ready
furnace and a duplicate unit to be used in a
control experiment at WPI. The autoclaves
were built by a precision machine shop in
Alabama.
Teledyne Brown also built the electric
screwdriver and an attachment to fit the
socket in the autoclaves. As the WPI team
prepared for a critical NASA readiness re-
view just a few weeks before launch, it
became apparent to Ferraro that the attach-
ment was not strong enough and might fail
in use. With too little time to design and test
a new part, he found a solution at a local
hardware store.
"During the review, NASA pointed out
the problem," Ferraro says, "and asked how
we could solve it. From my pocket I pulled
a $3.80 part I had modified and said we
should make something like that. The NASA
guys looked it over and said, 'why don't we
just use this one.' So we replaced an $8,000
device with a $3.80 part from the hardware
store."
Perfecting the hardware was just half of
The flight autoclaves packed in their stowage box.
the battle. Without a thorough
understanding of the chemistry
of the zeolites the team had cho-
sen to grow, it would be difficult
to later interpret the results of
the ZCG. Under the direction of
Thompson, a team of graduate
students ran countless samples
under a wide range of condi-
tions and studied the results.
"One problem with process-
ing in space is that you have
to know what you get on the
ground," Sacco says. "You have
to know everything that affects
it, otherwise you won't be able
to tell what was due to micro-
gravity and what was caused by
something else. That's an evolv-
ing problem, because zeolites
are so complicated in solution
you never know exactly what's
going on. But we've probably
done more experiments on this
than anyone else in the country."
Finally, working against the
odds, WPI delivered completed hardware to
NASA on schedule and within its assigned
budget. "It often takes seven to eight years
to develop a space experiment," Sacco says.
"NASA didn't think we could do it in 18
months. Fortunately, they were flexible.
They allowed us to miss a few critical design
reviews early on. And a few times when we
got stuck, mission manager Charlie Sprinkle
had his people help us write documentation.
In the end, though, we came through."
For nearly two years, the ZCG team had
labored as a group. But as the launch date
for USML-1 approached, the team members
prepared to split up, for their jobs would
now take them far afield.
As an alternate payload specialist, Sacco
would spend the mission working 12-hour
shifts at a console at
the Marshall Space
Flight Center in
Huntsville, Ala.,
where he would
serve as the primary
communications link
between the astro-
nauts and the more
than 140 scientists on
the ground anxiously
watching their ex-
periments unfold.
It would be the most
grueling work he had
ever done.
"Being an APS is
the toughest job in
Nurcan Bac, left, and Giacomo Ferraro with the truck
they used to transport their supplies to Florida.
the world," he says. "You have to be emo-
tionally ready to fly on a mission where your
life is at stake. You have to be functionally
literate in all the orbiter systems. But you
also have to know more about the mission
science than the flight crew, because it's
your job to talk with the scientists on the
ground and translate their needs into lan-
guage the crew can understand."
Dixon and Thompson would also find
themselves at Marshall. Working eight-
hour shifts alongside representatives from
Teledyne Brown and Intech, they monitored
the ZCG's status and stood by to come up
with solutions should anything go wrong.
If Sacco, Dixon and Thompson were the
actors in the ZCG drama, it fell to Bac and
Ferraro to set the stage. In mid-June 1992
they loaded a complete chemistry labora-
tory and the better part of a machine shop
into a rental truck and headed south. On
June 18 they arrived at the Kennedy Space
Center in Florida, where, along with post-
doctoral research associates Eric Coker and
Juliusz Warzywoda and graduate student
Ipek Guray, they spent 16 hours unloading
the truck under the watchful eyes of NASA
quality-control engineers.
Over the next few days, they would pre-
pare alumina and silica solutions and load
them into more than 80 autoclaves (includ-
ing 38 for the shuttle experiment and 38 for
the duplicate experiment in Worcester).
Early on, it became apparent that the toler-
ances on the internal parts of some of the
autoclaves made by the firm in Alabama
were off by a few thousandths of an inch —
just enough to create friction when the
WPI Journal
31
Working in an assembly line, WPI's Kennedy Space Center team prepare the autoclaves for USML-1. They are, from
left, Robert Whitmore from the Battelle Advanced Materials Center, graduate student Ipek Guray, postdoctoral fellow
Juliusz Warzywoda, Bac, postdoctoral fellow Eric Coker and Ferraro. The team's work earned praise from NASA.
parts were turned by the electric screw-
driver. That friction, they knew, could pre-
vent the solutions from mixing thoroughly.
Ferraro set up the tools he'd brought from
Worcester and, racing the clock, spent
12 hours remachining the parts.
Ultimately, the autoclaves were loaded,
packed into labeled bags, placed in a box,
and turned over to NASA on June 23. At
the same time, Teledyne Brown representa-
tives handed over the screwdriver and a
tool the astronauts would use to remove
the autoclaves from the furnace. As that
tool changed hands, a strip of Velcro fell
off its handle.
Without that strip, the astronauts would
be unable to secure the tool to Velcro strips
in the shuttle. If it could not be so secured,
the tool could not fly, according to NASA
safety rules. If the tool didn't fly, the experi-
ment couldn't be run. Suddenly, two years
of work was in jeopardy because of a tiny
strip of plastic. Without blinking an eye,
Ferraro reached into a bag of equipment
he'd brought from Worcester and produced
the prototype tool — with its Velcro strip
securely fastened. Though it was not flight
certified, NASA inspectors gave it their
blessing. Once again, Ferraro had saved
the experiment.
For Bac, Ferraro and the graduate stu-
dents, it had been an exhausting five days.
As they prepared to pack up, mission man-
ager Sprinkle and his assistant, Paul Gilbert,
stopped by to compliment the WPI team on
a job well done. Similar compliments would
soon reach Sacco, Dixon and Thompson in
Huntsville. "Two people who were at Ken-
nedy took it upon themselves to tell us what
a wonderfully professional and dedicated
group we had and how smoothly the opera-
tion had gone," Thompson says. "They
didn't have to do that."
On the morning of June 25, Bac and
Ferraro watched the USML-1 crew board
a van for the launchpad, then took their
seats in the VIP viewing area to see Colum-
bia rise on a massive column of flame and
smoke, roll gracefully, and begin its journey
into space.
With mixed emotions, Sacco watched the
launch on television at his console in Hunts-
ville. "People often ask me whether I felt bad
about not being up there," he says. "I did,
but not for the reason they think. I had lived
with those guys for two years; they had be-
come like family. Suddenly they were going
off to do something 1 knew was dangerous,
and I felt 1 should be with them. 1 felt almost
like a traitor, because I was no longer put-
ting my ass on the line like they were."
Sacco quickly learned that his job would
be as challenging — if not more so — than
those of the seven men and women orbiting
overhead. Pulling on his headset, he felt as
though he had landed in a simultaneous
translator's nightmare. Into his ears flowed
a constant stream of voices — up to 14 con-
versations at once: scientists, engineers,
spacecraft operations people, and dozens
of other men and women talking to Sacco
and to each other.
32
Fall 1992
He says he quickly became adept at pick-
ing out of this cacophony the information he
needed. As a scientist and an astronaut who
had trained with the spacelab crew, he was
in a unique position to work with the rest
of the mission scientists to fix the problems
the astronauts would encounter and to relay
the solutions back up to the crew.
"An astronaut's on-orbit time costs about
$23,000 a minute," he says. "When they have
a problem, they don't waste time looking up
the answer — that's done on the ground. So
I had to be able to focus everyone on the
problem at hand." In addition to solving
problems, Sacco worked with timeline engi-
neers, crew procedure engineers and others
to continually revamp the mission sched-
ule— often several days into the future — and
to make sure that valuable time on data and
television downlink channels would be avail-
able to scientists who needed them.
"The researchers were always afraid
they were going to lose their science," Sacco
says. "Every one of those guys was a world-
class scientist, and if they thought you were
trying to take away a minute of their time,
they'd get big-time upset." In the end, Sacco
says, careful rearranging of the timeline al-
lowed the USML-1 crew to actually get more
work done on the science experiments than
was planned, an extraordinary achievement.
Once, when a potential leak in a seal on a
glovebox attached to a large crystal growth
furnace placed a portion of the mission sci-
ence in jeopardy, Sacco devoted one of his
12-hour shifts to working with hardware ex-
perts to come up with a solution. His efforts
earned him a special recognition award from
NASA administrator Daniel S. Goldin. But
most of Sacco's time in Huntsville was spent
in the pressure-cooker environment of the
APS console.
"As an APS, I had to be prepared for emer-
Wearing protective goggles, Bonnie Dunbar prepares a ZCG autoclave in
Columbia's mid-deck. When friction due to a machining problem drained
the batteries in an electric screwdriver she was using to activate the
autoclaves, she finished the job with a ratchet wrench.
gencies," he says. "If something went seri-
ously wrong with an experiment, it could re-
quire a split-second decision. I had a lot of
people backing me up, but I was the crunch
point; I had to focus it and voice it up to the
crew. I was also given the authority to ques-
tion a command and stop it from going up."
At the end of each shift, Sacco spent an
hour with the scientists he'd worked with
that day to ask how he might better serve
them on his next shift. After taking time for
dinner, he'd return to his room, utterly ex-
hausted, and try to grab some sleep before
returning to the control room an hour early
to confer with fellow APS Joseph M. Prahl,
professor of engineering at Case Western
Reserve University,
who worked compli-
mentary 12-hour shifts
on the console.
"Al was a real as-
set to the flight," says
payload commander
Dunbar. "When we are
flying flights like this,
which are a combina-
tion of science and
operations, it's impor-
tant to have a good
mix of the two [in an
APS], because he has
to make real-time
decisions — and make
sound ones. He has
to interpret a lot of
information in a few
Ferraro works against the clock to remachine the autoclaves.
words. Al was an
indispensable contributor to the success
of the mission."
Early on the first day of the mission,
Dunbar started the glove box experiment
for the zeolite crystal growth team. As she
worked, she noticed something odd about
one of the clear-plastic autoclaves and
asked Sacco for his opinion. What Sacco
saw on the television screen looked like
some sort of seepage inside the autoclave.
But he didn't say seepage; without thinking,
he called the phenomenon a leak.
"Immediately," Dixon says, "I had a bunch
of people on my headset saying, "Leak?
What leak? Tell me about this leak. Is there
any danger? Can anything get out?' So I had
to tell them, 'In this case, leak means it's
contained.' You learn that the first thing you
say is, 'it's contained — it's not coming out.'"
Bac, Ferraro and Coker, who were also
watching the experiment on TV, knew ex-
actly what was happening. Because of the
machining problem, which Ferraro had not
been able to correct completely, capillary
action was causing the alumina and silica
solutions to "wick" harmlessly to the inside
wall of the autoclave. Within minutes, they
called Dixon, who relayed the information
to Sacco. As quickly as it arose, the furor
over the "leak" subsided.
Later that day, Dunbar began activating
the ZCG's autoclaves and loading them into
the furnace, which, because it would need
little attention once fired up, had been
placed in the shuttle mid-deck rather than
WPI Journal
33
After a record-setting 14-day mission, Columbia touched down at the Kennedy
Space Center on July 8, 1992. On board was a precious cargo: a box loaded
with 38 autoclaves containing zeolite crystals grown in microgravity.
in the spacelab module. But before she
could finish, the electric screwdriver gave
out. Due to the machining problem, "there
was a little more resistance than we'd anti-
cipated," she says, "which used up the bat-
teries. So we went to a manual activation.
We had to be a little creative with our tool-
kit. We got a ratchet wrench out, made the
attachment, and went from there."
After about two hours, the furnace was
loaded; Dunbar screwed on the faceplate
and turned on the circuitry. In about eight
hours, the furnace would reach its operating
temperature. For Dixon and Thompson, the
excitement was over. "Because the planning
had been so successful, there was little for
us to do," Thompson says. Dixon puts it this
way: "We said all through the practice runs
that we'd be bored stupid, and we were."
But one person's boredom is another's
delight. Up in Columbia, Dunbar could not
have been happier about the ZCG's success.
"We always go into working a new piece of
hardware in zero-G with the assumption that
it's a research and development environ-
ment, because you can't simulate zero-G
for any significant time on the ground," she
says. "You give it your best engineering and
science judgement, but you provide for the
fact that there may be problems. So I was
very pleased that they got up there, they
held the temperature the way they wanted
to, and they controlled it the way they
wanted. We never had to intervene. I think
they get an A+ for operations."
For Bac and Ferraro, there was little time
for boredom. Having loaded the truck, they
returned to Worcester to prepare to run the
duplicate ZCG along with Coker, Warzywoda
and Guray. Using information relayed by
Dixon and Thompson, they prepared the
autoclaves exactly as Dunbar had done,
then monitored the furnace to make sure
its temperature profile matched that of the
space unit. Later, by comparing the results
of the two experiments, the researchers
would be able to determine whether micro-
gravity really made a difference in the size
of the zeolites they grew in orbit.
Nearly nine days after it was activated,
the ZCG was shut down and allowed to cool.
Dunbar then retrieved the autoclaves and
returned them to their stowage box. In Wor-
cester, Bac boarded a plane and headed for
Edwards Air Force Base in California to
collect the box. He awoke the morning of
Columbia's scheduled landing to find that,
due to bad weather at Edwards, the mission
was being extended to a record 14th day. He
also learned that the landing site had been
changed to Florida.
Hopping another plane, he arrived at
Kennedy Space Center just in time to re-
trieve the autoclaves and head for the
airport once more. The return of the auto-
claves to Worcester brought down the
curtain on the Zeolite Crystal Growth Ex-
periment. But ahead of the WP1 team lay
the task of examining and learning from
the crystals they had grown.
For Sacco, the end of the mission
brought his first real chance to rest after
more than two years of working in high gear
and two weeks of 14-hour days. "I didn't feel
it right away," he says. "The excitement and
adrenaline kept me going. But two days after
I got off console, I was sleeping 12 hours
straight, and during the 12 hours I was
awake I wasn't worth anything."
With the help of Ronald R. Biederman, pro-
fessor of mechanical engineering, the WPI
team put their space-grown crystals under
the electron microscope. They also studied
them with x-ray diffraction, x-ray photo-
spectroscopy and nuclear magnetic reso-
nance. What they saw was encouraging.
"We got enhanced size, which is what we
had predicted," Sacco says. "Compared to
the best crystals we've ever grown in our
labs here at WPI, which are about 50 to 90
microns (millionths of a meter) on a edge,
the space crystals were 40 percent larger
in linear dimensions, 96 percent larger in
area and 200 percent larger in volume."
They also appear to be far more perfect
than Earth-grown crystals, he adds.
(It's important to note, Sacco says, that
WPI's best Earth-grown crystals, which were
produced under carefully controlled condi-
tions, are significantly larger than the crys-
tals typically used in industry. The crystals
produced in space are many times larger
than those tiny zeolites.)
While the experiment was a success,
Sacco says it didn't accomplish everything
The space zeolites proved significantly
larger and more perfect than those
grown in the control furnace back at WPI.
34
Fall 1992
During the USML-1 mission, Sacco, as an alternate payload specialist, served as the primary communications
link between the astronauts and the scientists and engineers on the ground. Working at this console at the
Marshall Space Flight Center, he helped solve problems the spacelab crew encountered and continually re-
worked the mission timeline. Sacco is shown here with, left to right, Anna Bathew, NASA data management
coordinator, Alan Johnston, crew interface coordinator, and Karla Kochevar, a timeline engineer.
the ZCG team had hoped. In particular, the
mixing problem probably prevented the
crystals from growing as large as they might
have. "We got a scientific gold star," he says,
"but for what we eventually want to accom-
plish, we have to go much further."
NASA, pleased with the results of the
first run of the ZCG, has already booked the
experiment on Spacehab 1, a small spacelab
set to fly on a five-day shuttle mission in the
spring of 1993. Pending the results of that
flight, the experiment should also be aboard
a second Spacehab mission in 1994 and on
USML-2 in 1995. The WPI researchers have
even been given space on the proposed
space station Freedom.
"The idea of this preliminary experiment
was to demonstrate that microgravity either
does or does not have something to do with
the growth of zeolites," Thompson says. "It
appears at this time that it does, so the ob-
jective was met. What we have to do in the
next several months is to interpret the data
on some firm scientific basis and see what
the next logical step will be."
Sacco says the next run of the ZCG will
benefit from better machining of the auto-
claves, resulting in better mixing. In addi-
tion, the results from the first experiment
demonstrated clearly which mixing strate-
gies work best, so only those will be used
next time. Because of the short duration of
the Spacehab mission, the team will not be
looking to grow larger crystals — that will
have to wait for longer missions later on.
Ultimately, though, Sacco says the WPI
team expects to grow crystals significantly
larger than those produced on USML-1 —
perhaps as big as half a millimeter to a
millimeter on a side. Crystals that big, if
produced in sufficient quantities, could
revolutionize the chemical processing in-
dustry, he notes. In particular, large crys-
tals will greatly enhance the purification
of chemicals and drugs. Since separations
account for 65 percent of the cost of most
chemical products, enhancing purification
will significantly lower production costs.
Large crystals will also make it easier for
chemical engineers to study what makes
zeolites tick. With this new knowledge, they
can custom design new zeolite catalysts
that will increase the yields of many high-
volume chemical industries and reduce
waste products at the same time. Will such
applications justify the significant cost of
manufacturing zeolites in space? "If I can
spend $1 million to grow crystals that
improve the yield of gasoline refining — a
multibillion-dollar business — by 1 percent,"
Sacco says, "then that $1 million will yield
billions in savings."
For the moment, though, Sacco and the
rest of the ZCG team are thinking about a dif-
ferent sort of payoff— the recognition their
work has helped bring to the Institute. "WPI's
name is solid gold at NASA now," Sacco says.
"We're considered almost a miracle school.
People don't know what to make of us. A
lot of the university people involved with
USML-1 had never heard of us, because we
are primarily an undergraduate school.
"1 think we really showed them, and it
will pay dividends beyond everyone's imagi-
nation. We came together in a moment in
time and decided that this experiment was
bigger than everybody's ego, professional
development or leisure time. We decided
we were going to do it. And we did it as
good as, if not better than, anybody else
could have."
WPI Journal
35
..
Court of
Honor
By Ruth Trask
As America's
Top Judge,
Ernest
Hayeck
Metes Out
Justice With
Compassion,
Firmness
and Humor
T
I his is beyond my wildest dreams," says Worcester
I Central District Court Judge Ernest Hayeck '47, who
I received one of the American Bar Association's highest
m. honors at the organization's annual awards ceremony
in July. "Only in America could such a thing come true.
1 happened to be in the right place at the right time. I
was lucky."
As the recipient of the ABA's Franklin N. Flaschner Award,
Hayeck was recognized as the top judge in the nation. While
Judge Hayeck may modestly attribute this, the latest and
most prestigious in a long list of honors he has won, to luck,
his colleagues — and even some of the convicts he has
imprisoned— tell another story. In a nutshell, they say he
bends over backward to be fair to all who come before
him — not only defendants, but victims, as well.
In fact, Hayeck's concern for the welfare of victims has
brought him to national prominence. When he was chair-
man of the National Conference of Special Court Judges of
the ABA, he helped write a Statement of Recommended
Judicial Practices that has been used as a model for victims'
rights legislation across the country.
His leadership, along with his role in securing a $250,000
grant from the U.S. Justice Department, resulted in the Na-
tional Conference of the Judiciary on the Rights of Victims.
At that conference, held in 1983, judges from every state in
the nation were brought together at The National Judicial
College to discuss the problems and rights of victims.
While acknowledging the importance of the rights of
defendants, which are carefully defined in American law,
Hayeck says victims of crime often receive serious physical,
"
36
Fall 1992
Judge Ernest Hayeck's dedication to the rights of victims
has earned him the respect of his peers.
psychological and financial injuries as a result of crimes
committed against them. Before the National Conference of
the Judiciary promulgated its recommendations, victims'
rights had never been clearly defined, he notes.
"Victims of and witnesses to crime frequently must take
time off from work and make other personal sacrifices, pos-
sibly subjecting themselves to risk of intimidation and in-
jury," he says. "The criminal justice system depends on the
willing cooperation of victims and witnesses in order to
perform its primary function of protecting all citizens in this
country."
To give victims and witnesses fairer treatment in crimi-
nal cases, Hayeck proposed that they be provided essential
information about court procedures and courthouse facili-
ties; be allowed to participate, and where appropriate, give
input through the prosecutor to testify in all stages of judi-
cial proceedings; and be protected from harassment, threats,
intimidation and harm. He also recommended that judges at
the trial and appellate levels be encouraged to participate in
training programs dealing with the rights, problems, needs
and legal interests of crime victims.
Victims of crime, he says, should not be victims of the
criminal justice system, as well. By virtue of their position of
authority in the American judicial system and their promi-
nence in their communities, judges can play a critical role in
making sure that doesn't happen. He says judges can take
an important step toward improving the lot of victims by
simply evaluating their own attitudes and the attitudes of
their staffs toward these individuals.
With the national spotlight focused on the rights of vic-
tims, a number of victims' rights groups, including the Na-
tional Victim Center, have been organized over the past
decade. "Incidentally," Hayeck says, "1 met Christine Edmunds,
director of program development for the National Victim
Center, at The National Judicial College in August. I was
pleased to learn she is the niece of Professor Emeritus Albert
Schwieger, one of my favorite former WP1 professors."
Hayeck is noted for running a simple, straightforward
court, where justice is meted out with compassion, firmness
and humor. "I want the prisoners to know why they must go
to jail," he says. "I want them to feel the seriousness of what
they have done. I don't believe in simply slapping wrists."
For example, when a gang of youths desecrated a cem-
etery, Hayeck sent them to jail rather than giving them the
option of community service, as other judges have done in
similar cases. "Most of those tombstones belonged to poor,
elderly families who couldn't easily replace them," he says.
"They were heartbroken and devastated by what those boys
did. The culprits deserved to go to jail."
Over the years, a surprising number of prisoners have
thanked Hayeck for his brand of justice, saying it helped
deter them from returning to familiar patterns when they
were released from jail. But Hayeck is no "hanging judge."
His kindnesses on the bench are legendary.
Once, when one of the parties in a lawsuit would accept
nothing less than $350 and the other party would pay only
$300 and not a penny more, Hayeck opened his wallet and
made up the $50 difference on the spot. "Fifty bucks made
In his Worcester courtroom, Hayeck is known for his compassion
and fairness, and for his uncanny ability to put people at ease.
all the difference in the world to the kid in question," he said in a
newspaper interview at the time. "It seemed like the right thing to do."
Hayeck says he cares about the people in his courtroom as indi-
viduals. To put the men and women who come before him at ease, he
sometimes gives a brief discourse on the etymology of their sur-
names, drawing on his working knowledge of several languages. "For
the average person, an appearance in court is a traumatic, frightening
experience," he says. "1 feel that to the extent he can do so, a judge
should put people at ease, but without demeaning the dignity or the
solemnity of the proceedings."
During his 22 years on the bench, Hayeck has heard a wide variety
of cases — civil and criminal — ranging from the simplest to the most
complicated and serious. He can lay claim to having presided over the
largest medical malpractice jury verdict ever handed down in Massa-
chusetts. In November 1986 a jury awarded a plaintiff $9.72 million in
Harlow v. Chin and Massachusetts General Hospital.
As he hears the cases that come before him, Hayeck says he is ever
mindful of his role as a public servant. "The court belongs to the
people," he explains. "A judge or a judge and jury hear the evidence,
determine the verdict, and the sentence is decided by the judge. I
never forget for one moment that mine is an awesome responsibility.
What I do can have a great and sometimes irreversible impact. But
1 don't have any problem making up my mind. None whatsoever. If I
did, 1 think I'd belong in another business."
America's foremost judge says he is perfectly happy with his court-
house digs, although they are not luxurious by any means. In fact, he is
unabashedly proud of having made it in Worcester rather than in New
York City or Los Angeles. He says the gilt trappings of
big-city success mean little to him. "I'm a living example
of how you can succeed in your own backyard," he
says. "The grass isn't always greener somewhere else."
No matter what his location, Hayeck is sought out
by those in high places from coast to coast. His col-
leagues hail him as a national leader in judicial educa-
tion. Milford (Mass.) District Court Judge Francis J.
Larkin, who nominated Hayeck for the Flaschner Award,
says "he has compiled an enviable reputation as a judi-
cial-educator who combines broad erudition with pow-
ers of clear exposition and eloquent, pungent writing."
Hayeck is a faculty member at the only college for
judges in America. The National Judicial College in
Reno, Nev., where all of the students and most of the
faculty are judges, was established many years ago at
the University of Nevada under the aegis of the U.S.
Supreme Court. Private funds were sought for the
creation of the college, which is affiliated with the
ABA. Since the Fleischman Foundation of Reno pro-
vided the most substantial initial funding and
continuing support, the college was located in the
foundation's hometown.
Judges from all over the country and all over the
world attend the college. Many states require their
judges to attend. In the near future, 100 judges from
Russia will enroll. Tuition is substantial and the train-
ing rigorous. Classes start promptly at 8 a.m. and run
until 5 p.m., seven days a week. The faculty serves pro
bono publico — on a voluntary basis.
It is an honor to be chosen to teach at the college, Hayeck says.
Faculty members are anonymously evaluated by all the students for
every lecture they give, in every course they teach. If his evaluations
drop, an instructor is not invited to return. Hayeck started teaching at
the college in 1974 and he has been invited back every year since. His
evaluations have been remarkable. For the most recent session, during
which he taught advanced evidence, among other subjects, his mean
rating was 6.8 out of a possible 7.
In postcourse reviews his students have said, "Judge Hayeck's
lectures are clear, concise and practical," and "he is a brilliant man
who has a flair for teaching." One student noted, "He should be
teaching law school students. They'd love him."
In addition to serving on the faculty at The National Judicial Col-
lege, Hayeck served the maximum allowable six years on the college's
board of directors and was vice chairman of the board when U.S.
Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger was chairman.
Also, long concerned with the rights of prisoners and minorities,
Hayeck helped spearhead the first National Conference of the Judi-
ciary on Jail and Prison Crowding. He is a longtime member of the ABA
Commission on Opportunities for Minorities in the Profession. While
he was chairman of the Judicial Administration Division (JAD) of the
ABA, he created the Judicial Administration Division Task Force on
Minorities in the Judiciary.
Francis S. Moran Jr., executive director of the Boston Bar Associa-
tion, says, "Few if any lawyers in the country have done as much to
further the cause of broadening opportunities for minorities in the
legal profession as Judge Hayeck. In his years on the bench, he has
38
Fall 1992
also made a profound impact on the improvement of judicial educa-
tion, not only in Massachusetts but in the nation as a whole."
Moran, chairman of the ABA awards board, had good documenta-
tion to back up Hayeck's nomination, as Hayeck has served as chair-
man of the Massachusetts District Court Committee on Judicial
Education.
Former Michigan Supreme Court Justice Dennis Archer was the
keynote speaker at Hayeck's ABA award presentation in San Francisco
in July. Anthony Lewis, a columnist for The New York Times and two-
time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, also attended the ceremony. As
the keynote speaker at the opening assembly of the ABA, Lewis
commended Hayeck and quoted him in his speech.
In recommending Hayeck for the award, Justice Archer cited
Hayeck's hard work in the ABA Minor-
ity Counsel Demonstration Program.
He noted that he was also impressed
that Hayeck was instrumental in get-
ting the JAD to form a task force that
has increased the number of minority
judges who belong to the ABA and the
JAD, and encouraged more judges to
hire minority law clerks. Of Hayeck, he
wrote, "A person who thinks of others
first, who uses his intellectual skills to
demonstrate fairness and to benefit
mankind while wearing his heart on
his sleeve and providing service to
our profession is more than worthy of
consideration."
As a teenager, Hayeck never saw
himself in the legal profession. He grew
up on Grafton Hill in Worcester, where
he used to get in trouble for taking
mechanical things apart and putting
them back together, making his
own batteries of copper, zinc and
sulfuric acid, and devising his own
transformers.
"Justice at home was always swift,"
he recalls. "Sometimes it was
a whack. 1 had two brothers, and we were always getting into
scrapes. Ironically, my parents' favorite caution was, 'Judge not, lest
ye be judged.'
"As I grew older, I knew I wanted to study at WPI and teach," he
says. After graduating with his B.S. in chemistry from the Institute, he
taught at Boston University, where he received his M.A. in chemistry.
He then taught at Stonehill College in North Easton, Mass., where he
established the chemistry department.
"In 1952, after my younger brother, Albert, a lawyer, was killed in a
private plane crash, I decided at his funeral to change careers and go
into law," he says. "That was the trigger mechanism that caused me to
go to law school."
After receiving his law degree from BU, Hayeck was in private
practice in Worcester from 1955 to 1970. In 1970, Francis Sargent, then
the governor of Massachusetts, named him a judge. Over the years, in
addition to judging and teaching, Hayeck has done a great deal of
writing on the law of evidence, on trusts and various other subjects.
His accomplishments have earned him several honorary graduate
degrees and other professional honors.
Hayeck says what he has found most rewarding about his career is
the opportunity to serve society. "Service itself is its own reward," he
notes. "The beauty of the U.S. judicial system is that it is the backbone
of our free society. We have no armies to back up court decisions.
People, in general, respect our court decisions and abide by them,
which is not always the case in other countries."
Currently, he says, the courts are on the verge of being over-
whelmed. But it's still important to give people the attention they
deserve. "Too many judges don't exercise as much latitude in resolv-
ing cases as they might," he said in a recent interview with the Massa-
chusetts Lawyer's Weekly. He says he's found it effective to help litigants
resolve their disputes without the
need for a full adversarial trial.
A judge, he says, must never
become an advocate for either side,
but he or she can make a meaningful
contribution to the resolution of
a case by being involved in an im-
partial way. "I think a judge, if he has
a knack for it, can move a tremen-
dous amount of work," he said in
the Lawyer's Weekly interview. "It's
much easier to sit there with your
mouth shut and try to look learned.
But I don't think we can afford that
attitude."
Although cognizant of the many
problems facing America today, both
inside and outside the courtroom
("It's scary everywhere" he says),
Hayeck admits to being a red, white
and blue patriot, believing in the
basic strengths and ideals of our
democratic society.
He says he is aghast at the changes
that have taken place since he first
started practice in the 1950s. Back
then he was rarely, if ever, concerned
with drug or drug-related cases. Today, he says, his calendar is over-
flowing with them.
Hayeck attributes his own balanced view of the world to his broad-
based education and to his wide-ranging interests. (They include scuba
diving, which he has done all over the world, fishing for marlin
in Hawaii and the Caribbean, and catching salmon in the Pacific
Northwest and Alaska.)
He says he strongly advocates that prospective lawyers broaden
their own horizons by taking science and humanities courses along
with their studies in law. "I have many engineer friends who never
read anything but professional literature," he says. "They wouldn't
dream of reading a poem or a novel." An avid reader, Hayeck says he
finds this sad.
To those considering law careers, Hayeck has another piece of
advice: "Be fair minded." As for himself, he says, "I think I've been
totally and irreversibly ruined for the art of advocacy, because as a
judge, I see at least two sides to every question."
mmm^m'ww^M
yggBS&B&EBBSSSBKBk
WPI Journal
39
FINAL WORD
Bob Sinicrope Shows Students There's
Joy and Fulfillment in "All That Jazz"
T
I he original pied piper in the classic children's story led
I youngsters out of town playing pan pipes. Bob Sinicrope 71,
X on the other hand, leads his kids out of the country playing
the trombone and the string bass. On his resume, Sinicrope is
listed as a mathematics teacher at Milton Academy, a well-known
preparatory school in Milton, Mass. While he says he enjoys teach-
ing math, it is his love of jazz, which he also teaches, that has taken
him and his young charges around the world.
Thanks to Sinicrope, jazz is big-time at Milton. The school offers
full-credit courses in the subject and gives students the opportu-
nity to learn about musical self-expression by playing in the Milton
Jazz Combo, which Sinicrope directs. No run-of-the-mill kids' group,
the combo has performed from coast to coast, opened for the likes
of James Taylor, and received numerous music awards.
"We just won our most important honor ever," reports a beam-
ing Sinicrope. "Down Beat magazine named the Milton Jazz Combo
the winner in the North American high school small group cat-
egory in its 15th Annual Student Music Award Competition."
As pleased as Sinicrope and his combo are with this prestigious
prize, the highlight of the group's career to date was a February
1992 tour of South Africa, where they performed at the invitation
of Abdullah Ibrahim, one of the world's most outstanding jazz
composers and pianists.
That remarkable opportunity followed Ibrahim's perfor-
mance at Milton Academy last year at a benefit for the school's
South African Scholarship Fund. Ibrahim was so impressed
with Sinicrope's combo that he invited the students to appear
at concerts in his native land. "I want the spirit of the Milton
Jazz Combo shared with my South African homeland," he said,
following his standing-room-only concert at the school.
To earn enough for the trip, Sinicrope and his group under-
took a dizzying concert schedule — performing anywhere they
were asked. Within one two-week period they performed three
times in Boston: at the Museum of Science, in Copley Place (an
upscale shopping mall in the downtown area), and at Aquinas
Junior College. "We had to raise money the best way we could,"
Sinicrope says.
In addition to their own efforts, the combo received gener-
ous support from families and friends of Milton Academy. Ulti-
mately, their financial goals were met and, in early February,
Sinicrope and the combo, accompanied by Sinicrope's daugh-
ter, Alicia, and two other academy representatives, arrived in
South Africa.
Highlights of the trip included a concert for the mayor of
Johannesburg in City Hall, a performance at a local boys'
school, a special performance for Dave Brubeck's son Darius,
Bob Sinicrope '71
leads the Milton
Academy Jazz
Combo, named
best in its category
in a Down Beat
magazine student
music competition.
40
Fall 1992
Sinicrope chats with South African jazz great Abdullah Ibrahim,
who invited the Milton group to perform in his country.
a jazz musician who lives in Durban, and four days spent studying
and performing at three township schools. There was also plenty
of time for getting a taste of local culture and sightseeing, with the
African game preserves being an especially popular attraction.
"We all agreed that the trip was a great honor and a privilege,"
says Sinicrope. "We were truly touched by Ibrahim's talent and
spirit. The trip was fantasy come to life."
A story in the Milton Academy newspaper noted that Sinicrope,
who had invited Ibrahim to the scholarship benefit, was the prime
force in turning the dream into reality. "It is impossible," noted the
young reporter, "not to see that Mr. Sinicrope has worked beyond
belief.. ..the trip would not have been possible without him."
So successful were Sinicrope's international efforts in South
Africa, he was selected to spend more than six weeks teaching
math and English last summer at Milton Academy's sister school
in Beijing, China. It goes without saying that somewhere along
the line he introduced the best of jazz to his Chinese students.
Sinicrope has been teaching courses in math and jazz improvi-
sation at Milton Academy for 19 years; in fact, he founded the
school's highly acclaimed jazz program. He has been a staff
member at Jamey Aebersold's summer jazz camps in Chicago and
Louisville for 12 years (Aebersold is the world's best-known jazz
educator) and he has directed jazz combos at the John Payne
Music Center in Brookline, Mass., for 13 years.
In addition, he has conducted jazz clinics in Australia, China,
Jamaica, South Africa and Thailand, as well as in California, Florida
and the greater Boston area. Sinicrope, who formerly played the
trombone in the WPI Brass Choir, now plays string bass exclusively
in his professional gigs. He has played with jazz greats Billy Eck-
stine, Ernestine Anderson, Bob Wilber, Tiny Grimes, Vic Dickenson,
Jo Jones and Warren Vache. In 1987 he was featured at the Worces-
ter Jazz Festival with guitarist Gary Sargent. More recently, he
accompanied Shirley Bassey at Symphony Hall in Boston.
Sinicrope used to perform with his good friend, Richard Falco,
who is director of jazz studies at the Institute. Today he is the bass-
ist in Dick Johnson's Swing Shift, one of the outstanding jazz
groups in the Northeast. He also plays regularly with the John
Payne Sax Choir, which back on Sept. 25 performed with guest
soloist and then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton.
He says playing off campus helps him immeasurably in the
classroom and on the podium. "Teaching and performing are art
When he is not teaching, Sinicrope performs professionally
on the string bass and conducts jazz clinics around the world.
forms," he says. "The more you do of one, the sharper your skills
become in the other.
"I've been a professional musician for 30 years. In fact, playing
music helped pay my way through WPI," Sinicrope says, explaining
another important benefit of performing. But more important to
him, he says, is the self-expression he finds in performing and the
fulfillment he finds in helping others discover jazz.
"I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity I've had to reach
others through my teaching and playing. I've had many remarkable
experiences in what I do and I am continually learning and growing."
— Ruth Trask
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The Humanitie
and Arts at WPI
The Art
Endowme
anagement
WPI Journal
VOLUME XCVI NO. 1 WINTER 1993
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CONTENTS
Enriching Life.. .And Making a Living
Bonnie Gelbwasser
and Michael Dorsey
Two decades ago, WPI invented a radical new way of incorporating the humanities
into a technical education. Today, with a range of innovative humanities programs,
the Institute is still preparing students for rewarding careers... and lives.
Alden Reborn Michael Dorsey
It's been called the jewel of the WPI campus and one of the most beautiful aca-
demic buildings in the Northeast. After a thorough restoration, Alden Memorial
has emerged as an elegant and functional home for the performing arts.
Restoring a Legend Ruth Trask
Tony Leketa '69 is no stranger to huge construction projects. Now, as program
manager for the $1.4 billion Pentagon Renovation Program, he's overseeing one
of the biggest projects ever undertaken by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Investing the Future Diane Benison
Far more than a huge savings account, WPI's $118 million endowment is a vehicle
for ensuring the Institute's future vitality and success. Here's how the college is
working to better protect this vital asset and foster its growth.
DEPARTMENTS
L Advance Word: Celebrating Alden..The Man and the Building.
35 Input: Cold, Hard Facts About the Endowment. Donald F. Berth '57
00 Final Word: The Rewards of Town Management. Ruth Trask
Front Coven Music professor David P. McKay, who will retire this year after a 37-year career at WPI.
lectures students in the new music classroom in the fully restored Alden Memorial. Story on page 14.
Photo by Janet Woodcock. Opposite: The Pentagon is also benefiting from a complete renovation,
under the direction of Anthony F. Leketa '69. Story on page 22. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers. Back Cover In the shadow of the Washburn Shops, students trudge through the
aftermath of a record-setting snowfall last December. Photo by Janet Woodcock.
Staff of the WPI Journal: Editor, Michael W. Dorsey • Alumni News Editor, Ruth S. Trask • Writers, Bonnie Gelbwasser and Neil Norum • Designer, Carol Hoyle Ballard
• Photographer, Janet Woodcock • Alumni Publications Committee: Samuel Mencow '37, chairman • Paul J. Geary '71 • James S. Demetry '58 • Judith Donahue SIM '82
• William J. Firla Jr. '60 • William R. Grogan '46 • Carl A. Keyser '39 • Robert C. Labonte '54 • Roger N. Perry Jr. '45 • Harlan B. Williams '50 • The WPIJoumal OSSN 0148-6128)
is published quarterly for the WPI Alumni Association by the Office of University Relations. Second class postage paid at Worcester, MA, and additional mailing offices.
Printed by The Lane Press, Burlington, Vt. Printed in the U.S.A.
Diverse views presented in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or official WPI policies. We welcome letters to the editor. Address correspondence
to the Editor, WPIJoumal, WPI, 100 Institute Road, Worcester, MA 01609-2280. Phone: (508) 831-5609, FAX: (508) 831-5604, Electronic mail (Internet): mwdorsey@wpi.wpi.edu.
Postmaster: If undeliverable. please send form 3579 to the address above. Do not return publication. Entire contents ®/993, Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
ADVANCE WORD
Celebrating Alden...
The Man and
The Building
P
I eorge I. Alden was just 25 when
1 1 he joined WPI's original faculty
^^^ in 1868. He would go on to be-
come one of the college's most re-
nowned educators, a man whose vision
not only inspired a generation of stu-
dents, but helped change the face of
engineering education.
Had his achievements ended there, his
story would have been remarkable. But
Alden, a talented entrepreneur, also helped
found Norton Co., one of Worcester's most
important corporations. His success in in-
dustry made him a wealthy man, and he
shared his good fortune liberally with the
college where his career began. His gener-
osity continues today through the George
I. Alden Trust. Over the years, his gifts to
WPI and those of his trust have totaled
$8.6 million, making him the Institute's
most generous benefactor.
Alden was born in 1843 in Templeton,
Mass., where WPI's founder, John Boynton,
made his fortune in tinware manufacturing.
His mother, Priscilla Alden, was the daugh-
ter of Silas and Mary Alden of Templeton;
Silas was a direct descendent of John Alden
and Priscilla Mullins, passengers on the
Mayflower, making George Alden an eighth-
generation descendent of a Mayflower family.
Like many youngsters of the time, he
was forced to work several years to raise
the funds to enter college. He graduated
summa cum laude from Harvard Univer-
sity's Lawrence Scientific School in 1868
and joined WPI shortly thereafter. In addi-
tion to his mechanical engineering profes-
sorship, Alden was named WPI's dean of
the college in 1894 and twice served the
Institute as acting president.
In his Seventy Years of the Worcester
Polytechnic Institute, Herbert Taylor de-
scribed George Alden as "...a painstaking
and thorough teacher, though sometimes
given to sarcasm, who gave his students
a grounding in theoretical and applied
mechanics such as few of his generation
could impart."
Editor's Note: On April 22, WPI will note
the 150th anniversary of the birth of
George I. Alden, the Institute's first pro-
fessor of mechanical engineering. On
that day, it will rededicate Alden Memo-
rial, the building given to WPI in 1940 by
the George I. Alden Trust.
Alden Memorial recently underwent
a major, $2.8 million renovation; beginning
on page 14 you'll find a photo essay on its
rebirth as a performing arts center. Starting
on page 4, you'll also find extensive cover-
age of the Institute's innovative educational
programs in the humanities and the arts.
But before we get to the present and
future of Alden Memorial, here's a look
at how one of WPI's most beautiful build-
ings came to be, and, more important, a
look at the extraordinary man it honors.
This article was adapted from material
on George Alden's life written by Donald
F. Berth '57, vice president for university
relations, and from an essay on the his-
tory of Alden Memorial written by Anne
B. Littlefield, director of major gifts and
planned giving.
After 28 years at WPI, Alden, along with
Milton Prince Higgins, the original superin-
tendent of the Washburn Shops, resigned
from the faculty as a result of a dispute
with the Institute's third president, Tho-
mas C. Mendenhall, over the shops' opera-
tion. In time the action would prove a
blessing in disguise for WPI, as Alden put
more of his energies into the development
of Norton Co., ultimately becoming its
chairman and a wealthy man.
He became a WPI trustee in March 1912
and served in that capacity until his death
in 1926. The Institute honored Alden, who
was for a time vice president of the Ameri-
can Society of Mechanical Engineers, by
naming its hydraulics laboratory in Holden
(to which he had been a significant con-
tributor— both intellectually and materi-
ally) for him, and by awarding him an
honorary doctorate in 1926.
When Alden began his WPI career in
1868, engineering was still very much an
art. The few schools that offered instruc-
tion in engineering were groping for an
educational model that in some manner
blended instruction with practice. WPI's
model, combining classroom time with
instruction in a working shops, helped
create what became known as the "shop
culture," which would serve as a curricular
model for several institutions — including
Georgia Institute of Technology — from
about 1870 to 1900.
As the field of mechanical engineering
evolved, the "shop" model gave way to the
"school" model, in which the element of
practice was relocated from the shop to
the laboratory. It was this philosophical
Winter 1993
change that produced the rift
between Alden and Mendenhall.
Fourteen years before his
death, Alden established the
George I. Alden Trust. He speci-
fied that the trust's funds be used
to promote education, particu-
larly technical and professional
education. Alden's daughter,
Clara, who was educated at
Wellesley College and held a
doctorate from the University
of Colorado, became an Alden
trustee upon her father's death
and helped administer the fund
until her own death in 1945.
WPI has been the greatest
beneficiary of the Alden Trust's
generosity. The trust funded a new
building at Alden Research Labora-
tories, created the George I. Alden
Chair in Engineering and, most re-
cently, supported the construction
of the George F. Fuller Laboratories,
among many other projects.
But perhaps its greatest gift
to WPI was Alden Memorial. The
idea for the building originated
with WPI President Ralph Earle,
who included an auditorium in his ambi-
tious $1 million campus expansion plan.
The trustees approved the idea in 1929 and
J. Cornell Appleton of the prominent Boston
architects Appleton & Stearns, designers of
Sanford Riley Hall (and, later, Higgins Labo-
ratories), was chosen to design the build-
ing. The Depression put the plans on hold,
but they were revived in 1937 when Earle
asked Appleton to update the plans.
Appleton endowed the building with
touches of beauty and elegance. This is
especially true in the great hall, with its oak
paneling, iron chandeliers and eight massive
ceiling beams. At either end of the beams are
stone figures, each a woman with a shield
representing religion, science, music, archi-
tecture, knowledge, the arts, sculpture or
drama. They were carved by Thomas Miln
of Berlin, Mass., whose work can also be
seen on the U.S. Treasury and National
Archives buildings in Washington, D.C. The
windows in the great hall and two in the
tower are fitted with stained-glass medallions.
The creation of Wilbur H. Burnham, who
also worked on the National Cathedral in
Washington, the medallions tell the story
of American history.
In addition to the great hall, the building
was to house a central library with room for
50 percent more books than the original
facility in Boynton Hall. There was also to
be a room that the
Institute's new
president, Wat
Tyler Cluverius,
said would be used
"for cocktail par-
ties, tea parties,
and other social
gatherings." Cluv-
erius initially intend-
ed that the room be
named for Clara
Alden, but when she
declined, it was
named instead for
Alden Memorial, seen under
construction in 1939 in the
photo below, provided WPI
and the Alden Trust an
opportunity to honor the
memory of George I. Alden,
opposite. Until 1967, Alden
housed the Institute's cen-
tral campus library> left.
President Earle's widow, Janet.
The search for funding for the
building ended successfully with
the George I. Alden Trust. The
trustees of the fund had already
developed the idea of erecting a
memorial to Alden, and the new
hall at WPI seemed to fit the bill.
In late 1938, the trust informed
WPI it would fund the entire pro-
ject, and the college responded
by naming the building for Alden.
Earle died shortly thereafter,
but work on Alden Memorial con-
tinued. R.L. Whipple Co. in Worces-
ter won the bid to construct the
building, and on June 26, 1939,
excavation began for the founda-
tion. (The Class of 1942, which
recently provided funds for a new
plaza adjacent to Alden, beat the contractor
to it by four days with its own informal
groundbreaking ceremony.)
A 75-man crew worked 150 days straight
with no time lost due to inclement weather,
finishing the roof before winter descended.
Work continued through the coldest months
and the building was ready in time for the
1940 Commencement, thus beginning its
history as the heart of campus activity.
From 1940 until the late 1960s, the great
hall hosted virtually all important college
events, including honor society pledgings,
academic awards ceremonies, concerts,
dances, lectures and plays. A general as-
sembly of the entire college community
was held there weekly, providing a forum
for the discussion of important issues of
the day. The Vietnam War was hotly de-
bated there in the 1960s.
With the start of the WPI Plan in the
early 1970s and the concurrent growth of
the campus population, assemblies became
a thing of the past. The completion of Gor-
don Library in 1967 and Harrington Audito-
rium in 1968 freed up room in Alden for new
uses, and the building became a home for the
Institute's active music and drama programs.
With its recent renovation, Alden Memorial is
even better suited for this role, one destined
to keep it at the center of campus life.
WPI Journal
Enriching Life...
And Making a Living
The framers of the WPI Plan knew that the humanities must be given far more
THAN A TOKEN ROLE IN THE EDUCATION OF SCIENTISTS AND ENGINEERS. WHAT THEY CAME
UP WITH MORE THAN TWO DECADES AGO TRANSFORMED HUMANITIES EDUCATION AT WPI
AND SET AN EXAMPLE FOR OTHER ENGINEERING EDUCATORS TO EMULATE.
BY BONNIE GELBWASSER
AND MICHAEL DORSEY
ore than 125
years ago, when
John Boynton
laid down the
Institute's philo-
sophical foundation, he wrote, "The aim of
this school shall ever be the instruction of
youth in those branches of education not
usually taught in public schools, which are
essential, and best adapted to train the
young for practical life."
Like Boynton, Ichabod Washburn, whose
gift of the Washburn Shops helped frame
WPI's "Two Towers" approach to education,
insisted that the new school not be confined
to the "theories of science, but as far as pos-
sible to the practical application of its prin-
ciples which will give the greatest possible
advantages in the affairs of life." Such a bal-
anced curriculum, Washburn noted, would
"add to their personal independence and
happiness, while it renders them better and
more useful citizens."
But in 1868, as the college began life as
the Worcester County Free Institute of Indus-
trial Science, it was clear that the balance of
the theoretical and the practical that Boyn-
ton and Washburn embraced would not, to any
appreciable degree, include the humanities
and the arts. In fact, for most of the Institute's
early years, instruction in the humanities
was limited to a smattering of classroom
hours taught by part-time instructors.
The picture brightened in 1872 when the
Department of English and Modern Lan-
guages was created, funded by a gift from
board president Stephen Salisbury II. The
new department offered students instruc-
tion in English composition and French.
Some 32 years later, the Class of 1879 Prize,
which now honors outstanding projects in
the humanities, was established to recog-
nize the best essays written in composition
class each year.
For the most part, that is how humani-
ties instruction at WPI would remain for de-
cades. An optional course in the history of
civilization and science was launched in
1934, literature courses were added to the
standard offerings in English composition in
the 1940s and, in 1959, following a two-year
study of the Institute's academic programs,
an effort was made to broaden still further
the humanities curriculum.
Then came the 1960s. On campuses
across the nation it would be a decade of
change and growing social awareness, as
colleges searched for ways to better prepare
students to understand their role in — and
responsibilities to — society. At WPI, that
search brought on a period of curricular ex-
perimentation. One notable experiment was
an interdisciplinary program, begun in 1964,
that allowed students to earn a bachelor of
science degree in either humanities and
technology or humanities and science. But
for the humanities, the real shake-up was
yet to come.
The 1960s culminated in the WPI Plan, an
initiative that would catapult the Institute to
the forefront of engineering education re-
form. In drafting the Plan, the faculty and ad-
ministration carefully evaluated what
worked and what didn't in a WPI education
as it then existed. They set as their funda-
mental purpose "to impart to students an
understanding of a sector of science and
technology and a mature understanding
of themselves and the needs of the people
around them." They envisioned "a WPI edu-
cation that should develop in students a
strong degree of self-confidence, an aware-
ness of the community beyond themselves,
and an intellectual restlessness that spurs
them to continued learning."
One of the major issues facing the Plan's
framers was how great a role the humanities
should play in a technical education. "We de-
cided that a strong humanities component,
coupled with the superb technological edu-
cation our students receive, would make our
graduates among the best prepared of any
university to succeed in whatever careers
they chose," says William R. Grogan, dean
emeritus of undergraduate studies and a mem-
ber of the committee that created the Plan.
To meet that objective, the committee
crafted the Humanities Sufficiency program,
a radical new way of introducing students of
engineering and science to scholarship in
nontechnical disciplines (see page 9). The
Sufficiency became one of the four pillars of
Winter 1993
the Plan (since then, one of those four origi-
nal degree requirements — the Competency
Exam— has been replaced by distribution
requirements).
But the Plan was merely a blueprint.
To bring it to life, some quite fundamental
changes had to take place in the organiza-
tion of the Institute and in the way it carried
out its mission. Few academic disciplines at
WP1 have experienced that wave of change
so completely — or have been so completely
transformed by it — as the humanities.
#1 major step along the road of change
LX was taken in the mid-1970s with the
I I creation of the Humanities Depart-
ment. Until then, courses in art, English,
French, German, history, music and philoso-
phy were taught by the Department of En-
glish and History and the Department of
Foreign Languages. The Humanities Depart-
ment united these disciplines under one um-
brella and also provided a new home for the
decade-old humanities major program.
Since its inception, the department has
received a number of program development
grants from both public and private agen-
cies. In particular, grants from the National
Endowment for the Humanities, the Rocke-
feller Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation have proved instrumental in
developing and maintaining a broad and
diverse humanities curriculum and in estab-
lishing programs and standards for student
work in interdisciplinary areas.
Individual disciplines within the depart-
ment have also benefited from outside sup-
port. For example, in 1991 the Fred Harris
Daniels Foundation earmarked a two-year,
$50,000 grant to enrich the department's art
history and architecture, foreign language,
and music programs. The grant has already
been used to establish an electronic music
laboratory in Alden Memorial (see story,
page 14) and to enlarge the department's
slide collection in art history and architec-
ture. The remainder of the grant is being
used to create a modern language labora-
tory, to be housed in Gordon Library.
Under the direction of history professor
JoAnn Manfra, who has served as chair
since 1983, the Humanities Department has
become one of WPl's largest (second only to
Electrical and Computer Engineering). The
highly accomplished humanities faculty in-
cludes 25 tenured and tenure-track profes-
sors who teach nearly 120 courses in art
history and architecture, English (including
literature, communications and drama/the-
atre), history, languages, music, and phi-
losophy and religion.
Recognized for their scholarly accom-
plishments in a wide variety of fields, the
WPl's distinguished Humanities Department, the Institute's second
largest, plays a critical role in fulfilling the goals of two of WPl's three
undergraduate degree requirements, notes JoAnn Manfra, who has
served as department chair for the last decade.
humanities faculty in 1992 published six
books and 24 scholarly articles, presented
52 papers at professional meetings, pro-
duced 10 creative works, and received sev-
eral research fellowships and grants. Three
faculty members— David P. McKay, profes-
sor of music, Thomas A. Shannon, who
holds the Paris Fletcher Distinguished Pro-
fessorship in the Humanities, and Michael
M. Sokal, professor of history and former ex-
ecutive secretary of the History of Science
Society — are among the recipients of WPl's
Board of Trustees' Award for Outstanding
Creative Scholarship.
The size of the faculty and the large num-
ber of humanities courses reflect the impor-
tant role played by the department in
meeting the goals of the WPI Plan. In par-
ticular, the Humanities Sufficiency places a
significant demand on the department's re-
sources. Under the Plan, every undergradu-
ate (there are now some 2,700 enrolled)
must complete a Sufficiency, and every
Sufficiency is advised by a humanities
faculty member.
In addition to advising Sufficiency
projects, the humanities faculty also plays
an important role in the Interactive Qualify-
ing Project, another undergraduate degree
requirement. This exercise requires stu-
dents to explore some aspect of the rela-
tionships between science, technology and
society. The projects themselves often in-
volve real-life issues that may confront stu-
dents in their future careers or personal and
civic lives as adults.
"By its very nature, the interactive
component of the IQP is flexible enough
to afford all humanities faculty — whatever
their areas of expertise or interest — an op-
portunity to advise these student projects,"
Manfra says. "In fact, the faculty has worked
with a wide variety of programs and institu-
tions to develop IQP topics and programs."
WPI Journal
Bottom, David B. Dollenmayer, associate professor of German, is using part of a grant from the Daniels
Foundation to develop a new language laboratory- Above, W.A. Bland Addison Jr. (standing), associate
professor of history and advisor to humanities majors and double majors, meets with, from left, double
major Bryant O'Hara '92, humanities major William L. Schongar '94 and double major Ian K. Cote '95.
Many humanities faculty members have
advised IQPs at the Institute's residential
project centers in Washington, D.C., Lon-
don and Venice, Manfra says. Others have
worked with 1QP teams closer to home
through the Living Museums Program.
Among the institutions that have partici-
pated in that program are Old Sturbridge
Village, the Higgins Armory Museum and
Mechanics Hall. "In one way or another,"
Manfra adds, "all of our faculty members
have contributed to the intellectual con-
tent of this unique degree requirement."
The important ties between the liberal
arts, engineering and the sciences,
which have become evident through the
IQP, also form the intellectual foundation for
the humanities major and double major,
Manfra says. Five students are currently
enrolled as humanities majors at WPI. They
specialize in one liberal arts discipline —
literature, history, or philosophy and reli-
gion— and they complete their Major Quali-
fying Project in that discipline. Recent
examples of humanities MQPs include a
modern version of the legend of Faust, writ-
ten by Kelli Sue Clark '92, who specialized in
literature, and an examination of the politi-
cal implications of Buddhism by Glenn W.
Flaherty '91, whose specialty was philoso-
phy and religion.
To broaden the context of their chosen
specialty, humanities majors also take a
cluster of courses in a related area of the
liberal arts. And like all WPI undergraduates,
they complete an IQP and a Sufficiency pro-
ject, the latter in one of the engineering or
science disciplines or in management.
A growing number of students — 15 at
present — are pursuing double majors,
which allows them to combine their abilities
and interests in engineering, science or man-
agement with a carefully planned program
in the humanities. Double majors must sat-
isfy the degree requirements of both
major programs, including the
completion of two MQPs.
"Individual and societal concerns
are likely to result in increasing de-
mands for specialists equipped with
the type of background possessed by
a WPI major or double major," Manfra
says. "Many fields, including medi-
cine, law, industry, commerce and
public service, will be open to those
who have acquired both the tradi-
tional skills of humanistic education
and technical knowledge."
While not every WPI student
graduates with such a diverse combi-
nation of talents and interests, each
will have the opportunity to gain a
rich perspective on the world and
his or her role in it, much as the
Institute's founders had hoped they would,
thanks to the dramatic changes humanities
instruction has undergone at WPI over the
past two decades.
Notes W.A. Bland Addison Jr., associate
professor of history and advisor to the
humanities majors and double majors, "At
WPI, students can develop analytical think-
ing, writing and expressive skills — and
obtain the professional, scientific and tech-
nical training to enable them to find jobs —
at an institution celebrated for its engineer-
ing and scientific accomplishments."
Winter 1993
A Delicate Balance
I n a world where engineers
I must understand humanistic
| issues and nonengineers must
m be technologically literate,
| how well does a major or
double major in the humanities prepare WPI
students for future careers? Let these gradu-
ates and current students tell the story.
Their successes are testimony to the value
of the humanities in engineering education.
Testimony is something Judge Paul A.
Fritzsche 72 knows all about. After receiv-
ing his bachelor's degree from WPI in hu-
manities/technology (with an emphasis on
history), Fritzsche graduated from the Uni-
versity of Maine School of Law, then worked
as a legal assistance attorney. He has been a
Superior Court judge in Maine since 1986.
"My unusual undergraduate education
proved particularly helpful during my five
years as a public advocate, when I repre-
sented consumers in public utility regula-
tory proceedings," Fritzsche says. "The
mathematics and science courses 1 took pro-
vided a good background for the engineer-
ing, technical and economic issues I dealt
with. My humanities courses helped me bet-
ter explain the issues and the policy choices
to the press and to the legislature."
The dual grounding in humanities and
science he received at WPI continues to
serve him well, Fritzsche says. "As a judge, I
deal with a wide range of issues — often in-
volving science and technology — such as
product liability, medical malpractice, blood
testing, and electronic monitoring of prison-
ers. These and other issues pertaining to
public policy and economic regulation con-
firm that my WPI education prepared me
well for my career."
"Science and math without humanities
only produces an empty technician," says
Dr. Nancy Berube 75, assistant professor
of medicine in the University of Massachu-
setts Medical Center's Department of Family
Practice. "Rather than being mutually exclu-
sive, the sciences and the humanities feed
and nourish one another. I think it's impor-
tant to have a balance."
As an undergraduate, Berube, who
received her bachelor's degree with distinc-
tion in humanities in 1981, was active in the-
ater at WPI, and worked at Old Sturbridge
Village, where she did historical interpreta-
tion and acted in OSV's drama program. She
drew on her experience at the village for her
Major Qualifying Project, a dramatic inter-
pretation of the diary of a 19th century
shoemaker.
"I had always intended to go to medical
school," says Berube, who earned her M.D.
at the University of Massachusetts Medical
Center and now works at an inner-city fam-
ily health center run by the university. "I'm
a big supporter of nonscience majors going
into medicine. In order to be a good physi-
cian you have to be able to listen to people —
to have them tell you what they feel is wrong.
"I think of science as being able to ob-
serve something and express it in your own
terms," she adds. "The humanities teaches
you a different way of doing that. Studying
at a school of science and technology gives
you a unique perspective on the humanities
because it implies you are expected to be-
come proficient in some aspect of the sci-
ences; it gives students a more balanced
approach to the humanities."
After earning his degree in 'humanities/
technology with distinction in 1975, Steven
W. Harvey worked as a district manager for
a small record company and participated in
a demonstration project that applied an
HMO model to providing care for families
covered by Medicaid. In 1981 he enrolled at
the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton
School, continuing his interest in the public
sector by working for Philadelphia's finance
director. After receiving his M.B.A. in 1983,
he worked briefly for Standard and Poors
rating municipal bonds. Today he is senior
analyst for all of Fidelity Investments' mu-
nicipal bond funds, with nearly $13 billion
under management.
Paul A. Fritzsche '72 says his WPI
humanities degree helped prepare
him for a career as a judge.
"I continue to find my WPI background
invaluable in my day-to-day activities," he
says. "My work demands a pretty good
grasp of engineering matters as it deals
most often with the financing of large public
construction projects. I believe, however,
that the key to a municipal bond's credit
quality — and to its value as an investment —
is local or statewide politics; this is the area
where my training in the humanities has
been particularly useful.
"The ability to communicate, to write
well and to get to the point quickly and
clearly are also essential to my daily busi-
ness. I owe my communications skills
largely to the individual attention I received
from the humanities faculty at WPI."
Like Berube, William Katzman '92 be-
came involved in theater as an undergradu-
ate. Before coming to WPI, Katzman had
been active as an actor and mime with
school or professional theater groups for
several years. "I knew I couldn't support
myself as an actor," he says. "I came to WPI
WPI Journal
Left, an interest in the theater drew double major William Katzman '92
to WPI. Above, Kim Philipp '93 will turn her dual major in humanities and
electrical engineering into a career in patent law. Below, dual major
Raymond Bert '93 served a year as co-editor of the student newspaper.
because it was a small school where I could
have a strong major in physics and a strong
minor in drama. When 1 realized I'd prob-
ably end up taking almost every drama
course the college offered, I decided my
transcript might as well reflect that, so I
became a double major."
A winner of WPI's Salisbury Prize,
Katzman was a member of Masque and MW
Repertory Theater, Etc. and a founder of the
improvisational group Some Assembly Re-
quired. He also wrote three plays as an un-
dergraduate; two were performed as part of
New Voices, WPI's annual festival of new
plays. For his Major Qualifying Project he
wrote an 81 -page script for a comedy video.
"It was a pseudo-documentary about a per-
son trying to get a film produced," he says.
Since last June, Katzman has been en-
rolled in the Math, English, Science, Tech-
nology Education Project at the University
of Massachusetts. The intensive 15-month
program offers paid internships in teaching
and industry. At the conclusion of the pro-
gram, Katzman will receive a master's de-
gree in education and will be certified to
teach high school physics. Graduates are
asked to make a commitment to teach for a
minimum of three years after they complete
the program.
"You benefit from coming out of an engi-
neering school with a humanities degree,"
he says. "A lot of companies
want humanities majors for
business positions. At WPI, you
get some technical elements be-
cause the projects involve tech-
nology. It isn't easy. You have to
be able to do this stuff. They
don't teach 'Calculus for Poets!'"
While the Institute attracts a few stu-
dents who enroll specifically to be humani-
ties majors, most, like Nikolai A. Yurkanin
'95, switch their major to humanities from
engineering or science. Yurkanin, who says
he was heavily involved in the science pro-
gram at his high school in Holden, Mass.,
and won awards at science fairs, came to
WPI to study engineering, but had a change
of heart after taking introductory courses in
science and math.
"I really enjoyed my humanities
courses — especially 'Light and Vision,'
which examines the arts from the perspec-
tive of physics, chemistry and biology. I
thought, 'Wow, I wish 1 could do that!' "
One of the advantages of being a hu-
manities major at WPI is the opportunity to
get a feel for science and technology as well
as liberal studies, notes Yurkanin, who says
he aspires to design exhibits for the Smith-
sonian Institution after graduation. "You get
a really good perspective when you take the
kinds of courses available at a school that
specializes in science and engineering."
For William L. Schongar '94, the hu-
manities proved an attractive option after
he realized that his original career choice,
aerospace engineering, wasn't for him. "After
a year and a half, I knew I didn't want to
crunch numbers the rest of my life. My
mother is an English teacher and I like
to write, so I decided to major in the
humanities."
Schongar, who calls himself a medieval-
ist, completed his Interactive Qualifying
Project at the Tower of London. After survey-
ing visitors to gather information that will
enable the administrators of the tower to
improve their displays, Schongar decided
he'd like to create exhibits for the Higgins
Armory Museum in Worcester. "I like to teach
people, and one of the best ways to do that
is to write about what they are going to see,
giving them information to work with."
Raymond R. Bert '93 and Kimberly S.
Philipp '93 both became double majors af-
ter discovering the range of courses offered
by the Humanities Department. Bert, who is
majoring in mechanical engineering and hu-
8
Winter 1993
manities, says that while he's always had an
interest in the humanities — particularly
writing — he enrolled at WP1 to study engi-
neering.
As a sophomore, he fulfilled his Suffi-
ciency requirement with a project on
Stephen Crane. "That's when I learned about
the humanities major," he says. "I like the
idea that it's somewhat free-form, with ev-
erything leading you toward your MQP."
His focus in the humanities being nonac-
tion writing, he joined the staff of Newspeak,
the student newspaper, during his junior
year. After serving as associate editor, he
became a co-editor in January 1992; he
completed his term in December.
Bert's mechanical engineering MQP
focused on resident stress effects on the
fracture toughness of ceramics; for his
humanities MQP he is assembling a portfo-
lio of his own original news articles. "People
are surprised when they hear I'm doing a
double major — and that one of those majors
is in a nontechnical field," he says. "But ma-
joring in the humanities and mechanical
engineering doesn't pose a particular chal-
lenge for me. It allows me to study two
things I really enjoy."
Though he plans to work in materials sci-
ence after graduation, Bert says, "I'd like to
see myself as some sort of writer someday,
perhaps as a free-lancer for a newspaper."
With her dual major program, Philipp is
studying history and electrical engineering.
The daughter of an electrical engineer, she
enrolled at WPI with the intention of follow-
ing in her father's footsteps. "I'd always had
an interest in history and law and I origi-
nally planned just to do a regular Sufficiency
in those areas," she says. "I decided on the
double major after I took a legal history
course with Professor Manfra, who talked
about the humanities major
Alf in class."
■ ■ML Philipp incorporated her
™ - * growing interest in law and the
legal aspects of history into her
Interactive Qualifying Project.
Working at the Washington,
D.C., Project Center for the
United States Patent Office, she
and her teammates researched
maintenance fees applied over
a 12-year period.
As she approaches the
completion of her dual-degree
program, Philipp has decided
she won't be a second-genera-
tion electrical engineer after all.
After graduation she plans to
take her law boards and apply
to law school to become a
patent attorney.
— Bonnie Gelbwasser
The Humanities:
Up Close and Personal
m t seems that for as long as
H colleges and universities have
m been preparing young men
m and women for careers in
m science and engineering, edu-
cators have been discussing how best — and
how extensively — to expose these techni-
cally oriented students to the arts and hu-
manities. It was a subject that stirred debate
100 years ago when the American Society
for Engineering Education was founded, and
it is one that still has people talking and
writing today.
Despite all the debate, most educators
agree that to be fully prepared to meet the
demands of their professions, scientists
and engineers need much more than an in-
troduction to the humanities and the arts.
"It's part of our culture, our intellectual heri-
tage and our environment," notes Lance
Schachterle, associate dean of undergradu-
ate studies and professor of English.
"It is critical for all students — regard-
less of their professional background — to
be well-grounded in these fields, just as it is
critical for students in the humanities to be
well-grounded in science, math and tech-
nology. It's fundamentally important to in-
tellectual development and to stimulating
students' native curiosity to provide them
access to all the achievements of our cul-
ture— scientific, artistic and otherwise."
Schachterle also notes that from a practi-
cal view, a firm foundation in the humanities
can give a scientist or engineer an edge
should he or she — as many technical profes-
sionals do during their careers — enter the
world of management. "It is still typically
the case that people in high government po-
sitions and those high on the corporate lad-
der have backgrounds in the humanities,"
he says. "If people trained in science and en-
gineering are to rise equally high, they must
know something about the intellectual sub-
stance of their competition."
Surprisingly, considering all the years of
soul-searching about the humanities, most
U.S. engineering programs have settled on a
fairly standard and prosaic approach to the
field. Most adhere to guidelines published
by ABET, the Accreditation Board for Engi-
neering and Technology, which stipulates
that accredited programs require students
to take a total of one-half year's worth of
courses (usually selected at random) in
both the humanities and social sciences.
And that was how the humanities was
handled at WPI up through the late 1960s,
when the faculty and administration began
a critical appraisal of the WPI curriculum
that ultimately resulted in the WPI Plan, a
dramatic departure from the traditional
"boot-camp" approach to engineering edu-
cation. One of the innovative elements of
the Plan was a novel way of introducing
students to the humanities and arts called
the Humanities Sufficiency program.
While most engineering schools have
settled for a "Chinese menu" approach,
in which students fulfill set distribution
requirements by choosing one or more
courses (usually at the introductory level)
in several areas of the humanities, the de-
signers of the Plan, through the Sufficiency,
developed a different model, one that em-
phasizes depth rather than superficial ex-
posure to the entire range of disciplines.
"The Sufficiency degree requirement is
designed to offer students a 'sufficient' lib-
eral arts experience," notes JoAnn Manfra,
head of the Humanities Department. "Its
goal is to provide students with a more than
WPI Journal
According to a study designed by James Hanlan, associate professor of history,
the Humanities Sufficiency provides WPI students with a worthwhile intellectual
experience that few, if any, of the Institute's competitors can match.
passing acquaintance with a field unrelated
to engineering or science. More profoundly,
perhaps, the Sufficiency program attempts
to demonstrate that being educated means
embracing valid, intellectually vigorous
ways of examining knowledge in which there
is a role for ambiguity— both 'factual' and
'moral.' In other words, the Sufficiency ex-
perience provides a healthy dose of disci-
plined thinking about uncertainties."
To fulfill the Sufficiency requirement,
students must take five thematically related
humanities courses and then complete an
original project that draws on the material
in those courses. The combination equals
about a half-year of work — the amount
ABET requires engineering students to
devote to both the humanities and social
sciences. WPI students must also take two
courses in the social sciences and complete
the Interactive Qualifying Project — the
equivalent of another three courses.
Students may not work in teams on their
Humanities Sufficiencies, which are usually
done during the sophomore year, so every
student must be individually advised by a
humanities faculty member. On average,
each humanities professor advises 26
Sufficiencies a year.
Since the range of topics for the Suffi-
ciency can be as broad as the disciplines
that make up the humanities and the arts,
the department has endeavored to provide
considerable diversity in its course offer-
ings, Manfra says. Students may supplement
the department's offerings by taking
courses at other colleges in the Worcester
Consortium for Higher Education, including
such noted liberal arts institutions as Holy
Cross College and Clark University.
A student generally begins work on the
Sufficiency by developing an idea of what he
or she would like to accomplish in the final
project. The possibilities are surprisingly
broad. Often the final product is a paper or
critical essay, but students may also choose
to write an original work of fiction such as a
short story, a collection of poems or a play,
or create an original musical composition.
Students may also undertake a musical or
dramatic performance and then write an
essay about their experiences.
Some students complete the Sufficiency
by taking six courses in a foreign language
or by taking part in the American Studies
Seminar, a series sponsored each fall by the
American Antiquarian Society in collabora-
tion with five Worcester colleges and univer-
sities. Seminar topics focus on areas that let
students make full use of the extensive hold-
ings in American history, literature and cul-
ture housed in the society's headquarters,
located adjacent to the WPI campus.
A student develops and hones his or her
theme in consultation with a faculty advisor;
the advisor continues to work closely with
the student as the Sufficiency progresses.
With a theme in mind, the student then
chooses the five courses he or she thinks
will provide the proper intellectual under-
pinnings for the project. Although these
courses may fall within a single area of the
humanities, interdisciplinary work is en-
couraged. The only requirement is that ma-
terial presented in the courses be related to
the Sufficiency theme.
There are no hard and fast rules for mak-
English Professor Kent P. Ljungquist, left, and Philip E. Marks '93 review a draft of
Marks' Sufficiency project on literary impressionism in the works of Stephen Crane.
10
Winter 1993
ing these choices; often the courses chosen
present a surprising and thoughtful tableau.
Here are two examples from projects com-
pleted in recent terms:
"Childe Hassam:
An American Impressionist"
A look at the works and influence on the
world of American art by Hassam, a major
American painter.
By Julie A. Driscoll '94
Advisor: David M. Samson, assistant
professor of art history/architecture
Courses taken:
• Introduction to Art History
• Topics in 19th and 20th Century
Architecture
• Modern Art
•Introduction to Painting
• Light and Vision
"U.S. Policy Towards Korea: 1945-1950"
Looking at American and Soviet interests
in Southeast Asia, this study outlines U.S.
policies that led to the Korean conflict.
By Won Tae Yang '94
Advisor: James P. Hanlan, associate
professor of history
Courses taken:
•Introduction to Philosophy and
Religion
• American History: 1877-1920
• The Shaping of Post-1920 America
• Introduction to the Study of Foreign
Policy and Diplomatic History
•American Foreign Policy from
Woodrow Wilson to the Present
Does the Sufficiency accomplish its goals?
To answer that question, last June six hu-
manities faculty members sat down to
read and critique nearly 300 Sufficiencies
completed during the 1991-92 academic
year. "The reviewers were generally im-
pressed with the quality of the student
work," says James Hanlan, who designed
the study and analyzed the results of the
evaluations. "While a few papers could be
described as run-of-the-mill, most were
clearly worthwhile intellectual experiences
of the sort few, if any, of our competitor col-
leges offer their students."
The Sufficiency Review Committee made
some recommendations for strengthening
the program, nearly all of which have been
implemented, Manfra says. "This is a strong
program, but we didn't just design it and
leave it alone. Our faculty are continually
revisiting the Sufficiency program to find
ways to enable it to fulfill its objectives."
Recently, the humanities faculty devel-
oped a new off-campus option for the
Sufficiency program. It will allow under-
graduates to complete work toward their
Sufficiency during a seven-week period out-
side the bounds of the campus. A student
writing about the French Revolution, for ex-
ample, might study original documents and
visit historic sites while he is in residence at
the University of Marne-la-Vallee in Paris, with
which WPI runs an exchange program. A play-
wright might travel to the Edinburgh Arts Fes-
tival in Scotland to experience the leading
edge of theater, or even to see her own play
performed.
"Sufficiency projects undertaken in inter-
national settings will encourage students to
immerse themselves in the intellectual tradi-
tions of other cultures," Manfra says. "Simi-
larly, projects done at off-campus project
centers in the United States will introduce
students to cultural diversity here at home."
Another measure of the success of the
Sufficiency program is the fact that ABET,
the major accrediting agency for all engi-
neering colleges, has recently revised its guide-
lines for humanities education, notes Francis
C. Lutz, dean of undergraduate studies.
"In the most recently published criteria
for evaluating engineering programs, ABET
made a point of emphasizing that the
courses students select must provide not
only breadth, but depth," he says, "and not
be limited to a bunch of unrelated introduc-
tory survey courses. It's taken more than
20 years, but it looks like the profession
may finally be recognizing that our ap-
proach does a much better job of prepar-
ing students to be solid professionals and
competent citizens."
— Michael Dorsey
Helping Students
Find the
Right Words
B m
nyone who's ever
struggled to compose
a thank-you note or a
thesis can appreciate
I Fowler's words. But
for WPI students, finding the right words has
gotten a bit easier, thanks to the efforts of the
Humanities Department and other educa-
tors at the Institute,
who've worked over
the last five years to
develop a variety of
writing education and
tutoring programs.
The process be-
gan in 1 988 when John
M. Trimbur, associate
professor of English,
was hired to develop a writing program and
expand the Institute's course offerings in writ-
ing. A writing specialist with a background
in rhetoric and composition, Trimbur asked
William R. Grogan, now dean emeritus of un-
dergraduate studies, to form a committee to
oversee the writing program.
Today, the Writing Advisory Commit-
tee promotes the importance of oral and
written communication and develops pro-
grams to integrate
"Writing is easy.
All you do is stare at a blank
sheet of paper until drops
of blood form on your forehead.
— Gene Fowler
writing across the
entire undergradu-
ate curriculum.
Trimbur chairs the
committee, whose
members are
Herbert Beall, pro-
fessor of chemis-
try, David DiBiasio,
associate professor of chemical engineer-
ing, William Farr, assistant professor of
WPI Journal
11
John Trimbur,
associate professor
of English, discusses
a writing assignment
with humanities major
Teran Sacco. A writing
specialist, Trimbur
directs a variety of
programs aimed at
preparing some WPI
undergraduates for
careers in writing and
helping all students
communicate more
effectively.
JANET WOODCOCK
mathematical sciences, Thomas Keil,
professor of physics, and Judith Miller,
associate professor of biology and bio-
technology.
Here are some of the programs that the
committee now helps oversee:
Writing Across the Curriculum does
just what its name implies: it aims to make
writing (and speaking) an important part of
every course taught at the Institute. To date,
the program, which was initially funded with
a grant from the General Electric Founda-
tion, has been implemented in lower-divi-
sion mathematics and science courses. It
encourages students to use writing to pro-
mote learning and to connect writing and
critical thinking.
"We assumed that students in their first
two years at WPI receive practice in writing
in their humanities courses," Trimbur says.
"But to prepare them to do the technical or
scientific writing called for in WPI's required
projects, we needed to develop more oppor-
tunities for them to write as part of their
math and science assignments."
Trimbur says the Writing Across the
Curriculum project has been successful in
increasing the number of faculty presenta-
tions and publications on the use of writing
in the teaching of mathematics and science.
For example, Beall and Trimbur have devel-
oped a booklet of reading and writing as-
signments called Reading and Writing in
Chemistry and have conducted faculty work-
shops to assist other faculty members in
assigning writing projects to their classes and
responding to the work their students do.
Last spring WPI, Clark University and
Holy Cross College sponsored the Second
Annual Writing Across the Curriculum
Conference, the
theme of which
was "Science and
the Postmodern
World." Also last
year, Beall orga-
nized WPI's Sixth
Annual Conference
on Chemical Edu-
cation around the
theme, "Writing
as a Tool to Teach
Chemistry."
Tutors at WPI's
Writing Resource
Center offer writing
assistance at no
charge in any aca-
demic area — from
papers to project
reports — and are
available to help
students with any
other writing or
writing-related
work, such as re-
sumes or graduate
school and job
applications.
The center,
located in Salisbury Laboratories, was estab-
lished in 1975 to assist students with project
work; it gradually evolved into a resource
used primarily by international students.
Since 1991, when Barbara L. McCarthy was
Technical writing major Renee LaFountain says her
WPI education gave her an excellent grounding in
both writing and science.
12
Winter 1993
named director, the center has broadened
its scope to meet the writing needs of all
WP1 students.
Last spring, Trimbur and McCarthy inau-
gurated an independent study titled "Peer
Tutoring in Writing." Those who complete
the course are offered jobs at the center.
"The philosophy behind peer-tutor training
is that students respond better to sugges-
tions from fellow students than from fac-
ulty," says McCarthy, who notes that tutors
also hone their own writing skills by teach-
ing others. "The increasing numbers of un-
dergraduates who take advantage of our
services appear to bear this out.
"This is not a drop-off editorial service,"
McCarthy adds. "Although most students
come to the center for help with a specific
assignment, we don't just correct their writ-
ing. We want them to become writers, and
we encourage them to interact with us. Pro-
fessors are demanding improved writing
skills in the papers they assign and in the
projects they advise. Instruction in writing
can benefit all students, not just those for
whom English is a second language."
WPI's Technical Writing major is admin-
istered by the Institute's Interdisciplinary
Studies Division. Its current directors are
Trimbur and Stephen J. Weininger, professor
of chemistry.
It was Barbara O'Toole '88 who blazed
the trail for today's technical writing majors.
In her third year as a mechanical engineer-
ing major, O'Toole decided that her interests
lay more in writing about technology than in
developing technology. Trimbur developed
an intensive technical writing program for
O'Toole, who graduated as an interdiscipli-
nary major. She is now employed as a tech-
nical writer at Stratus Computer Inc. in
Marlboro, Mass.
"I document communications software
and hardware," she says. "The manuals I
write consist of programmers' guides, net-
work and configuration and administration
guides, and general product bulletins. I
also use a lot of my computer-aided design
course work as I produce graphics and illus-
trations for these manuals."
Technical writing became an official ma-
jor in 1990; 15 undergraduates are currently
enrolled in the program. Majors take half
their courses in writing and half in a techni-
cal or scientific concentration. The writing
concentration consists of all three of WPI's
writing courses — Ele-
ments of Writing,
Nonfiction Prose and
Writing in the Profes-
sions— plus three in-
dependent studies —
Composing Theory
and Research, Rhe-
torical Theory, and
Peer Tutoring in
Writing.
"Because of the
interdisciplinary
nature of the pro-
gram, our students
have a strong tech-
nical and scientific
background," Trim-
bur says. "They are
well-prepared to
work in a variety of
areas, including pub-
lishing, science jour-
nalism, or hospital
or museum public
relations."
Senior Renee
LaFountain of
Gansevoort, N.Y., is
one of the new crop
of technical writing
majors. Like O'Toole, she didn't start out to
be a writer. "I came to WPI for the science,
math and engineering programs and ulti-
mately decided to major in biology," she
says. "By the time I realized biology was not
where I wanted to spend the rest of my life, 1
had become quite involved in the school.
For me it was just a matter of finding a pro-
gram that fit."
LaFountain, who plays piano and trum-
pet, is president of WPI's student jazz pro-
gram. After completing her Humanities
Sufficiency requirement on jazz in the 1950s
and her IQP on transgenic animals and their
use in research, she realized how much she
had enjoyed writing and organizing the
projects. When she learned she could com-
plete the degree requirements for a techni-
cal writing major and still graduate on time,
she made the switch.
Trimbur says WPI is particularly well-
equipped to educate students like LaFoun-
tain. "Most technical writing programs come
out of English departments," he says. "While
those students take the same number of
From top, in WPI's Writing Resource Center, writing tutor
Kathleen M. McKenna '94 reviews a paper with Ly C. Chhem
'95 while center director Barbara L. McCarthy, instructor of
communications, reviews a tape of a public speaking
assignment with Alex Cardenas '96, a native of Panama.
courses in writing as ours do, they don't
have nearly the depth in a technical or
scientific field. We've had a lot of positive
feedback from employers, who tell us that
our students are much more fluent in engi-
neering and science than those who've been
educated at liberal arts colleges."
"I'm still a scientist at heart," says
LaFountain. "When 1 learn about something
going on in biological research, for example,
I understand it from a scientist's perspec-
tive. The challenge for me as a technical
writer will be to take that highly scientific
information and translate it into terms the
average person can understand."
As she starts to look for a job, LaFoun-
tain says she feels "really marketable. I have
a strong science background and I can write.
I believe I can compete favorably against
technical writers who are humanities majors
and who've only taken introductory science
courses, as well as against scientists who've
never learned about writing. It's the best of
both worlds."
— Bonnie Gelbwasser
WPI Journal
13
M.
WP: V:
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Alcbn
Reborn
For 50 years, Alden Memorial has served as a social and
cultural center for the WPI community.
After a yearlong restoration, this gem of a building has
emerged as a modern center for the performing arts.
Now, from early morning until late at night,
the halls are alive with the sound of music — and drama.
By Michael Dorsey
WPI Journal
15
m
- -■ imm
, 4*- ' »
■jrt.r
•»:
November 19, 1992. 7:30 p.m.
November 24, 1992. 7:00 p.m.
December 1, 1992. 1:45 p.m.
December 3, 1992. 7:35 p.m.
Backstage in Alden Memorial, students line up before
long, lighted mirrors in two new dressing rooms, putting
on stage makeup and getting into costumes. In a half hour
they'll be on stage, as a high-tech explosion of lights, video
projections, music, sound effects, fog and smoke heralds
the opening of an imaginative production of Shakespeare's
The Tempest.
Walking down the corridor of Alden's lower level, a visitor
is enveloped by the sound of young voices. Lining the
risers in the Janet Earle Room, the 50 members of the
Men's Glee Club practice a demanding arrangement of
Greensleeves. Across the hall in the Perreault Chamber
Rehearsal Room, the Women's Chorale warms up with a
medley of Christmas songs.
In Alden's new music classroom, Professor David McKay
is reviewing a lesson for students in his course on the
fundamentals of music. Seated at the piano, McKay guides
the class through the finer points of harmony.
As late arrivals search for seats on the floor of the great
hall and in the balcony, the Concert Band strikes up a
festive tune, beginning the annual holiday concert that will
showcase most of WPI's 15 musical groups.
16
Winter 1993
0
■ Jr ^ ome 52 years after it was built, Alden
^ M Memorial has gotten a new lease on
^^i S life. Designed to fill the need for a
multipurpose auditorium on campus
and to provide a home for a central library, the build-
ing has been transformed into a modern and elegant
center for the performing arts.
The transformation, in the planning stages since
1984, began just after Reunion in 1991 and was com-
pleted in time for Commencement in 1992. In addition
to these activities, the renovated building has since
hosted numerous events and meetings, including a
special series of concerts and plays designed to show-
case its new spaces and facilities. The various events
were sponsored by the Applied Music Division,
Masque (the student dramatic arts society) and the
Social Committee, or SocComm.
But despite the nearly constant activity in Alden
since it reopened, the building will not be officially
rededicated until April 22, 1993, the 150th birthday
of its namesake, George I. Alden (see Advance Word,
page 2). On that day the members of the newly formed
George I. Alden Society, a recognition group that hon-
ors alumni and friends who have included WPI in their
wills or estate plans for at least $25,000, will enjoy a
dinner and an address by Richard H. Gallagher, presi-
dent of Clarkson University, former WPI provost and
a pioneering researcher in the field of finite element
analysis. Donors to the restoration, special friends and
selected members of the WPI community will also be
invited to the event.
The $2.7 million restoration, designed by the firm
of Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott in Boston
and completed by general contractor Cutler Associates
in Worcester, was largely funded by a $1.6 million grant
from the George I. Alden Trust, which gave the building
to the college in 1940 as a permanent memorial to
Alden. Other generous gifts were received from the
Surdna Foundation, the George C. Gordon Trust, the
Daniels Foundation, and a number of alumni and
friends (see box, page 21).
The Alden Memorial project combined careful restoration of what
has been called one of the most beautiful college buildings in the
Northeast, with the creation of new spaces and facilities for music
and theater. Even before entering the building, one notices a major
change: a new, spacious freight elevator that serves each of its four
levels and the stage. A small extension was added at Alden's south-
west corner to accommodate the elevator; due to a careful choice
of brick and the reuse of original limestone cornices and moldings,
the extension's facade is nearly impossible to distinguish from the
original construction.
Opposite, under the direction of Margaret M. Konkol, the Women's
Chorale performs during the annual holiday concert in the fully
restored great hall of Alden Memorial. Above, Erica A. Curran '96
and Byung S. Yun '93 take advantage of new private rehearsal rooms.
Adjoining the extension is a new loading dock that makes it easier
to deliver supplies and equipment to the building, a handicapped
access ramp, and a new plaza linking Alden to the adjacent Sanford
Riley Hall (see photo, page 15). The Class of 1942 earmarked $100,000
of its 50th anniversary gift for the construction of the plaza and used
another $25,000 to set up an endowed fund that will ensure the
plaza's maintenance in the years ahead.
Entering Alden on the main level, a visitor might almost fail to
notice the results of the restoration, for in many ways the foyer and
great hall look much as they did when the building was completed in
1940. But a more careful examination reveals the products of a loving
WPI Journal
17
Above, Susan Vick, professor of drama/theater, gives the cast and crew of The
Tempest some final comments in the greenroom before the curtain rises on
dress rehearsal night. Opposite, from left, graduate student Andrew L.
Hansford, Kristi J. Henricksen '94 and Hollybeth Normandin '94 in a scene from
The Tempest. Below, Douglas Weeks, director of applied music, directs the
Concert Band as it performs in the new Lora E. Spaulding Recital Hall, one of
the new performing arts facilities in Alden.
restoration: the refinished marble staircase, the new
hardwood floor, the plaster ceiling that replaced the old
pressed-straw tiles, the refinished oak paneling and
ceiling beams, and the carefully cleaned and restored
iron chandeliers and stained glass window medallions.
The great hall is also brighter, thanks to new lighting
fixtures (these include new sconces that illuminate the
stone carvings at each end of the ceiling beams). Like
the rest of the building, the hall has also benefited from
upgrades to the plumbing, heating and ventilation sys-
tems. There are also new stage and window curtains,
new seating for 600 on the floor and 100 in the balcony,
new sound-absorbing panels at the rear of the audito-
rium, a new acoustic shell with an adjustable ceiling,
and a new electronic dimmer system and sophisticated
pulley system for the stage.
Behind and adjacent to the stage are two new dress-
ing rooms, a room for use by caterers (the auditorium
will continue to host dinners and other catered events),
and a fully restored greenroom, which serves both as a
theater classroom and a place for performers to relax
before going on stage.
One floor up, the offices of the music and theater
faculty — in rooms that were originally rented to bach-
elor professors — have also benefited from a thorough
face-lift. But to see the most dramatic evidence of the
building's transformation, one must travel down to the
lower levels.
On the ground level, a once dark, musty storage
area has been turned into a brightly lit and well-
— - '"»' ;lr— —— »— — ■— *Hf
18
Winter 1993
equipped scenery construction shop. This level also serves as stor-
age space for the lighting and audio equipment used by Lens and
Lights, a student group that provides lighting and sound services for
the campus community. The scene shop is served by the new eleva-
tor, making it possible to bring flats and other set pieces right to the
stage; previously, it was necessary to either build sets on the stage
or carry the pieces up two long flights of stairs.
The floor just below the auditorium, long used as practice space
by the college's musical groups, has been beautifully redecorated
and rearranged to create a highly functional music education, re-
hearsal and recital center. With the addition of a set of risers, the
Janet Earle Room has become the primary choral rehearsal room.
Nearby, what was once an unfinished storage room has been turned
into a music classroom.
The former Alumni Conference Room at the southeast corner of
Alden is now the Ina Perreault Chamber Rehearsal Room. At the
southwest corner, in a room that once served as a librarian's office,
is a new computer-assisted music laboratory equipped with Macin-
tosh computers, synthesizers and recording equipment. Adjacent
to the front stairwell are an office and three new private rehearsal
rooms, where students can practice their instruments without
disturbing other building occupants.
The centerpiece of this new music center is the Lora E. Spaulding
Recital Hall, located in what was originally the college library. In addi-
tion to a new wood floor, elegant curtains and refinished woodwork,
the addition of risers, sound-absorbing panels and a grid of spot-
lights make this an ideal performing space for chamber groups.
Lora Spaulding, the daughter of Ralph Spaulding '09, left the Insti-
tute a major unrestricted bequest in 1989, part of which was used
to create this hall.
With its new look and new spaces, Alden is now home to the
college's music and drama programs— both educational and extra-
curricular. (It has also attracted the attention of regional performing
arts groups— the Worcester Orchestra will hold a concert in Alden
in May.) The Institute's five full- and part-time instructors of music-
Douglas G. Weeks, administrator of applied music, Louis J. Curran Jr.,
associate professor of music, Richard G. Falco, director of jazz stud-
ies, Margaret M. Konkol, director of the Women's Chorale, and David
P. McKay, professor of music— teach a wide range of courses in mu-
sic theory and history and advise dozens of student projects each
year, including Humanities Sufficiencies that focus on music or in-
clude a musical composition or performance.
Nearly all of the music faculty members also direct music groups.
In recent years these well-traveled groups have made tours of
Canada, Europe, Russia and Africa, in addition to their regular per-
formances at WPI and at other colleges and universities. In 1992, for
example, the Concert Band, Brass Ensemble, Stage Band and Jazz
Ensemble toured Egypt, a trip that included a breakfast performance
before the Sphinx and the Pyramids of Giza for the French and Ameri-
can ambassadors, the governor of Cairo and the mayor of Giza. At
the same time, the Men's Glee Club performed in Great Britain, sing-
ing at Oxford University, Worcester Cathedral and before over 1,000
people in the Bethlehem Chapel in Rhos, Wales, where they were
the guests of the Orpheus Male Choir, one of the most outstanding
choral organizations in Great Britain.
A total of 215 students participate in the college's musical groups,
Weeks notes. In addition, a number of Men's Glee Club alumni per-
form with female singers from the WPI community and other colleges
as the University Chorus. "WPI's music groups enjoy a long and
Left, Louis J. Curran,
professor of music,
leads the Men's Glee
Club through a rehear-
sal in the refurbished
Janet Earle Room,
which now serves
as the primary choral
rehearsal room. Below,
clockwise from bottom,
Matthew J. Calistro '96,
Jason E. Macierowski
'96 and Theodore L.
Dysart '94 use the
synthesizers and
Macintosh computers
in the new Computer
Music Laboratory-
distinguished history," he says, "but I think it's safe to say that their
popularity today is unprecedented. With the restoration of Alden,
we now have a beautiful performing arts center that will enable us
to further expand our programs and reach new levels of excellence."
Equally as popular as the college's music programs are its con-
tinually growing programs in theater. Under the direction of Susan
Vick, professor of drama and theater, Masque, one of the oldest
student clubs at WPI, mounts a major production each fall.
In 1992, the Masque production of The Tempest played to record
houses four nights running. In fact, on Friday and Saturday nights,
after the regular seats on the stage were all taken (to create a more
intimate experience, audience members sit on an extension of the
stage at Masque productions), latecomers willingly filled the balcony
to watch the play from a less than perfect vantage point.
Enthusiasm for the dramatic arts at WPI seems to grow in inten-
sity each year, says Vick, who notes that about 125 students were
directly involved in the production of The Tempest, while many
others in several student organizations served as ushers, ran a
cafe and performed music before the show.
Helping fuel that excitement is an annual festival of original,
student-written and -directed plays called New Voices. Now gearing
up for its 1 1th season, New Voices was launched by Vick as a re-
sponse to a ground swell of interest in playwrighting among WPI
students. Now, each January a team of five student dramaturges
reviews some 50 scripts submitted by members of the WPI commu-
nity (mostly students) to choose 15 or so for the April production.
Ultimately, more than 400 students will be involved in the 1993
New Voices as directors, actors, stage managers, crew members,
publicists, and so on, Vick notes.
Excitement about theater at WPI has grown to the point where
one dramatic arts group can no longer contain it, Vick says. Since
1989, MW Repertory Theater, etc., WPI's version of an "off-Broadway"
theater group, has been producing two plays a year at various loca-
tions on campus. Chain Link Fence, an improvisational theater group,
also performs regularly. Another student group mounts productions
during the summer months, and the members of Alpha Psi Omega,
Winter 1993
The Major Donors
to the
alden memorial restoration
The George i. alden trust
estate of lora e. spaulding,
daughter of ralph e. spaulding '09
• Recital Hall •
The George c. Gordon '95 trust
• Stage and Fittings •
George w. smith jr. '15
• Greenroom and the Janet Earle Room •
CLASS OF 1942
• Plaza and Plaza Endowment Fund •
The Surdna foundation
• Computer Music Laboratory •
The Daniels Foundation
• Equipment for Computer Music Lab •
Mary Knight,
widow of Frederick H. Knight '28
• Music Classroom •
INAW. PERREAULT,
late wife of Raymond J. Perreault '38
• Chamber Rehearsal Room •
JOSEPH GLASSER '35
• Performers' Dressing Rooms •
LILLA MOLDER
• Practice Room •
. RICHARD PROUTY
• Practice Room •
Members of several WPI musical groups pose before the Sphinx and the
Pyramids of Giza during a 1992 tour of Egypt, one of several overseas trips
made by the Institute's music and theater groups in recent years.
the dramatic honor society, help in all of
these productions.
Like the Institute's music groups, Masque
has also developed a distinctly international
flavor in recent years. Since 1988, the group
has made frequent treks to the Fringe, part
of the Edinburgh Arts Festival in Scotland,
the largest gathering of its type in the world.
In the summer of 1991, Vick and 30 students
performed two plays from the annual New
Voices festival for audiences at the Fringe.
"This is one of the best things we've
ever done," Vick says. "It is exciting for stu-
dents not only to experience the best the
world theater has to offer, but to see their
own work with an international perspective."
The growing interest in activities, courses
and projects that revolve around music and
theater has led many at the Institute to won-
der how those interests might intersect with
other academic programs. "As we search for
ways to develop our curriculum to respond
to what the real world is doing — particularly
the downsizing of the defense industry — it
will be increasingly important for WPI to pro-
vide programs that combine the study of an
appropriate technology, like electrical and
computer engineering, with a rich immersion
in music and theater, leading to careers in
growing fields like the media and the arts,"
notes Lance Schachterle, associate dean of
undergraduate studies and chairman of the
Interdisciplinary Studies Division.
Currently, a committee of faculty mem-
bers from the Humanities, Electrical and
Computer Engineering, and Computer Sci-
ence departments is just beginning the pro-
cess of looking into the feasibility of major
or double major programs that combine
music and technology.
Notes William R. Grogan, dean emeritus
of undergraduate studies, who is assisting
the committee, "Music is becoming an amaz-
ingly sophisticated field. It not only involves
electrical engineering, which plays a role in
audio and electronic sound reproduction, but
computer science, since so much of music is
now reproduced and transmitted digitally.
"The average electrical engineer does
not have much background in music, nor
does the average musician have much back-
ground in computer and electronic technol-
ogy," Grogan adds. "Someone conversant
with both areas could have quite an inter-
esting career."
At WPI, such a major or dual-major pro-
gram would build on a great deal of existing
student interest, notes Louis Curran. "It
would be a natural for the Institute," he
says. "So many students already have syn-
thesizers or computers that reproduce mu-
sic, and many more are highly into audio.
And, our computer music courses are al-
ways oversubscribed."
"We have, through the humanities and
arts program at WPI," Schachterle adds,
"the opportunity to show that both sides —
technical and humanistic — are creative, that
both sides can be well-developed, and that a
combination of those two can provide an in-
creasing number of students with exciting
career opportunities."
WPI Journal
21
Restoring a Legend
As resident program manager
for the Pentagon Renovation
Program, Tony Leketa '69 is
responsible for one of the
largest construction projects
ever undertaken by the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
By Ruth Trask
T7
LJ ifty years after it rose from the site of a
I former military depot in Arlington, Va.,
A in one of the most massive and ambi-
tious construction projects undertaken in
modern times, the Pentagon is getting a
much needed overhaul. Among the most
easily recognized buildings in the world and
the hub of the nation's defense programs,
the Pentagon has
fallen on hard times
in recent years.
After nearly five
decades of neglect,
the aging heating
and refrigeration
plant is no longer up
to the task of heating
and cooling the
building's 6.5 million
square feet of floor
space. Its interior
walls are riddled
with holes made by
roving utility carts.
Even the building's
massive reinforced
concrete facade is
cracking and spalling
in places. The reno-
vation program is
being managed by
the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers. It is one of the largest jobs
ever undertaken by this, the largest con-
struction organization in the world.
The resident program manager for the
$1.4 billion project is Anthony F. Leketa '69,
an engineer with the Army Corps of Engineers
Leketa is no stranger to huge construction
projects. In the late 1980s, he headed the
$1.3 billion Fort Drum Expansion Program
in New York, which included the largest
military construction contract awarded
since World War II.
"Fort Drum was a civil engineer's
dream," says Leketa, whose management
of the mammoth project earned him the
Anthony Leketa on-site at the Pentagon
Wheeler Award, the highest honor given by
the Society of American Military Engineers,
and the Army's Meritorious Civilian Service
Award. "Now I'm working on the Pentagon.
That's pretty exciting stuff for a former
Worcester boy who once played with a
$1.50 Erector set."
Leketa describes the Pentagon project
as his "second
once-in-a-life-
time chal-
lenge." While
supervising a
staff of 165 on
the construc-
tion of Fort
Drum, he had
the opportu-
nity to build a
city on 7,000
| acres of virgin
is woodland. Like
| the Pentagon
5 construction
5 program (see
I s related story,
|1 page 25), the
1 8 Fort Drum
I I effort was
°~ marked by a
relatively short
but intense
period of design and construction. Just
three years elapsed from the start of design
work to the time soldiers moved in in 1987.
The army post, which can accommo-
date 10,000 soldiers and 25,000 civilians and
family members, contains 35 miles of new
roads, 20 barracks, 3,950 housing units,
child development and youth activities
centers, a fire station, a safety and law en-
forcement center, chapels, a heating plant,
a bowling alley, a shopping mall and more
than 100 other buildings.
"Building a shopping center in the
middle of Washington, D.C., is an everyday
occurrence," Leketa says. "But there was
22
Winter 1993
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■ HAZARD
AUTHORIZED
PERSONNEL ONLY
RESPIRATORS AND
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REQUI
A major challenge facing the engineers planning the Pentagon Renovation
Program is the large quantity of asbestos used in the building's construction.
nothing like that at Ft. Drum. We started
from scratch." As project director, Leketa
was required to address concerns from
citizens in adjacent Watertown, N.Y., whose
population doubled following completion of
the construction program.
He also monitored the potential environ-
mental impact on Lake Ontario, which lies
just 25 miles away, making changes as neces-
sary to comply with environmental regula-
tions. The proximity of the post to Canada
mandated additional considerations in the
environmental area, especially with respect
to emissions from the facility's coal- and
wood-burning heating plant.
The Fort Drum "new city" project gave
Leketa the opportunity to build something
major from the ground up. He says he felt a
great sense of accomplishment when it was
over. "I loved that job," he says. "It meant
working a zillion hours, but it was one of the
most exciting assignments I've ever had —
until now. The Pentagon renovation project
tops everything."
The renovation of the five-story Penta-
gon, the largest low-rise office building in the
world, is providing Leketa an entirely differ-
ent set of challenges. Consider the magni-
tude of the project: the Pentagon covers
34 acres, has three times the floor space of
the Empire State Building, and is twice the
size of the Chicago Merchandise Mart. The
Capitol Building could easily fit into any one
of its five wedge-shaped sections. It contains
more than 17 miles of corridors and has
nearly 8,000 windows. It supports an office
population that fluctuates around 25,000.
It is a self-sustaining community. Besides
its own heating and refrigeration plant, it
has medical facilities, a shopping mall,
dining and athletic facilities, a post office,
a library, a police force, and easy access to
the Metrorail and Metrobus systems.
Recognizing the building's continuing
decline and the need to have an efficient,
logically arranged administration building
for the nation's armed forces, the govern-
ment decided to renovate the Pentagon in
the early 1980s. In 1988 the Department of
Defense commissioned the firm of Howard
Needles Tammen & Bergendoff to develop a
renovation concept. The firm evaluated nine
possible strategies, ranging from renovating
the entire building all at once to breaking
the project into 150 increments of 44,000
square feet each. Ultimately, it was decided
to renovate the building in five approxi-
mately equal wedges, to be completed one
wedge at a time. The
basement will be
renovated separately.
The major goals
of the 10-year pro-
ject are to provide
safer working condi-
tions (the building
is woefully deficient
in complying with
current life safety
codes), a modest
increase in adminis-
trative space, better
traffic flow inside
and outside the
building, better or-
ganizational align-
ment and security,
enhanced communi- A view of the Pentagon
cations, and a marked increase in energy ef-
ficiency.
In 1989 the Defense Department named
the Corps of Engineers the design and con-
struction agent for the program; the day-
to-day activities are being managed by the
Corps' Baltimore District, where Leketa is
currently assigned. He says the major chal-
lenges the Corps faces revolve around the
fact that the building has never had a major
face-lift. In addition, there have been few
changes to adapt the structure to current
codes and to the changing nature — and
electrical demands — of office work.
"These demands are overtaxing the origi-
nal utility systems, resulting in increasingly
frequent power outages," he says. "It is now
common for 20 localized power outages to
occur each day during the summer; this
rises to 30 to 40 during the winter. The
original heating and refrigeration plant is
virtually out of service, as the boilers and
chillers are inoperable. The distribution
of heat and air-conditioning is equally un-
reliable, and steam and chilled water are
furnished by packaged rental boilers and
chillers."
In constructing the building's interior,
the architects chose to use extensive
amounts of asbestos-laden material. Asbes-
tos is found in floor tiles, mechanical equip-
ment insulation (including ductwork made
of asbestos board to conserve metal for
the war effort), the finish coat of all ceiling
plaster, and some interior walls.
Under Leketa's direction, the entire
building will be demolished to structure
and completely rebuilt. In addition, all
's deteriorating heating and cooling plant.
WPI Journal
23
mechanical, electrical and communications
systems will be replaced, a brand new HVAC
system installed, all asbestos removed, all
windows replaced, and the exterior given
a face-lift.
But the renovation won't just overhaul
the building's physical structure. Since it
opened at the height of World War II, the
Pentagon has become an increasingly com-
plicated and congested warren of offices,
corridors and stairwells. Related offices are
now often located at distant comers of the
building and traffic patterns can be confus-
ing for those not familiar with them.
As part of the renovation, space assign-
ments will be reorganized so tenants with
similar functions will share the same or ad-
jacent space. This should eliminate a great
deal of corridor traffic, Leketa says. The sec-
ond floor will become the primary level for
horizontal circulation in the building; new
passenger elevators (the building currently
has no passenger elevator service) will in-
troduce vertical circulation, with tenants
being organized around their own vertical
circulation systems. A corridor management
plan will be developed to separate service
and pedestrian traffic between office and
service elevators.
The Pentagon project also includes some
aesthetic changes and the construction of
an extension to the building, parts of which
are listed on the National Registry of His-
toric Places. The 500,000-square-foot ex-
tension, called the Pentagon Maintenance
Facility, will be built at the Mall Entrance. It
will house light industrial functions such as
the maintenance shops, the Defense Protec-
tive Services, the three Pentagon medical
clinics and the loading dock.
The basement/mezzanine level will be
completely renovated, adding about 200,000
square feet of usable space. New two-story,
secured access points will be built at the
main entrances and atriums will be created
at the five inside corners of the building.
"The building itself appears to be basi-
cally structurally sound," Leketa says. "But
there is significant cracking of concrete at
the inside light wells and along the interior
drive, which will have to be repaired. Also,
the athletic club and basement floor slabs
show signs of settling."
Improvements will also be made to the
area around the building, including exten-
sive site work, parking lot resurfacing and
bridge restoration. Vehicular traffic pat-
terns, especially in the south parking lot,
will be updated to meet the demands cre-
ated by the presence of nearby Interstate
395 and the addition of Metrorail and
Metrobus service.
The renovation will be accomplished in
eight phases, Leketa says. Throughout the
process, the Pentagon, which is the center
of the nation's military capability, must re-
main operational. To that end, Leketa's team
must find temporary accommodations —
either inside the building or elsewhere — for
occupants. Leketa is supervising all design
and construction activities from a new
modular office complex at the north end of
the Pentagon's north parking lot. His staff,
which currently numbers 30, will grow to
about 70 before the project is done.
Leketa's office recently awarded the first
major construction contracts: for a new $71
million heating and r -frigeration plant and
a $6 million classifies waste incinerator
upgrade at the existing heating plant. The
heating and refrigeration plant will provide
240,000 pounds of steam per hour and
Leketa, far left, meets with some of the 30 staff members who currently
report to him to review the myriad details of the complex renovation project.
37,500 tons of chiller capacity for cooling.
"Currently," he says, "we are overseeing
design contracts for the Mall Terrace exten-
sion and the basement renovation. We are
also involved in more than 100 planning and
development studies."
Prior to heading the Pentagon and Fort
Drum projects, Leketa served as area engi-
neer with the Northeastern Area Office of
the New York District Corps of Engineers
located at Fort Devens in Ayer, Mass. At
Devens he was responsible for administer-
ing more than $100 million in construction
contracts for the U.S. government and su-
pervising the activities of 50 engineers dis-
persed over nine field offices in the six New
England states.
The projects he oversaw included a
major rebuilding of Loring Air Force Base
in Caribou, Maine, and the renovation of the
Fargo Building (now known as the Barnes
Building) in downtown Boston. The Barnes
project was a total renovation of a 600,000-
square-foot, nine-story structure.
A registered professional engineer in
Massachusetts, Leketa didn't start out as
a civil engineer. At WPI, he earned a bach-
elor's degree in chemical engineering and
later earned a master's in civil engineering
(water resources and sanitary engineering).
An active member of the Army Corps of
Engineers for 10 years, he served as a cap-
tain on tours of duty in Korea and Germany.
He graduated from the Army Command and
General Staff College and is currently a lieu-
tenant colonel in the Army Reserve in com-
mand of a military police battalion at Fort
Eustis in Virginia. He was recently selected
to attend the Industrial College of the Armed
Forces at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C.
Leketa's memberships include Scabbard
and Blade, Chi Epsilon (the civil engineering
honor society), the American Society of Civil
Engineers, the Society of American Military
Engineers, the Reserve Officers Association
and the U.S. Army Engineer Association. At
one time he was a partner in his own busi-
ness, Associated Building Inspectors. When
he's not on-site at the Pentagon, he relaxes
with photography, running, tennis and rac-
quetball.
With one of the biggest construction
projects in recent memory in full swing,
there's little time for recreation. But that's
no problem for Leketa, who says he thrives
on the huge responsibilities his work for the
Corps of Engineers brings him. "My idea of
hell would be sitting at a desk doing design
calculations," he says. "If I couldn't get out
there and see what's going on, it would
drive me crazy. The renovation of the Pen-
tagon represents a monumental challenge,
and I'm tremendously excited about being
in the thick of it."
24
Winter 1993
Rome Wasn't Built in a Day, but the Pentagon
Nearly Was
By Anthony F. Leketa '69
Conceived over the course of a weekend in July 1 941 and approved by Con-
gress a month later, the Pentagon, the world's largest low-rise office building,
was built in just 1 6 months by construction teams working around the clock.
The Pentagon. Mere mention of the
name conjures up images of staff
officers holding classified documents
under their arms, hurrying to the offices of
high-ranking generals. And the appearance
of national media personalities reporting
from the Press Room enhanced the im-
pression of the Pentagon's power and im-
portance during the Persian Gulf War. After
the White House and the Capitol Building,
the Pentagon is probably the most impor-
tant building in the U.S. and probably the
most easily recognized.
When war broke out in 1939, tremendous
demands were placed on the War Depart-
ment, which was then housed in several
dispersed, overcrowded locations in the
Washington, D.C., area. Lt. Gen. Brehon B.
Somervell, commanding general, services
and supply, is credited with the idea of con-
solidating the mushrooming department in
a single building. And so, in the summer of
1941, the Pentagon was conceived.
Somervell called Lt. Col. Hugh J. Casey
and George E. Bergstrom, president of the
American Institute of Architects, into his
office on the evening of Thursday, July 17,
1941. He directed them to produce, by 9
o'clock Monday morning, the basic plan and
architectural perspective for a four-story, air-
conditioned building to house 40,000 people.
Somervell received his plans on-time;
they called for a reinforced concrete struc-
ture of 5.1 million square feet. Most interior
space would be open, and only senior offi-
cials would have private offices. Parking
was provided for 10,000 cars. The building
would solve wartime space problems for
many government agencies competing for
room in Washington, and it was estimated
that War Department productivity would
increase by 25 to 40 percent.
The first site selected was the Washing-
ton-Hoover Airport on the Virginia bank of
the Potomac; it was immediately ruled out
because it was in the Potomac's floodplain.
The next site considered was Arlington
Farms, a 6.7-acre plot adjacent to Arlington
Cemetery. It was bounded by five roads, and
when Bergstrom and Casey fitted their con-
cept to the site, a building with five sides
seemed best.
The concept didn't have universal sup-
port and there was considerable debate in
Congress about the need and scope for such
a building. Nevertheless, the project was
authorized on Aug. 25, 1941. But before
construction could begin, the location
was changed again. President Roosevelt
objected to the Arlington Farms site and
directed that the new headquarters be built
farther south in an area then used as a mili-
tary depot. Somervell kept the design con-
cept and directed that construction start
immediately.
The most amazing statistic of the origi-
nal project is the time it took to be built. A
peak labor force of 13,000 workers took 16
months, working around the clock, from the
date working drawings and specifications
were started in September 1941 to comple-
tion in January 1943. That period included
a late change to the plans that added a
fifth floor and extended the construction
schedule two months.
The chief of engineers at the time was
Maj. Gen. Eugene Reybold, but the construc-
tion was completed under the direction of
the deputy chief of construction, Col. Leslie
R. Groves, who later headed the Manhattan
Project. The contractor was a joint venture
of John J. McShain of Philadelphia and Doyle
and Russell and Wise Contracting Co., both
of Richmond, Va. The chief architect/engi-
neer was George Edwin Bergstrom, among
whose accomplishments was the Hollywood
Bowl in Los Angeles.
The Pentagon was designed for effi-
ciency, not beauty. Roosevelt conditioned
his approval of the project on a guarantee
that no marble would be used in its design.
The only significant ornament on the
building's exterior is a commemorative
cornerstone at the Mall Entrance — a lime-
stone plaque listing the key participants
in the building construction.
The architectural style used has been
described as "starved classicism" and "gov-
ernment international." The Pentagon is a
practical building. Its design and construc-
tion emphasized the conservation of critical
war materials, particularly copper and steel.
The low structure allowed reinforced con-
crete to be substituted for a steel frame; the
mile-round perimeter wall is also made from
reinforced concrete faced with Indiana lime-
stone. It has been estimated that enough
steel was saved in the construction of the
Pentagon to build a battleship.
(Reprinted with permission from The Mili-
tary Engineer, Vol. 83, No. 543, July 1991;
copyrighted material.)
WPI Journal
25
§ll§BisiGt
mmm0sm
In recent years, WPI has taken a
long, hard look at how it manages
one of its most vital resources. Out
of that self-examination has come a
comprehensive strategy for invest-
ing the endowment, a strategy that
reflects not only the need for greater
endowment growth as the Institute
plies the uncertain financial seas of
the decade ahead, but the critical
role endowment earnings will
play in WPI's ability to grow and
change as higher education —
and society itself— evolve.
By Diane Benison
26
Winter 1993
f they think about it at all, most people tend
to envision an endowment as a large pool of
money, passively invested. Until recently, that
was largely true.
In its simplest form, an endowment is a per-
manent fund, the earnings from which are used to
provide ongoing financial support to an institution. Un-
like the reserve account a business might set up or the
savings account an individual might establish, an endow-
ment is not intended to be a cushion against bad times
or a source of financial reserves. Rather, it is a perma-
nent working asset that will continue to generate funds
for current operations as long as the institution exists.
In higher education, endowment is usually made up
of two components: true endowment and various funds
functioning as endowment. True endowment consists of
endowed funds that donors have designated for specific
programs or purposes. The second component, sometimes
called board-designated or quasi-endowment, consists of
funds placed in the endowment — usually at the election of
the board of trustees — to be invested and used as if they
were part of the true endowment. About 40 percent of
Building a Successful
Investment Program
WPI treasurer Robert W. Gailey drafted a formal
investment policy with the objective of enhancing
the return on WPI's endowment assets while
protecting the endowment's purchasing power.
WPI's $1 18 million endowment is true endowment; the
remainder is board-designated, according to Robert W.
Gailey, treasurer and vice president for business affairs.
Because they have not been restricted by a donor, quasi-
endowment funds can be withdrawn and spent at the
discretion of the trustees. In practice, though, boards are
usually unwilling to treat quasi-endowment as a savings
account because of the value of having the predictable
income these funds generate. As RPI president Roland W.
Schmitt said in a recent talk at WPI, "Finances cannot make
a university great, but their lack can most assuredly keep
one from becoming great."
A predictable income stream from endowment is one
of the four principal sources of revenue for most colleges
and universities. The others are tuition, gifts and research
funding. As many colleges struggle to rein in tuition increases,
as a poor economy and changing national priorities put the
squeeze on corporate and individual gifts, and as federal and
state research funding becomes scarcer, the importance of
predictable endowment earnings has never been greater.
As they are at most colleges, endowment earnings are
added to the college's general fund to be spent on current
programs and activities. At WPI, a large and growing por-
tion of those operating funds is spent on student financial
aid. During the fiscal year that ended June 30, 1992, for ex-
ample, when about $4 million in endowment earnings were
applied to the general operating funds, the Institute pro-
vided students with nearly $10 million in financial aid from
its own funds.
"Clearly," notes WPI President Jon C. Strauss, "without
those endowment earnings — including about $1.5 million
derived directly from endowment funds restricted to finan-
WPI Journal
27
cial aid — WPI would be hard-pressed to provide that level
of financial assistance to its students — and far less able to
compete for talented young men and women."
"1 think institutions like WPI do very well to have en-
dowment as part of their financial skeletons," notes former
WPI treasurer Joaquim (Joe) S.S. Ribeiro '58, who is cur-
rently principal of Jefferson Financial in Jefferson, Mass.
"A good solid endowment is part of your balance sheet.
But its value lies not only in the fact that it generates funds;
it also gives the institution a sense of steadfastness and
strength. And it gives people who are dealing with the
institution the feeling that it is here to stay."
The fiduciary responsibility for WPI's endowment
has always rested with the Board of Trustees. During
the Institute's early years, the board delegated that respon-
sibility to various trustees or administrators. Often, the
task of prudently managing the endowment funds fell to a
single individual, generally the Institute's treasurer. That
manner of handling endowments was neither uncommon
nor unreasonable, for until recently the financial markets
were simpler than they are today, with far fewer options
for investing money.
At some point, as the board began to implement a com-
mittee system, oversight of the management of the endow-
ment became an official function of the Budget and Finance
Committee. In practice, however, it was still often a one- or
two-person job.
That was how things were in 1964, when John E.
Hossack '46 joined the board. Like his father, Archibald
Hossack '12, John Hossack spent his entire career with
American Appraisal Co., the international real estate and
asset appraisal firm headquartered in Milwaukee. And like
Archibald Hossack, who was a WPI trustee for more than
10 years, serving for much of that time on the Budget and
Finance Committee. John would spend many years on the
trustees' budget oversight committee.
When Hossack was named to the committee in 1966,
most of the endowment funds were being managed by local
banks. Believing that bringing more diversity to the endow-
ment management team would result in greater security for
the funds and a greater likelihood of endowment growth,
he advocated moving some of the endowment funds out of
Worcester and into the hands of other investment manag-
ers. His arguments were persuasive, and the board soon
voted to do just that.
That decision marked the start of an era of great
change for the management of WPI's endowment, al-
though Hossack, who became chairman of the Budget
and Finance Committee in 1971, says he couldn't have
foreseen then how far-reaching that change would ulti-
mately prove. For no one, Hossack notes, could have
predicted the extent to which the world of investment
would evolve, nor could they have foretold the financial
crunch that would bring the management of college and
university endowments to prominence just a few de-
cades down the road.
A WPI trustee since 1964 and the first chairman
of the board's Investment Committee, John E.
Hossack '46 has long been an advocate of the
need to protect the endowment principal from
erosion by inflation.
From the beginning of his tenure on the Budget and
Finance Committee, Hossack was a strong proponent
for the need to protect the endowment's principal from
erosion by inflation. "WPI should have a goal of earnings —
plus inflation," he says, "and the inflation portion should
be plowed back into endowment to preserve its purchas-
ing power. If you don't do that, you're just gradually eating
your cake."
At the recommendation of Hossack's committee, the
Institute established a formal "spending rule," sometimes
called the "spending rate." A spending rule defines exactly
how much of the earnings from endowment may be used
each year to meet current operating expenses. WPI's
spending rule sets that amount at 5.5 percent of the aver-
age market value of the endowment — and its accumulated
income and gains — for the previous two years.
For example, if the total endowment were valued at
$100 million in one year and $110 million in the following
year, its average market value for those two years would
be $105 million. According to the spending rule, in the
third year the Institute could remove 5.5 percent of that
value, or $5,775,000, from the endowment and add it to the
income side of its restricted and unrestricted budgets. The
spending rule allows WPI to make reasonable predictions
about how much money will be available from the endow-
ment each year, Gailey says, making the budgeting process
more orderly.
WPI's 5.5 percent spending rate is slightly higher than
the average of the rates adhered to by the country's more
28
Winter 1993
From a $100,000 Seed,
A $118 Million Oak Has Grown
110
It may not seem like a great deal of money today, but
when John Boynton turned over his founding gift of
$100,000 to the trustees of the new Worcester County
Free Institute of Industrial Science in 1865, it was nearly
everything he had amassed during a long and successful
career as an entrepreneur and bank president.
In accepting Boynton's fortune, the trustees took on
a lofty responsibility, for that gift would become the
seed for the Institute's endowment. Through prudent
investment and the addition of many more gifts, that
$100,000 seed has become a mighty $118 million oak.
That growth didn't happen overnight, of course. As
the graph on this page shows, the majority of the as-
cent has occurred only within the last few decades. In
fact, as recently as 1964 the fund stood at about $18 mil-
lion, one-tenth of its current value. Four major fund-rais-
ing campaigns since then — the Centennial Fund (1964
to 1967), the Plan to Restore the Balance (1972 to 1977),
the Capital Program (1980 to 1983) and the Campaign
for Excellence (1985 to 1990) — have helped provide
momentum.
During the 1980s endowment growth was aided by a
robust economy that yielded high returns on all types
of investments. That positive environment plus the
great success of the Campaign for Excellence, which ex-
ceeded its $52.5 million goal by 21 percent, enabled the
endowment to surge from $38 million as the decade
opened to more than $100 million as it closed.
The success of recent years is in sharp contrast to
the endowment's first few decades. In those early years,
persistent debt and frequent deficits plagued the col-
lege. A treasurer's report from the early 1880s notes a
$15,100 shortage in the endowed funds due to heavy
drafts made upon them.
Generous gifts from Ichabod Washburn, Stephen
Salisbury, David Whitcomb and George Hoar, along with
an appropriation from the state, helped the endowment
grow to just over $379,000 by the end of 1882. The fol-
lowing year the Institute launched a $110,000 campaign
to build the fund; in the end, half that much was raised,
largely through a few major gifts.
For many years the Institute depended on regular state
grants to fund its operations and enlarge its endowment. But
in 1917 the state legislature passed the "Anti-Aid Amend-
ment," which called for the end to general state grants to pri-
vate educational institutions. By the time these allocations
ended in 1921, the Institute had benefited from more than
$800,000 in state funds.
To replace the state money, WPI needed to increase its
$1.1 million endowment by $1 million. But that would just
maintain the status quo; to pull itself out of a period of
stagnation and prepare for the future, the college would
need an additional $1 million.
A fund-raising campaign was launched, which drew
support from nearly 90 percent of alumni. A major incen-
tive was a challenge grant of $350,000 from the General
Education Fund, created by John D. Rockefeller with the
intention of increasing teachers' salaries across the
country. To receive the funds, the college had to raise
$650,000 — a goal it ultimately achieved.
About $375,000 was accrued via a novel fund-raising
vehicle called the industrial sustaining scholarship.
Through this program, a company, with a gift of
$10,000, could create a scholarship that gave it the
right to name an employee or the child of an em-
ployee on a yearly basis to attend WPI tuition free.
In all, more than $1.5 million was raised in the
brief campaign. While well short of the $2 million
goal, the drive got the Institute out of trouble,
bridged the gap created by the loss of the state
grants, and brought the value of the endowment
to more than $2 million by 1922.
But more important, the campaign highlighted
the vital importance of the endowment to the on-
going success and continuing growth of the Insti-
tute. It also set a new standard for financial
support for alumni and friends of the half-
century-old institution at the same time it
laid the groundwork for the next 75 years
and the next $116 million of endow-
ment growth.
— Michael Dorsey
WPI's Endowment: 1865 to 1992 (in millions)
Methods for reporting the value of the WPI endowment have varied over the years.
The values used in this graph for the years 1953 to 1992 are market values. The
figures for the years 1936 to 1952 are book values. The values for the years prior
to 1936 were taken from a graph in Herbert Taylor's Seventy Years of the
Worcester Polytechnic Institute and are most likely book values.
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
1865 1870 1875 1880 1885 1890 1895 1900 1905 1910 1915 1920 1925 1930 1935 1940 1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1992
WPI Journal
29
William F. McCarron,
left, and James R.
Buchholz of Prime,
Buchholz & Associates
Inc., which serves the
Institute as an inde-
pendent endowment
management
consultant.
than 3,000 institutions of higher education. Like other col-
leges and university divisions that specialize in science and
engineering, WPI has higher operating expenses than most
liberal arts colleges due to the high cost of buying and
maintaining the state-of-the-art laboratory and computer
equipment needed to teach students and conduct research
in technical disciplines.
Until recently, the spending rule was applied only to
board-designated endowment. But in 1992 the administra-
tion recommended — and the trustees approved — applying
the rule also to the true endowment, where it can legally
do so. When donors stipulate that all income from their
gifts be spent for specified purposes, the trustees have
no choice but to comply. Only about 2 percent of the re-
stricted endowment is covered by such stipulations, Gailey
says. Over time, he notes, inflation eats away at those
funds, diminishing their purchasing power. Because it is
based on the need to account first for inflation, the spend-
ing rule will now help preserve the real value of the remain-
der of the true endowment over time.
Formalizing the spending rule and diversifying the
management of the endowment were important first
steps toward a comprehensive strategy for growing the
endowment in a sound and secure manner. The stage for
the next move down that path was set in the late 1970s and
early 1980s. As the endowment enjoyed a steady rate of
growth, consideration was given to the idea of separating
its management from the other duties of the Budget and
Finance Committee. With the increasing size of the endow-
ment (see graph, page 29) and the growing complexity of
the field of financial management, it was becoming clear
that the endowment required more time, attention and in-
put— and from a wider circle of people.
For while the creation of the Budget and Finance Com-
mittee had, in theory, spread the responsibility for super-
vising the endowment management over a reasonably
large team, in reality that oversight responsibility still
generally defaulted to just two people: Hossack and David
E. Lloyd (then the Institute's treasurer), the two men who
had the greatest interest in — and accountability for — the
endowment.
By the mid-1980s, when the Campaign for Excellence,
the Institute's most recent fund-raising drive, was
launched, the idea of creating a separate entity to over-
see the investment of endowment funds had earned the
general support of the board, of the Institute's new presi-
dent, Jon C. Strauss, and of Ribeiro, its newly installed
treasurer and vice president for business affairs.
Strauss had been a chief financial officer at the Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania and at the University of Southern Cali-
fornia at Los Angeles. When he came to WPI in 1985 he had
a deep understanding of the role endowment plays in the
long-term welfare of a college or university. Ribeiro, who
had worked with endowment-like funds at several non-
profit organizations in Worcester, also held strong views
on the importance of managing the investment process.
While Hossack, Strauss and Ribeiro were not always in
accord concerning technical aspects of investing, they
shared a passionate belief in the importance of protecting
the endowment from erosion by inflation.
In 1986 the Board of Trustees created the Investment
Committee — separate from Budget and Finance — to have
fiduciary oversight over the management of endowment
funds. Hossack served as its chairman until September
1992, when he turned the reins over to F. William Marshall
Jr. and assumed the post of vice chairman.
As the Campaign for Excellence concluded on Nov. 11,
1990, adding about $15.4 million of its $63.7 million total
to the endowment, Gailey, in consultation with the Invest-
ment Committee and Strauss, was deeply engrossed in the
30
Winter 1993
110
100
g 90
9 80
SS 70
60
work of writing a policy that established clear investment
objectives and goals for WPI.
In separate interviews, Hossack, Strauss, Ribeiro and
Gailey expressed similar sentiments about endowment
management, sentiments that are reflected in the policy
Gailey drafted. All noted that preserving the endowment's
purchasing power is essential. But they also stressed the
need to take more risks to produce a better return on
endowment investments.
Strauss, who calls a strategy that encompasses both
objectives "prudently aggressive," believes that the signifi-
cant growth of the endowment during the 1980s (see graph
below) may have created a false sense of security. "If you
see that we've got a $1 18 million endowment today and
compare it to the $50 million endowment we had just 10
years ago it looks pretty dramatic," he says. "But when you
look at it in the context of an operation of our size, with a
$75 million operating budget and a $150 million physical
plant, it doesn't seem all that large." It is also important,
Strauss notes, to compare WPI's endowment to those of
other high-quality colleges and universities (see table).
A fundamental issue that faced Gailey and the Invest-
ment Committee as the policy was being drafted was how
much of the endowment should be invested in three broad
classes of assets: equities (stocks), fixed-income instru-
ments (bonds and U.S. treasuries, for example), and spe-
cialized investments (such as real estate and venture
capital). The resulting investment equation, they knew,
would have to meet Strauss' prudently aggressive test.
The members of the Investment Committee decided
the Institute would need a disinterested advisor if it were
to effectively monitor and hone this and other investment
practices and strategies. They realized that for the most
part, the outside managers then employed to manage en-
dowment assets could not act in that capacity, since some
were also responsible for investing part of the WPI portfo-
lio, while others were hired solely to provide comparative
reports on the performance of the various managers.
Growth of WPI's Endowment,
Decade by Decade: 1953 to 1992
50
1953-62
1963-72
1973-82
1983-92
Endowment Growth
1975 to 1990
for WPI and 12 Other Private Colleges and Universities
Market Value of Endowment
(in millions)
1975 1980 1985 1990
Liberal Arts Colleges
Bowdoin 39.1 49.9 94.8 151.7
Bucknell 28.0 37.5 62.2 98.2
Colgate 23.8 34.5 69.8 136.0
Middlebury 31.0 62.0 128.4 227.8
Mt. Holyoke 41.4 58.2 96.8 180.0
Trinity 29.7 43.0 74.1 137.4
Engineering and Science Institutions
Caltech 142.1 ....198.4 275.9.
Carnegie-Mellon ...103.4 ....119.2 193.5.
Lehigh 53.2 61.9 130.1 .
Rensselaer 78.2 93.6 144.6.
Rochester Institute
of Technology 63.1 59.5 91.2 165.8
Rice 187.1 ... 342.1 609.3 ..1,068.6
WPI 25.2 ....38.1 64.9 ....98.3
Source: Council for Financial Aid to Education
.467.0
.299.2
.260.4
.230.2
One exception was the firm of Prime, Buchholz & Asso-
ciates Inc. of Portsmouth, N.H. Prime, Buchholz was then
providing quarterly reports to the Institute on the perfor-
mance of its endowment investments. Because of the
company's expertise and experience with college endow-
ments, WPI in the spring of 1991 chose the firm to act as
its independent endowment management consultant.
With a staff of six professionals, Prime, Buchholz is a
small, highly focused specialist. Now in its fifth year, the
firm is a consultant to 48 nonprofit institutions that col-
lectively hold more than $3 billion in assets; 60 percent of
the firm's revenue is derived from its work for colleges and
universities. Founders Jon L. Prime and James R. Buchholz
are former university chief financial officers; each, in fact,
once served as the CFO at Rochester Institute of Technol-
ogy. Prime was also vice president of Swarthmore College
and St. Louis University, while Buchholz is former vice
chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis and vice
president of the University of Missouri System.
"There's been an evolution in the history of the way
boards have managed endowments," Buchholz says. "Many
years ago they were primarily focused on the maintenance
of nominal value. But as inflation started ravaging institu-
tions in the '60s, '70s and '80s, they became more and more
interested in the maintenance of the real dollar values."
Buchholz says there wasn't much known about the per-
formance of endowment funds in higher education until the
mid-1980s when the first substantive report on the subject,
Improving Endowment Management, was published by the
Association of Governing Boards. Jon Prime was a principal
contributor to that study, which measured the endowment
performance, over five years, of 23 sample institutions and
WPI Journal
31
then compared those figures with national averages for col-
leges and universities.
The study found considerable variation in performance
among the institutions studied. When the authors dug
deeper to find the causes of that variation, they discovered
that the better-performing endowments were "more disci-
plined, more systematic — they worked harder at it,"
Buchholz says. The authors listed six major characteristics
that distinguished the more successful funds. At those in-
stitutions, the fiduciaries had
• articulated what they were trying to accomplish and writ-
ten down their objectives.
• set a spending rate that took into account the need to
maintain the purchasing power of the fund.
• decided how much volatility they were comfortable with.
• looked at historic rates of return for different classes of
assets and decided how much of their funds would be al-
located to each.
• chosen managers only after they'd decided on asset allo-
cation, and selected those managers based on excellence,
not on historic affiliation or proximity to the institution.
• and measured progress toward their own objectives and
compared their performance to that of other institutions
doing similar things with their investments.
An endowment says an institution "is here to stay,"
says former WPI treasurer Joaquim Ribeiro '58.
Providing a Framework for Investing
Editor's Note: On May 15, 1991, the Board of Trustees approved a formal policy to guide the In-
stitute in investing the assets that collectively make up the endowment. The board had previ-
ously passed a separate policy providing guidance on considering social concerns in making
investments. Both policies are reprinted here in their entirety.
Investment Policy
By resolution, the Board of Trustees of
Worcester Polytechnic Institute, on recom-
mendation of the Investment Committee,
has adopted the following investment objec-
tives for the Institute's endowment:
Investment Objective
Recognizing the significance of the Insti-
tute's endowment in providing a critical
margin of financial support for its long-term
academic programs and general operation,
the Board of Trustees assigns a high priority
to the productive management of endow-
ment assets. As a minimum, it is the objec-
tive of the Institute to preserve the real
principal value of its endowment. It is hoped
that prudent investment management and
continuing development efforts will enhance
growth beyond this minimum objective.
The endowment is to be managed for
total return, with a stated percentage of to-
tal market value used annually towards the
Institute's budget. Such a policy will allow
for the greatest investment flexibility, and
for growth over the long term of the endow-
ment's contribution to the Institute's operations.
Asset Allocation and Spending Policy
As the maintenance of the endowment value
in both real and nominal terms is best ac-
complished by a significant equity alloca-
tion in the overall portfolio, it is expected
that the long-term asset allocation of the en-
dowment will be approximately 60 percent
equity, 35 percent fixed-income, and 5 per-
cent specialized investments. The Invest-
ment Committee may authorize asset allo-
cation as deemed prudent. It is recognized,
however, that variation from the long-term
policy reducing equity exposure can be det-
rimental to the university's long-term objec-
tives of spending and endowment growth.
The spending level from endowment
assets is critical to the long-term mainte-
nance of real endowment value. Therefore,
the Institute adopted a policy of spending
5.5 percent of the average unit market
value at close (June 30) for the previous
two fiscal years. Such a policy allows for
reasonable predictability of income avail-
able for current operations; allows for a
gradual, steady growth of the endowment's
support of the Institute's operation; and
minimizes the probability of invading en-
dowment principal over the long term.
As a general objective, the Investment
Committee expects this spending rule to
be funded by no less than 85 percent from
earnings. Therefore, the sale of securities
will not be necessary for more than 15 per-
cent of the spending rule.
32
Winter 1993
Investment Committee chair William F. Marshall is
helping chart a course for the endowment's future.
That was precisely the kind of methodical approach
Gailey had outlined in the Institute's new policy statement
(see box below). The statement was adopted by the trust-
ees in May 1991, shortly before Prime, Buchholz came on
board as an independent consultant. Since then, the firm,
along with the Investment Committee and the administra-
tion, has been working to implement the policy.
Over the long term, the policy calls for the allocation of
60 percent of the endowment assets in equities, 35 percent
in fixed-income vehicles and 5 percent in specialized in-
vestments. The Investment Committee has been working
to realign existing endowment investments to meet those
goals. At the end of 1992, the endowment was about 54 per-
cent invested in the equity sector, 40 percent in the fixed-
income sector and 6 percent in specialized investments.
Each broad asset class can be further divided into a
number of investment categories, all of which have associ-
ated risks and potential for return. "There's no single for-
mula for spreading assets among different classes — one
guaranteed to eliminate risk and produce high returns,"
Gailey says. "But like any investor, WPI, by understanding
its own tolerance for risk, applying judgment and paying
attention to historic performance trends, can make in-
formed decisions."
Investment Management Evaluation
The Investment Committee is authorized to
engage investment managers for the direct
management of the Institute's endowment
assets. By such action, the board expects
to acquire expertise in investment manage-
ment, which will benefit the Institute's long-
term endowment growth. Secondarily, such
delegation will provide for continuity in en-
dowment management despite periodic
personnel changes in board or Investment
Committee composition, which will enable
emphasis upon long-term objectives rather
than short-term or ad-hoc decisions.
The investment managers will have dis-
cretion with regard to individual asset se-
lection, although portfolio variability of
return should be minimized through pru-
dent diversification, both among individual
assets and by asset class. The Investment
Committee will review the investment
manager's time-weighted returns vs. stock
and investment style. Over a typical market
cycle of three to five years, the investment
manager is expected to outperform the
broad market indices (i.e., S&P 500, Shear-
son Lehman Government/Corporate Bond
Index, etc.) and exceed the median of com-
parable investment universes. Investment
performance data will be provided to the
Investment Committee through quarterly
reports and meetings with the invest-
ment manager as deemed necessary.
Policy on Investments
and Social Concerns
The investment of institutional funds to
reflect social, moral or political interests
has become an issue of widespread con-
cern throughout the United States. Uni-
versities, in particular, have struggled
with the question of what is appropriate
in this regard while still recognizing their
basic long-term responsibilities as educa-
tional institutions. Answers are not easy;
the whole subject is complex and highly
controversial. Summarized below is a
statement of policy on this issue:
1. Worcester Polytechnic Institute,
through its Board of Trustees, has fidu-
ciary responsibility for the assets of the
Institute and the investment of Institute
funds. It has been, and remains, policy
that this fiduciary responsibility is best
satisfied by investing funds to maximize
their total return and then employing this
return to promote the primary purposes
of the Institute. This policy recognizes the
Institute's basic responsibility to its pri-
mary functions of teaching and research;
it also respects the special fiduciary and
ethical responsibility of the Board of Trust-
ees for prudent investment of Institute
funds for the educational purposes of the
institution.
2. The Institute, as an investor and
shareholder, supports affirmative action,
equal opportunity and similar policies re-
flecting societal values. The Institute recog-
nizes that, as an institution in society
devoted to the search for and teaching of
truth, it bears a responsibility in its invest-
ments to attempt to influence corporations
engaged in practices contrary to the self-
evident truths of individual human liberty
and/or the good of mankind.
3. Ownership of investments and action
on shareholder resolutions will be consid-
ered case by case by the President's Advi-
sory Committee on Investments and Social
Responsibilities to encourage corporate re-
sponsibility to employees, customers and
society in general. The recommendation of
the advisory committee will be transmitted
to the trustee Budget and Finance Commit-
tee for review and possible action.
WPI Journal
33
a tomorrow.
In 1992 the Investment Committee focused a good deal
of its energies on the equity category, studying different
models for selecting the best mix of stock classifications
for WP1. One characteristic they chose for sorting out po-
tential stocks is called "market cap," or the dollar value
(capitalization) of each stock. The market cap is calculated
by multiplying the number of outstanding shares by the cur-
rent market price of a single share.
Large-cap stocks — those issued by big companies —
tend to pay regular dividends and exhibit less volatility in
price. Small-cap stocks, issued by smaller "growth compa-
nies," offer investors the
greatest potential for price
appreciation, but tend to
Nplow their profits back into
the business rather than
act to the students and paying dividends. For inves-
the faculty, the endow- tors who wish t0 shield
. ,, , their money from the ups
ment is the college s most and downs o{ the vs
important asset because economy— and benefit from
., . , , . , , growth in other countries —
it provides for today and r . .. , . , „
r J international stocks offer a
ensures that there will be good alternative.
With those categories in
mind, the committee, under
chairman Marshall's direc-
tion, began a review of cur-
rent fund managers and a
search for new managers
with specialized skills in each asset class. "Historically, the
cocktail wisdom among fiduciaries was that manager selec-
tion was where 90 percent of the value was added,"
Buchholz says. "But the research now is rather conclusive
that the majority of the return is driven by asset allocation.
Of course, you have to be properly represented by invest-
ment managers capable of making the best possible day-to-
day buy-and-sell decisions, but asset allocation is going to
determine the outcome.
"The highest and best service a board can give an insti-
tution is making policy decisions — about what they're try-
ing to accomplish and which assets are going to do that for
them," Buchholz adds. "So, in a way, this kind of discipline,
which colleges have increasingly been following, enhances
the board's role and its effectiveness by getting the board
members focused on policy."
Buchholz says his firm believes that any investor's best
opportunity for long-term capital appreciation lies in hav-
ing a substantial portion of its assets invested in diversified
stocks. "Years ago diversification meant that rather than
having 10 equities in the account, you had maybe 20, 30 or
40, and that instead of 10 bonds, you had maybe 20 or 30.
Now we're talking about multiple asset classes that move
across time at different tempos, and about having multiple
economies represented in a portfolio."
Two decades ago, the U.S. economy represented about
two-thirds of the world's capitalization; now it's one-third,
he says. That change reflects the growth in other econo-
mies around the world, rather than the shrinking of the
U.S. economy. Because of that shift, American investors
are no longer insulated, as they once might have been — or
thought they were — from the impacts of world events, a
strong argument for "enhancing our concept of diversifica-
tion," Buchholz says.
"With diversification, you're seeking to put dissimilar
ingredients into an overall structure, so that when volatil-
ity strikes one asset class, it won't necessarily hit the oth-
ers. You don't want asset classes moving in the same
direction at once. If one is heading south, you want to
have another one headed north."
Investment Committee chairman Marshall, who has
been a bank president and a chief executive officer, says
he shares Buchholz's views on the importance of sound
policy and discipline. "Next to the students and the fac-
ulty," he says, "the endowment is the college's most impor-
tant asset because it provides for today and ensures that
there will be a tomorrow. People and organizations that
have contributed their money to WPI have a right to know
that it's going to be managed wisely and carefully."
The product of that wise and careful investing should
be a "performance that is considerably superior to the
major indexes," Marshall says. [WPI uses the Standard &
Poor's 500 Index to measure the performance of its equity
managers and the Lehman Brothers' Government Corporate
Intermediate Bond Index as a yardstick for its fixed-income
managers.] "I am purposely setting a high standard of per-
formance. And I know the committee is excited about the
prospect of what that standard can mean for WPI."
Marshall has scheduled six meetings in 1993 for the
Investment Committee, though the group may well try to
squeeze in a few more, he notes. Since each meeting runs
about three hours, that represents a major commitment
of time and energy for trustees who sit on the committee,
especially those who must travel to Worcester from some
distance. It also represents a financial commitment, since
WPI does not reimburse its trustees for their time and
travel expenses.
Marshall, an alumnus of Washington University who
became involved with WPI when he was president and
chief executive officer of Shawmut Worcester County
Bank, says, "I believe strongly that education is our future.
So this is an opportunity for me to make a contribution by
helping an outstanding educational institution."
That's a common sentiment among the trustees with
which he works, Buchholz says. "The intent of these
boards is to do good — to add value," he notes. "What has
become evident in the last 15 or 20 years is that those that
are successful in the area of investments rely on some-
thing more than just the intent to do good. It's increasingly
apparent that there's a discipline they can follow that will
enhance the probability of long-term success. That's the
track WPI is on."
A former newspaper editor, Diane Benison has written sev-
eral articles for the Journal. Her most recent stories explored
the world of total quality management.
34
Winter 1993
INPUT
The Endowment: Some Cold, Hard Facts
While it is gratifying to see the
rapid growth of the WPI endow-
ment— particularly in the past
two decades — and to have played a role in
that success during the most recent decade,
there are several points I'd encourage read-
ers of this magazine to keep in mind:
First: It's dangerous to measure one's
progress against oneself. For example, our
$118 million endowment, compared solely
to its value in times past, might suggest
that WPI is rich. But it is essential that we
index that value against the endowments
of peer institutions with whom we com-
pete for students (see table).
Prospective students — and their par-
ents— have become considerably more
discerning over the years. There was a
time when most colleges, including WPI,
attracted students from within a relatively
small radius of their campuses. Transpor-
tation was a more important limiting crite-
rion than creature comforts (read campus
center, athletic/exercise facilities, modern
residence halls, and so on).
Today, what most people educated in
that era would call "frills" figure more
prominently in the attractiveness equa-
tion. And for all but a relative handful of
students, WPI is, in fact, a "home away
from home." (Something on the order of 5
percent of our students commute these
days.) Building and operating such facili-
ties places a growing burden on our oper-
ating budget and depends mightily on in-
come earned through endowment — espe-
cially unrestricted endowment.
Second: It is common knowledge that his-
torically, most engineering and science
students have come from families with
modest financial resources. In generations
past, this often meant children of indus-
trial workers— skilled and unskilled. More
often than not, many of those parents had
little or no college education.
While the level of formal education
possessed by our WPI parents is far
greater today than it was a generation ago
(virtually all are college educated; nearly a
fifth of WPI's current freshmen have par-
ents who are school
teachers), their relative
financial position is un-
changed. What all this
translates into is that
today's students must
acquire increasing levels
of "outside" financial
support if they are to
come here — or to an
institution like WPI.
Indeed, virtually all
private engineering and
science institutions
(Cooper Union and Rice
University are notable
exceptions, with both
offering "free" or sub-
stantially reduced tuition
due to the scale of their
endowments) find that
about seven out of every 10 of their stu-
dents require aid — and lots of it! To put this
issue in a context we can all understand, it
costs WPI on the order of $10 million in
financial aid to support its current under-
graduate population.
If that cost were to be met strictly with
earned endowment income (while still
protecting the endowment principle from
erosion by inflation), we would need an
endowment on the order of $150 million
right now. But that, of course, would also
mean that anything else we did — building
or substantially modifying facilities, start-
ing new programs, enhancing maintenance
allocations (much needed) — would have to
come from on-going, pervasive fund rais-
ing. So, unless there is a marked change in
the mix of high-need to no- or little-need
candidates seeking a science and engineer-
ing education and who could be attracted
to WPI, our resource base is going to be
pressed to more than its limit.
Third: The maintenance of currency in
science and engineering programs is a very
expensive business. And while the same
can be said for medical education, a will-
ingness to pay for a high-quality private
undergraduate education is invariably bal-
The WPI Endowment
A Comparison to Representative,
Principally Science and Technology Institutions
Endowment
(in millions}
Total
Enrollment
Endowment
Per Student
(in thousands)
Caltech
546
1,861
293
Carnegie-Mellon
313
7,261
43
Harvey Mudd
77
578
133
Lehigh
279
6,732
41
MIT
...1,442
9,628
150
RPI
237
6,614
36
Rice
...1,140
4,239
269
Stevens
47
3,114
15
WPI
107
....3,902
27
Source: Voluntary Support for Higher Education 199
Council for Aid to Education
',
anced against the debt one must acquire
to obtain it and one's ability to pay that
debt back with undue pain. It is clear that
the realized (or perceived) material gains
from careers in science and technology do
not match those of careers in medicine.
The way we go about the business of
educating scientists and engineers must be
examined with an eye to cost containment.
Like the overwhelming majority of our
nation's hospitals, too many technical col-
leges and engineering and science colleges
within universities are headed for financial
ruin. We must apply far more ingenuity to
tackling this issue than has been demon-
strated in the last 20 years.
How we deliver our science and engi-
neering programs must become as impor-
tant an exercise as fund raising for them
has been these past several years. The
question is how to do it in a way that will
leave these programs as the world's
pacesetters — a position they've enjoyed
for four decades.
Believe me — WPI has a long way to go
before it can claim to be "rich."
— Donald F. Berth '57
Berth is vice president for university relations.
WPI Journal 35
FINAL WORD
The Rewards are Great—
and Immediate—
for Town Manager Norton Bonaparte
I like the idea of
being able to
make things hap-
pen for the public
good," says Norton
N. Bonaparte Jr. 75,
town manager in
Glenarden, Md., who
says he discovered
his passion for public administration while
a civil engineering student at WPI. "My
studies were focused on urban planning,"
he says. "But 1 soon discovered it was the
urban environment — not planning — that
piqued my interest."
Deciding to follow a career in public
administration, Bonaparte earned his
M.RA. at the Cornell University School of
Business. Early on he worked in Washing-
ton, D.C., on an internship at the Interna-
tional City Management Association. For
four years he was an administrative assis-
tant in the office of the city manager in
Grand Rapids, Mich. And in 1988 he was
named town manager in Glenarden. He
says it was the right move. "Every morning
when 1 wake up, I can hardly wait to get to
the office."
Bonaparte says it is the duty of a
town manager to make sure politicians'
As town manager of Glenarden, Md., Norton Bonaparte tries to take the politics
out of local government and see that the promises of elected officials are kept.
promises are kept. He says the counsel-
manager form of government evolved in
the early part of the 20th century in re-
sponse to widespread corruption at the
local government level. Today, he adds,
city or town managers are seen as people
who can take the politics out of the man-
agement of government.
"When you look at what gets a person
elected," he says, "it's everything from
giving good speeches to kissing babies
to having a firm handshake. But those
things have nothing to do with running
a government."
In Glenarden, as in many towns and
cities, the government is set up similar to
a business, Bonaparte notes. In a business,
the stockholders elect a board of directors
which, in turn, appoints a president to run
the company. In government, the elected
officials set policy and establish an agenda;
they then hire some-
one to manage the
day-to-day operations
of the government.
As town manager,
Bonaparte says he is
the chief administra-
tor of the govern-
ment. Most govern-
ment departments, including the police
and the public works department, report
to him, and it is his responsibility to pre-
pare a budget for the council's approval
and then to implement that budget
through his administration of the various
departments. In essence, he add, he is
the practical arm of local government,
and Bonaparte says he thrives on being
the muscle, helping to turn political rheto-
ric into practical reality.
Bonaparte starts flexing his muscles
daily at 8 a.m., a half hour before the
town offices open. Always on a tight
schedule, he meets frequently with
city and business leaders and citizens'
groups to address their concerns, and
attends meetings aimed at facilitating
action within the community by combin-
ing the efforts of businesses, schools and
neighborhood groups.
36
Winter 1993
Bonaparte, shown here at a town meeting with Glenarden Police Chief M.A. Lewis, left, and Mayor Marvin
Wilson, says he enjoys the opportunity his job affords him to make a real difference at the local level.
"At WPI," Bonaparte says, "I was chief
justice of the Campus Hearing Board. That
was a valuable experience, because it
taught me to listen to and take into con-
sideration the various sides of each case.
That's a lesson 1 use all the time in my job
today."
Part of his job involves overseeing the
operation of 10 town departments that are
responsible for everything from filling pot-
holes to supervising major renovations in
community buildings to maintaining town
equipment. While he spends most of his
time helping his department heads solve
problems and set goals, he also takes re-
sponsibility for seeing that the local popu-
lation is served as efficiently as possible.
"I note trends in population and try to
make certain we have enough resources
for the young and the elderly, as well as
other groups," he says. "Finding the best
ways to adjust and anticipating changes
in demographics and social trends are im-
portant concerns for a town manager."
Because much of his time is spent
speaking and writing, Bonaparte says the
most important skills a town manager can
have are the ability to get along with
people and to communicate well through
the spoken and the written word. An un-
derstanding of mathematics is also use-
ful for deciphering computer data, and
a knowledge of politics can be helpful,
although the post, itself, he notes, is tech-
nically nonpolitical.
Bonaparte says he likes to believe what
he does each day makes a difference. The
advantage of working at the local level, he
notes, is that results can be seen right
away. If the streets get plowed, a town
manager is a hero. If they don't, he or she
must have a thick skin, because the phone
will ring off the hook. "Unfortunately," he
says, "people may not tell you you're doing
a good job, but they'll let you know right
off the bat if they think you aren't."
Although his decisions may, on occa-
sion, invite criticism, Bonaparte enjoys
working in local government because it
is the closest a public servant can get to
the people. "It's my goal to make things
better," he says. "I've worked on the state
and federal levels and the local level is the
most immediately rewarding."
Bonaparte unabashedly infects his staff
with his enthusiasm for professionalism. "I
tell them our role is to serve, but not as
servants," he says. "I explain that while it
is said residents pay our salaries, I prefer
to focus on the fact that they pay us to
perform services. Our residents are our
customers, and they want things to work
properly."
Before deciding to accept the town
manager's post, Bonaparte drove around
Glenarden on weekends assessing the resi-
dents' attitudes about their town. "I could
tell people took great pride in the area
by the way they kept up their yards and
houses. It made me want to become a
part of it," he says.
Glenarden, once strictly residential,
now has several commercial areas. "We
stand for quality of service to the resi-
dents, no matter how the character of the
town changes," Bonaparte says. "Glen-
arden is small, but has the same problems
as larger municipalities because it is part
of the Washington metropolitan area. So
far, the town has met change well. I take
great pride in that."
— Ruth Trask
v;?-4
- fS'S'
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WPI Journal
VOLUME XCVI NO. 2 SPRING 1993
5
19
25
CONTENTS
The Whole World in Their Hands Diane Benison
In an increasingly seamless world, it's no longer enough to be
a competent professional; one must also be a true citizen of
the world. Here's how WPI is giving tomorrow's engineers,
scientists and managers a global perspective.
The United Nations of WPI
While the Institute's students travel the globe to learn about other
cultures, special programs on campus are bringing the world to
WPI. So check your passport and fasten your seat belt as we tour
the Cultural Festival and the African Marketplace.
The Law of the Frontier Michael Dorsey
Patent law is dull, right? Not according to WPI alumni who work
in what's been called the hottest area of legal practice today.
What's more, an engineering or science degree is the ideal start
for this challenging and creative profession.
DEPARTMENTS
2 Input: Globalization: The Next Big Wave. Ronald L. Zarrella 71
39 Investigations: Playing Matchmaker to Methane. Michael Dorsey
40 Final Word: Powering Up the Developing World. Ruth Trash
Front Coven Global Program Officer Hossein Hakim, second from left, with, from left,
Naomi E. Carnegie '93, Jennifer L. Greenhalgh '94 and Michael A. Kaliski '93. Carnegie
completed an Interactive Qualifying Project in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Greenhalgh did an
IQP in Bangkok; Kaliski did his IQP in Venice. The photo was taken inside the Mapparium,
a 30-foot stained glass globe at the Boston headquarters of the Christian Science Publish-
ing Society. The globe was completed in 1935 and shows the world as it looked then. Story
on page 5. Photo by Janet Woodcock. Opposite: Pakamas Tongcharoensirikul, a graduate
student in chemistry, performs a traditional Thai dance known as the Srinual during WPI's
1993 Cultural Festival. More photos begin on page 19. Photo by Janet Woodcock. Back
Cover More than 5,000 graduates and their guests gathered on the Quadrangle for WPI's
125th Commencement on May 22. The theme of this year's ceremony was "Engineering and
Science Education; A Future Agenda." Photo by Michael Dorsey.
. Dorsey • Alumni News Editor, Ruth S. Trask • Writers, Diane Benison, Bonnie Gelbwasser and Neil Norum • Designer, Carol Hoyle Ballard
ini Publications Committee: Samuel Mencow '37, chairman • Paul J. Cleary 71 • James S. Demetry '58 • Judith Donahue SIM '82
Staff of the WPI Journal: Editor, Michael W. I
• Photographer, Janet Woodcock • Alumni 1
• William J. Firla Jr. '60 • William R. Grogan '46 • Carl A. Keyser '39 • Robert C. Labonte '54 • Roger N. Perry Jr. '45 • Harlan B. Williams '50 • The WPIJoumal GSSN 0148-6128)
is published quarterly for the WPI Alumni Association by the Office of University Relations. Second class postage paid at Worcester, MA, and additional mailing offices.
Printed by The Lane Press, Burlington, Vt. Printed in the U.S.A.
Diverse views presented in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or official WPI policies. We welcome letters to the editor. Address correspondence
to the Editor, WPI Journal, WPI, 100 Institute Road, Worcester, MA 01609-2280. Phone: (508) 831-5609, FAX: (508) 831-5604, Electronic mail (Internet): mwdorsey@wpi.wpi.edu.
Postmaster: If undeliverable, please send form 3579 to the address above. Do not return publication. Entire contents ®1993, Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
INPUT
Globalization: The Next Big Wave
By Ronald L. Zarrella 71
It's difficult to pick up a busi-
ness or economic journal
these days without reading
something about the manage-
ment of global marketing, global
technology, global manufacturing
or global finance. Globalization
has joined total quality manage-
ment as one of the most written
about and talked about subjects
in American business and indus-
try. And as with TQM, successful
globalization of business activi-
ties will be a fundamental ele-
ment of competitive survival
for the world's major industrial
companies in the 1990s.
To appreciate why this is so,
one need only look at America's
changing economic role in the
world. In constant dollar terms,
the world's economy, expressed
as total Gross Domestic Product,
was $2 trillion in 1970; 20 years later, it was
$15.7 trillion. In 1970, the U.S. economy
was $1 trillion, fully half of the world's
Gross Domestic Product. By 1990
it had dropped to a third of the world
economy, or $5.4 trillion — still an enor-
mous number, but with considerably less
impact than it had two decades ago.
What has happened to Japan, our larg-
est economic competitor? In 1970 its $200
billion economy made up 10 percent of
world GDP. But by 1990, it had grown to
$3.2 trillion, exceeding 20 percent of world
GDP and doubling its economic influence.
The world's third largest economy belongs
to Germany. Somewhat surprisingly, its
relative economic strength remained
fairly constant over that same 20-year
period, constituting around 10 percent
of world GDP.
Another measure of relative economic
strength is exports. This has been an area
of strength for the U.S., where exports
grew from 4 percent of GDP in 1970 to over
7 percent of GDP ($400 billion) in 1990.
Japan's exports remained fairly constant at
around 9 percent of GDP over that 20-year
period (though they actually dropped from
a high of 11 percent of GDP in 1980); they
reached about $300 billion in 1990. Ger-
many is the champion exporter, with 25
percent of GDP ($410 million) in 1990. Of
course, net exports paint a much different
picture, with the U.S. running a significant
negative balance of trade over the last
decade, and Japan and Germany running
large, positive balances.
The last measure of relative economic
strength I'd like to talk about is productiv-
ity. If we use Gross Domestic Product per
worker as our measure, the
U.S. is still the most productive
nation in the world. In 1990 we
produced $50,000 of GDP for
every worker, compared to
$30,000 in Japan and only
$15,000 in Germany. But our
enormously productive farming
industry and our large financial
and retail institutions distort
this measure in our favor. If we
look just at manufacturing pro-
ductivity, the Germans are 10
percent more productive than
we are and the Japanese are 20
percent more productive. In fact,
the Japanese rate of productivity
improvement is three times what
ours is per year, although that
gap is narrowing.
America is still the world's
largest economic force and the
world's largest market. We're an
enormously productive people; we just
don't have the dominance we had 20 years
ago. We have to learn to play on equal
terms with our economic competitors.
We're no longer the only game in town.
Many of us don't like that, but those of us
who learn to do business in this new inter-
national economic environment will be the
winners of the next decade.
Perhaps the most telling measure of
industrial globalization is the percentage
of revenue derived from outside the home
country. For America's 100 largest indus-
trial companies, the percentage of non-
U.S. revenues grew from 14 percent in
1970 to almost 40 percent in 1990. For
Japan's largest companies, the percentage
is 57 percent; for Germany's, it is 69 per-
cent. Furthermore, for U.S. companies,
those revenues have shifted from being
SPRING 1993
derived largely from exports to being de-
rived largely from products manufactured
outside the country.
This last phenomenon is supported by
a 15-fold increase in investment by U.S.
companies manufacturing outside the U.S.
In the same period, however, there has
been a 30-fold increase in foreign manu-
facturing investment in the U.S. Both mea-
sures accelerated dramatically in the last
half of the 1980s.
Consider Bausch & Lomb. As late as
1985, less than 20 percent of our revenues
were derived from businesses outside the
U.S. In 1992, 51 percent of our $1.8 billion
in revenues came from outside the U.S. In
1985, 7 percent of our profit was derived
outside the U.S.; in 1992, more than 60 per-
cent was. In 1985, more than 80 percent of
our products sold outside the U.S. were
exported from the U.S.; in 1992, 80 percent
of our products sold outside the U.S. were
made outside the U.S.
This shift in the center of gravity of U.S.
corporations has had significant implica-
tions for the way those corporations are
organized and operated and for the kind of
people who operate them. "Think globally,
act locally" is today's catch phrase for or-
ganizational theory, but how to do that
effectively is the subject of much debate
and research. It is dependent on many fac-
tors, like the uniformity of products, the
nature and cost of technology develop-
ment, the location of core competencies
and, probably most important, the corpo-
rate cultures involved.
A few traditional models define both
ends of the organizational spectrum. On
one end, there is the "global company." In
the global company, functions — finance,
marketing, manufacturing, product devel-
opment and so on — are managed on a
worldwide basis. Sales is the only real local
function. Communications are simple: they
flow out from the center and back into the
center. The decision chain is also simple,
with all key strategic decisions being made
at the center. Companies organize this way
because it is efficient.
Companies that have traditionally orga-
nized globally are those that have a high
technology content, that are very capital
intensive, or that have strong global brand
names. Japanese companies are typically
organized globally, as are the giant U.S.
pharmaceutical companies. Coca-Cola is
organized globally.
The other end of the organizational
spectrum is the multinational. A multina-
tional is organized around strong, indepen-
dent, self-contained country units. The
country general manager is the strongest
executive in the corporation. Marketing,
manufacturing, product development and
finance are all done at the country level.
The role of the corporate center is, simplis-
tically, to collect the money and change
the country management when there's no
money to collect.
Companies organize this way because it
puts decisions closest to the customer and
best meets the needs of the local market.
Many of America's great consumer pack-
aged-goods companies and food compa-
nies are organized as multinationals.
Unilever is a good example.
Harvard Business School professors
Christopher Bartlet and Sumantra Ghoshol
have developed the concept of the "trans-
national company," which they described
in an important book called Managing
Across Borders. In a transnational com-
pany, there is no real home country men-
tality. A transnational tries to achieve all
the efficiency and synergy of a global com-
pany, with all the local responsiveness of
a multinational. The structure fits with the
corporate culture, but in a transnational,
structure is less important than the operat-
ing mechanisms put into place to make the
organization run.
A transnational makes the best use of
its core competencies regardless of where
in the world they are located. In a trans-
national, employees recognize that, while
they are paid to perform a spe-
cific job in a specific location,
they are part of a global enter-
prise. They have an obligation
to learn from and contribute to
that global enterprise, so they
are better able to perform their
specific jobs in their specific
locations. The transnational
creates an environment of
continuous global learning.
It creates a series of networks
within the organization that do
the work of the organization.
Advances in communica-
tions have made transnational
companies possible; in fact,
advanced communications are
a critical requirement for them
to work effectively. Today,
relevant information is being
made available on a real-time
basis — and deeper into these
organizations than ever before
possible. Teleconferencing,
videoconferencing and local-
area networks interconnected on a world-
wide basis are now being used widely,
avoiding the need for large groups of
people to jump on planes in order to meet
face to face.
Networks of functional managers have
worldwide information available to them.
Product managers have market research
on new and existing products from a num-
ber of different countries; marketing man-
agers have competitive information avail-
able on global competitors; financial man-
agers can coordinate currency hedges in
multiple locations to protect a corporate
balance sheet line item.
The strength of these communication
technologies really comes into play in glo-
bal product development. Television ad-
vertisements for the Ford Escort trumpet
it as the "world car." Parts of it are manu-
factured and assembled in countries
around the world, with final assembly in
the U.S. At Bausch & Lomb, we've devel-
oped similar "world products" by learning
to meet local market needs from a com-
mon technical platform.
We make a product called Interplak.
The electromechanical design for this
home plaque-removal device is done in
the U.S.; the ergonomic design is done
in Japan. The batteries are supplied from
Japan, the motors are built in the People's
Republic of China, the charging base is
made in Hong Kong, the precision-molded
plastic pieces are manufactured in Atlanta,
Bausch & Lomb's Interplak is a true world product,
built from parts made around the world and modified
to meet the needs of customers in 30 countries.
WPI JOURNAL
the brush head is made in Ohio, and the
final assembly is done in Mexico.
To meet local, retail and consumer
needs in 30 countries around the world,
there are 50 variations of the same basic
Interplak design. There are marketing man-
agers, product design engineers, cost ana-
lysts and manufacturing managers in nine
locations, all of whom work on product
development for these products. Design
and specifications are computerized at the
design locations and electronically trans-
mitted to the manufacturing sites for the
various parts and assemblies around the
world. When it is necessary to change a
specification, the worldwide file can be
updated on a real-time basis.
There is a network of 20 people who
bring new products in this category to
market, managing the process from idea
generation to product launch. They meet
face to face maybe twice per year. All the
work gets done on an interconnected in-
formation network with regular use of
video conferencing.
Here's another example. Ten years ago
Bausch & Lomb's primary business was
the manufacture of contact lenses, and
that is still an important business for us
today. The typical age profile of a contact
lens wearer is 18 to 35. In the 35 to 40 age
range, presbyopia starts to set in and a
contact lens wearer needs bifocals. There
really is no effective mass-market bifocal
contact lens; the known technology simply
doesn't work. As a result, a percentage of
our market every year switches to wearing
spectacle bifocals.
The technology does exist to individu-
ally manufacture a bifocal contact lens for
a specific eye. On the surface, this is not a
particularly interesting business for a com-
pany that makes millions of contact lenses
at very low cost. The many design param-
eters that need to be taken into account in
an individually manufactured bifocal con-
tact lens result in hundreds of thousands
of variations.
But an engineer in Holland came up
with a concept that could manufacture
these individually designed lenses at a
very low cost. A doctor in Europe or the
Middle East could call an 800 number in
Ireland and access a voice-activated pro-
gram. He would then input the specific
values for the design parameters, which
he would have measured on his patient.
The digitized information would be fed
into a computer-controlled laser, a system
developed by a U.S. company working in
concert with engineers in the U.K., who, in
Making contact lenses for people ages
18 to 35 is an important part of Bausch
& Lomb's business. A way of making
individually designed bifocal contact
lenses at a reasonable cost may open
up the over 35 market for the company.
turn, worked with scientists from the Uni-
versity of Manchester. The laser would cut
the digitized design into a special polymer;
within a minute of the information being
taken from the doctor, a finished bifocal
lens would be in a package ready to be
mailed for delivery within 48 hours.
The production unit I've just described
could manufacture up to 5,000 individually
designed bifocal contact lenses a day at a
cost well within the range of financial rea-
sonableness. Four of these units, located
strategically throughout the world, could
supply worldwide market needs.
The skills required to succeed in this
kind of environment have definite implica-
tions for scientific and engineering educa-
tion. The hardware — the core science and
engineering curricula and the way it is
taught — is in place and is effective. Uni-
versity-level education in science and
engineering in this country is widely re-
garded as the best in the world. The only
criticism I have of the hardware is the lack
of appropriate attention to the concepts
and application of total quality manage-
ment, although a groundswell is beginning
to develop for additions to the curricula in
this area.
The software — the nonscience-based
classroom work and the experience out-
side the classroom — is a different matter.
The fostering of acceptance and awareness
of cultural diversity (further than that, the
development of an intense, intellectual
curiosity about cultural diversity) is a
necessity in the educational program. But
it is not really evident on college campuses
today; in fact, the reverse seems to be true.
There has to be a recognition that
because something is different, it's not
necessarily better or worse — it's simply
different. This skill doesn't come as natu-
rally to us as it does to Europeans, nor do
we work as hard at it as the Japanese. A
Japanese company wouldn't think of send-
ing executives to America to negotiate a
business deal if they didn't speak English.
Nor would those executives ask to have
dinner at a sushi bar if they were with their
American counterparts.
Yet American language capability is
notoriously bad. We too often try to sell
products designed only for U.S. markets,
and we try to force our values and life-
styles onto our international counterparts.
There are many ways a college or uni-
versity can encourage cultural diversity
and perspective: language studies, specific
cultural studies, increasing the number of
foreign students, hiring international schol-
ars, serving international food and creating
diverse cultural support systems. All of
these can work with the support and com-
mitment of the leadership and the faculty.
WPI is uniquely positioned to provide
national leadership in global science and
engineering education. I was a senior when
the faculty approved the WPI Plan. The
guiding objective of the Plan is simple:
to educate humane technologists.
By pursuing that objective, WPI has
already put in place most of what is
needed to create successful global tech-
nologists, including the requirement that
students work on cross-functional teams
to solve problems; the requirement that
they supplement scientific studies with
studies in the humanities and social sci-
ence, including, for many, work at global
project centers; and the courses and
projects that give them the ability to
work on real problems in different cul-
tural environments.
The Plan puts WPI on the leading edge
of the wave. And I firmly believe it will be
a very big wave.
Zarrella is president of Bausch & Lomb Inc.,
a leading worldwide manufacturer of health-
care and optics products. This essay was
adapted from Zarrella's address to the WPI
Workshop on Internationalizing Science and
Engineering Education held in Waterville
Valley, N.H., in October 1992.
Spring 1993
TKe
Wk
oie
World
in Tkei^ Hand
s
By Diane Benison
hrough WPI's Global Perspective Program,
students have traveled the world to complete
professional-level projects. The program
is also building a growing base of globalization
programs and curricula here on campus.
The goal is to help students better understand
their roles as working professionals and citizens
on an ever shrinking world.
Marshall McLuhan's 1967 book,
The Medium is the Message, became
famous for its observation that,
._./ electronic interdependence recre-
ates the world in the image of a global vil-
lage." That easy to grasp word-picture had
a vividness that resonated instantly for his
readers. But more than two decades ago,
the interdependence McLuhan described
was still an abstraction for most people.
Today, the global village no longer refers
merely to the real-time connection of people
via phone, fax, modem and satellite. Now,
human society around the world is being
transformed by the melding of hundreds
of national economies into a single world
market (see Input, page 2).
Volumes have been written about the
globalization of business, technology, man-
ufacturing and finance. In 1992, Business
Week marshaled the efforts of nearly 200
reporters, editors and other staffers to pro-
duce a special issue on the global economy
and its impact on the United States. If the
U.S. is to retain its vitality as a nation and
a world-class economy, the editors con-
cluded, new ways of thinking and acting
are needed.
Part of the responsibility for changing
our ways of thinking and acting will fall to
educators. From elementary school to
graduate school, educational institutions
are grappling with the need to develop cur-
riculums and classroom experiences that
prepare students to function effectively in
a future that promises greater contact be-
tween cultures and more diversity in all
aspects of life.
Those young men and women will find
a world waiting for their skills. A recent sur-
vey by McKinsey & Co. found that most
corporate CEOs recognize the increasing
importance of international markets to the
success of their companies. These firms will
be looking for employees with the experi-
ence, skills and cultural awareness to help
them succeed internationally.
That means being able to design and
build products that will sell in diverse mar-
kets around the world and to work effec-
tively with fellow employees, consultants
and customers who live in other nations.
And it may well mean being ready to relo-
cate to corporate offices, divisions and sub-
sidiaries outside the U.S. In short, it means
that the professionals of tomorrow must be
WPI Students
Travel the Globe
WPI currently operates project centers,
project programs and exchange pro-
grams in 15 countries on four conti-
nents; new programs are added
frequently. Project centers are staffed
by full-time WPI faculty members
throughout the seven-week periods
that students are in residence.
While project programs do not have
resident WPI faculty advisors, the Insti-
tute hires local advisors and coordina-
tors to work with students. On-campus
advisors often visit project programs
briefly while students are on site.
Some project programs, such as
the one in Ireland, are conducted in
conjunction with universities with which
WPI maintains exchange programs.
Students may also do traditional year-
or semester-long exchanges with these
universities, taking courses in English
or in the language of the host country.
Some students complete a project
during their exchange.
1 Worcester Polytechnic Institute
2 Washington, D.C., Project Center
3 Ecole Polytechnique Exchange,
Montreal, Canada
4 San Francisco Project Center
more than competent engineers, scientists
and managers. They must be true citizens
of the world.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute has
been on the cutting edge of the
globalization of technological edu-
cation for two decades. Among experts
familiar with WPI and with science and engi-
neering education in the United States, the
Institute is considered the national leader.
In 1992, Maurice Harari, a nationally
known leader in international education,
was asked to evaluate the Institute's global
programs. Harari, dean emeritus at the
Center for International Education, Califor-
nia State University at Long Beach, deliv-
ered his report in January. "I have no hesita-
tion in asserting that WPI is way above the
national average for its type of institution in
terms of what it has already accomplished
in the field of global education," he wrote.
"The flexibility and innovative character
of its curriculum through the IQP, MQP, and
Humanities Sufficiency, and the flexible WPI
calendar arrangements, have contributed
greatly to the achievements of WPI to date.
Yet, its potential in global education is con-
siderable and because of its rather unique
institutional character and high quality,
WPI is very well-positioned to aspire to a
national and international leadership role
in higher education. Its interest and experi-
ence in working at the intersection of
Spring 1993
c^b
■^..np'
•^
^p
©a
0/
5 Puerto Rico Project Center
6 Ecuador Project Center
7 University of Limerick Exchange,
Limerick, Ireland
8 London Project Center
9 Ecole des Mines and
The University Marne-La-Vallee Exchange,
Paris, France
10 Catholic University Exchange,
Leuven, Belgium
11 Technical University of Darmstadt Exchange,
Darmstadt, Germany
%
12 Technical College of Munich Exchange,
Munich, Germany
13 Federal Technical University Exchange,
Zurich, Switzerland
14 Venice Project Center
15 Moscow Institute of Engineering Physics Exchange,
Moscow, Russia
16 Royal Institute of Technology Exchange,
Stockholm, Sweden
17 Bangkok Project Center
18 Hong Kong Project Center
19 Taipei Project Program
<?
I
technology, the sciences and social issues,
represent a sound and invaluable base for
yet another quantum leap forward in qual-
ity, service, innovation and international
reputation."
WPI's leadership can be measured in sev-
eral ways. For example, a recent Institute of
International Education survey of study-
abroad programs at colleges and universi-
ties, found that about 71,000 students en-
rolled in accredited U.S. institutions studied
overseas in 1989-90. Of that number, only
1.3 percent were engineering majors. During
that same period, 1 1 1 WPI students com-
pleted project work abroad. Among those
1 1 1 students were 86 engineering majors.
They represented nearly 10 percent of all
U.S. engineering students who studied over-
seas that year.
Currently, about a third of all WPI under-
graduates participate in an off-campus aca-
demic experience by the time they graduate.
The Institute's strategic plan calls for in-
creasing that to half of all undergraduates
by 1995. "I don't think that's an unrealistic
goal," says Susan Vernon-Gerstenfeld, ad-
junct associate professor of interdiscipli-
nary studies. "So far, the quality of the
students who participate has been quite
high. This is a selective program, but we're
not just taking the superstars. We're also
taking the steady, hard workers who show
real promise.
"This is not a junior year abroad pro-
gram of the kind that are common at liberal
arts colleges. It is also not an internship.
These students are not pouring coffee and
running errands. They're working on ap-
plied research that is substantive and im-
portant to the sponsoring organizations.
And, those organizations use the results of
the students' work; I think that's a critical
thing to understand."
The Institute laid the groundwork for
national leadership in global educa-
tion when it created the WPI Plan in
the early 1970s. Two elements of the Plan
have been key to the evolution of the
Institute's global program. The first is the
Interactive Qualifying Project GQP)- One of
WPI Journal
Hossein Hakim, left, and Lance Schachterle have played pivotal roles in launching
and sustaining WPI's Global Perspective Program. Schachterle helped establish the
Institute's first overseas academic endeavors. Hakim helped start the Center for
International Studies and is now WPI's Global Program Officer.
three projects required of all undergradu-
ates, the 1QP requires students to look at the
intersection of science, technology and soci-
ety. The second critical element is an aca-
demic calendar based on seven-week terms.
Lance Schachterle, associate dean of un-
dergraduate studies and chairman of the
Interdisciplinary Studies Division, says
WPI's globalization efforts occurred as a
natural, though unanticipated, outgrowth
of the Plan. "When the Plan shifted the focus
of learning at WPI from a traditional pure
course work approach to a project-based
model, the integration of learning into real-
world experiences became the basis for
earning an undergraduate degree," he says.
"It occurred first to the faculty and then
to the students that the IQP offered us an
opportunity unavailable at all other univer-
sities. Students have to complete this de-
gree requirement in any case; why couldn't
they carry it out beyond the bounds of the
campus? In fact, there seemed no reason
why this requirement couldn't be met any-
where in the world. It made a lot of sense
for students who were looking for an
opportunity to gain international experience
within their four years to do so through a
project abroad, rather than through an extra
summer or semester."
Making that idea even more attractive
was WPI's seven-week term system. In seven
weeks, a student can do significant project
work off campus without losing ground in
meeting the rigorous and extensive course
requirements typical of colleges of engineer-
ing and science. The semester system com-
mon at other engineering and science
institutions can pose more of a barrier,
Schachterle says.
Schachterle, who joined WPI in 1970 to
teach modern British literature, played a
pivotal role in launching the Institute's
globalization program more than two de-
cades ago. Though he had done his doc-
toral dissertation on Charles Dickens,
Schachterle had never been to England.
When he made plans to travel there in the
summer of 1971, WPI, which had made con-
tact with a university in London, asked him
to help pursue an exchange program with
that institution.
"That led directly to the first WPI stu-
dents carrying out any kind of academic
work overseas," he says. In addition to the
London exchange, an exchange program
was also established in Zurich during the
1973-74 academic year. The first overseas
IQPs were completed through these pro-
grams. The Institute's first resident project
center was founded in Washington, D.C.,
in 1974; a project program was launched
in San Francisco a few years later.
8
Spring 1993
Studying Culture and Computers in Switzerland
n
I hange is inevitable in a progressive
1 society. Change is constant." Ben-
^^ jamin Disraeli was referring to the
society of 1860s Britain when he wrote
those words, but most leaders in our
technological society would agree they
seem more true today.
Paul M. Szymkiewicz '93 and Steven P.
Vassallo '93 spent their junior year as ex-
change students in Switzerland, where
they took courses and completed an In-
teractive Qualifying Project titled "The
Cultural Implications of Computerization
in Swiss Banking." The students' project
explored the reciprocal relationship be-
tween culture and the implementation
of new technology.
Through personal interviews and a
survey (both completed in German), as
well as personal observations, the stu-
dents analyzed the impact of culture and
technology on the organizational and
work processes within Swiss banks. Rob-
ert E. Kinicki, associate professor and
head of the Computer Science Depart-
ment, and Lyle E. Wimmergren, associate
professor of management, were the
project advisors.
While in Switzerland, Szymkiewicz
studied computer science at the Engi-
neering School HTL in Brugge-Windisch;
Vassallo studied mechanical engineering
at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technol-
ogy in Zurich.
Vassallo prepared for the exchange by
completing a six-course Humanities Suffi-
ciency (the equivalent of a humanities mi-
nor) in German at WPI. He then continued
his studies in Germany for two months
before traveling to Zurich in August 1991.
Szymkiewicz emigrated with his family
from Warsaw to West Germany in 1986
and completed high school there. The
family moved to Worcester in 1989.
The idea for the IQP came from
Kinicki, who spent a year as a visiting pro-
fessor at the Business School in St. Gallen,
Switzerland. He observed that the Swiss
were still in the process of scrambling to
implement information technology in
their everyday lives, and that the diffi-
Paul Szymkiewicz, left, and Steven Vassallo pose before the backdrop of the Swiss
Alps. The students completed an IQP that looked at how Switzerland's unique
culture affects the way people react to new computer technology.
culties seemed rooted in Swiss culture.
"We recognized that introducing new
technology into an organization can affect
the values, norms and assumptions of the
members," says Vassallo. "We were aware
that because Switzerland has been geo-
graphically, economically and, perhaps,
emotionally isolated, the country has tradi-
tions and a culture all its own."
"We knew that Swiss banks were some of
the most technologically advanced in the
world," adds Szymkiewicz. "But we hypoth-
esized that, because of workers' cultural re-
sistance to change and the inherent differ-
ences between banking and computer sub-
cultures, the Swiss might have been reluc-
tant to accept the new computer technology.
We called this phenomenon 'cultural inertia.' "
The students created a survey geared to
the average Swiss citizen; additional ques-
tions were added for those who interact
with computers and banking as profession-
als. They found that younger respondents
were most likely to recognize the need for
technological change. Nonetheless, re-
gardless of the bankers' ages, efficiency
triumphed over tradition and technol-
ogy was accepted.
But just as important as the project's
ultimate outcome, was the profound im-
pact it had on its two designers, Vassallo
says. "As exchange students in Zurich,
we had an incredible opportunity to gen-
tly open a very closed culture and have
a look inside. Most impressive, however,
was not what we saw, but rather how
we now see."
"As Americans, as engineers, as stu-
dents—most generally speaking, as hu-
mans— we see the world in a certain
way," adds Szymkiewicz. "We evaluate
the world without ever evaluating the
lens through which we are looking. It is
only when we leave behind our old per-
ceptions and try looking through a dif-
ferent lens that we really make a shift in
the way we see the world."
—Bonne Gelbwasser
WPI Journal
Ireland became a regular destination
for student project teams in 1983 and the
first overseas project center, in London, was
inaugurated in 1987. More recently, project
programs have been established in Venice
and Bangkok (1988), Hong Kong (1989),
Taipei (1990), Puerto Rico (1991) and Ecua-
dor (1992). Today about 200 students each
year work at project centers and programs
in 18 locations in Europe, Asia, North
America and Latin America (see map,
pages 6 and 7).
The international projects program fed
on its own success, and succeeding years
saw a growing demand among students for
overseas project opportunities. At the same
time, there was a groundswell of interest in
cross-cultural issues among the faculty and
administration. In 1988, that interest culmi-
nated in the creation of the Center for Inter-
national Studies on campus. The center
sought to expand opportunities for inter-
national studies at WPI by arranging study
groups and lectures, organizing tours
abroad, and encouraging faculty to develop
and advise on-campus projects with an
international orientation. Hossein Hakim,
associate professor of electrical engineer-
ing, led the efforts to establish that center.
"Historically, international education has
meant study abroad," he says. "We now real-
ize that, at least for the U.S., study abroad
is not just a route to understanding people
in other countries. It is also a way of under-
standing and learning to cooperate with
other Americans who have come from other
parts of the world — people like myself."
An Iranian native who is now a natural-
ized U.S. citizen, Hakim had long believed
in the benefits of globalizing education. He
says he saw the center as one more way to
encourage a world perspective at WPI. But
he says he and others at WPI didn't feel it
was enough. They believed that interna-
tional issues and cross-cultural perspectives
needed to be interwoven into on-campus
courses and activities, as well.
By 1990 it was clear that WPI had the in-
terest and the capacity to take the next step
on the road to global education by making
a concerted effort to make global issues an
integral part of all aspects of a WPI educa-
tion. Hakim, Schachterle and several other
faculty members and administrators per-
suaded the Institute to establish the Global
Perspective Program. The program was
launched in 1991 with Hakim assuming
the additional responsibilities of Global
Program Officer.
"The goal of the program is to extend
WPI's commitment to global education far
beyond the international exchange and
project programs," Hakim says. "It calls for
globalizing all aspects of WPI programs —
on campus and off — by incorporating global
perspectives throughout every discipline
on campus, as well as within nonacademic
activities."
By 1991, when the Global Perspective
Program was started, WPI had a
small cadre of faculty members and
administrators who were dedicated to the
globalization of engineering and science
education. To help spread the word and
build enthusiasm among the rest of the WPI
community, Hakim organized an off-campus
workshop on internationalizing science and
engineering education in October 1992.
Forty-five faculty members, administrators,
trustees and friends attended the weekend
seminar in Waterville Valley, N.H.
An additional seminar was held on
campus in February 1993. Both meetings
examined the changing nature of national
economies, the history and present state
of "internationalization" in higher education,
and most important, the history and future
Professor John Zeugner, left, and
Phanjar Ngamtrakulpanit '93 of
Thailand look over a map of South-
east Asia. Zeugner, who directs
WPI's project programs in Asia,
helped get the first Asian program
started in Bangkok, Thailand, in 1988.
Breaking Down Barriers in Russia
In August 1992, Ronald Passerini '94,
a computer science major, turned a
nearly lifelong affection for all things
Russian into a four-month exchange in
the former Soviet Union. He was the first
WPI student to fulfill some of his degree
requirements in Russia; he was also the
first foreigner to study at the Moscow
Engineering Physics Institute (MIFT), a
prestigious, 3,500-student university.
Until recently, the institution was closed
to outsiders because its curriculum fo-
cused on fields of special interest to the
government, including atomic power
and space research.
"My interest in Russian history, lan-
guage and literature started when 1 was
about 6 and became close friends with
a boy whose family had emigrated from
Russia," Passerini says. "I became close
to his family, who invited me to share
many of their traditions and celebrations."
Passerini studied Russian for four years at
Austin Preparatory School in Reading,
Mass., and another three years at Holy
Cross College after enrolling at WPI.
Valentin Boriakoff, associate professor
of electrical and computer engineering,
was Passerini's faculty advisor. Boriakoff,
who was born and educated in Argentina
but maintains close ties to Russia, his
parents' homeland, traveled to Moscow
during the summers of 1991 and 1992 to
set up the exchange.
"Interest in computer science in Rus-
sia is very high," Passerini says. "Unfortu-
nately, there aren't that many computers
available. About 10 years ago Russia
stopped producing computers and now it
is difficult to buy them from the West be-
cause of the exchange rate."
In his IQP, titled "From the Abacus
Bead to the Photon: A History of Com-
puter Technology in Russia," Passerini in-
Back from a four-month exchange in Russia, Ronald Passerini, right, reviews
his experiences with his faculty advisor, Professor Valentin Boriakoff.
vestigated the causes of the decline in the
use of computers. "He determined that a
wrong government decision derailed a cred-
itable native computer industry," Boriakoff
says. "MIFI faculty were interested in his
project because they are studying the same
problem. Ron researched aspects of Russian
computing history completely unknown in
the West.
"Because Ron has made such a fine im-
pression on the people he worked with, we
expect to offer more WPI students opportu-
nities to study and complete IQPs and MQPs
in Russia in the future. Ten students have al-
ready expressed interest in these projects."
In addition to his IQP work, Passerini
took two courses in Russian. "When I first
got to Moscow I thought, Tm 5,000 miles
from home, I don't know anyone, and I'm not
fluent enough in the language to get through
this.' But everything worked out fine."
An unexpected opportunity presented
itself to Passerini during his Russian visit.
"One day I was feeling homesick and crav-
ing American food, so I walked downtown
to the Pizza Hut on Tverskaya Street," he
says. "I was wearing a WPI sweatshirt and
when I took off my jacket, a guy sitting
across from me jumped up and said, 'I
don't believe it. I graduated from WPI
in 1963!'"
It was Harold Taylor, manager of inter-
national programs for United Technolo-
gies Corp., who travels frequently
between Moscow and company head-
quarters in Windsor Locks, Conn. "We
became friends and he invited me to
send him my resume before I graduate,"
Passerini says.'Td love to work there for
a few years, but not forever. America will
always be home."
—Bonnie Gelbwasser
of WPl's own Global Perspective Program.
The program has also gained momentum
through a two-year, $123,000 grant from the
U.S. Department of Education. Hakim is us-
ing the grant in a variety of ways to further
the infusion of globalization at WPI. Some
of the money is helping faculty members
revise course content and further their
development and interest in globalization.
One of those faculty members is Karen
Ruhleder, assistant professor of manage-
ment, whose research focuses on manage-
ment information systems, social and
organizational aspects of computing, and
computer-supported cooperative and col-
laborative work. Ruhleder is developing a
teaching case study based on the formal
unification of the East and West German
governments.
Although Berlin is once again the seat of
government for the unified Germany, some
critical work is still done in Bonn. The two
cities will be connected with modern infor-
mation and communication technologies,
Ruhleder says. She will investigate a govern-
ment-sponsored project called POLIKOM, "a
multiphase, multiparty effort to design and
implement the technological and organiza-
tional changes required to support work
across such physical distance," she says.
WPI Journal
11
Probing Environmental Issues in Ecuador
In December 1992, John P. Coyle '94,
Daniel R. Dibiase '95 and James A.
Watson '94 comprised one of two
project teams that inaugurated WPI's new
project center in Guayaquil, Ecuador. The
students completed an Interactive Quali-
fying Project that has already had an im-
pact on the future of the center and WPI's
work with ESPOL, a technological univer-
sity in Guayaquil.
The students first prioritized
Ecuador's major environmental issues
and developed a plan for future projects
by WPI students. They next analyzed the
environmental and socioeconomic impacts
of the new Esmeraldas-Santo Domingo
Poliduct, a 160-kilometer pipeline that
transports oil and gas to Ecuador's coastal
region. They determined that the country's
poliducts have had negative consequences,
including land scarring, erosion, and dam-
age to vegetation and wildlife caused by
leaks or ruptures in the pipeline.
"The good news," they note, "is that
because of heightened social
concerns about the poliducts
in recent years, the Ecua-
doran government has felt
pressure to enforce environ-
mental protection laws. While
the laws can sometimes be
contradictory, they can ulti-
mately be used effectively
to reduce the impact of the
pipeline."
An Ecuadoran student
(center, without shirt)
poses with, clockwise from
left, John Coyle '94, Joshua
Dobbelaar '94 and Daniel
Dibiase '95. In late 1992,
Coyle, Dobbelaar and
Dibiase were part of the
first group of WPI students
to complete projects at the
new Ecuador Project Center.
James E. Rollings, associate professor
of chemical engineering, served as the first
director of the Ecuador center. He is also di-
rector of the Latin American Project Pro-
grams at WPI and a WK. Kellogg National
Leadership Fellow. Along with Guillermo
Salazar, associate professor of civil engineer-
ing, and Daniel Tapia Falconi, co-project
director at ESPOL, Rollings served as advi-
sor for this initial project.
"It was important for the students to
see the relationship between technology
and society," Rollings says. "By looking at
one example — the new poliduct — they could
see the interrelationships that develop with
other sectors of society. The insights they
gained enabled them to identify six areas
of environmental concern specifically re-
lated to the poliduct: the impact of the oil
industry on the Amazon River, reforest-
ation, low-technology projects, the pollu-
tion of the Guayas River, the impact of the
mining industry, and ecotourism. These
will be considered as potential topics for
future IQPs."
Francis C. Lutz, dean of undergraduate
studies at WPI, Carlos Becerra, ESPOL's vice
rector, Frederick L. Hart, associate professor
of civil engineering at WPI, and Salazar have
applied for funding to promote the ex-
change of faculty between the two institu-
tions and to initiate the development of joint
research by establishing a database system
to be used in identifying and addressing
"The participants see POLIKOM as a testbed
for other members of the European Commu-
nity and for international corporations."
Ruhleder says she believes a case study
based on POLIKOM can be used in courses
in management information systems, tele-
communications, international business and
public policy. "To consider non-U. S. scena-
rios, students must relinquish their ideas
and expectations about how things work
and refine their own understanding of the
cultural factors that contribute to organiza-
tional decision-making and the mobilization
of support for potentially controversial
projects," she says.
"She's going to learn something that will
help in her research," Hakim says, "but her
experiences will also help her revise her
courses on management information sys-
tems. She'll bring something back to the col-
lege that will help students." Hakim says he
is using the Education Department grant in
a similar manner to help other faculty mem-
bers infuse global issues into many other
areas of the WPI curriculum.
Hakim is also using the grant to provide
seed funding for international student pro-
gramming, cultural festivals and similar ac-
tivities. The grant also brought SCOLA
(Satellite Communications for Learning) to
campus. SCOLA delivers TV news from more
than 30 countries in 20 languages to televi-
sion sets across campus, providing a non-
U.S. view of world events and allowing
students to hear other languages spoken
by native speakers.
And, the grant is being used to support
the WPI-Worcester Public Schools Alliance
for Global Education. Through the alliance,
WPI faculty are working with public school
teachers to develop a global education
program for grades K through 8.
Hakim recently completed a cost analy-
sis of the Global Perspective Program. "The
results were quite interesting," he says.
"One might think that maintaining programs
at 18 sites around the world would require a
huge investment. But the analysis indicated
that the academic work done off campus
would actually cost more if it were done
on campus."
Hakim says there are several reasons
for this. One is the support the program re-
ceives from alumni and friends around the
12
Spring 1993
James Watson '94 stands beneath a section of the 160-kilometer Esmeraldas-
Santo Domingo Poliduct, an oil and gas pipeline in Ecuador. Watson, Coyle and
Dibiase looked at the potential environmental impacts of the poliduct.
environmental issues for the Guayaquil region.
The proposed research includes a provi-
sion for an ESPOL faculty member to spend
two years at WPI studying for a master's
degree; the plan of study would include
courses in environmental engineering, con-
struction management and computer infor-
mation systems. "The faculty member
would also work with a WPI research assis-
tant on the database project, lecture and
assist with our ongoing projects at the
Ecuador Project Center," Salazar says.
"The database we propose will help
us address issues that relate to the pollu-
tion of the Guayas River," he says. "The
students' work complements what we
are proposing. They did a first-class job
of organizing and classifying areas for
major future research and have given us
a strong foundation upon which to build
this and future proposals."
—Bonnie Gelbwasser
world, all of whom volunteer their services.
Another is that, for the most part students
pay their own transportation and housing
costs when they travel overseas. (WPI sub-
sidizes housing costs in Washington, D.C.,
where living expenses are quite high, and
some students receive additional financial
aid when they are abroad to partially offset
their expenses.)
Some economies result from the fact
that the average size of an overseas project
team is three students, versus two students
for a typical IQP team on campus. In addi-
tion, resident faculty advisors at project
centers work with an average of 15 students
at a time, a project advising load that would
be difficult to handle back on campus. And,
since one-third of students who go abroad
to do projects do so during the summer,
when they must pay additional summer-
session tuition, the program actually brings
in extra revenue for the college.
"Although the financial analysis of the
program looks quite positive," Hakim says,
"we should not limit our analysis to cost
comparisons. There's no way to put a dollar
value on what the experience does for WPI's
graduates. In letters and conversations,
alumni have told me and other faculty mem-
bers how their experiences abroad have
given them a competitive edge in their jobs.
We plan to do a survey of alumni this sum-
mer to better understand this impact.
"It's also difficult to quantify the value
of diversity. If you want a more diverse
campus, you have to have people who think
differently. I think the Global Perspective
Program helps create a more tolerant envi-
ronment on campus. And, it's also difficult
to measure the important role the program
plays in attracting — and retaining — students,
something not to be overlooked in the
fiercely competitive environment for higher
education today.
"Many of our competitors look at their
global programs as a way to make them-
selves more attractive to students. There is
a growing interest among students in such
programs, and these schools are increasing
their investments in them. We must be care-
ful not to lose our lead."
As he looks to the future of the Global
Perspective Program, Schachterle says he is
pleased that several faculty members are ex-
panding the global projects program beyond
the IQP by developing programs through
which students will complete their Major
Qualifying Projects — the capstone project in
a student's major field of study — in England,
Germany and several other countries. Op-
portunities are also growing for completing
cooperative education abroad, he says, and
the globalization program may well play a
significant role in the development of the
Institute's graduate programs and research
collaborations.
Earlier this year, the faculty voted to
modify the humanities requirements to en-
able students to cap their humanities
course work with a full term of project work
abroad. "This is a wonderful chance for WPI
students to study theater in London, for ex-
ample, or the arts in Venice," he says.
"Through initiatives like these, WPI is
poised to achieve the role of national leader
in global education within the community of
engineering and science institutions. Com-
panies that need technically able profession-
als who can live and work effectively in
cultures new to them increasingly will look
to WPI graduates to fill that need, because
our students, among all graduates of engi-
neering and science colleges and universi-
ties, will be uniquely qualified to help their
employers compete successfully in the
global village."
Faculty members who have advised
[QPs abroad or helped launch over-
seas project programs and centers
recount similar tales about what can some-
times be a difficult process. All say one must
first educate potential sponsors about the
WPI project orientation and its seven-week
terms and then convince them that WPI
undergraduates can indeed function as
professional consultants.
Veterans of the process, like Schachterle,
WPI Journal
13
From left, Mary A. Burke '93 and Matthew R. Boutell '93 discuss their Interactive
Qualifying Project with Susan Vernon-Gerstenfeld, director of the Puerto Rico and
Washington, D.C., project centers. Working for the Conditio de Diseno y Technologia
in Puerto Rico, Burke and Boutell developed strategies to help Puerto Rican apparel
manufacturers market their products in the U.S.
Vernon-Gerstenfeld and history professor
John Zeugner say foreign-born alumni have
often lent their reputations and support to
help WPI gain a toehold in their home coun-
tries. Once the college, with the help of
these graduates, has laid the groundwork
with an inaugural student project, other pro-
spective project sponsors are often signifi-
cantly more receptive to the idea of working
with WPl's undergraduates.
Zeugner is director of the International
Scholars Program and the Asian Projects
Program. The International Scholar designa-
tion is a special notation on a graduate's di-
ploma and academic record indicating he or
she has completed a Humanities Sufficiency
involving a foreign language or culture, and
either completed an IQP or MQP at a foreign
project site or spent at least a half year as
an exchange student at a foreign university.
Twenty-four graduates have earned the des-
ignation since the program was started in
1989; 19 candidates are enrolled in the
Class of 1994.
Zeugner taught in Japan for four years,
first as a Fulbright Senior Lecturer between
1976 and 1978, then as a visiting professor
of American culture in Tokyo between 1981
and 1983. Next year he will return to Japan
as the Bryan Drake Guest Professor at Kobe
University. He has also lectured in Manilla,
Bangkok and Taipei for the United States
Information Agency. At WPI, it's his job to
make sure the college has projects in Asia,
and that students have housing, on-site ad-
visors, WPI advisors, and any other assis-
tance and guidance they need.
His story about launching the first pro-
ject in Thailand illustrates the role cultural
differences can play in the process. "WPI has
a lot of good contacts in Asia," he says, attri-
buting many of them to Yi Hua Ma, professor
of chemical engineering, Roy A. Seaberg Jr.,
director of special admissions, and WPI's
active network of alumni in Thailand. "Mak-
ing initial contacts was relatively easy. But
Thais prefer face-to-face contact for con-
ducting new business, and that meant the
usual WPI preparation process had to be
altered as the first Thai project was getting
underway.
"Normally, the preparatory work in-
cludes doing background stuff on the coun-
try and its culture, completing a preliminary
bibliographic assessment for the project,
and writing a full project proposal that is
sent to the sponsor. The sponsor reacts to
the proposal and gives you feedback before
you arrive, so everybody agrees what
they're doing."
To ensure a successful start in Thailand,
Zeugner traveled there with the first team
of students to get them set up, to make sure
the sponsor and the team had the same un-
derstanding of the project's goals, and to be
sure the sponsor was comfortable working
with undergraduates.
"The biggest hurdle we have in Asia is
similar to the hurdle we face in London," he
says. "There is a profound cultural assump-
tion that undergraduates are children and
not suitable for any kind of serious intellec-
tual endeavor or rigorous academic inquiry.
In London and in Bangkok, the assumption
is that they're just not mature, that they can-
not do serious, competent work. These are
societies that value age.
"It's important for our undergraduates
to learn things and be taken care of, but
when we go to Bangkok and say, 'our stu-
dents can perform work and do analysis for
you that you will find helpful,' it's like me
saying to an American, 'I've got these fourth-
graders who will help you.'"
To overcome this cultural bias, WPI has
allied itself with universities where the fac-
ulty believe undergraduates — especially
WPI students — can do useful work. Another
strategy WPI employs in countries where
the cultural imperative works against taking
undergraduates seriously, is to do the first
projects with nonprofit organizations, as
they are usually quite receptive to the idea
of free help.
"In Taipei, for example," Zeugner says,
"I could get 100 projects in the area of tech-
nology to assist disabled children. In fact,
we've had a wonderful series of projects
14
Spring 1993
Improving Commercial
Fishing Safety in Washington
Being a commercial fisherman
involves more than just casting a
line or hauling in a net full of cod.
Studies indicate that many boats are un-
safe and crew members often unprepared
to deal with the complexities of trawling
for seafood.
One of the U.S. Coast Guard's main re-
sponsibilities is maritime safety. The pas-
sage of the Commercial Fishing Industry
Vessel Safety Act of 1988 established a
comprehensive set of safety regulations
for the industry and gave the Coast Guard
the authority to enforce them. The prob-
lem is that there is no effective, cost-effi-
cient way to reach owners of vessels to
inform them of the regulations, making
enforcement a hit-or-miss proposition.
Trevor G. Hebert '94, Shannon M.
Willems '94 and Stephen J. Lanczycki '94
worked at Coast Guard Headquarters dur-
ing a seven-week stay at WPl's Washing-
ton, D.C., Project Center in 1992. While
there, they created a database that will
enable the Coast Guard to provide detailed
demographic information on the owners of
state-numbered commercial fishing vessels,
which represent 76 percent of the commer-
cial fishing fleet.
The students also created The Commer-
cial Fishing Safety Communication Manual. It
includes detailed descriptions of how Coast
Guard personnel can obtain a list of state-
numbered commercial fishing vessel owners
from the 30 coastal and Great Lakes states.
It provides the name and address of the per-
son or office in each state to whom inquiries
should be sent, the name and address of
each state's boating law administrator, the
cost of obtaining the information, the num-
ber of state-numbered commercial fishing
vessels operating in each state, and any
special procedures required by individual
states to obtain information.
"The project filled a void the Coast
Guard wasn't able to address because of
■T'
1
-~#
T-'J
'I
M'-1
B£r>
limited resources and time," says Tim Farley,
a civilian fishing safety specialist for the
Coast Guard's Fishing Vessel and Offshore
Safety Branch. "They determined how best
to disseminate information to the many
diverse fishing communities nationwide."
Hebert, Lanczycki and Willems recom-
mended that a coordinated effort by the
Fishing and Offshore Safety Branch, the
Auxiliary, Boating and Consumer Affairs Di-
vision of the Office of Navigation Safety and
Waterway Services, and the Management
Division in the Office of Marine Safety, Se-
curity and Environmental Protection be es-
tablished. These divisions could collect the
new data and combine it with information
on documented vessels that is contained in
an existing database known as the Marine
Safety Information System.
They also recommended that the Coast
Guard create and use the database to dis-
tribute safety information nationwide, pref-
erably in the off-season, and to distribute
information and advertise local regional
safety programs. "A coordinated effort to
distribute safety information could have a
major impact on improving safety in the in-
dustry," they concluded in their report to
the Coast Guard. "Direct mailing will prob-
ably be the most effective method of com-
munication. With a complete and accurate
database of all commercial fishing vessel
owners, nearly all can be contacted."
"Our officers have discussed and evalu-
ated the students' recommendations and
will ultimately coordinate implementation
with Coast Guard programs having exper-
tise in data processing and communica-
tions," Farley says. "These programs will
then assume responsibility for carrying out
the steps necessary to achieve the desired
results — better communication with all
fishermen working in the United States."
— Bonnie Gelbwasser
To help it fulfill its mission of pro-
tecting the safety of the nation's
commercial fishing fleet, the U.S.
Coast Guard sponsored a team of
WPI students who compiled inform-
ation that will help the agency
reach fishing boat owners.
WPI Journal
15
in that area, which is an important issue
in Taiwanese culture." The project that won
WPl's 1992 President's IQP Award was done
in Thailand with a nonprofit agency (see
story, this page).
After the Bangkok project program
was established, Zeugner hired Prapaipit
Chamsuksai as the on-site advisor for IQP
projects in Thailand and also made contact
with Supawan Tantayanon. Among more
than 60 WPI alumni in Bangkok, both
women received their doctorates at WPI
and are professors at Chulalongkorn Uni-
versity. Chamsuksai won WPI's outstanding
teaching assistant award in 1988, the year
she received her doctorate in chemistry.
"They have been absolute gems in terms of
advising projects, getting projects and mak-
ing the connection between WPI and Chula-
longkorn," he says.
Zeugner says he believes the projects
completed over the last few years have be-
gun to change people's perspective about
WPI students. "I think we're also getting
more sophisticated in making contacts,"
he says. "We now have many more projects
than we can staff in Bangkok. We recently
turned down a major corporation because
the students weren't interested in that
project."
WPl's new emphasis on Latin
America began in 1991 when the
college received a $150,000 grant
from the Xerox Foundation to establish a
project center in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
"Puerto Rico is interesting," says Vernon-
Gerstenfeld, who directs the Puerto Rico
and Washington project centers and the
Ireland project program. "While it is part
of the United States, it is also part of Latin
America. The island acts as a bridge. We
conceived of it as a place where our stu-
dents would get good training in multi-
cultural issues and gain intercultural
experience by working in an environment
that is Latin, and yet still quite familiar.
"Puerto Rico looks a bit like Miami and
has the same stores you see in Worcester
or Boston. But when you're working in an
office, the environment is much more Latin.
Also, people from elsewhere in Latin Amer-
ica come to Puerto Rico to live and work,
so you learn about Cubans, Ecuadorans and
so on. It's a tremendous place to learn about
other cultures.
"One of our explicit goals in San Juan
is to help correct misperceptions about
Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans. We want
to help students understand that their
stereotypes are just that and don't have
Reaching Out to Slum Dwellers in
Last year Jason D. Herrick '93,
Michael R. Passe '93 and Gunther
Schrappe '94 completed their Inter-
active Qualifying Project with the Duang
Prateep Foundation (DPF), a nonprofit
organization in Bangkok, Thailand. The
students studied the chemical storage
policies of the Port Authority of Thailand
(PAT). The foundation was interested in
this information because in March 1991 a
chemical explosion leveled three ware-
houses at the PAT facility in Klong Toey, a
heavily populated Bangkok slum. The ex-
plosion killed five people and injured
countless others.
DPF, which is devoted to improving
life for residents (especially children) of
the Klong Toey community, asked the WPI
students for help in educating slum dwell-
ers about the chemicals involved in the
explosion and in preventing future acci-
dents. The team analyzed the effects of
the explosion and did a series of chemical
investigations to find out how the explo-
sion might have occurred.
PAT, which stores chemicals adjacent to
the slum, never released a full listing of the
chemicals kept there. "PAT put out a list of
10 chemicals," notes John F. Zeugner, pro-
fessor of history and the students' advisor.
"The students, through their investigation,
drove that list up to 53 chemicals. Using soil
and water residues, they did their analysis
with the help of Professor Prapaipit
Chamsuksai at Chulalongkorn University.
They also interviewed slum dwellers about
the symptoms they experienced. The stu-
dents noted that many unidentified chemi-
cals had been stored at the warehouses."
Team members reviewed international
storage procedures and studied chemical
explosions. They designed and wrote a pam-
phlet for DPF to distribute to doctors, com-
munity leaders and residents and a poster
for distribution within Klong Toey. They
were interviewed by local television and
they wrote a commentary for the op-ed
page of The National, a major English-
language newspaper in Bangkok.
Although PAT had not announced any
16
Spring 1993
Bangkok
intention to modify its storage facilities
or practices by the time the students left
Thailand, the team's work prompted a
public outcry over the policies of the
Port Authority and a consensus that the
government needed to do more for the
victims of the explosion.
Prateep Ungsongtham Hata, the
founder and president of the foundation,
grew up in Klong Toey. Her work to im-
prove life for residents of the slum has
been recognized locally and internation-
ally. In Thailand, when she was awarded
the Magsaysay Award, the King commis-
sioned 100 commemorative coins to
honor her. She was so pleased with the
WPI team's work that she gave each mem-
ber one of those coins. The judges for the
1992 competition for WPI's President's
IQP Award were also pleased. They
awarded the honor to Herrick, Passe
and Schrappe.
—Diane Benison
Gunther Schrappe '94 (far left, back row), Michael Passe '93 and Jason Herrick '93
(third and fourth from left, back row) pose with staff of the Duang Prateep Foundation
in Bangkok. Foundation founder Prateep Ungsongtham Hata is in the front row, second
from right. Working with the foundation, the students analyzed the aftermath of a
chemical explosion in the Klong Toey slum and developed programs to educate resi-
dents about the effects of the chemicals. Below, the Flats, part of Klong Toey, sits
next to the remains of a residential area destroyed in the explosion. The foundation
is dedicated to improving life for slum residents, especially children, opposite.
WPI Journal
17
a whole lot to do with
reality. When our stu-
dents come back, their
views are very much al-
tered. For many, the ex-
perience helps them
understand that stereo-
types don't hold true
for individuals. That's
part of our intercultural
training that we hope to
impart to students."
That process cuts
both ways, she says, be-
cause for some Latin
Americans, WP1 stu-
dents help dispel the
stereotype of the gringo
from North America:
"brash, loud, unknow-
ing about other cultures
and thinking the only
place worthwhile is the
United States. Stereo-
types like that come
from tourists who've
seen inconveniences —
or what they perceive
as inconveniences — as
negative aspects of an-
other culture."
Vernon-Gerstenfeld's background in clini-
cal psychology makes her keenly aware of
the emotional impact immersion in a foreign
culture can have. She talks to students about
it before they go, while they're away and af-
ter they get back. "We want to teach stu-
dents to ask themselves, 'What are you
feeling; what are you acting on?,'" she says.
"Instead of their colonizing and becoming
defensive, we hope they'll explore the issues
and then, perhaps, give up the colonizing."
She recalls one student who went to
Ecuador and spent most of his free time
watching television in his hotel room. As he
began to realize that his television habit was
a way of dealing with his discomfort with the
culture, he relied on it less and less. "As we
prepare these kids to go abroad, we need to
teach them about the variety of feelings they
may have and suggest strategies for han-
dling the ones that make them uncomfort-
able."
After students return from a project site,
they meet with the next set of teams sched-
uled to travel there. The returning teams dis-
cuss their experiences and offer tips on
everything from how to use public transpor-
tation to how to do laundry. "I think it works,"
Vernon-Gerstenfeld says. "The vast majority
of our kids end up being tremendously in-
trigued by what happens to them."
5ames E. Rollings, associate professor
of chemical engineering and director
of the Latin American Project Pro-
gram, is himself evidence of the transform-
ing power of living and working in a culture
other than one's own. Rollings, who has
served as the resident faculty advisor at
WPI's newest project center in Guayaquil,
Ecuador, created in 1992 with a five-year,
$500,000 grant from the U.S. Agency for In-
ternational Development, joined the Peace
Corps after getting his bachelor's degree in
biochemistry. He taught chemistry and biol-
ogy from 1972 to 1975 in Mombasa, Kenya.
When he returned to the states he
earned a second bachelor's degree in
chemical engineering before going to gradu-
ate school and studying for a doctorate in
biochemical engineering. He'd come back
from Africa with the thought that he wanted
to make an impact on some of the social
problems he'd seen while he was in the
Peace Corps. He says WPI's project-based
curriculum and the Global Perspective Pro-
Professor James Rollings
directs WPI's project
programs in Latin America.
He's seen here with items
from Ecuador, where he
served as one of the first
resident advisors of WPI's
new Ecuador Project Center
in Guayaquil.
gram have enormous appeal to him as ways
to combine his views about the importance
of expanding cultural horizons with his
work as a teacher and scientist.
Rollings says he believes that despite
the useful work achieved through IQPs,
MQPs and Humanities Sufficiencies done
abroad, the greatest benefit is the way the
Global Perspective Program changes WPI
students. "In reality," he says, "by going
away you'll make a greater change in your
own society than you will in the society you
visit. By providing students with that exter-
nal moment, we're giving them a view of the
world they would never have had except
by leaving home and seeing how another
culture functions.
"The culture shock is greater when you
return than when you leave, because some
of your assumptions may have been ex-
posed. The experience of having been in
another culture makes it possible to more
clearly see — and perhaps question — one's
own cultural assumptions."
Zeugner says he is "absolutely convinced
that the most educational thing anybody
can do is to sit in an alien culture for an ex-
tended period of time — not as a tourist, but
as someone trying to function the way
people in that culture function. That exper-
ience calls into question all your assump-
tions about how the world works. All the
unconscious assessments you make to get
through the day suddenly become con-
scious. I'm absolutely, passionately con-
vinced that nothing else we do will have
as profound an impact on students.
"Is that experience really worth it? From
an educational point of view, absolutely. It
will transform people and open them up.
Studying the aftermath of a chemical explo-
sion in a Bangkok slum is going to make
someone a different kind of engineer. Some-
body like that will understand that cultural
assumptions have a terrific impact on the
kinds of technological interactions that be-
come the life circumstance of engineers.
They're not going to think about them in
the same way again."
18
Spring 1993
'""• ftiEjS&
i LS
Through the Cultural Festival, the African Mar
and a host of other events, students of many <
and nationalities are bringing the world to WPI.
Photos by Janet Woodcock
This spring, the Lower Wedge was filled
with the sights and sounds of Africa, as the In-
stitute enjoyed the first African Marketplace.
The event, sponsored by the Black Student
Union and the Black History Month Committee,
brought a number of vendors to campus to dis-
play "their wares and show off African artifacts,
including crafts from Kenya supplied by a
Worcester business, bottom, left.
The New York City dance and drum troupe
"Message From Our Ancestors," opposite page
and page 19, performed for an appreciative au-
dience that included Lachelle R. Hatten '94,
right. Yvonne V. Harrison, director of the Career
Development Center, bottom, right, read a poem
by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, one of several
readings during the day.
The Marketplace was just one of a host of
events held on campus during the year by WPFs
international students, who make up about 10
percent of the undergraduate student population
and about half of the college's full-time graduate
students, in concert with other students from a
variety of backgrounds and cultures. The events
*«$fc
■SJN*#
l-c?
were designed to let the students share their traditions,
crafts, cuisines and arts with the WPI and Greater
Worcester communities.
A major annual event aimed at achieving that goal
is the Cultural Festival, which observed its eighth anni-
versary this spring. Sponsored by WPI's International
Student Council, the festival offers visitors the chance
to sample arts, crafts and food from the cultures of
WPI's international students. Performances and dem-
onstrations, planned and mounted by the students
themselves, run continuously on stage throughout the
four-hour event.
At this year's festival, visitors were treated to Latin
dances by a troupe that included Carlos A. Zapata '95,
a native of Venezuela, and Leila J. Carvajal '96 from
Ecuador, opposite. The dancers were members of the
Hispanic Student Association. The Chinese Student
Association purchased a 1 10-foot ceremonial dragon, top of
page, which they paraded around Alden Memorial in a high-
light of the festival. In China, the dragon dance is a traditional
part of the New Year's festivities.
Students also shared dishes from their homelands, prepared
by WPI's food service, and displayed crafts and artifacts from
their cultures (see bottom photo, next page). These included an
assortment of Islamic items provided by the Muslim Student
Association, above. Richard H. Kim '95, in midair, next page,
was part of a team that put on a demonstration of Tae Kwon Do,
a form of Korean martial arts.
The annual festival is open to the entire Worcester commu-
nity, and each year many students from Worcester-area schools
stop by to enjoy the sights, sounds and tastes. A snowstorm kept
most schoolchildren from enjoying the 1993 festival, but more
than 1,500 students came in 1992. In 1991, the City Council
declared the day of the Cultural Festival "International Student
Day" in Worcester.
22
Spring 1993
Sl*J
**<*%)'
I -■
4
J*'*
..... m^
Outreach to the public schools has
become an important mission of the In-
stitute's international students. This year
some 40 students visited Worcester public
schools to talk about their cultures. Their
efforts are part of a project called Globali-
zing the Curriculum, being undertaken by
WPI and the Worcester School System.
Funded in part by a U.S. Department of
Education grant, the project seeks to help
young students understand and appreciate
other cultures.
Tom H. Thomsen, associate dean of
student life and international student ad-
visor, says he hopes WPI students can
share many elements of their cultures with
Worcester schoolchildren, as they did this
year with the WPI community through
a Chinese film series, an Asian Dinner that
featured food from Indonesia, Korea, Thai-
land and Vietnam, and Hispanic Aware-
ness Week, complete with a speaker, a
band and movies.
Thomsen says these many activities are clear evidence
that at WPI, globalization is a two-way street. He says that just
as spending seven weeks in another country can broaden a
student's horizons, interacting with students from other nations
and backgrounds on campus can be a powerful and effective
way to learn about other cultures.
"Living with an international roommate, for example," he
says, "can be just as effective an introduction to another culture
as traveling to an overseas project center. We want all students,
including those who for whatever reason can't leave campus, to
be able to say they have truly been exposed to people from
other cultures before they graduate."
24
Spring 1993
The La
iW
of the Frontier
Once thought of as stodgy, patent law
today is anything but. Patent attorneys
are helping shape the leading edges
of science and technology, trying
cases where millions of dollars hang
in the balance, and working to bring
greater harmony to patent systems
around the world. The best part?
Opportunities abound for technically
trained men and women.
By Michael W. Dorsey
t is, to be sure, a quiet revolution. But in law firms across
the country, attorneys are noticing a striking trend. After
decades of relative obscurity, the law of intellectual property
— patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets and unfair
competition — is emerging as one of the hottest areas of legal
practice. As a recent article in the ABA Journal, the magazine
of the American Bar Association, put it, "Forget the trendy law practice
areas of the 1980s, such as mergers and acquisitions, real estate and
antitrust. Intellectual property is where the action will be in the 1990s."
If intellectual property is hot, patent law is truly incandescent. "A
good demonstration of that is the fact that many of the major general
law firms around the country are attempting to purchase or acquire
smaller patent law firms," notes Paul N. Kokulis '45, senior partner at
Cushman, Darby & Cushman, one of the largest intellectual property
firms in Washington, D.C. "These firms all have real estate sections,
banking sections, antitrust sections, environmental sections and so
on. Now they want to have intellectual property sections, as well."
Kokulis, whose areas of expertise include biotechnology and bio-
chemistry, says the explosive growth of new technology around the
world is one factor in the renewed interest in patents and patent
law. "In addition," he says, "of all the areas of legal practice, intellec-
tual property is probably the most resistant to economic downturns.
It's certainly not recession-proof, but in tough times, when corpor-
ations aren't doing as much research and development, they want
to protect their existing business areas more vigorously. And that
creates more activity in the patent field."
All this translates into growing opportunities for young lawyers in
a field that has rarely — if ever — been oversaturated, notes Lawrence
F. Scinto '51, partner with Fitzpatrick, Cella, Harper & Scinto in New
York City, among the largest intellectual property firms in the nation.
"This field is just beginning to realize its potential," he says. "With the
growing demand by corporations for protection for their intellectual
property and the rising awareness of the importance of intellectual
property assets, people entering the profession today will find they
are joining a truly growing field."
WPI Journal
25
ii
T
I he American patent system, authorized by Article I of the
Jl U.S. Constitution, was the invention of Thomas Jefferson,
who also served as the first commissioner of patents. As
conceived by Jefferson and formally codified in the federal
patent statutes (the first patent act was signed into law by
George Washington in 1790), a patent is a legal monopoly
granted to an inventor.
A patent gives an inventor the right to exclude others from
using his or her invention for 17 years from the date the
patent is granted. A patent holder can license the patented
technology to others, who pay royalties for the privilege of
using it. Patents can also be bought and sold like other per-
sonal property. Patent protection is designed to encourage the
kind of innovation and technical progress that can benefit the
nation as a whole.
Not every invention is patentable. The task of deciding
what "process, machine, manufacture or composition of mat-
ter, or any new and useful improve-
ments thereof," is worthy of patent
protection falls to the more than 1,400
patent examiners who work in the
modern facilities of the U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office in Crystal City, Va.
In making their decisions, they are
guided by several key principles.
First and foremost, an invention
must truly be new. Examiners will
search through the millions of patents
on file in Crystal City to make sure a
patent has not already been granted
for the invention. In addition, they'll
want to be sure the device or process
was not already in use or described in
print before the inventor supposedly
thought of it.
While it is possible to get a patent
for an improvement on an existing de-
vice, process or composition of mat-
ter, if the examiner determines that
the improvement would have been
"obvious" to anyone skilled in the art to which the invention
relates, the patent will be denied.
The invention must also be useful. In other words, the
inventor must be able to demonstrate that what he or she has
created has practical value. Finally, the examiners must decide
if the inventor has adequately disclosed the details of the
invention in a manner that will allow others skilled in the art
of the field to reproduce it.
"The real reason for patents — the reason the government
gives you this right to exclude — is that you are telling the
world about your invention," says C. Marshall Dann '35, former
U.S. commissioner of patents and trademarks who is now
largely retired from the firm of Dann, Dorfman, Herrell and
Skillman in Philadelphia. "Once your patent runs out, every-
one else will be free to use it. So it's important that the
invention be disclosed in a sound, technical manner."
While most of the early patents granted in the U.S. went to
If you have something
good, you can keep it out of
your competitor's hands by
protecting it with a patent. . . .
individual inventors, today a large share are owned by corpo-
rations. In fact, patents have become a cornerstone of our
modern industrial society, since they help companies maintain a
technical edge over their domestic and foreign competitors. Cor-
porations are, of course, under no obligation to patent their
inventions, and some decide instead to keep their technology
trade secrets. But that route has its risks, Dann says.
"There aren't many things you can keep secret for long.
You might be able to conceal some little process wrinkle. But if
it's anything a competitor can tell from your product — or
something he can discover independently — it's fair game. And
employees move about a great deal today. Even if they don't
intentionally steal your secrets, they can transmit a good deal
of information to their new employers. And, of course, there's
a certain amount of commercial espionage.
"If you have something good, you can keep it out of your
competitor's hands by protecting it with a patent — assuming
it's a good patent. Or you can make
some money licensing it. The bottom
line is that most companies simply
can't afford to ignore patents."
The bottom line is that most
companies simply can 't afford
W
to ignore patents:
atent attorneys beginning their
careers today will find a legal sys-
tem far more friendly to their work
than the system Dann, Kokulis, Scinto
and most of the more than 40 WPI
alumni who work as patent
attorneys discovered when they
entered the field.
In the 1930s, the tradition of pro-
tecting the rights of American inven-
tors ran afoul of growing antitrust
sentiment. "The Temporary National
Economic Committee, a joint execu-
tive-legislative body established in
1938 to curb monopolies, made a
lot of noise about corporate abuse
of patents," Dann notes. "They
started out to prove a preconceived notion and in the process
painted the whole patent system pretty blackly."
According to Paul M. Craig Jr. '45, consulting attorney at
Dow, Lohnes & Albertson in Washington, D.C., at least some of
the antitrust fever was justified. "In the 1920s and 1930s, some
companies were pooling patents to fix prices or to keep out-
siders out," he says. "That helped give the patent system a
bad name."
The anti-patent sentiment that emerged in the courts in
the 1930s and 1940s persisted for decades and came to play
an important role in how attorneys approached patent-
related court cases, says Scinto, whose specialty is patent
litigation. Until recently, patent cases were tried in 10 federal
circuit courts that had disparate records on patent litigation.
"Some circuits didn't hold a patent valid for 10 to 15 years,"
Scinto says. "Others were more hospitable. It was a common
(Continued on Page 28)
26
Spring 1993
PATENT PROFILES
C. Marshall Dann '35
After he graduated from WPI in
1935 with his degree in chem-
istry, C. Marshall Dann settled
down at DuPont for what seemed like
the start of a long career in chemistry.
But in 1945, Dann was assigned to a
patent liaison group in DuPont 's Pig-
ments Department. "I thought patent
law seemed like a pretty good field,"
he says. "I decided if I was going to
be in it, I'd rather be all the way in
rather than halfway."
For four years, Dann worked in
DuPont's Washington, D.C., office as a
patent agent while attending
Georgetown University at night. In
1 949, with his bachelor of laws degree
in hand, he returned to the company's
Wilmington, Del., headquarters as a patent attorney. One of his
first assignments was to help out with a major antitrust case the
federal government had filed against DuPont and Imperial
Chemical Industries of Great Britain. (That case would also
figure prominently in the start of Paul Kokulis' career as a
patent attorney; see page 30.)
When the antitrust case was over, Dann worked on patent
cases involving new organic chemicals, including polyurethanes,
which were just then being introduced. In 1954, he was promoted
to assistant manager of DuPont's Patent Department. At that time,
Dann says, DuPont was filing about 800 patent applications a year
and receiving about 500 new patents.
"During those years, I was concerned with patent matters
across the board, rather than specific cases," he says. "But
there were a few lawsuits I was directly involved in." In one
case, DuPont sued Phillips Petroleum Co., alleging the corpora-
tion had infringed its patent for linear polyethylene, a plastic
used in containers, electrical insulation and packaging. After
three years, the case was settled out of court, with Phillips
receiving a license to make the compound in return for financial
and other considerations.
Dann was named DuPont's chief patent counsel in 1968.
Six years later, after nearly 30 years with the company, he
received a job offer. "I got a call from a gentleman who said, 'I'm
from the White House,'" Dann says. "I sat up a little straighter.
He said, 'Have you ever thought about taking early retire-
ment and becoming commissioner of patents?'"
At first reluctant to leave Wilmington, Dann finally ac-
cepted. "I had been sitting in the same corner office for quite a
number of years and a change began to seem attractive," he
says. One of the major challenges he
faced during his three years in Wash-
ington was resolving a conflict between
the Commerce Department, which
includes the Patent and Trademark
Office, and the Justice Department over
a proposed patent reform bill.
The bill, which grew out of a set of
far-reaching recommendations of a
Johnson administration commission
on patent reform, was amended to
include a troublesome provision that
would have made it easier for corp-
orations to avoid antitrust action when
they granted licenses on their patents.
"That had the effect of getting the
Justice Department involved," Dann says.
Justice prepared its own reform
bill that would have greatly complicated the process of pros-
ecuting patents. "It seemed to me, as it did to a lot of other
people, that the bill as it stood would have discouraged many
inventors who wanted to protect their property," Dann says.
One of the duties of the commissioner of patents is to revise
or expand the formal rules governing the operation of the
Patent Office, as needed. Dann put in place new rules that
incorporated the better parts of the Justice Department bill,
but which were less burdensome to potential patentees. "Jus-
tice backed off and lost interest after that," Dann says. "The
rules had the desired effect of stopping all the activity
aimed at radically remaking the patent laws."
In 1977, after the election of Jimmy Carter, Dann joined the
intellectual property firm of Dann, Dorfman, Herrell and
Skillman in Philadelphia. Over the next 10 years he served as
an expert witness in numerous interference and infringe-
ment cases around the country, including 45 that made it to
the courtroom. "I testified about patent procedure
and about the meaning of the claims in a patent," he says.
"Claims define the patentee's right to exclude others, and
they must always be interpreted by the court."
While he testified on behalf of all manner of plaintiffs
and defendants— from major corporations like Dow, American
Can, Pfizer and 3M, to individual inventors — one case was
especially rewarding, Dann says. "An Illinois farmer named
Billy Watkins had invented a device used in tractor-pull
contests. It slowly increased the weight on the tractor as it
pulled forward, so the tractor would eventually stop. He sued
the National Tractor Pull Association, which had ignored his
patent. He eventually won an injunction."
WPI Journal
27
(Continued from Page 26)
tactic in those days to bring an action in a circuit you believed
would look more favorably on patents."
In the early 1980s, alarmed at the apparent lack of unifor-
mity of the country's patent system, which resulted in this so-
called "forum-shopping," the U.S. Congress decided the time
had come for change. "One thing that pushed Congress to act
was concern about the trade deficit and foreign competition,"
Dann says. "Fifty years ago, 90 percent of all U.S. patents were
obtained by U.S. citizens. Now it's about 50 percent. If you
destroy the incentives for U.S. inventors to file patent applica-
tions, you're giving the competition an edge."
In 1982, Congress created the Court of Appeals for the
Federal Circuit. Formed by combining the Court of Customs
and Patent Appeals and the Court of Claims, the new body
became the sole jurisdiction for appealing patent cases from
any federal district court around the country. The Federal
Circuit Court removed much of the preexisting regional
anti-patent bias and "put a lot of vitality back into the
patent system," Craig says.
While the new court has raised the value of patents in all
industries, it's had a particularly profound effect on makers of
computers, notes high-technology specialist William L.
Anthony Jr. '61, a partner with Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison in
Palo Alto, Calif. "Before the creation of the Federal Circuit
Court, patents were virtually unenforceable in California, the
home of a substantial portion of America's high-technology
industry," he says.
Before 1982, Anthony notes, high-technology companies
were more likely to license their technology for meager fees
than to attempt to enforce their patents. And companies came
to rely on trade secrets, rather than patents, to protect their
inventions. Even so,
technology moved rela-
tively freely from com-
pany to company as
engineers changed jobs
or started their own
firms. In fact, he notes,
the explosive growth of
the high-technology in-
dustry in the 1970s is at-
tributable, in part, to
"the peculiar mores of
Silicon Valley (com-
monly referred to as 'pi-
racy' in other parts of
the world)."
Today, most high-
technology companies have beefed up their patent depart-
ments and their patents are garnering respectable royalties.
Companies like Texas Instruments and Motorola, which bucked
the trend in the 1970s and stockpiled patents on their in-
ventions, are now reaping the rewards of those higher royal-
ties. In fact, insiders say, these and some other major
companies now earn more from their patents than from sales
of their products.
William L. Anthony '61, a partner with Brobeck,
Phleger & Harrison in Palo Alto, has made a
specialty of high-technology patent litigation.
R
eople often think a patent gives them some property,"
1 Dann says. "But it really doesn't give them anything until a
u
I
Fifty years ago, 90 percent of all U.S. patents
were obtained by U.S. citizens. Now it's about
50 percent. If you destroy the incentive for
U.S. inventors to file patent applications, you're
giving the competition an edge.
court says it's a good
patent." The truth of that
statement is illustrated
by the marked increase
in patent-related court
cases that followed the
creation of the Federal
Circuit Court. In addition
to increasing the value
of patents — and the
incentive to fight for
them — the court raised
the stakes in patent
litigation.
When federal courts
were as likely to rule a
patent invalid as to sanc-
tion an infringer, corporations were less inhibited about help-
ing themselves to patented technology. But the Federal Circuit
Court is far more prone than earlier courts to come down
hard on infringers, imposing damages and fees that make
those levied by those earlier courts seem tame.
"At one time it was the norm for a damage recovery in
a patent case to be limited to a reasonable royalty," Scinto
(Continued on Page 31)
28
Spring 1993
Protecting Intellectual
Property on Campus
With their mission to pursue and disseminate new
knowledge, it's not surprising that colleges and
universities have long been hotbeds of intellectual
property. But it has only been in recent years that many
research institutions have become aggressive about pro-
tecting the inventions and other creations of their faculty
members and students and putting that property to use
to generate revenue.
WPI developed its first intellectual property policy in
the early 1970s. Among other things, the policy specifies
when the Institute is entitled to the rights to patents,
copyrights and trademarks for intellectual property
created by its faculty and students and spells out how
royalties generated by that property will be shared by
the college and the inventors or authors.
During the last year, a committee of faculty members
has been at work updating that policy. One of the key
changes they plan to recommend will require the college
to determine whether a faculty or student invention has
commercial potential before deciding whether to pursue
a patent for it.
"These days, with the competitive pressures of a
global economy, it is often wise to apply for patents in
several nations, not just in the U.S.," notes Kevin A.
Clements, dean of graduate studies and research. "It
costs a lot of money— perhaps $20,000 to $30,000— to
go through that process. So we have to decide early on
whether an invention is commercially viable and, there-
fore, worth patenting."
To help it make that decision, WPI recently joined
with six other Worcester-area research institutions in
creating the Unified Office of Technology Transfer at
the Massachusetts Biotechnology Research Institute in
Worcester. Heading that office is Skip Irving, whose jobs
include helping the institutions identify commercially
viable inventions, monitoring the process of patenting
those inventions, brokering licensing agreements with
companies and other partners, and providing assistance
to faculty and students who may wish to license their
own inventions from the Institute to start new companies.
Currently, WPI owns about a dozen patents and has
applications pending on several more. Several other in-
ventions are being evaluated, including at least a few that
have been developed as part of undergraduate student
projects. In fact, Irving says, one student project is now
the subject of negotiations with a major medical products
manufacturer and the prospects for licensing look good.
Skip Irving of the Unified Office of Technology
Transfer helps WPI decide what's worth patenting.
In addition to these, a few faculty members have patented
their own inventions. At least one company has been
founded based on faculty inventions and more are cur-
rently in the works.
Irving says he hopes to see these numbers rise as
more faculty and students become aware of the advan-
tages of protecting their inventions. "There are some
misconceptions we have to overcome," he says. "Some
concern the conflict between patenting and publishing
and how patenting fits into the mission and culture of
an academic institution."
Irving says patenting and publishing should not be in
conflict. With a little lead time, a U.S. patent can be ap-
plied for prior to publication, preserving the right to
patent on a worldwide basis. "I want people to publish,"
he says. "That's my best advertising. That paper will be
read by peers and by people at corporations. There's no
conflict at all; in fact, the two should work in synergy."
Irving says that while the Institute will ultimately
receive some income from its investment in intellectual
property, the most important benefits will not be mea-
sured in dollars and cents. "For faculty members, patent-
ing is an opportunity to get their research into the hands
of people who can turn it into commercial products or
processes," he says. "For students, it helps them develop
an entrepreneurial spirit and teaches them something
about the commercialization of technology. That experi-
ence will serve them well when they leave academia."
WPI Journal
29
PATENT PROFILES
Paul N. Kokulis '45
Paul Kokulis has made a specialty
of patent interferences, pro-
ceedings that seek to determine
the rightful holder of a patent when
two or more companies or individual
inventors claim that right. "I would
guess that most patent attorneys have
one or two interferences in a lifetime," he says. "I juggle 15 to 20
such cases in a typical year."
Kokulis says patent law was the farthest thing from his mind
when he received his degree in chemical engineering from WP1
in 1944. He went to work for the Naval Research Laboratory as
part of the Manhattan Project team, but left engineering after
World War II. He left, in part, he says, because he felt other
members of his research group, most of whom had advanced
degrees, "were way ahead of me in their thinking. I didn't feel
creative enough to make a contribution."
For a time he considered taking a job as a science teacher
and a baseball and basketball coach in the Springfield, Mass.,
school system. But one day classmate Philip H. Sheridan, who
is now a partner with Sheridan, Ross & Mcintosh in Denver,
urged him to apply for a post at the law firm of Cushman, Darby
& Cushman in Washington, D.C., which was looking for some-
one with experience in chemistry.
"They offered me the position and paid my way through law
school," says Kokulis, who earned his bachelor of laws degree
at George Washington University by taking classes at night. "It
was exactly what I needed. It has been a wonderful combination
of science and the law. And it has allowed me to work with
people at the frontiers of science."
Shortly after he joined the firm, a federal judge, in a major
antitrust decision, ordered DuPont and the British company
Imperial Chemical Industries (ICO to terminate an agreement
under which each company had filed for patents on the other's
inventions in its own country. Faced
with the need to pursue its own Ameri-
can patents, ICI turned to Cushman,
Darby & Cushman.
"I was one of just two chemistry
people at the firm then," Kokulis says.
"One day an ICI man walked into my
office with 400 pending patent applications, one or two appeals
and some interferences. It was a wonderful opportunity for
someone who was just beginning law school."
ICI has remained a principal client. In the 1950s, Kokulis
worked with ICI and other companies on patents involving
the highly competitive field of fibers and fabrics for clothing.
He handled several interferences involving new reactive
dyes, permanent press finishes and stretch fabrics.
The 1950s and 1960s also saw the growth of the pharma-
ceutical industry, and Kokulis found himself handling patents
on major new drugs, including Halothane (an ICI invention
that replaced ether as the anesthetic of choice in surgery),
beta blockers (drugs used to treat angina and other heart
ailments) and tamoxifen (the treatment of choice for
breast cancer).
In the early 1980s, a significant amount of Kokulis' focus
shifted to the emerging field of biotechnology. Today this
discipline constitutes much of the work he does for clients that
include major U.S. and foreign companies, universities and
research institutions. The technologies he has been involved
with range from blood growth factors to AIDS test kits to
DNA fingerprinting.
"My involvement has been right there at the forefront of
biochemistry," he says. "It's certainly been an exciting field to
work in. If I were a young man starting out in patent law,
I'd concentrate my efforts on this field, because there are
some tremendously satisfying opportunities out there."
30
Spring 1993
'
(Continued from Page 28)
says. "It was rare that a successful patentee could receive
an award of lost profits. Of late, with more imagination going into
damage calculations, awards are getting more significant and com-
panies are looking at their patent portfolios as profit centers."
"Patent damage awards have become so substantial that
many major corporations factor litigation-driven settlements
and damages into their revenue projections as if they were
expected income," Anthony says. "Texas Instruments, for
example, has generated more than $600 million in royalties in
recent years as a result of zealous patent litigation."
Anthony notes that the Federal Circuit Court is also more
likely to invoke a provision for granting treble damages in
cases where a defendant knowingly infringes a patent. All
this has resulted in some staggering awards: $56 million for an
antibiotic patent in Pfizer v. International Rectifier; $125 mil-
lion for a patented cookie recipe in Procter & Gamble v.
Nabisco; and $205 million for a patent
covering the design of a rock drill bit
in Smith Industries v. Hughes Tools.
In the most celebrated outcome, a
judge awarded Polaroid more than
$900 million after ruling that Kodak
had infringed its instant photography
patents. But Anthony says a new pre-
cedent may be in the wings: in a cur-
rent case, Hughes Aircraft Co. is
accusing the U.S. government of in-
fringing its patents for satellite atti-
tude-control systems. "Hughes has
requested $3.3 billion," he says. "It is
considered by many to be a reason-
able estimate."
While most companies can absorb
"reasonable royalties" into their bot-
tom lines, the consequences of today's
larger damage awards can be more
severe. "Companies are being put out
of business," Dann says. "That's why
any company in any business where
there might be inventions must pay
attention to patents. Not only is it im-
portant to protect their own intellec-
tual property, but they better make sure what they're doing
doesn't infringe someone else's patents."
While the change in the judicial landscape has made cor-
porations more cautious — and emboldened individual inven-
tors, who in the past might not have taken on large corporate
infringers — the escalating costs of bringing a patent case to
trial can still tip the balance in favor of larger companies,
Craig says. "Litigation has become terribly expensive," he
says. "We are pricing it out of the reach of most individual
Americans."
Last year, the firm of Morrison & Foster estimated that a
patent trial can easily cost between $1 million and $4 million.
"It can take $50,000 to $100,000 just to get a case on file," Craig
notes. "More and more, small companies just can't
afford to enforce their patents. And because litigation costs
More and more, small
companies just can 't afford to
enforce their patents. And
because litigation costs are
deductible, the company with
the deepest pockets has an
advantage that enhances its
chances of prevailing.
are deductible, the company with the deepest pockets has an
advantage that enhances its chances of prevailing."
With so much at stake, strategy has become critical in
patent litigation. One key strategic decision that must be
made early on is whether to bring a case before a judge or a
jury, Scinto says. "When I started in patent litigation, attor-
neys were more likely to try cases before the court, rather
than a jury. There is an active trend today for exercising the
constitutional right to a jury trial.
"Patentees often feel that juries will be more favorably
inclined to a patent that has survived the scrutiny of a govern-
ment review than to a challenger who says everything in the
patent was obvious from the prior art." In addition, individual
inventors involved in actions with corporations often choose
juries because they feel jurors will be more likely to feel
empathy with the little guy, Craig says.
"Patent litigators discovered juries about 10 years ago,"
Anthony says. "While the early indi-
cations of a jury's propensity to hold
patents valid were impressive (with
about 80 percent of patents being up-
held), it appears over the long term
that juries are not quite as much of a
blessing to patent owners, but they're
a blessing nonetheless."
In fact, Anthony says, judges are
nearly as likely as juries to uphold
patents. That's an important consid-
eration, given the fact that jury trials
are more expensive, time-consuming
and difficult to schedule than non-
jury trials. "The demand for a jury
should not be a knee-jerk reaction
of patent plaintiffs," he says.
Regardless of whether a case goes
before a judge or a jury, the complex-
ity of the issues involved in patent
disputes, the intricacies of modern
technology, and the increasingly
crowded federal dockets (which may
make judges less generous with the
time they allow attorneys to present
their cases) place a premium on
preparation. "Preparation is the key in any kind of litigation,"
Craig says. "You can't leave a stone unturned."
An important part of preparing is finding the most effec-
tive way to present the details of a patent case. More and
more, that means using television, computers and other mod-
ern communication technologies, Scinto says. "You make your
case in a more rapid fashion, but you use computer anima-
tion, simulation— that sort of thing— to distill it down and
make it understandable to the judge, who may have no techni-
cal training, and to the jurors, who may have no education
beyond high school."
"Effective trial aids will not convert bad facts into good
facts," Anthony adds. "But they can tip the balance in close
cases. And by removing the cloud of confusion from a high-
technology case, you demonstrate that you are doing your
WPI Journal
31
best to impart an understanding of the facts to the judge
or jury."
Two "clouds of confusion" that often surround patent suits
are the issue of obviousness and something called the doc-
trine of equivalents, Scinto says. "Sometimes you can avoid
the literal language of the claims of a patent and end up with
the same results," he says.
"But the Supreme Court says that if you've reached that
result by doing substantially the same thing in substantially
the same way, you have not really avoided the patent and
are guilty of infringement. That issue is the subject of a great
deal of litigation."
Defendants in patent suits often claim that the patent in
question is invalid because the invention would have been
obvious to others skilled in the prior art. "Sometimes, you
can arrive at a pretty reasoned opinion as to whether some-
thing was obvious, but often it will depend on the nature of the
evidence produced at the trial, and you
never know what that will be in ad-
vance. In the end, you are relying on
the experience and knowledge of the
person rendering the opinion."
«
/i I were advising young people
considerng careers in patent law
about what fields to get preparation
in, I'd say computers, semiconductor
technologies, bioengineering, biotech-
nology and genetic engineering," Craig
says. In fact, the computer and bio-
technology industries have proven
hotbeds of patent activity in recent
decades.
Makers of computer software have
traditionally turned to copyright law
to protect their products (copyrights
protect expressions of ideas — like
books, plays and musical scores
— rather than the ideas themselves), but patents have been
granted to fundamental advances in software design. Patents
are, perhaps, more critical for advances in computer technol-
ogy, where such fundamental advances as the integrated circuit
and memory design can be worth billions of dollars in royalties.
The rapidly changing nature of computer technology has
given rise to a myth that patents — which can take several
years to be granted once an application is filed — are not
worth pursuing when a new chip might be obsolete a year
or two after it goes on the market.
"In truth," Anthony says, "basic technologies are retained,
albeit in a much improved form, as a product evolves into
more advanced designs. For example, a patent basic to
a dynamic random access memory (DRAM) disclosed in a
one-kilobyte context, may be equally applicable to a one-
megabyte design."
The explosion of patent work in biotechnology can be
traced to the invention of genetic engineering in the early
Sometimes you can avoid
the literal language of the
claims of a patent and
end up with the same results....
That is the subject of a great
deal of litigation:
1970s and to a pivotal Supreme Court decision in 1980. In
Diamond v. Chakrabarty, the court ruled for the first time
that manmade microorganisms can be patented. Later court
rulings extended that protection to genetically engineered
plants and multicellular animals, and patents have also been
granted for individual genes and proteins — both natural and
manmade.
Patents have proven especially important in biotechnol-
ogy for a number of reasons. One of the most compelling is
the high cost of the research, development and testing needed
to bring a genetically engineered product to market. In 1991,
biotech companies spent $3.2 billion on R&D — an average
of 47 percent of their incomes. Pharmaceutical companies,
in contrast, spend about 15 percent of their incomes on
research and development.
If that investment were not enough reason for protecting
biological and biochemical inventions with patents, the
relative ease with which such inven-
tions can be copied or "reinvented"
should be. For example, once a com-
pany has begun clinical trials for a
new genetically engineered protein, a
competitor may find it easy to get a
sample of the compound, analyze it,
and determine the sequence of the
gene needed to make it.
But outright piracy is only one of
many ways a company can try to
wrest control of a new market from
its competitors or steer around its
rivals' patents in the brave new world
of biotechnology. Kokulis has been
involved in some of the most written-
about and closely studied interfer-
ence cases in this emerging and
challenging field.
Some of those cases concern
Amgen Inc. in Thousand Oaks, Calif.,
one of the world's largest biotechnol-
ogy companies. Amgen has focused much of its efforts on a
group of biological compounds called blood cell growth fac-
tors, chemicals made by the body that stimulate the growth
of the various cells that constitute human blood. One of its
first targets was erythropoietin (EPO), which boosts the pro-
duction of red blood cells. The compound can benefit pa-
tients on kidney dialysis, who often suffer from anemia brought
on by the destruction of red blood cells.
EPO is produced by the kidneys in very small amounts,
but isolating enough of the natural compound for commercial
production would be prohibitively expensive. Therefore,
Amgen and other companies — most notably, Genetics Insti-
tute in Cambridge, Mass.— set out to isolate the gene that
codes for the protein. It was an arduous search; at times, both
companies came close to giving it up. But in the end, Fu-Kuen
Lin at Amgen isolated the gene and Amgen obtained patents for
it and a host cell for manufacturing EPO using the isolated gene.
(Continued on Page 34)
32
Spring 1993
PATENT PROFILES
Paul ML Craig '45
Paul Craig, a German native, ar-
rived in the U.S. as a young man
and entered WPI as a classified
freshman with the Class of 1945. Due
to a lack of a deferment, he had to
interrupt his studies during his
senior year. He served in the U.S.
Navy from 1944 to 1946 and returned
to WPI to complete his bachelor's
degree in electrical engineering a
short time later.
His entry into the field of patent
law, he says, was purely accidental. "I was invited by RCA to
come to Camden, N.J., for a job interview in the fall of 1946. On
the advice of a neighbor, who worked with a Worcester patent
law firm, I extended my trip so I could visit Washington. I was
immediately hired as a patent examiner in an electrical division
of the U.S. Patent Office."
Craig started work in December 1946 and enrolled at
Georgetown University to work toward his law degree at night.
After receiving his bachelor of laws degree in 1950, he became
a patent advisor for the U.S. Army's Office of Chief of Ordnance.
"All of the Army's arsenals reported to that office," Craig says.
"Some of the work I handled came from the Redstone Arsenal,
where German scientists under Wernher von Braun were
working on rocket technology. 1 handled claims, filed patent
applications and worked on infringements."
While working for the Army, Craig earned a master's degree
in law at George Washington University. He left the Army in
1952 and went into private practice, where his knowledge of
foreign languages would prove to be a major asset with
future European clients.
While most of the work he did over the next several decades
was in his area of specialization, patent litigation, he spent a
good part of the 1950s and 1960s in general law practice with
his father, also Paul Craig (both Paul Craigs were admitted to
the bar on the same day in 1950).
In 1983, he split off from the Washington, D.C., intellectual
property firm of Craig & Antonelli, which he had founded, and
started the firm of Craig & Burns. Three years later that firm
merged with a law firm in Indiana. "The Indiana firm had a
policy that required partners to retire
at 67," he says. "I was worried that the
policy might keep me from continuing
to serve a longstanding client who in-
sisted on my representation, so I left
the firm in January 1 989 and since then
have been associated with Dow, Lohnes
& Albertson, a large general practice
law firm in Washington."
When Craig began his patent law
practice in the 1950s, the leading-
edge technologies included nuclear
energy and electronics. In the electronics area, corporations
were working to develop and commercialize technologies de-
veloped during World War II. In his last year at the Patent Office,
he became involved in major interferences that involved all the
major U.S. firms that had access to the MIT Radiation Labora-
tory in a fight for the rights to an important development in
radar, the "Magic T" antenna, which could send and receive
microwave signals.
Over the years, he has done a great deal of work for
electronics and automobile manufacturers. He has handled a
broad range of work in the intellectual property area, including
litigation, for European automotive clients such as Damiler-
Benz, BMW and Porsche, and several Japanese companies,
including Hitachi. He was involved for more than a decade in
the Kearns litigation, in which David Kearns sued many
automakers for alleged infringement of his intermittent wind-
shield wiper patents.
Craig says he has enjoyed his career in patent law, but he
notes that the profession has its pluses and minuses. On the
plus side are salaries that are generally higher than those most
engineers or research scientists can expect, as well as the
opportunity to use one's technical education in an exciting
and creative field, he says.
"But this is also a time-consuming and time-
demanding profession," he says. "That can be a detriment.
1 remember when my daughter was 12, 1 asked her what she
wanted to be when she grew up. She said she wasn't sure, but
she knew she wasn't going to be a lawyer, because she
wanted to spend time with her kids."
WPI Journal
33
..... :_,'_
(Continued from Page 32)
In theory, that should have concluded the race, but Gene-
tics Institute had a surprise in store for Amgen. Just before
the awarding of Amgen 's patent, GI had obtained a patent for
a purified sample of EPO the company isolated from human
urine. Genetics Institute argued that its patent also covered
the synthetic form of EPO Amgen planned to make with its
patented gene and process.
A lower court agreed with GI, but the decision was over-
turned on appeal to the Federal Circuit Court. Both the lower
court and the appeals court found Amgen's patent valid and
infringed by GI. Kokulis says the story of EPO also involved
several interferences (special proceedings to determine who
was the first inventor of something, and therefore the rightful
patent holder) over Amgen's gene and process.
The interferences, in which Kokulis was involved, were
determined favorably to Amgen by the U.S. Patent Office,
although appeals are pending. An important ruling
in the litigation and the interferences,
Kokulis says, is the finding that, with
gene inventions, conception of the in-
vention and its reduction to practice
occur simultaneously.
Kokulis says there is an important
weakness in current patent coverage
for biotechnology. "To illustrate this,"
he says, "let's say you are the first to
isolate the gene for a protein that ex-
ists naturally in the body and that
has been known about for some time.
The protein is old, but your method
for making it is new and you get a
patent in the U.S. on the gene, and not
on the protein it codes for.
"A company in Japan uses your
gene to make the protein and then
exports it to the U.S. As things stand
now, that company will have no
infringement problems, because it
has not used your gene in the U.S.
And since you hold no patent on the
protein itself, it can be exported to
this country.
"An apparently easy answer to the problem is to obtain
patent coverage for the process for making the protein using
the gene, since current law specifies that the importation
of a product made by a process that would infringe a U.S.
patent if made in the U.S., is itself infringement. But such
process coverage is not always available."
That was the issue at the heart of litigation filed a few
years ago by Amgen against Chugai Pharmaceutical, a major
Japanese biotechnology company. Before the award of the
Amgen gene patent, Genetics Institute had given Chugai the
gene and host cell needed to make EPO and entered into a
joint venture with the Japanese company to sell the protein in
the U.S. Amgen protested the arrangement to the U.S. Trade
Commission, but lost. "There have been proposals
The interference.. ..was to
determine who developed the
[AIDS] test kit first. As far as I
am concerned, Gallo and his
people were the first to do that,
as they discovered the way to
produce enough of the virus
to make useful kits.
for legislation that would remedy this type of situation," Kokulis
says, "but to date none have passed."
Perhaps the most publicized interference Kokulis has been
involved in concerned the isolation of the virus that causes
AIDS and the development of the first AIDS test kit. The case
pitted Robert Gallo, discoverer of interleukin-2 and the first
human retrovirus, HTLV-1, against French virologist Luc
Montagnier and the Pasteur Institute.
In 1983, while Gallo's lab raced with the French lab to be
the first to find the virus responsible for AIDS, Montagnier
sent Gallo a sample of LAV, which he believed to be the
culprit. A short time later, Gallo announced the isolation of
what he called HTLV-III, as well as an AIDS test kit based upon
it. The NIH was later granted a patent for the kit.
Montagnier claimed HTLV-III was really the Pasteur
Institute's LAV and charged misconduct in the creation of the
test kit. The institute, in the meantime, had developed its own
test kit and an interference was begun to determine which one
deserved the right to patent protec-
tion. After numerous meetings in
Washington and Paris, a settlement
was reached.
"Both sides agreed that they had
benefited from information the other
had shared with them," says Kokulis,
who was asked by the federal govern-
ment to handle the Gallo case in what
was seen as an unusual move (the
Justice Department normally defends
the government in interferences, he
says). "In a settlement disclosed in a
historic announcement in Washington
by the presidents of France and the U.S.,
Gallo and Montagnier agreed that they
were joint inventors of the test kit.
"The newspapers tended to over-
look an important point in that case,"
Kokulis adds. "The interference was
not about who isolated the virus first.
It was to determine who developed
the test kit first. As far as I am con-
cerned, Gallo and his people were the
first to do that, particularly as they
discovered the way to produce enough of the virus to make
useful kits. To do that they had to find an immortallized cell line
that the virus would not kill. That was a great contribution."
Since the Gallo case, Kokulis and his firm have handled a
number of patent-related cases for the NIH. One in particular
has been the subject of controversy. That case began in Au-
gust 1992 when the agency filed for patents on the research of
former NIH scientist J. Craig Venter. Venter isolated more than
3,000 partial human genes known as expressed-sequence tags.
The sequences can be used as probes to isolate the exact
position of useful genes. The NIH says it wants to secure the
intellectual property rights to the sequences so they will be
available to anyone who needs them for research.
(Continued on Page 36)
34
Spring 1993
PATENT PROFILES
Lawrence F. Scinto '51
Like many patent attorneys,
Lawrence Scinto didn't set out
to pursue a career in law. A
native of New York City, he enrolled at
Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute after
high school, and then served in the
U.S. Army in the Pacific Theater for
two years at the end of World War II.
"When I got out of the service, I decided to take advantage
of the G.I. Bill and began looking for a college outside of New
York," Scinto says. "I had relatives in Worcester who told me
about WPI." Scinto was admitted and earned a bachelor's
degree in civil engineering in 1951.
In his senior year, he took a course in engineering and the
law and became intrigued. When he returned to New York, he
enrolled at St. John's University and pursued a bachelor of laws
degree at night while working at various engineering jobs
during the day. He received his degree in 1956 and went on to
earn a master's degree in law at New York University in 1959.
Still, he didn't intend to work as a patent attorney; he says
he thought a knowledge of the legal field would be helpful in his
work as an engineer. But after spending a year as a contract
administrator at an engineering firm, he took a job as a patent
attorney for American Machine and Foundry Co. and has never
looked back.
For American Machine, he prosecuted patents on technol-
ogy used in such devices as bowling pin-spotting machines,
cigarette-making and -packaging machines, and bread-
wrapping machinery. In 1960 he joined the New York firm of
Morgan, Finnegan, Durham & Pine. Three years later he joined
Ward, Haselton, McElhannon, Orme, Brooks & Fitzpatrick,
where he eventually became a partner.
In 1971 , he joined with other attorneys in forming Fitzpatrick,
Cella, Harper & Scinto, where he is a senior partner today.
With 65 attorneys in the main office on Park Avenue, another
22 in an office in Washington, D.C., and three lawyers in a
Los Angeles office, the firm is one of
the largest intellectual property prac-
tices in the country.
Over the years, Scinto, who was
recently elected to membership in the
American College of Trial Lawyers,
has focused more and more of his
energies on patent litigation, which he
has pursued for such clients as Exxon, DuPont, Merck, Monsanto,
S.C. Johnson & Son, and Emerson Electric. The cases he has
handled have run the gamut of technical disciplines and industries.
Early in his career, he worked on cases involving the high-
speed manufacture of replacement radiator hoses for cars. He
brought suit for DuPont against Hercules Chemical Co. over a
patent for the photosensitive material used in making printed
circuit boards. And he successfully defended Merck in a suit
over its patents for crystalline and highly refined forms of
vitamin B12.
More recently, he worked on a case for DuPont and its
licensees involving a patent for a plastic material used to make
the expandable balloons for aortic catheters. Also working
for DuPont, he was able to prove that a patent granted to
another manufacturer for the use of the space-age plastic
Kevlar in brake linings was invalid because previous DuPont
publications already covered that application. Currently in
litigation is a case that pits client Emerson Electric against
General Electric in a fight dealing with brushless permanent-
magnet motors.
"Everyday it's something new," says Scinto, who notes that
working as a patent attorney has dispelled a myth he once
had about the field. "I had the misconception that patent law
was a very dull, stodgy area of legal practice. I could not have
been more wrong. To me, it's among the most exciting and
challenging areas. It's not always exciting, of course, but by
and large it's the kind of thing I look forward to coming to
work for every day."
WPI Journal
35
(Continued from Page 34)
While the agency says it will be willing to transfer the
rights to these sequences to biotechnology companies that
can put them to good use, those same companies fear that
granting the NIH patents on the gene segments will make it
harder for them to get patents on the full genes, since knowl-
edge of the sequences may make the genes obvious. "It will be
interesting to see what the future holds for patenting efforts
of this type," Kokulis says.
| f there was only one patent system in the world, life —
_ _ while not easy — would be a great deal simpler for patent
attorneys. In fact, nearly every nation maintains its own patent
system and within those many systems are a host of
conflicting requirements and rules.
As global competition in business and industry has inten-
sified in recent decades, the need for companies and indi-
vidual inventors to protect their intellectual property outside
of their home countries has grown. One indication of this is
the changing nature of the clientele of the U.S. Patent Office.
"Foreign companies are getting about one of every two
patents granted by our patent office today," Scinto notes. "In
1992, four of the top five companies getting patents issued in
their names were non-U.S. firms. The Japanese, in particular,
are quite sophisticated about using, not only our system, but
patent systems around the world."
With the growth of international patenting, has come a
rising interest in "harmonizing" the rules governing the many
national patent offices. The goal is to make the process of
applying for patents in multiple countries easier and fairer. In
the long term, such efforts may someday bring about a truly
international patent, which would provide access to patent pro-
tection in many — if not all — countries with a single application.
An important step along this road was taken more than a
century ago when a number of countries signed the Paris
Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property. About
100 nations now adhere to the Paris Convention, which re-
quires a signatory country to treat applicants from other
countries exactly as it does those within its own borders. It
also grants inventors one full year from the time they first file
an application in any member country to file applications in
other nations. During that year, the inventor can preserve his
right of priority, should priority of invention become an issue.
Students Pursue Patent Careers and Project:
While the majority of WPI's graduates go on to careers in
the disciplines in which they major, a growing number
are using their engineering and science degrees as
stepping-stones to other types of professional occupations. Each
year, about six of those students go on to study law, according to
Kent J. Rissmiller, assistant professor of social science and policy
studies and one of two advisors for WPI's pre-Iaw program.
"For the first time this year, most of those students are inter-
ested in patent law," Rissmiller says. "They are selecting law
schools because of their patent law programs and expect that the
field is the best way for them to combine their education in engi-
neering or science and their interest in law.
"I think it shows, in part, that students are a little nervous
about the availability of engineering jobs and about what kinds
of jobs they'll be qualified for if they have only a bachelor's de-
gree. They don't want to ignore or set aside their four years at
WPI; they just want to find other ways to use that education."
Rissmiller says students with a technical background often
have an advantage in applying to graduate programs that special-
ize in technical areas of law, like the law of intellectual property,
utility regulation and the environment. "In general," he says, "I
tell students that having an engineering or science degree is no
handicap whatsoever in getting into law school. These schools
don't put a lot of weight on an applicant's major. They're looking
for someone who can handle graduate education."
Through WPI's pre-law program, students receive special
advising about career opportunities, preparing for law school ex-
ams, and applying to law school. In addition, students can take a
sequence of law courses in the areas of management, history and
social science.
"These courses expose students to the kinds of problems, the
kinds of cases, and the kinds of materials they will encounter as
law students," Rissmiller says. "We want them to see if they find
it interesting and if they can adapt to learning through the case
format used in law courses."
Patent law has also played an important role in WPI's under-
graduate project program. For nearly two decades, students have
been completing Interactive Qualifying Projects (IQPs) with the
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office while in residence at the
Institute's Washington, D.C., Project Center.
The relationship with the Patent Office began in 1974 with
the assistance of C. Marshall Dann '35, who was then commis-
sioner of patents and trademarks. It has continued since then,
making it WPI's longest relationship with an off-campus project
sponsor. Over the years, more than 20 projects have been com-
pleted with the office.
The projects have focused on such areas as the classification
system used by the Patent Office and the use of modern automa-
tion technology in patent searches and other patent-related func-
tions. Many have used data about patenting activity to learn about
36
Spring 1993
:..-.. . . .'./■■...:■
There are currently a few regional patent offices that
enable inventors to file a single application and be granted
patents in multiple countries. The European Patent Office
covers 14 nations on that continent. Other such arrange-
ments cover the English- and French-speaking nations of
Africa and the Benelux nations.
In the early 1980s, a movement began to bring even
greater uniformity to the international patent community.
Since then, the World Intellec- . .
tual Property Organization
(W1PO), a special agency of
the United Nations, has
drafted a treaty aimed at har-
monizing international patent
procedures. Marshall Dann,
who attended meetings of the W1PO when he was U.S. patent
commissioner in the 1970s, says that if the U.S. is to ultimately
sign this treaty (as several nations have already done), it will
have to make a fundamental change in its patent system.
"Everywhere else in the world, with the exception of the
Philippines, they have a first-to-file system," he says. "We've
stayed with our first-to-invent system." A first-to-file system
The U.S. will have to abandon
the first-to-invent rule sooner or later.
grants a patent to the first inventor to get his application into
the patent office. The U.S. system is careful to award a patent to
the first person to actually realize a new technology.
"There are virtues to a first-to-invent system," Dann says.
"Because he doesn't have to worry about somebody stealing
his idea, an inventor has time to develop and perfect it before
running to the patent office. In theory, that results in higher
quality patents.
"The great virtue of the
first-to-file system is its sim-
plicity. It also eliminates the
need for interferences, which
can be burdensome. One key
argument against the system
is that it might encourage
sloppy and incomplete patent applications, which could re-
sult in more rejections and more vulnerable patents."
Dann says a first-to-file system may also favor large com-
panies, which have the resources to file patent applications
quickly. He says because most large U.S. companies patent
their inventions overseas, they already operate as if the U.S.
had a first-to-file system.
w
the process of creating and using new technology in the U.S. and
about the social and economic implications of technology.
Jane Meyers, the Institute's primary contact in the Patent Of-
fice, says one project that particularly impressed her examined
the impact of maintenance fees on patent holders. The fees, first
assessed in the early 1980s, must be paid by inventors every four
years to keep a patent valid.
"This project alerted us to the fact that we weren't notifying
inventors adequately about the fact that these maintenance fees
were due," she says. "As a result, the office instituted new proce-
dures to notify inventors. We took the students' report, condensed it
and published it. We distributed that publication to a lot of people."
A 1985 project looked at how placing the Patent Office's vast
collection of patents on CD ROM affected the way people use
those patents to do searches. The project was advised by Susan
Vernon-Gerstenfeld, adjunct associate professor and director of
the Washington Project Center. She used the data the students
gathered under her direction to complete a Ph.D. dissertation
that predicted how comfortable Patent Office employees would be
adopting the new technology. "The male patent examiners who had
been there the longest were the most reluctant users," she says.
"Projects like these can be of real value to the Patent Office,"
Vernon-Gerstenfeld says. "They don't have enough personnel to
do this work or enough resources. So sponsoring a project is a
good way to get a lot of talented labor. And our track record with
them is very good, or they wouldn't have kept coming back for
nearly 20 years."
That assessment is confirmed by Meyers: "The students have
often planted seeds for further research on our part and in many
cases we have followed through. I've got all the reports here in
my office and we do use them — even the ones with older data—
for reference."
When WPI opened the London Project Center in 1985, the
Institute's track record with the U.S. Patent Office opened the
door to the British Patent Office, where projects have been con-
ducted regularly since then. Later, the British connection would
help lay the groundwork for a series of projects with the Office of
Registrar General in Hong Kong, which is responsible for all areas
of commercial law on the island.
In Britain, many patent-related projects have focused on the
satisfaction users feel with the services they receive from the
British Patent Office. "The patent office perceived the enormous
value of having WPI students, who are disarming and nonthreat-
ening, gathering impartial responses from users," says Lance
Schachterle, associate dean of undergraduate studies and direc-
tor of the London Project Center.
The first project done with the British office looked at whether
the creation of the European Patent Office might make the ser-
vices of the British office obsolete. "The students came up with
what we were told was a better, more accurate report than one
the patent office had commissioned from a professional consult-
ing firm," Schachterle says.
The report found that many British inventors would prefer to
use their own patent office over the European office because it of-
fers the services they need at a lower cost. "The patent search
arm of the British Patent Office had thought it might go out of
business," Schachterle says. "The students' report convinced
them they had a future."
WPI Journal
37
Morgan D. Rosenberg '95 has been looking into these ques-
tions for his Interactive Qualifying Project, which will examine
how the transition to a first-to-file system might affect inven-
tors in the U.S. He says he has concluded from his research
that many of the fears about first-to-file may be unfounded.
"People who are for the first-to-file system say that while,
in theory, small inventors could be hurt, it doesn't seem to
happen in the real world," he notes. "And the level of quality
of patents really depends on what individual countries re-
quire in the way of disclosure, rather than on whether or not
they have a first-to-file system. Right now the U.S. has the
strictest level of disclosure requirements of any country. If
we switch to a first-to-file system, we'd probably retain those."
"The U.S. will have to abandon the first-to-invent rule sooner
or later," Craig says. But he notes that many nations are more
concerned about other provisions in U.S. law they consider
discriminatory. "For example," he notes, "the patent system
now favors U.S. inventors, because you cannot establish the
date of your invention by activities abroad, such as conception
of the invention or reduction to practice."
"Some say this gives U.S. companies a big advantage in
interferences," Dann says. "It's true that we say that our law
treats everybody the same — if you develop something in the
U.S., you are on a par with us. That sticks in the craw of
foreign companies.
"I don't know how the U.S. is going to come out on this,"
Dann adds. "There are a great many people — including, I think,
the current administration — who favor the U.S. becoming like
everybody else. A great many other people cherish the first-
to-invent system. They note that the U.S. will get little in return
for giving it up. We'll just have to wait and see."
r^atent law is an interesting field," Dann says. "It's a nice
x. combination of law and technology. You can use what you
know of science and engineering and you'll always find your-
self at the leading edge of technology, because every applica-
tion that you get into is, by definition, new."
How does a young man or woman get into the field? To
begin with, Kokulis says, a technical degree is a must, because
of the complex nature of the material a patent attorney must
deal with. "All but a few of the people in our firm have a
scientific background, and many started out by working
in a scientific area," he says. "The few who do not have
technical degrees work in trademarks and copyrights."
Once a prospective attorney has earned a law degree,
what is the next step? "There are three common ways to
break into the field," Craig says. "You can go to work for the
Patent Office as a patent examiner and attend law school at
night. This way you learn the rules and the thinking of the
Patent Office, which is valuable. You can work for a firm. In
Washington, people are hired right out of college; they do
searches at first while they earn their law degrees at, night.
"Or you can work for a company, especially one that has a
Washington office for training patent attorneys. To take ad-
vantage of the opportunity to choose from among a wider
range of law schools, however, companies are cutting back on
Morgan Rosenberg '95 says his research for an IQP
on patent harmonization convinced him that many
objections to the first-to-file system are unfounded.
their Washington training offices."
Each option has advantages and disadvantages, Kokulis
says. "At the Patent Office you'll gain a lot of experience
quickly and probably have more responsibility. At a firm you'll
progress more slowly, but you'll have greater variety in the
work you do. At a corporation you'll have a narrower expo-
sure, because your cases will concern whatever technology
the company specializes in."
Craig says there is a fourth alternative not often consid-
ered— serving as a clerk to a judge, especially a judge of the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. "This will give you
exposure to all sorts of cases," he says. "Many law firms pay a
premium for attorneys who have had such experience."
What are the prospects for a new patent attorney? Cur-
rently, the demand for young men and women in this field is
so great many firms are "growing" their own patent attorneys,
the Boston Globe recently reported. One Boston firm
is sending engineers to law school at its own expense.
New patent attorneys will join a small but growing fra-
ternity. According to the American Intellectual Property Law
Association, there are about 12,000 intellectual property
lawyers in the U.S. — fewer than 2 percent of all attorneys
listed by the American Bar Association. Those professionals
might find they have an important advantage over their peers,
Kokulis notes.
"Young people ask me about the practice of law," he says.
"I tell them that if you go into criminal law, you'll probably get
rather disenchanted with human nature. And I can see how
one might find domestic relations law, where you are con-
stantly confronted with people in turmoil, a bit depressing.
But patent law mostly has ups. You are dealing with people
who are out there making new inventions that, hopefully,
will contribute to everybody's well-being and happiness."
38
Spring 1993
INVESTIGATIONS
Playing Matchmaker to Methane
C
^^ ometimes called marsh gas or fire-
f | damp, methane constitutes about
1^/ 85 percent of natural gas and is
also produced by the decomposition of
organic matter. In addition to its use as
a fuel, methane has long been an impor-
tant starting point in a host of commer-
cially important chemical processes.
In the petrochemical industry, for
example, methane is often used to make
synthesis gas (carbon monoxide and
hydrogen), which is used, in turn, in the
manufacture of methanol and ammonia.
Since methane is abundant and cheap,
a major goal of the industry is to find a
way to convert methane to ethylene, a
chemical building block used to make
ethylene glycol, polyvinyl chloride, sty-
rene, polyethylene, fabric finishes, latex
paints and a host of other products.
To make ethylene in this way, two
molecules of methane must be combined
in a process known as oxidative dimeriza-
tion. In practice, this is a difficult process
to control and produces poor yields, gener-
ally in the range of just 25 to 30 percent,
says Yi Hua Ma, professor of chemical engi-
neering and director of WPI's Center for In-
organic Membrane Studies.
"It is not easy to put two methane mol-
ecules together," Ma says, "since methane
does not readily react with itself. To make
the reaction work, you must control the
oxidation of the methane. When you burn
methane, you completely oxidize it, pro-
ducing carbon dioxide and water. But in
the dimerization reaction, you partially
oxidize the methane molecules, producing
some carbon dioxide and water and some
useful products."
With a three-year contract for $690,590
from the U.S. Department of Energy, Ma and
chemical engineering professors Anthony
G. Dixon and William R. Moser are attempt-
ing to develop an inorganic membrane sys-
tem that will significantly increase the yield
of the dimerization reaction by both con-
From left, William Moser, Anthony Dixon and
Yi Hua Ma are developing an inorganic membrane
system to convert methane into ethylene.
trolling the rate at which oxygen mixes
with the methane and promoting the
coupling of the methane molecules.
Inorganic membranes are generally
made by building up increasingly fine
layers of inorganic materials like alumina,
zirconia and glass. The finest layers have
a uniform network of tiny pores that let
some compounds pass through, while
holding others back. The properties of a
membrane can be controlled by deposit-
ing various compounds — including cata-
lysts— inside the pores.
In their research, the WPI team is
developing a tube-shaped membrane
with oxygen-permeable and catalytically
active layers lining the interior of the
tube. Methane will flow through the cen-
ter of the tube while oxygen diffuses in
from the outside to partially oxidize it.
The team is currently experimenting
with ways to control the structure of the
membrane to permit only oxygen to pass
through. In addition, they plan to deposit
electrically conductive materials inside
the pores of the membrane to enhance
the movement of the electrically charged
oxygen molecules.
"We are looking at various oxides that
will allow oxygen to permeate through at
the high temperatures normally used in
the methane dimerization process," Ma
says. "By choosing the right material,
we hope to be able to control the partial
pressure of oxygen and, in turn, control
the reaction to produce the best yield
possible."
By the end of the three-year contract
period, Ma says the team hopes to have
developed a mechanism for increasing
the yield of the dimerization reaction and
to have determined how best to scale the
membrane system up to a large enough
size to handle the huge volumes of inex-
pensive methane that are produced by
industry.
"For the project to be successful,
the process must be economically feasible,"
Ma says. "We may find that even though
the membrane works, it is too expensive to
build. Or it may not be easy to use for mass
production in an industrial setting. We are
hoping we can overcome all these difficul-
ties, but it is a very, very difficult problem.
Otherwise, someone would have done it.
"However," he adds, "if the technique
works and the conversion rate is high
enough, this membrane system could be
worth billions of dollars to the chemical,
petrochemical and plastics industries."
The Inorganic Membrane Center was
established in 1988 to study how the mem-
branes work, how best to make them and
how to apply them in a broad range of
industries, including the chemical and bio-
technology industries. The center includes
faculty and graduate students from the
Chemical Engineering, Biology and Biotech-
nology, and Mechanical Engineering depart-
ments. Current industrial sponsors include
Mobil Oil Corp. and Amoco Oil Co.
—Michael Dorsey
WPI Journal
39
FINAL WORD
Richard Hansen Is Helping
Power Up the Developing World
U elipe Martinez can now regularly
I keep his country store open past
A sundown and the local community
center can extend its programs well into
the evening. Why is that news? Well until a
few years ago, there was no reliable source
of electricity for lighting in the rural town
of Bella Vista in the Puerto Plata region of
the Dominican Republic. If the store and
community center were occasionally open
evenings, shoppers and center visitors
were disturbed by the fumes from kero-
sene lamps.
Richard Hansen 76, a professional engi-
neer who received his bachelor's degree in
mechanical engineering from WPI and his
M.B.A. from Boston University, is the cata-
lyst for these electrifying changes. Nine
years ago he founded Enersol Associates
Inc., a nonprofit international development
organization in Somerville, Mass., that spe-
cializes in solar-based rural electrification.
He's served since then as Enersol's execu-
tive director.
Enersol's goal is to foster rural solar
electrification around the globe. Its ap-
proach to business, which it calls SO-BASEC,
makes use of recent advances in photovol-
taic technology and local human and insti-
tutional resources to bring power and light
to communities beyond the reach of exist-
ing distribution networks.
"It's impractical to run traditional
electric lines through heavily wooded or
remote terrain," says Hansen, a former
manager of industrial and manufacturing
engineering for Westinghouse. "Besides,
it would be bad for the environment."
Hansen went to the Dominican Repub-
lic in April 1984 to install one of his first
cost-effective, small-scale PV systems at
the Martinez home and store in Bella Vista.
The system, typical of others installed
since then as a result of Enersol's efforts,
included a solar photovoltaic module, an
automotive battery and a simple control-
junction box.
"It provided enough power to run the
family's television and radio and to keep
lights operating throughout the home and
market," Hansen says. "Community mem-
bers visited, discussed the system, and
Ydalia Alcantara, a Dominican seam-
stress, works under an electric light
powered by one of Enersol's solar
electric systems. The systems have
replaced dim and smelly kerosene
lamps in homes and businesses.
soon were convinced that the technology
suited their needs."
In such a low-income area, paying for
systems up front was a problem. So in
December 1984, Enersol helped 10 families
organize themselves into ADESOL, a solar
energy development association. The orga-
nization maintains a revolving loan fund
that enables people to buy home systems.
"It may well be the first solar electric re-
volving credit fund in the Third World,"
Hansen says.
The U.S. Agency for International Dev-
elopment mission in the Dominican Repub-
lic provided $2,000 in seed money for the
fund. By March 1985, five systems had
been financed, with users paying about
$10 a month for energy services. Buyers
pay back the $500 cost for a system over
four years. With a community-based credit
mechanism in place, Enersol then tackled
the problem of system servicing and sales.
"We worked with a local entrepreneur
to establish a small hardware and electri-
cal supply store," Hansen says. "The store
became the solar service center for the
region, a place where customers could
order new systems, buy spare parts, re-
quest service or arrange short-term financ-
ing. Business boomed. Typically, a success-
fully installed system would result in a
number of other sales."
Enersol next trained six local youths
to install and service solar home systems.
As the young technicians were completing
their training, ADESOL received a $3,500
USA1D grant to finance systems for eight
additional homes and businesses. The
work gave the youths immediate practical
experience. Peace Corps volunteers at-
tended the second training session, then
spread word of the technology to commu-
nities where they worked.
With a grant from the U.S. Department
of Energy, Enersol and the University of
40
Spring 1993
Massachusetts — Lowell prepared a case
study of the organization's activity in the
Dominican Republic. The 150-page report
described this unique experience of a U.S.
company disseminating photovoltaic tech-
nology at the grass-roots level in a devel-
oping country. It also provided important
lessons to others who might choose to
follow in Enersol's footsteps.
Between 1984 and 1992, about 4,000
home lighting systems were installed by
Dominicans; about half of these can be
traced directly to Enersol's training and
financing initiatives. Owners say they are
pleased with their systems, because they
put them in control of their own electrical
power. One noted that rural solar system
owners are better off than city dwellers
who depend entirely on centralized elec-
tricity. "While the lights go out daily in
Dominican cities," he said, "they stay on in
Bella Vista."
Now that solar electric technology has
gained a foothold in the Dominican Repub-
lic, Hansen is planning similar programs in
other countries in Latin America and the
Caribbean. He says solar systems can pro-
vide these nations with power and light for
homes, farms, schools, health clinics and
community centers. Unlike other rural
energy options, he notes, solar energy
systems emit no acid rain or greenhouse
gases, use no power lines, and require no
dams, mines or refineries.
Enersol has developed a comprehen-
sive program to foster solar-based rural
electrification at the community, national
and international levels. Its Energy Enter-
prise Development Activities encourage
the creation of local photovoltaic service
enterprises that sell, install and maintain
systems in remote rural communities. In-
stitutional Support Activities help groups
start solar-based rural electrification pro-
grams. And Public Outreach and Education
Activities provide information about the
economic, environmental and technologi-
cal aspects of photovoltaic systems and
their application in the developing world.
Enersol's efforts to aid developing
countries have not gone unnoticed. Its
Dominican Republic program has received
international recognition and support from
such institutions as the World Bank, the
Central Bank of the Dominican Republic,
the USAID Office of Energy, the U.S. Peace
Richard Hansen, far right, Enersol's executive director, and Eric Johnson, second
from left, the organization's training coordinator, pose with a group of Dominican
technicians at a training site in Bella Vista. The technicians install and service
Enersol's home solar photovoltaic systems. Since 1984, more than 2,000 systems
have been installed in the Dominican Republic as a result of Enersol's efforts.
Technicians Milo Martinez, left, and
Cesar Hiraldo carry a solar electric
system to a rural home in Bella
Vista. Enersol is planning similar
programs elsewhere in Latin
America and the Caribbean.
Corps, the Electric Power Research
Institute, Sandia National Laboratories,
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the United
Nations, and the National Rural Electric
Cooperative Association.
Early on, Hansen's efforts also caught
the interest of WPI Professor Edward N.
Clarke, who was then planning WPI's
Center for Solar Electrification. The two
presented a workshop at WPI on solar
electrification in developing countries.
One of the first Interactive Qualifying
Projects completed through the center,
PV Promotion for Rural Electrification, was
done by Visarut Asvaraksh '88 and Aswin
Pinsuvana '89 from Tailand, who benefited
from Hansen's early experience in the
Dominican Republic.
"We've been encouraged by the results
of our efforts to date," says Hansen, who
has recently been involved in feasibility
studies in Belize, Guatemala and Bolivia,
and has served as a consultant under con-
tract with the World Bank for the introduc-
tion of solar electric technology in Yemen.
"But there is still much to be done by ev-
eryone. Globally, an estimated two billion
people have no electricity."
— Ruth Trask
1 1 * *
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A Special Issue
on Medicine
Front Cover: Assisted by a surgical
nurse, plastic surgeon Dr. Raymond
Dunn 78 operates at the University of
Massachusetts Medical Center. Photo
by John Ferrarone. Story on page 25.
This Page: David S. Adams, associ-
ate professor of biology and biotech-
nology, examines the genetic map of a
gene for a neurotrophic factor. Photo
by Janet Woodcock. Story on page 10.
Back Coven Higgins Labs is sur-
rounded by lush summer greenery.
Plans are being drawn up for a major
overhaul of this home of the Mechan-
ical Engineering Department Photo
by Donald F. Berth '57.
a
4
WFI Journal
VOLUME XCVI NO. 3 SUMMER 1993
10
21
25
FEATURES
Fantastic Voyages Michael Dorsey
In laboratories all across campus, researchers are at work attacking a broad
range of medical problems — from treating stroke, to mapping the heart, to
understanding diabetes.
Greetings From WPI...Wish You Were Here
Summer is the season for vacations, and vacations mean postcards. Here is a
collection of the popular mailers that have featured pictures of the Institute
over the years.
WPI and the Healing Arts
Diane Benison, Carol Campbell, Allison Chisolm and Ruth Trask
Meet some of the many alumni who have used their WPI educations as
preparation for rewarding careers in medicine...
Atliina Kyritsis '87, pediatrician, page 26 • Raymond Dunn 78, plastic surgeon,
page 27 • Daniel Pender '63, otologic surgeon, page 29 • David Crimmins '58,
dentist, page 30 • Bruce Minsky 77, radiation oncologist, page 31 • Allison
Nunn 73, critical care nurse, page 32 • Bruce Haffty 76, radiation oncologist,
page 33 • Mark Mahoney 74, emergency room physician, page 34 • George
Batten '67, health service director, page 36 • Francis Kiernan 75, cardiologist,
page 37 • Carolyn Jones 79, industrial hygienist, page 38 • William AuBuchon
'82, anesthesiologist, page 39 • Lauren Baker '82, preclinical program manager,
page 40 • Thomas Gudewicz 78, undersea medicine specialist, page 41 •
Emanuel Furst '69 (Ph.D.), biomedical consultant, page 43
DEPARTMENTS
m
L Advance Word Michael Dorsey
The education of a health professional.
J Letters
Readers respond to recent articles on the humanities at WPI
and the Global Perspective Program.
4 Input John T. O'Connor
Are we finally ready to rein in the health care system?
7 Explorations Michael Dorsey and Bonnie Gelbwasser
A sampler of student projects in rehabilitation engineering and medicine.
44 Final Word Ruth Trask
How tavern owner Chandler Jones '26 has preserved a bit of history.
Staff of the WPI Journal: Editor, Michael W. Dorsey • Alumni News Editor, Ruth S. Trask • Writers, Diane Benison, Bonnie Gelbwasser and Neil Norum • Designer, Michael J. Sherman •
Photographer, Janet Woodcock. • Alumni Publications Committee: Samuel Mencow '37, chairman • Paul J. Cleary 71 • James S. Demetry '58 • Judith Donahue SIM '82 • William J. Firla
Jr. '60 • William R. Grogan '46 • Carl A. Keyser '39 • Robert C. Labonte '54 • Roger N. Perry Jr. '45 • Harlan B. Williams '50 • The WPI Journal (ISSN 0148-6128) is published quarterly for the
WPI Alumni Association by the Office of University Relations. Second-class postage paid at Worcester, Mass., and additional mailing offices. Printed by The Lane Press, Burlington, Vt.
Printed in the U.S.A.
Diverse views presented in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or official WPI policies. We welcome letters to the editor. Address correspondence to the Editor,
WPUournal, WPI, 100 Institute Road, Worcester, MA 01609-2280. Phone: (508) 831-5609, FAX: (508) 831-5604, Electronic Mail (Internet), mwdorsey@wpi.wpi.edu. Postmaster: If undeliverable,
please send form 3579 to the address above. Do not return publication. Entire contents © 1993, Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
ADVANCE WORD
"All medical
schools look for
evidence of inde-
pendent work or
research of the
type fostered by
the WPIPlan. "
The Education
of a Health Professional
What do WPI graduates
do for a living? The an-
swer to that question
may surprise you. Many, of
course, have adhered to the ca-
reer paths most often associated
with their major fields of study.
But more and more, WPI
alumni are using their educations
as starting points for lines of
work that diverge from these tra-
ditional occupations. In the Fall
1991 issue of the WPI Journal we
focused on alumni who work in
the food industry, doing every-
thing from farming to running restaurants. More recently, we profiled
engineering and science graduates who've built successful careers as
patent attorneys.
Over the past few years, readers of the Journal and the WPI Wire
have met graduates who work as actors, artists, musicians, writers,
artists' agents, furniture makers, cartographers, teachers, judges,
golf pros, corporate travel managers and pilots. And we are just be-
ginning to scratch the surface.
One field that has traditionally attracted many WPI graduates is
medicine. In this special issue of the Journal we profile 15 alumni
who work as physicians, as well as in a host of other medically
related professions. These stories begin on page 25. You will also
find — beginning on page 10 — a round-up of medically oriented
research under way on campus.
For students contemplating careers in medicine, WPI offers the
Pre-Health Professions Program, which helps students prepare for
careers in medicine, dental medicine and veterinary medicine. Stu-
dents who want to be veterinarians can also apply to the highly suc-
cessful B.S./D.V.M. program that WPI offers in conjunction with the
Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine. A select group of
high school seniors are admitted each year to both institutions; they
will study at WPI and then at Tufts, earning a B.S. in biochemistry,
biology/biotechnology or biomechanics from the Institute and a
doctorate in veterinary medicine from Tufts.
Through the Pre-Health Professions Program, pre-health profes-
sions advisors — Jill Rulfs, assistant professor of biology and biotech-
nology, and Douglas T. Browne, associate professor of chemistry —
provide interested students with advice on the courses they will
need to take at WPI to prepare for medical school admission and
also help them through the process of taking the Medical College
Admission Test (MCAT) and applying to medical schools.
Beginning next year, students will have the opportunity to
perform volunteer work at local hospitals, doing such tasks as help-
Kim Marquis '88, currently a resident at the University of
Washington Medical Center, says WPI's project-oriented
education and strong science programs helped prepare
her for medical school.
ing out in medical labs and emergency rooms or serving as patient
advocates and translators. According to Rulfs, many students who
intend to apply to medical school get additional hospital-based ex-
perience through their required WPI projects.
"These projects can give students a real competitive advantage,"
she says. "They learn a bit more about how the medical system
works and make valuable contacts." Last year, about 60 students
conducted Interactive Qualifying Projects and Major Qualifying Proj-
ects at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center and Saint
Vincent Hospital in Worcester, at two hospitals in San Francisco affil-
iated with WPI's San Francisco Project Center, at the Tufts Veteri-
nary School and at other health-related facilities in the Worcester
area. (See "Explorations," page 7, for examples of recent medically
related projects.)
The Pre-Health Professions Program is regularly evaluated by the
Pre-Health Professions Advisory Committee, which is composed of
WPI alumni and other health professionals. On-campus seminars by
working medical professionals provide students with insight into
current issues in medicine and into the demands and rewards of
their prospective professions.
Currently, 87 WPI students participate in the Pre-Health Profes-
sions Program. The Class of 1997 includes about 50 members who
have already expressed an interest in pursuing a medical career, a
Summer 1993
LETTERS
significant jump from recent classes.
Each year, between five and 10 students
apply to medical schools, a number that
is expected to triple within three years
due to rising interest among current stu-
dents.
Rulfs says WPI students consistently
perform at or above the national average
on the MCAT and are at or above the av-
erage in medical school admissions rates.
But, she notes, medical school admissions
currently "are as competitive as they have
ever been." While WPI does not "weed
out" any candidate from its pre-health
program, as some colleges do, it does ad-
vise all students interested in health ca-
reers to be prepared to pursue other pro-
fessions, should they not win admission
to medical, dental or veterinary school.
As you will see as you read this issue,
alumni who have made the cut and built
successful careers as medical profes-
sionals consistently look back at their WPI
education as a major reason for their suc-
cess in the field. In particular, the empha-
sis of the Institute's academic program on
self-study and small-group teaching is
consistent with the teaching approach of
most medical schools, and the experience
in problem solving students gain through
their projects is excellent preparation for
medical diagnosis and research.
Kim Marquis '88 is putting her train-
ing to work as a second-year resident in
internal medicine at the University of
Washington Medical Center in Seattle.
She received her M.D. from Duke Univer-
sity School of Medicine. "I felt well pre-
pared for medical school — especially in
the area of molecular biology — because
of WPI's strong science programs," she
says. "I also feel a technical background
can be invaluable considering the exten-
sive use of computers and sophisticated
equipment in medicine today."
Notes Bruce Minsky 77, who is pro-
filed on page 31, "All medical schools
look for evidence of independent work or
research of the type fostered by the WPI
Plan. There still aren't many undergradu-
ate students who have this kind of expe-
rience; it's what distinguishes the WPI
applicant from thousands of others ap-
plying to medical schools. Being able to
independently think a problem through
and carry it out from beginning to end is
critical, because it's exactly the skill you
use when treating patients."
—Michael Dorsey
To the Editor:
An eager reader of the WPI Journal, I found the Winter 1993 issue the most interesting
that 1 have read in 43 years.
From the opening of the first assembly of my freshman class, 1 recall only one thing.
The first speaker was Dean Howe. After approaching the lectern in Alden Memorial, he
scanned the assembled class— 90 percent World War II veterans-and said, "Gentlemen,
look at the man on your left and the man on your right. A year from now, one will not be
here and the other will take five years to graduate."
I returned the next year following a successful two semesters of study that I did not find
difficult. However, I completed only one more semester, having already decided to transfer
to Clark University. That decision was made upon discovering that, while the engineering
program was satisfactory, an educational setting wherein most students felt that taking an
English course was a waste of time was too stifling an environment for me. I found my satis-
faction in degrees from Clark and Harvard.
My associations and friends from WPI have re-
mained strong and I watched with pleasure the in-
troduction of a meaningfully integrated program in
the humanities at the Institute. If I had entered WPI
at anytime from the 1970s on, I would have been
satisfied. I found your latest exposition on the hu-
manities program ("Enriching Life and Making a
Living") the most forceful presentation to date.
Carl J. Davis '50, West Burke, Vt.
To the Editor:
I just received my Spring 1993 WPI Journal and was
most pleasantly surprised to see the Mapparium
on the cover. I have been station manager at WCSN,
the World Service of the Christian Science Monitor,
since 1987. We, along with our other two stations in
South Carolina and Saipan, North Mariana Islands,
broadcast Monitor Radio worldwide via shortwave.
So with our international involvement, I guess I
became involved in the "Global Perspective" before
it became "politically correct."
Robert "Stess" Stessel '69, Milford, Maine
(via electronic mail)
To the Editor:
1 enjoyed reading "The Whole World in Their
Hands" (Spring 1993). It's good to see that WPI is
continuing its efforts as a global educator through
ongoing expansion of its foreign project centers.
On page 13, it was mentioned that several fac-
ulty members are expanding the program beyond
the IQP such that students will be able to complete
the MQP abroad. I know of one instance where this has already happened. Paul Wojciak '91
and 1 completed our MQP at the London Project Center during the summer of 1990. Under
the direction of Professor Jim Demetry, we evaluated hardware/software/experiments
used at several existing controls engineering labs at a number of universities in the London
area. The final report made hardware recommendations and outlined a number of controls
experiments for use in a much needed (at the time) controls lab at WPI.
Jason Demerski '91, Pittsfield, Mass.
(via electronic mail)
WPI Journal
INPUT
Are We Finally Ready to Rein in
the Health Care System?
By John T. O'Connor
By now we're all familiar with the statistics. In the United States
we spend more than $800 billion a year on health care —
more than $2 billion a day. That's about 14 percent of the
total output of the U.S. economy; in other words, we spend about
one-seventh of all the income our economy generates on this one
service. In comparison, we spent less than 5 percent of a much
smaller GDP on medical care in 1950. Even today, England, Canada
and most Western nations spend about half as much of their
national output on health care as we do.
Though we pay more for it, survey after survey has shown that
Americans are less satisfied with their medical care system than res-
idents of other countries. And the U.S. ranks poorly in many of the
basic measures of health — including infant mortality — when com-
pared to many other nations.
In the public sector, which pays for about 40 percent of our med-
ical care costs, these higher expenditures — which continue to grow
much faster than the rate of inflation — are a cause of great concern.
Federal, state and local budgets have taken tremendous hits. As a
result, other valuable and necessary items
have been crowded out.
In the private sector, it's estimated that
37 million Americans have no medical
insurance; another 20 million are thought to
be seriously underinsured. This is not just a
problem for the unemployed; most of the
uninsured have jobs. Rather, it is a direct
result of the unaffordably high cost of med-
ical insurance. Ask business owners and
they will tell you that they feel that our na-
tion's competitive position in world mar-
kets is being drastically undermined by the
high premiums they pay each year on employee health insurance
policies.
How did we get into this mess? The current problems in health
care in the U.S. began just after World War II, a period that saw the
start of a tremendous expansion in the American medical care indus-
try. In other writings I've referred to this time as the "promotive stage"
of our health care industry.
Contrary to the predictions of most economists, the U.S. econ-
omy did not lapse into recession as the nation demobilized following
the war. High levels of postwar liquidity led to enormous levels of
pent-up demand (after the Depression of the 1930s and the forced
conservation of the defense expansion). Private and public sector
revenues expanded significantly, setting the stage for income-elastic
industries — like health care — to grow disproportionately.
The federal government responded to this relative affluence by
passing legislation that greatly expanded its own role in medical
"The postwar expan-
sion of federal funding
for medical care was
accompanied by mas-
sive growth in private
sector health insurance.
care. The Hill Burton Act of 1946 made billions of dollars
available for new and improved hospitals throughout the
country. Further billions were provided to finance medical
research and to increase the supply of physicians. Perhaps
most significant, Congress in 1965 created Medicare and
Medicaid to pay for medical care for the elderly and the
poor, respectively, adding what currently amounts to hun-
dreds of billions of dollars each year to the cost of medical
care delivery.
The postwar expansion of federal funding for medical
care was accompanied by massive growth in private sec-
tor health insurance. In an era of relatively cheap insur-
ance premiums and progressive personal income tax rates,
organized labor and management considered it wise to fat-
ten compensation packages with more nontaxable health
insurance benefits.
The growth of private and public medical insurance
was not only acceptable, but advantageous to organized
medicine (particularly to the
American Medical Association),
for it was based on the prevailing
model of solo-practice, fee-for-
service, cost-based reimburse-
ment. The insured were allowed
freedom of choice in their selec-
tion of physicians, hospitals,
etc.; controls on the utilization
of services were minimal. \
By the late 1960s, the con- j
sequences of the enormous \
postwar boost to the medical \
industry were becoming increasingly apparent. Medical I
care inflation was out of control, as costs and expendi-
tures skyrocketed. It became clear that a massive redistribution
of income and resources had been taking place — away from
taxpayers and other private sectors and into the medical care
sector.
Washington's first reaction was to attempt to control the prob-
lem through regulation. Comprehensive Health Planning legislation,
signed by President Johnson, was an ambitious and somewhat naive
attempt to rationalize the American medical care delivery system by
establishing regional health planning agencies. Although the pack-
age funded the education of system planners and created invaluable
sets of statistical data, cooperation from health care providers was
largely voluntary. In fact, the legislation contained language that re-
quired it to be implemented "without interference with existing pat-
terns of private professional practice of medicine...." As a result, the
Summer 1993
f^AftaJd^
law was a disappointment to many of those interested in reforming
the system.
More legislation followed. A 1972 law created Professional
Standards Review Organizations to provide peer review of the
appropriateness of care and the length of hospital stays for patients
covered by Medicare and Medicaid. Many states in the early 1970s
adopted "Certificate of Need" laws that required a public body to ap-
prove capital expenditures or substantive changes in the services
provided by medical providers.
The National Health Planning and Resources Development Act of
1974 consolidated and extended existing legislation, combining ele-
ments of regulation, health planning and federal funding for facilities
development. It put the federal government in a proactive role in re-
forming health care in the U.S., its supporters claimed.
Despite of all this legislative activity,
medical care expenditures and price lev-
els continued to grow much faster than
the GDP. The deregulatory approach of
the Reagan and Bush administrations re-
placed government regulation with
attempts to improve market competition.
The Republicans wondered why this in-
dustry couldn't be made to conform more
closely to the economist's model of pure
competition.
During this period, funds for health
planning, the education of new physicians
and the creation of new medical facilities
were eliminated or substantially
curtailed. Private and public efforts con-
centrated on making consumers better
informed, promoting competitive Health
Maintenance Organizations, and reducing
the barriers to new suppliers of medical
care.
But this strategy has also failed to halt
the runaway growth of the medical care
industry. What's more, growing numbers
of people are either uninsured or paying
more out-of-pocket in the form of deduc-
tibles and coinsurance. And it's widely
believed that the system is still overex-
panded — in terms of capital and person-
nel— and that this excess capacity exacer-
bates the costliness of the industry.
It's clear that massive changes must
be made in the way medical care is
financed and delivered in the United
States. Regulation and competitive strate-
gies have failed to limit the system's ex-
pansion, and an overly expanded system,
still financed largely through an expense-
promoting, cost-based reimbursement
system and fueled by a government- and
private-supported network of third-party
payers, is capable of consuming virtually
unlimited resources.
Medical care is still as much an art
as a science; different physicians frequently follow widely varying
treatment protocols for the same conditions. Without an incentive
system that encourages physicians to make more efficient use of re-
sources and reduces the monopoly power enjoyed by health care
providers, there is little hope for beneficial change. On the contrary,
with the aging of the population, the AIDs epidemic and the contin-
ued expansion of expensive biomedical technology, there is every
reason to believe the industry will continue to master an ever-grow-
ing share of our economy. It's no wonder that medical care reform
was a major issue in the Democratic platform in 1992.
Although the Clinton proposal is long overdue — delayed, in part,
by the complexity of the issue and the power of the constituencies
involved — its likely components are becoming clear. Managed com-
petition will likely be the delivery system of choice. Under this sys-
WPI Journal
tem, provider groups will integrate the financing and delivery of
medical care. These "Accountable Health Plans" (e.g., Health Main-
tenance organizations. Preferred Provider Organizations, etc.) will
compete to provide care to the American public.
Patients, or consumers, will be organized into advocacy groups,
variously known as "sponsors," "health insurance purchasing coop-
eratives" and "health alliances." These will establish the standard
coverage package, negotiate contracts with provider groups, con-
duct the annual enrollment/re-enrollment periods, and monitor pa-
tient complaints and quality issues throughout the contract period.
Large businesses will likely be the sponsor group for their employ-
ees. Regional health alliances will serve employees of smaller organi-
zations and the unemployed.
Under the managed care proposal, patients will have primary care
physicians who will serve as "gatekeepers," responsible for providing
care or directing treatment (access to specialists will require the prior
approval of one's primary care physician)
Under managed care, the provider
group closely monitors the cost and
quality of care. Incentives for cost con-
trol, absent under the traditional cost-
based, fee-for-service delivery system,
are inherent in such a system. Without
cost control, the provider group can-
not establish premiums that will attract
patients. Quality considerations are also built
in. Excessive complaints will lead consumer al-
liances to eliminate provider groups from con-
sideration during the next enrollment period.
It's expected that all Americans will be
required to participate in this system. Financing
is likely to come primarily from employer-paid premiums. Employers
above a certain size will be required to participate in the payment of
their employees' premiums through a health alliance. The
government will share in the cost of providing coverage to the unem-
ployed. It appears that vouchers will be provided to Medicaid partic-
ipants so they can also be part of the new system; Medicare,
however, may remain autonomous.
Although such a system has not been implemented anywhere
else in the world, there are good reasons to expect that it will work
well in the United States. A medical care system must grow out of —
and be consistent with — a country's culture to be successful. Most
existing national health insurance programs are single-payer
systems in which the government pays for health care through tax
receipts. But with our devotion to free enterprise, the U.S.
government has traditionally played a less-encompassing role.
The likely features of the administration's proposal conform to
our competitive, capitalistic tradition. Financing is primarily through
the payment of insurance premiums from the private sector. The
delivery system will involve competitive bidding among private enti-
ties. The role of the government will be limited. The monopoly pow-
er presently in the hands of providers will be limited by the forma-
tion of health alliances.
But the government's role will still be substantial. The standard
benefit package will have to meet certain requirements. A certain
level of employer contribution will be mandatory, as will participa-
tion by all Americans. The creation of consumer health alliances will
require government involvement. And new governmental financing
will be necessary to provide coverage for some of those who are cur-
rently uninsured.
But proponents of the plan insist that it is consistent with the
"American Way." Its provision of universal coverage will likely appeal
to liberals concerned with the access problems inherent in the pres-
ent systems. There are also plan ingredients that will appeal to conser-
vatives. The role of government will likely be minimal when compared
to that in most nations with national health insurance. And decentral-
ized private markets will form the core of the delivery system, permit-
ting consumers to choose from among various provider groups.
Still, passage of any such proposal will not be easy, as consumers
and providers will face significant restrictions on their traditional free-
doms. HMOs have been around since the 1930s, but while they've
seen periods of large enrollment gains in recent decades, they've yet
to attract more than a modest share of the U.S. population. The free-
dom to choose one's provider and see a specialist without prior ap-
proval are highly valued (albeit costly) features
of traditional indemnity insurance plans; there
will be opposition to their elimination.
Many Americans now enjoy employer-
financed medical insurance with lavish benefits;
QDDfOVQl for itS ^e^ cannot De expected to welcome a more ba-
sic insurance package with increased restric-
If the adminis-
tration is to gain
prOpOSal, it mUSt tions. And most physicians have traditionally
achieve a consensus
on the trade-offs of
the new system.
worked with an independence and autonomy
that is not characteristic of managed care.
Opposition can also be expected to the in-
creased taxes that will be necessary to finance
the system. While increased competition and
managed care should ultimately be successful
in controlling costs, expanding access to health
care and improving coverage for some will cost billions of additional
tax dollars. While proposals to increase "sin taxes" on such products
as alcohol and cigarettes can be anticipated, additional sources of
revenue may be necessary.
Finally, it must be remembered that in the macroeconomy, ex-
penditures equal income. What I pay a physician for a physical
examination is an expense to me, but income to him or her. Since
the proposed system is designed to control expenditures, it will also
control the incomes of providers — institutions and individuals. Not
all providers will support the reversal of the redistribution of na-
tional income from which they've benefitted for the last half century.
If the administration is to gain approval for its proposal, it must
achieve a political consensus on the trade-offs of the new system.
While many of the benefits will accrue to low-income groups, those
either now uninsured or underinsured, many of the costs will be ab-
sorbed by those in the upper income groups. Universal health insur-
ance encompasses many value issues, not only efficiency issues.
While there will be much wrangling over specific details of the
proposals, the most important issue may well be the nation's collec-
tive reaction to the redistribution of costs and benefits. While we
have, as a nation, reached a vague consensus that our medical care
system needs reform, we have not fully come to terms with the enor-
mous implications of making such a reform.
O'Connor, a professor in the departments of Social Science and
Policy Studies and Management at WPI, has written and lectured
extensively about the economics of health care.
Summer 1993
EXPLORATIONS
Challenging Students
and Helping People
For most WPI students, the Major Quali-
fying Project is an opportunity to solve a
realistic design problem in their major field
and to learn about how engineering and sci-
ence are practiced in the real world. But for
some 15 to 20 students each year, the MQP
means much more — it's a way of helping
from attending regular schools. Hoffman
says the students work on projects
suggested by rehabilitation engineers at the
school, developing specialized hardware to
meet the needs of individual students. The
projects help clients be more independent
and participate in a wider range of recrea-
tional and vocational activities.
In 1992, for example, in a project that won
WPl's Provost's MQP Award and the Edward
C. Perry Award for outstanding projects in
people gain greater control over their lives
and participate more fully in the world
around them.
Working with advisors Allen Hoffman,
professor of mechanical engineering, and
Holly Ault, assistant professor of mechanical
engineering, these students complete their
projects in rehabilitation engineering, a field
that includes the design and development of
devices to assist the disabled. Since 1989,
projects in this discipline at WPI have been
supported by a grant from the National
Science Foundation.
Many of the project teams — there are
generally between four and six each year,
Hoffman says — work with students at the
Massachusetts Hospital School in Canton,
Mass., a state-supported residential school
for students whose disabilities prevent them
Left, from left, James Woyciesjes, Kath
ryn Coughlin and Kerry Bagdonovich
designed this universal arm for a stu-
dent interested in photography. Above,
this reacher/gripper helps a young stu-
dent lead a more independent life.
mechanical design, David Flin-
ton '92 and William Sullivan '92
designed a device to help an
1 1-year-old with arthrogrypo-
sis, a debilitating congenital
disorder that greatly reduces the mobility
and strength of the joints.
"She has very little grip strength," Hoff-
man says. "As a result, she drops things—
her pencil, her paper, her hairbrush, and so
on. Before this project, she had to rely on an
attendant to pick them up because she can't
reach down from her wheelchair and she
can't use commercially available grippers,
which require too much strength and coor-
dination."
In a process that is typical of all of the re-
habilitation engineering projects, the
students first learned as much as they could
about the girl's disability. Then, working
with engineers and occupational therapists
at the school, they observed her physical ca-
pabilities. For example, they used a pinch-
meter to measure the maximum force she
can apply with her fingers, placed objects on
the floor around her to gauge her peripheral
vision, and attached a wooden dowel to the
frame of the wheelchair to see how accu-
rately she can maneuver it.
That last test led to a significant revision
to the students' preliminary design. "One of
the students placed a quarter on the floor
and asked her to see how close she could
place the dowel to the center of the coin,"
Hoffman says. "Her response was to ask if
she could keep the quar-
ter if she managed to do
it." Needless to say, he
adds, she kept the quarter.
Hoffman says her pre-
cise targeting ability
enabled the students to
simplify what had been a
complicated reacher/grip-
per arm. The finished de-
vice consists of a motor-
ized aluminum arm that
the student lowers over
the object after she has
wheeled the wheelchair
into the proper position.
With the flip of a switch, a
gripper at the end of the
arm closes on the object.
The arm is raised once
again, bringing the object
within her grasp.
"This has really made
a difference in her life," Hoffman says. "She
can zip about now and do things without
having to have someone follow her every-
where she goes. It's really added to her
independence."
Here is a sampler of other recent
projects in this discipline:
- Kerry Bagdonovich '93, Kathryn Coughlin
'93 and James Woyciesjes '93 designed a
universal arm and mount for a teenage stu-
dent with cerebral palsy who wished to
take photographs, but was unable to hold
or aim a camera. The device also lets her
engage in other crafts and use objects like
her mirror and hair dryer.
- An "Art Class Assistor," the design of
Brendan McLellan '92 and Lap Nguyen '92,
makes it easier for students with muscular
dystrophy, cerebral palsy and other mus-
cle weakening diseases to draw pictures. It
keeps a student's arm off the drawing pa-
per to prevent smearing and enables the
student to easily move his or her arm to
any spot on the paper.
WPI Journal
- John J. Desrosiers '91, Troy Neilsen '91 and
James Trapp '91 designed a vehicle pow-
ered by two electric motors that provides
mobility for children who are too young
for wheelchairs.
- A therapeutic tricycle designed by Jennifer
Almy '93, Dean Giolas '93, Brian Goetz '93,
Eric Graham '93 and Gary Krebs '93 not
only lets a youngster with arthrogryposis
get around with his friends, but encour-
ages him to use and develop his more seri-
ously affected leg.
Ault says she was particularly impressed
with a wheelchair pushcart designed by
Donna Underwood '93, Steven Schoeck '93
and Michael Bristol '93 with the help of
Ault says rehabilitation engineering pro-
jects have proven especially popular at WPI
because they let students solve real prob-
lems for real people. But she notes that they
also provide outstanding training in design,
as they require students to go through the
entire design process — from identifying a
problem, to conducting a detailed design and
engineering analysis, to making and testing a
prototype, to producing a usable device.
"The requirement we place on students
is that they deliver a working device," Hoff-
man adds. "We won't settle for anything
less. But we find that the fact that these de-
vices will actually be used by disabled indi-
viduals provides a strong motivation for stu-
From left, Jesse Spencer, Jonne Helenius, Sean Kavanaugh and Professor
Douglas Walcerz with the cardiac massage simulator the students designed.
solid-modeling and finite element analysis
software in WPI's CAD Lab. The cart was de-
signed for a student whose job at the school
is setting and clearing the tables for meals.
The lightweight cart quickly attaches to the
front of his wheelchair and has separate
molded plastic inserts to hold clean and
dirty dishes.
"It really became part of his wheelchair;
with practice he was able to wheel it around
as easily as the chair alone," she says. "It
should have a lot of other applications. For
example, it could make shopping much eas-
ier for disabled people." She notes that a stu-
dent project team next year will look at the
possibility of gaining wider distribution for
this and other student projects.
dents to follow through. And the students
get a great deal of satisfaction from helping
these people out."
—Michael Dorsey
Shape Memory Study
is a Winner
For their Major Qualifying Project, Nancy
Lynn Koczera '93 and Walter C. Kretzer
Jr. '92 investigated surgical staples fabri-
cated from shape memory thermoplastics.
In April, a paper about this MQP earned first
place (out of 40 papers) in the Undergrad-
uate Student Paper Competition at the 12th
Southern Biomedical Engineering Confer-
ence in New Orleans.
Koczera and Kretzer studied thermoplas-
tics, which can be shaped at high threshold,
cooled, then reformed. If the temperature is
raised above a certain temperature, the
polymer will return to its original shape.
These materials have applications to a wide
range of products and industries, from toys
to medicine.
For their research and report, Koczera
and Kretzer tested polymer compositions to
determine which combination would be the
best replacement for the stainless steel frac-
ture-fixation devices currently used to hold
healing bones in place. Physicians have
come to recognize that polymers, which are
similar in density to bone, allow broken
bones to heal without the slight osteoporo-
sis that can occur when steel devices are
used. In addition, these polymers are gradu-
ally resorbed into the body, eliminating the
need for surgical removal of the device.
Satya Shivkumar, assistant professor of me-
chanical engineering, and David DiBiasio,
associate professor of chemical engineering,
were the project advisors.
—Bonnie Gelbwasser
Building A Cardiac
Massage Simulator
The operation is progressing normally,
when, without warning, the patient goes
into shock. His heart beats rapidly, then
stops. Faced with this life-or-death situation,
a surgeon has several choices. If other life-
saving measures fail to get the heart going
again, he can open the chest and massage
the heart.
Surgeons routinely use open-chest cardi-
ac massage (OCCM) to resuscitate patients
during open-heart surgery and in a number of
other situations; veterinarians use it even
more frequently because the rib cage of
many animal species makes external heart
massage relatively ineffective. Until now,
most medical and veterinary students
received limited hands-on training in open-
chest cardiac massage because of the cost of
laboratory exercises and the ethical necessity
of minimizing the use of laboratory animals.
WPI students Michael T. Clohecy '93,
Jonne Henrik Helenius '93, Sean M.
Summer 1993
Kavanaugh '93, Kevin M. Lord '93, Jesse W.
Spencer '93 and Jessica M. Young '92 have
applied for a patent for their Open-Chest
Cardiac Massage Simulator, a working pro-
totype of the heart that can be used to dem-
onstrate and practice the proper ways to
administer the procedure. It is expected to
be an important teaching tool for medical
and veterinary students and for other health
care professionals. It could also be used by
these individuals to review and practice
their technique during their careers.
Five of the students worked with Douglas
B. Walcerz, assistant professor of mechani-
cal engineering, and Dr. James Ross, profes-
sor and chairman of medicine at Tufts
University School of Veterinary Medicine in
North Grafton, Mass., to design a device for
simulating OCCM. The project was initiated
in 1992 by Jessica Young.
The simulator consists of a hollow sili-
cone heart attached to a system of tubes,
valves and reservoirs that model venous
and arterial input and output to provide
tactile feedback to the practitioner through
variable flow rates and pressures. The team
studied a sheep's heart they obtained from a
slaughterhouse before creating an aluminum
and later a silicone model.
"The model has the look and feel of a real
heart and is designed to be filled with liquid
— probably a water/glycerol mix," says
Walcerz. "It is fitted with tubes with valves
on them to enable the instructor to simulate
actual conditions like shock and vasocon-
striction, so the student can actually feel
what is happening."
—Bonnie Gelbwasser
Helping Physicians
See More Clearly
For their Major Qualifying Project, Richard
J. Bombard '93, Douglas F. Finkle '93 and
Mark Turbitt '93 completed a study that will
help physicians and scientists more accu-
rately see why and how cells act the way
they do.
Using digital technology and light micros-
copy, biologists and clinicians have been
able to observe fluorescent dye-stained cells
under powerful microscopes to see and bet-
ter understand the complex changes that
can take place in the molecules and ions in
living cells. This knowledge can play an im-
From left, Dr. Fredric Fay of the
UMass Medical Center with Douglas
Finkle and Mark Turbitt, who studied
several algorithms used in digital
image restoration.
portant role in diagnosis, and ultimately
treatment, of illnesses and diseases.
For example, within the last few years a
protein defect has been identified within the
genes of cystic fibrosis patients and the con-
centration of calcium ions in smooth muscle
cells has been shown to have a significant
role in hypertension, asthma, bladder dis-
functions, kidney disease and gastrointesti-
nal disturbances.
Before the development of this new mi-
croscope technology, it was not possible to
observe complex intercellular processes.
Normal light microscopes are plagued with
optical distortions, known as aberrations.
But optical aberrations can be reversed if
they can first be accurately measured and
mathematically described. This process is
known as image restoration. Using powerful
computers, image restoration and feature-
enhancement techniques are being used to
produce three-dimensional images of cells.
But, because the science is so new, some
restoration techniques produce visually and
numerically inaccurate images.
Bombard, Finkle and Turbitt, who re-
ceived bachelor's degrees in electrical and
computer engineering in May, worked with a
team of scientists from the Biomedical Imag-
ing Group, part of the Physiology Department
of the University of Massachusetts Medical
School in Worcester, to test and compare
the performances of several restoration algo-
rithms currently in use. Algorithms are road-
maps or blueprints that tell scientists which
steps to follow to make best use of their
experimental information.
The students' goal was to ascertain
which of several restoration algorithms pro-
duce the most accurate images
under a variety of test condi-
tions. The test results will help
biologists and clinicians in-
crease their understanding of
complex cell structures and
processes. The WP1 faculty ad-
visors were Denise W. Nicoletti,
assistant professor of electrical
and computer engineering, and
Michael A. Gennert, assistant
professor of computer science.
"The students acted effec-
tively to test a number of algo-
rithms that have been proposed to enhance
resolution," says Dr. Fredric S. Fay, director
of the Biomedical Imaging Group. "Their re-
sults have long been awaited by the field
and represent much needed, careful and un-
biased analysis. Their work will provide use-
ful guidance for biomedical researchers in-
terested in using digital imaging microscopy
throughout the world." Fay's laboratory is
world renowned for pioneering a novel ap-
proach to digital imaging microscopy.
The students developed a number of
computer models as test images, estab-
lished testing criteria that can be used for
future tests, and wrote process-control soft-
ware to automate the testing procedures.
They determined that the most accurate
algorithm of those presented for study was
the least squares regularization with non-
negativity, which was developed by Walter
Carrington, a mathematician from the
Biomedical Imaging Group who was an assis-
tant professor of mathematical sciences at
WPI in 1984-85. They presented a summary
of their project at the December meeting of
the WPI Board of Trustees.
"This project fulfilled the technical
requirements of an MQP because the
students learned techniques of software
engineering, microscopy, simulation and
restoration algorithms, and model testing,"
says Nicoletti. "Engineering design must be
included in any MQP; the design compon-
ents of this project were the selection of al-
gorithms, efficient coding of the algorithms,
creation of automatic and user-friendly in-
terfaces for model testing, and appropriate
statistical measurements of the model
performance. This project was particularly
rewarding because it combined advanced,
theoretical topics from electrical engineer-
ing with the solution of an important scien-
tific problem."
—Bonnie Gelbwasser
WPI Journal
Pioneering New Ways to
Detect and Treat Stroke
^^ ince it was first developed in the late 1970s, magnetic reso-
^k nance imaging, or MR1, has become a powerful tool for prob-
%J ing the body for signs of cancer and other diseases. This
technique employs a combination of a strong magnet and radio
signals to produce detailed images of the body's internal structure.
In recent years, new techniques have been developed that
have greatly expanded the capabilities of MR1. In pioneering
research undertaken over the past few years by a consortium of
A roundup of explorations under way in
WPI's research laboratories aimed at advancing
the leading edge of medicine
Fantastic
By Michael Dorsey
All over the WPI campus,
faculty members and students
—from undergraduates on up to
postdocs—are conducting
research that is opening new
frontiers in medicine. In this one
article, we can highlight only a
small sample of this exciting
work. Watch future issues of the
WPI Journal andW\ Wire for
more stories about ongoing
research in medicine and many
other disciplines.
medical research groups at WPI and six New England hospitals, a
combination of novel MR1 techniques and new drugs is providing,
for the first time, a method for detecting the onset of stroke and
treating it before devastating brain damage occurs.
Stroke is the third leading cause of death in the U.S. The condi-
tion occurs when an artery feeding blood into the brain becomes
blocked, often by a blood clot, depriving nerve tissue of oxygen and
energy — a condition called ischemia. Almost immediately, a small
region of brain cells dies, but cells surrounding this core, although
compromised, can recover if treatment begins soon enough.
Unfortunately, standard methods of diagnosing stroke —
including conventional MRI — cannot detect the signs of ischemia
until several hours after the flow of blood ceases. By that time, the
damage is generally irreversible. In fact, many neurologists be-
lieve treatment must start within the first hour of a stroke to have
any chance of success.
As part of a consortium that includes the University of
Massachusetts Medical Center and the Medical Center of Central
Massachusetts, WPI's Magnetic Resonance Research Center has
been evaluating the ability of several new MRI techniques to de-
tect the early effects of stroke. One of the most promising of these
new techniques is called diffusion-weighted (DW) MRI. In this
method, signal intensity in the image is proportional to the diffu-
sion coefficient of water, a measure of how readily water mole-
cules move through a medium.
Christopher H. Sotak, associate professor of biomedical engi-
neering and director of the Magnetic Resonance Research Center,
and his research collaborators have been exploiting the fact that
DW MRI can detect an ischemic region of the brain far more
quickly after the onset of stroke than other diagnostic techniques.
While four to six hours can pass before the effects of stroke be-
come apparent in conventional MRI images, DW MRI can spot an
ischemic region in as little as 15 minutes after the cessation of
blood flow, Sotak says.
The increased signal intensity observed in a DW MRI image is a
reflection of a decrease in the apparent diffusion coefficient, or ADC,
of water in the ischemic region. The change in ADC is most likely
related to the disruption of high-energy metabolism.
10
Summer 1993
High-energy metabolism drives the so-called "sodium pump" in
the membranes of cells. This pump maintains the proper balance
between the concentration of sodium inside the cell and in the extra-
cellular spaces. As the pump fails during ischemia, extracellular
sodium rushes into the cell, initiating a cascade of biochemical
events that includes the accumulation of water and calcium in the
cell, cell swelling and, ultimately, cell death.
Many therapeutic strategies for stroke involve the design of
drugs that attempt to retard the biochemical mechanisms that lead
to cell death. These include the release of toxins, like glutamate,
from damaged cells. Glutamate latches on to nerve cell membranes
and lets calcium flood in, killing the cells. The New England consor-
Voyages!
effectiveness of the combination of diffusion-weighted MRI and Cere-
stat in diagnosing and treating patients who show symptoms of stroke.
In related work, Sotak has been working with graduate student
Lawrence L. Latour to better understand the mechanism responsible
for the decrease in the apparent diffusion coefficient during
ischemia. They are using a simple model system that consists of
closely packed red blood cells.
To simulate the biochemical processes that occur in stroke-dam-
aged cells, Latour and Sotak reduced the salt concentration in the
extracellular spaces, causing water to rush into and swell the cells.
As water flowed in, the volume of water in the extracellular spaces
shrank. This caused a characteristic change in the diffusion coef-
ficient in these spaces, a change that was readily measurable
with the laboratory's magnetic resonance instrument.
What was particularly striking, Sotak notes, is that the diffu-
sion coefficient decreased by 40 percent, a value quite similar to
the magnitude of the reduction that has been measured in brain
tissue damaged by stroke. In normal brain tissue, water is dis-
placed an average of seven to eight microns every 40 milliseconds
(the measurement time in the MRI experiment). In stroke-damaged
brain tissue, the average displacement is reduced to about five mi-
crons in 40 milliseconds. "This decrease has
been observed for about five or six years,"
Sotak says, "but there hasn't been a good ex-
planation for why it happens."
Some theories have suggested that, when
deprived of energy, the active transport mech-
anism inside brain cells shuts down, reducing
the movement of fluids in the cell and lowering
the diffusion coefficient. Others focus on the
failure of the sodium pump during ischemia,
which lets water rush into and swell the cells.
"Our work indicates that it is really the shrink-
ing extracellular volume that is behind the
characteristic reduction in this parameter,"
Sotak says.
C£T ' \ ^ m . Graduate students
\ \ * Bernard J. Dardzinski
and Mary Ferrera work
in WPI's Magnetic Reso-
nance Research Center. The insert shows what happens
to brain cells during a stroke. As energy is cut off to a
cell, the sodium pump in its membrane fails. Sodium
rushes in, causing the cell to swell with water. The
damaged cell releases toxins, which let calcium flood
through the membrane, killing the cell.
tium of which Sotak and his team are members is studying the effec-
tiveness of a drug developed by Cambridge Neuroscience Inc.
Known as Cerestat, the compound blocks channels in the cell mem-
brane that allow calcium to flow in unchecked.
"In our MRI studies, we've seen a 50 percent reduction in the size
of the ischemic region as a result of this treatment," Sotak says.
"Based on these studies, the FDA has approved the drug for human
clinical trials." The trials, which began in the spring, will study the
Shedding New
Light on Diabetes
Mm
s the 1.4 million Americans who
suffer from the Type I form of the
disease well know, diabetes
remains a disease without a cure. The insulin injections diabetics
take several times a day to regulate their blood sugar greatly curtail
the damage the illness can do to the heart, blood vessels, eyes,
nerves and kidneys. They can be reduced still further with more ag-
gressive monitoring of blood sugar, a recently concluded study by
the National Institutes of Health noted. But no matter how carefully
administered, insulin can't eliminate the progressive deterioration of
the body that diabetes causes.
In fact, the disease remains the leading cause of kidney failure
and new cases of blindness in those over 65 and is the nation's
fourth leading cause of death. Before diabetes can be cured, scien-
tists will have to get a better handle on its root causes.
The most overt symptom of diabetes is the inability of the body
to produce insulin. Manufactured in the pancreas, insulin helps the
body regulate the amount of glucose circulating through the blood-
stream. When there is too much glucose, the body removes the
WPI Journal
11
sugar from the blood and stores it as glycogen in the liver and
muscles.
A great deal of research on diabetes has focused on the biochem-
ical pathways involved in the storage of glucose. Insulin's role in this
process is to activate an enzyme known as glycogen synthase,
which, in turn, helps link individual molecules of glucose into gly-
cogen, notes Jill Rulfs, assistant professor of biology and biotechnol-
ogy, who became interested in this process as an instructor in the
Biochemistry Department at the University of Massachusetts
Medical Center.
Jill Rulfs at work in the new Fairlawn Foundation
Laboratory at WPI. Rulfs is working to understand
the biochemistry underlying diabetes.
At UMass, where Rulfs serves today as an adjunct assistant pro-
fessor of biochemistry and molecular biology, she was part of a team
studying glycogen synthase and attempting to clone the gene for this
protein. In the process, the team became interested in another pro-
tein that plays an even more fundamental role in glycogen formation.
"Glycogen synthase cannot start with one glucose molecule and
build from there," she says. "It needs a primer of six or seven glu-
cose molecules already strung together. Back in the 1970s, people
realized that there had to be another protein that could make this
primer. That protein is now known as glycogenin."
While the effect of diabetes on the quantity and activity of glyco-
gen synthase has been extensively studied, she says, to date no one
has looked at how the disease affects glycogenin. With a three-year,
$104,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health, Rulfs is taking
on that challenge. Working at UMass and in a new laboratory at WPI
funded by the Fairlawn Foundation in Worcester, she is studying
glycogenin in the liver and muscle.
In work completed so far, undergraduate Nestor Deocampo '93,
as part of his Major Qualifying Project, found the protein in samples
of normal liver and muscle tissue using an antibody probe devel-
oped in Rulfs' lab. "It appears that there is more of the protein in the
liver, although the forms present in the two types of tissue may be
significantly different," Rulfs says.
The next step will be to determine the amino acid sequence for
each type of protein to see where the differences lie. This may pro-
vide clues as to whether glycogen synthesis works differently in the
liver and muscle and whether diabetes has different effects on glyco-
gen storage in these organs.
Then, using a special strain of rat that spontaneously develops
diabetes, Rulfs and a new team of
undergraduates will see whether the
disease alters the amount of glycogenin
produced by the body and whether the
structure of the protein is different in any
way in the diabetic rats.
"If the diabetic rats have the protein,"
she says, "we want to see if there is a
change in its ability to attach to glucose
and build the primer for glycogen
synthase." It may turn out, she notes, that
the real problem in diabetes and other
glycogen-storage diseases lies in the
creation of this primer. Or, it may be that
the same mechanisms that affect the activ-
ity of glycogen synthase also affect glyco-
genin.
In other research, Rulfs has been look-
ing at the molecular changes that underlie
the damage diabetes can do to the heart.
"Diabetic hearts are hypersensitive to
adrenaline," she says. "For example, very
low levels of adrenaline will cause heart
cells to beat faster. We want to understand
the molecular basis of this hypersensitivity.
"Clearly, there is some information that
is being translated from the cell membrane
into the cell that causes this reaction. We
want to elaborate the mechanism by which this happens. What is
the signal from outside the cell? Is it insulin, some other growth fac-
tor, or another compound? How does it get into the cell, and once
there, how is its message transmitted."
To do this work, Rulfs uses rat heart cells that are cultured in the
lab. While a single heart can be used to create multiple cultures that
can be exposed to multiple experimental conditions, each new
experiment requires the sacrifice of a new animal, Rulfs says. To
avoid this requirement, Rulfs is working with doctoral candidate
Caroline E. Miller to develop an immortal adult cardiac cell line.
An immortal cell line is made up of cells of a certain tissue that will
continue to grow and divide indefinitely in culture and still maintain all
the original characteristics of the tissue. It provides researchers with a
virtually unlimited source of tissue for experimentation without the
continual need for sacrificing animals, Rulfs says.
Normally, many mammalian cells, like heart cells, do not grow or
divide once they are removed from the body. To jump-start them,
scientists transform the cells with a virus that inserts a gene into the
cell's chromosomes that overrides built-in checks on cell growth;
the transformation is similar to the genetic changes that cause can-
cer cells to grow and divide uncontrollably.
To date, the cell line established by Rulfs and Miller, with
support from the American Health Assistance Foundation, has
12
Summer 1993
undergone 20 passages. Passaging is the process of subdividing a
growing cell population by transfering cells from one culture vessel
to several others. The process gives the cells room to keep growing.
Miller has analyzed the first 12 of these "passages" and confirm-
ed that the cells continue to show all the characteristics of adult
heart cells and still seem to have the gene for unlimited growth in
their genome. In addition to its value in her own research, Rulfs says
the cell line should prove useful to researchers doing many other
types of studies on the physiology and pathology of the heart.
Putting Living
Tissue in the
Deep Freeze
■•uring the 20th century, medical
■ ■researchers have developed tech-
m0 niques that use tissue from human
donors to treat illnesses, to restore nor-
mal bodily functions and — in many
cases — to save lives. While procedures
like heart and liver transplants have
grabbed the headlines, millions of pa-
tients have regained their sight after
cornea transplants, burn victims have
been saved with skin grafts, infertile
couples have had children thanks to
donated sperm and eggs, and countless
accident victims, surgery patients
and hemophiliacs owe their lives to
donated blood.
Living cells undergo
steady deterioration
after removal from the
life-giving systems of
the body. This can be
slowed by refrigeration
at 4°C coupled with
nourishment with spe-
cially designed solu-
tions. But even in the
best of circumstances,
tissue remains viable
for only a few weeks.
The goal of unlimited
storage with no loss of
function has been
achieved in a few tis-
sues by freezing them
at -196°C. The potential exists for many more tissue types to be pre-
served in this way.
Cryopreservation, as the freezing of living tissue is known, has
proven to be as much an art as a science, notes Douglas B. Walcerz,
assistant professor of mechanical engineering. "Most of the tissue
we currently preserve — blood, skin, embryos, and so on — can be
frozen and thawed pretty reliably," he says. "But each time we begin
looking at a new tissue we run into new problems. Tissues are so di-
verse and cell types so different from one another, that there is no
one freezing and thawing method that will work for everything."
Douglas Walcerz and graduate
student Alison Berube prepare to
freeze cells in a cryogenic micro-
scope stage Walcerz designed and
built. He and Berube are using the
stage to learn how best to freeze
pancreas islets (insert), the source
of the hormone insulin.
In his cryobiology laboratory at WPI, Walcerz is bringing an engi-
neering perspective to what has largely been the domain of medical
researchers. "In the past, most cryopreservation methods have been
developed with a purely experimental approach," he says. "Tissue is
frozen and studied, and then the freezing rate or conditions are var-
ied and the process repeated until the best method is discovered."
Over the last seven years, Walcerz has been developing a ther-
modynamic model of the cryopreservation process that can be used
to predict how fluids and chemicals will flow across the cell mem-
branes in the target tissues and
how various factors — such as ex-
cessive dehydration and ice for-
mation— may injure or destroy
the cells. "Ice formation is almost
always fatal," he says, "because
the rigid crystalline structure of
ice will grow right through the
cell membrane."
To make sure the model
accurately reflects what
happens in actual tissue,
Walcerz spends about half of his
time freezing and thawing tissue
in the laboratory and studying
how its properties change. For
these studies, he uses a special
computer-controlled
microscope stage he developed
while completing his Ph.D.
at the University of Texas at
Austin.
The patented stage enables a
scientist to continuously view
cells as they are prepared for
freezing and ultimately frozen
and thawed. The cells are placed
in a sealed chamber into which
janet woodcock various solutions and
refrigerants — such as nitrogen vapor — can be introduced and
removed. A video camera records the whole process for later study.
Walcerz says the stage is a major improvement over previously
available technology.
"This is a much more versatile stage," he says. "With previous
stages, you could adjust the freezing conditions or the chemical en-
vironment, but not both simultaneously. The other stages also had
no means for nucleating ice — in other words, for starting ice forma-
tion in a controlled manner. If you don't do that and let the ice form
spontaneously, it usually appears with a sudden burst, which is
quite destructive."
Walcerz has been using the stage to study the freezing and thaw-
ing of pancreas islets. "The islets are the only insulin-producing tis-
sue in the body," he says. "The goal of a number of research teams is
to be able to transplant islets into diabetic patients — or to place
them in artificial pancreases — to give these people the ability to pro-
duce insulin.
"There are about one million islets distributed in clusters
throughout the human pancreas. Each one is slightly smaller than a
grain of salt, and they have proven quite difficult to separate from
the rest of the tissue. Because the separation yields are so poor, it
takes four or five donors to get enough islets to do one transplant.
Since all of the islets have to come from donors whose tissue is com-
WPI Journal
13
patible with the recipient, it can take some time to acquire them all.
That's why there is a great need to be able to freeze islets."
The freezing process for any tissue is a delicate chemical ballet,
Walcerz says. It involves cooling the cells, adding chemicals that act
as antifreezes and then quickly lowering the temperature of the cells
with refrigerants. Because most antifreezes are toxic, they must be
added in just the right quantities and when the cells are already
cool, since their toxicity is directly related to temperature, though
not too cool, since the permeability of the cell membranes also de-
creases as the temperature drops.
Because of the complexity of this process and the time-consum-
ing nature of lab work, Walcerz says his computer model can help
him arrive at acceptable solutions far faster than experimentation
alone. The model will also ultimately reveal far more about the
changes that take place in the islets as they are frozen and thawed
and how to avoid the damage freezing can cause.
"The theoretical basis for this model has been in place for three
decades," he says. "The actual writing of the computer code has not
been as straightforward as one
might imagine. There are a lot of
parts that surprise you and
explode when you try to run
them on the computer."
Walcerz says the model is es-
sentially complete. He is now de-
veloping a more user-friendly in-
terface that will enable scientists
not steeped in thermodynamic
modeling to use it to predict the
outcome of freezing processes.
He is also beginning to apply the
model to other tissues.
He is currently working with
corneas, trying to discover why
corneal cells survive freezing
even as the corneal tissue falls
apart. "This is proving to be a
very difficult tissue to preserve,"
he says. "It's another twist in an
ever-surprising field."
them from the bloodstream, they must be administered in rather
large quantities.
"Urokinase has a half-life of about two minutes," notes David S.
Adams, associate professor of biology and biotechnology. "The body
gets rid of these proteins quickly so it can maintain the vital ability
to form clots. But that means that when you're using them clinically,
you have to keep adding more and more to make sure you dissolve
the clot you're after."
With support from the National Institutes of Health and
Transgenic Sciences Inc. in Worcester, Adams and a team of
students that included Loree Griffin '91, set out several years ago to
develop a second-generation urokinase that would be equally effec-
tive in busting clots, but more resistant to breakdown by the body.
The first step in the process was to determine the exact
sequence of the amino acids that make up urokinase. Having accom-
plished that, Adams began studying the sequence to see if he could
identify the specific amino acids that form the active sites that cre-
ate the chemical bonds that link urokinase to another protein called
Urokinase Clearance
PAI Mut-uPA
• o
uPA
uPA-Receptc
In the sequence above, a blood clot in a coronary artery is eliminated with a clot-
dissolving drug. David Adams has developed a longer-lasting form of the clot dissolver
urokinase. Normally, urokinase (uPA in the diagram at right) binds to an inhibitor (PAI)
and then to a receptor, which quickly clears it from the blood. The new form of uroki-
nase (Mut-uPA) does not bind to the inhibitor.
Engineering a Longer-Lasting
Clot Dissolver
0n a hot summer evening, the doors to a hospital emergency
room swing open as EMTs wheel in a middle-aged man
complaining of severe chest pains. In short order, the patient
is hooked up to an intravenous line as urokinase is fed into his
bloodstream to dissolve a clot blocking the flow of oxygen-rich arter-
ial blood to his heart.
Urokinase is one of a class of drugs called clot dissolvers. Like
TPA (tissue plasminogen activator), another widely used clot buster,
it is a protein that is produced naturally by the body to break up
clots that form constantly as a result of normal activities like sitting
or walking.
The clot dissolvers in use today are genetically engineered ver-
sions manufactured in mammalian cell cultures. While they have
proven to be lifesavers, they all suffer from an important drawback:
because the body quickly inactivates these compounds and clears
an inhibitor. The inhibitor not only deactivates the clot dissolver,
but makes it possible for white blood cells to absorb and destroy it.
"I reasoned that if I could determine how urokinase binds the in-
hibitor," Adams says, "1 could make a change in the gene that codes
for this protein that would not only prevent the inactivation of uroki-
nase, but slow its clearance from the bloodstream."
Adams used a computer to compare urokinase's amino acid se-
quence to those of similar proteins, only one of which — TPA — also
binds the inhibitor. Adams found a segment that is present in uroki-
nase and TPA, but which does not occur in the other proteins. He
decided that this might well be the binding site.
To test his hypothesis, Adams first cloned the gene for urokinase
and then excised that part of the genetic sequence that codes for
this site. The altered gene was then introduced into a cell culture,
which manufactured the new version of the protein. The final stage
was isolating and testing the compound, Adams says.
First, the new urokinase was applied to blood clots to confirm
that it had not lost its ability to dissolve them. It was then added to
test tubes containing the inhibitor protein to confirm that it does not
bind to it. Other tests demonstrated that the new urokinase remains
active in blood far longer than the natural or wild form.
14
Summer 1993
"The next step will be to conduct animal tests to measure the
half-life of the protein in the bloodstream," he says. "We're predict-
ing that the half-life will be around 45 minutes. This means that it
should be possible to get the same clot dissolving effect using 10
times less drug." Adams says there are other potential modifications
to the urokinase molecule that might increase its activity or
longevity. These may become future projects for WP1 students.
Currently, Adams is applying the techniques he used in the study
of urokinase to compounds known as neurotrophic agents. "We all
have neurotrophic agents in our brains," he says. "They're capable
of causing neurons to grow toward them and can alter the firing ca-
pability of neurons. Their ability to stimulate brain cell growth is
something that was once thought impossible."
Adams says the first neurotrophic factor, ependymin, was
discovered in goldfish more than two decades ago by Victor
Sashoua, a researcher at Harvard. Adams is currently conducting re-
search on neurotrophic agents with funding from Neuromedica Inc.,
a company founded by Sashoua.
Ependymin appears to consolidate
memories by depositing itself around
new neural connections that form as
memories are created in the brain, mak-
ing those connections — and the memo-
ries— permanent. Ependymin formed to
consolidate a particular memory seems
to be able to transfer that memory to an-
other brain by forming and hard-wiring
similar neural connections there.
Sashoua discovered this property by
first training goldfish to swim upside
down. He then recovered ependymin
from the brains of those fish and injected
it into untrained goldfish, which learned
the task much faster than the original
group of fish.
In his lab, Adams has cloned the gene
for goldfish ependymin. Using a portion
of the gene as a probe, he and a team of
students are employing a technique
called the polymerase chain reaction
(PCR) to scan the genomes of other
species for similar genes. So far, they
have found such genes in species rang-
ing from horseshoe crabs to monkeys.
In related work, undergraduates Amy
D. Brideau '92 and Christina G. Corria '92
cloned the gene for amyloid, the predomi-
nant protein in a substance called plaque
that forms in the brains of Alzheimer's
disease sufferers. They then created mu-
tations in the gene that mimic ihose seen
in people who develop a form of Alzhei-
mer's that appears relatively early in life.
The gene the students developed has been used by TSI Corp. to
create a strain of transgenic mice that will, Adams hopes, develop
the symptoms of early-onset Alzheimer's. "TSI wants to see how
these mice react to drugs that may prevent Alzheimer's," he says.
"There is currently no reliable animal model to use in such tests. In
addition, if the animals get Alzheimer's, it will add weight to the the-
ory that the plaque causes the symptoms of the disease, which is by
no means clear now."
Expanding the Boundaries of
Medical Ultrasound
s
I ince it first appeared in hospitals in the 1970s, medical ultra-
sound has become an essential diagnostic tool that enables
doctors to noninvasively probe the body, capturing images of
everything from an unborn fetus to a developing tumor to a malfunc-
tioning heart valve.
But while ultrasound technology has advanced significantly over
the past two decades, a considerable amount of work remains to be
done to expand its capabilities. Some of that work is under way in the
laboratory of Peder C. Pedersen, professor of electrical and computer
engineering at WPI.
Much like sonar devices, ultrasound scanners work by using a
transducer to direct high-frequency sound waves into the body and
then analyzing the sound energy as it is reflected back to the trans-
From left, graduate students Brita
Sorli and Javier Berrios and Professor
Peder Pedersen work in Pedersen's
laboratory, where the three are devel-
oping ways to expand the capabilities
of medical ultrasound.
ducer. The amount of energy returned and the
arrival time of the echo provide information
about the nature of the reflecting tissue and its
distance from the transducer.
Some scanners process the received echoes
to extract slight frequency changes — called
Doppler shifts — that enable the scanner to image the movement of
blood through heart valves and blood vessels. Because moving
blood cells reflect only a minute amount of sound, Doppler
ultrasound devices send out short but fairly intense sound pulses.
With funding from the National Science Foundation, Pedersen
has been working to develop a new type of Doppler ultrasound tech-
nique that avoids exposing the body to powerful sound pulses.
(While no deleterious effects of such powerful ultrasound pulses
WPI Journal
15
FM
Excitation
have been documented, that possibility is nonetheless a concern to
researchers, Pedersen says.)
Pedersen's system sends out sound energy in the form of a long,
gliding tone, rather than a brief pulse. "While the total amount of en-
ergy delivered may be equal to or higher than that emitted by pulse
Doppler systems, it is sent out over a much longer time interval," he
notes. As a result, the ultrasound signal impinging on tissue is of a
much lower intensity than that of a conventional pulse Doppler sys-
tem, even though the new Doppler system has the same capabilities
for imaging blood flow.
Much work is still needed to assess the clinical usefulness of
the new system, Pedersen says. Toward that end, graduate student
Brita J. Sorli, in work that culminated in her master's thesis this
past spring, developed and tested new signal processing methods
that promise to make the new Doppler system faster and more
accurate.
In other research, Pedersen and
postdoctoral student Javier C. Berrios
are developing a new method for
using ultrasound to detect blood ves-
sel pathologies, such as blood clots in
veins. Currently, to locate clots doc-
tors commonly use such invasive
methods as venography, in which a
contrast agent is injected into the
vein and blood flow is monitored with
X-rays. While Doppler ultrasound can
be used to search for clots, it is lim-
ited because of the difficulty in distin-
guishing between the slowly moving
blood in open veins and the station-
ary blood in blocked veins.
The technique Pedersen and
Berrios are exploring is a refinement
of a trick ultrasound sonographers
sometimes employ as they look for
clots. Knowing that the highly flexible
walls of veins will collapse under even gentle pressure, the techni-
cians press the transducer against the leg or arm to see whether a
suspect vein appears to close up. If it doesn't, presumably an unseen
clot is keeping it open.
"But it takes a great deal of skill to do this," Pedersen says. "We
wondered whether we could automate it. We came up with a method
that uses a small plate to apply soft vibrations of different frequen-
cies to the skin while a sensitive ultrasound technique detects the
induced changes in the diameter of the blood vessel with an accu-
racy of five microns."
While initially designed to detect deep-vein thromboses, the sys-
tem is also able to gather information about the properties (such as
stiffness) of blood vessel walls — information that might be useful in
diagnosing other vascular diseases, such as aneurisms and athero-
sclerosis, a condition characterized by fatty deposits on the inside of
arteries. "In tests with simulated blood vessels in the lab, we have
demonstrated that the system can map out and display an image of
a vessel with reduced diameter, with increased stiffness, or contain-
ing a partial blockage," Pedersen says.
It is well-known that tumor tissue is generally harder than normal
tissue (this is the basis for finding tumors with palpation). For this
reason, tumors deform and move differently than other tissues in re-
sponse to external stimuli like vibrations, Pedersen says. By using
this technique to ultrasonically measure tissue movement in
response to applied vibrations, it may be easier to detect
certain types of tumors with ultrasound.
In related work, Pedersen and Berrios are conducting
experiments with blood vessel models to test a corres-
ponding mathematical model being developed by Dalin
Tang, assistant professor of mathematical sciences. The
model allows the researchers to explore whether abnor-
malities in any major blood vessel — such as a clot or arte-
rial plaque — will cause characteristic changes in the
shape of the pulse. By simulating pulsatile blood flow,
Pedersen and Berrios are using ultrasound to measure
how the pulse is transmitted along a blood vessel and
how the vessel changes in response to the pulse.
Despite the success of ultrasound in medical diagno-
sis, a great deal is yet to be learned about how the sound
Blood
Vessel
Above, the new Doppler ultrasound system
being developed by Peder Pedersen and grad-
uate researchers. The transducer sends out
sound in the form of a gliding tone. The sound
is reflected from moving blood cells and re-
turned to the transducer. A computer uses the
frequency changes in the reflected sound to
produce an image of the moving blood. Oppo-
site, Ronald Cheetham and Pamela Weathers
examine some of the many clones of geneti-
cally transformed Artemisia annua plants they
have created in the laboratory. Artemisia pro-
duces an antimalarial compound Cheetham
and Weathers hope to extract without harming
the plants.
pulses emitted by ultrasound transducers are affected as they travel
through specific types of tissue. "The ultrasound signal is affected by
everything it encounters as it travels through the body," he explains.
"Each tissue layer blurs or distorts the wave front. The shape and
orientation of a tissue layer and its roughness have a dramatic effect
on the energy that ultimately returns to the transducer."
In work he began at Drexel University, Pedersen is trying to un-
ravel these geometric effects. Donald P. Orofino, in his doctoral
research, was able to show that it is possible to mathematically
predict the effect of the orientation of a smooth reflective surface,
16
Summer 1993
Turning Plants Into
Pharmaceutical
Factories
M
whether a large layer or a small tile. "This was a terrific piece of
work," Pedersen says. "But it was just a first step toward under-
standing all of the mechanisms that affect an ultrasound signal."
Pedersen says he hopes to apply these results to the measurement
of the acoustic properties of blood vessels, a more complicated prob-
lem because of the way sound backscatters off of the curved surfaces
of the vessels. The next major step will be to look at how the rough-
ness of a tissue or organ affects the received signal. Pedersen says he
hopes to learn more about rough surface scattering during a sabbati-
cal at the Technical University of Denmark that begins this fall.
ore than 150 years ago, two French chemists iso-
lated a bitter white powder from the bark of the
Cinchona tree. Peruvian Incas had long used an
extract of the bark to treat fever, and as early as the early
1600s Jesuit missionaries had discovered that the extract
could also cure malaria. The substance the French chem-
ists derived from the bark proved to be the source of the
bark's curative powers. They named it quinine, after quina-
quina, the Incas' name for the tree.
Quinine quickly became the treatment of choice for
preventing and curing malaria. In time, this alkaloid was
joined by a host of synthetic antimalarials, created when
tf| wars cut nations off from their supply of quinine or when
I the parasites that cause malaria developed resistance to
I quinine and other malaria drugs.
While the use of these antimalarials has reduced dra-
matically the percentage of the world population that suf-
fers from this deadly disease, it still affects some 200 to
300 million people annually, mostly in tropical, newly de-
Jveloping nations, and remains one of the world's biggest
killers. Today the search for new antimalarials continues.
One promising target is artemisinin, a compound derived
from the bitter Chinese herb Artemisia annua, also called
sweet wormwood.
For more than 20 years, Chinese scientists have known
that artemisinin is a potent antimalarial with few of the
side effects associated with other malaria treatments.
Currently, the only way to obtain this compound is to
grow Artemisia annua, harvest it and then chemically ex-
tract artemisinin from the roots and stems, an expensive
and wasteful process.
With a three-year, $99,000 grant from the National
Institutes of Health, Pamela Weathers, associate professor
of biology and biotechnology, and Ronald D. Cheetham,
professor of biology and biotechnology, are developing a
way of extracting artemisinin from living plants. The
method turns the plants into continuously producing
artemisinin factories.
The technique involves genetically transforming
Artemisia with a bacteria that causes fast-growing "hairy
roots" to emerge from the plant's own roots. These trans-
s formed roots are then grown in culture and various
. i § agents are used to induce environmental and chemical
I stresses that tax the plant and cause the roots to release
saBfe a their artemisinin into the culture media, where it can be
recovered and purified.
In earlier work with beets and safflower plants, Weathers and
Cheetham showed that this release technique works and leaves the
plants unharmed. They have received a United States patent on the
process and a second U.S. patent and several international patents
are pending.
So far, the researchers, working with research scientist Alex
Dilorio and a team of graduate and undergraduate students, have
generated a number of transformed clones of Artemisia and are eval-
uating them to see which grow best in culture, which produce the
WPI Journal
17
greatest quantities of artemisinin, and which techniques are most
successful in causing the transformed roots to give up the chemical.
"The most important factors in this research are growth rates and
yields," Cheetham says. "If they're not high enough, you're fighting a
losing battle."
If artemisinin is to be successful as a malaria fighter, the
researchers note, it will have to be inexpensive enough to be afford-
able to residents of the Third World. That will mean finding a way to
grow the Artemisia cultures on a large scale. For that, Weathers and
Cheetham plan to turn to aeroponics, a method of growing plants
without soil. In an aeroponic system, a fine mist is used to continu-
ously coat the roots with a nutrient-rich film. In the research with
beets and safflower, it was found that the plants grew equally well in
a nutrient mist system and in nutrient-filled flasks, the method nor-
mally used for plant tissue culture.
The advantage of the aeroponic system is that it may be easier to
scale up than other culture methods, Weathers says, although the
scale-up process will still likely be fraught with challenges. "It looks
like a simple technology," she says, "but it's quite complex from a
fluids standpoint. The challenge is getting an even distribution of nu-
trients to a packed bed of roots."
Toward that end, Weathers and Cheetham are working with
Douglas B. Walcerz, assistant professor of mechanical engineering,
to develop a fluid dynamics model of a proposed aeroponic system
to better understand what might happen as the technology is
increased in scale. They are also collaborating with researchers at
Cornell University and with a New York State plant grower on a
space- and water-saving A-frame system that could be used for the
large-scale aeroponic production of Artemisia and a host of other
valuable plants.
The ability to culture Artemisia inexpensively may have medical
benefits beyond treating malaria, Weathers says. In research over
the past decade, other compounds produced by the plant have
shown promise as treatments for diseases as diverse as Pneumo-
cystis carinii, a prime killer of people infected with AIDS, and schisto-
somaisis, a severe infection caused by a parasitic flatworm.
At the same time, Weathers and Cheetham are looking to expand
their culture and extraction techniques to other plants that produce
valuable chemicals. These include Euphorbia lathyrus, a member of
the spurge family that makes a compound that may repel rats, and
the various species of Taxus or yews, which manufacture a variety of
chemicals with medical applications, including taxol, a proven can-
cer fighter.
Currently, taxol is obtained by harvesting Taxus and extracting
the chemical from the bark and needles. It takes 20,000 pounds of
bark to make a half pound of taxol. To make the compound more af-
fordable— and more readily available — scientists are trying to find
more economical and efficient ways to grow Taxus and extract taxol
and related compounds.
In work done so far in the lab of Weathers and Cheetham, Taxus
plantlets have been grown aeroponically to study how the roots
grow in a nutrient mist. In addition to developing a way of extracting
taxol from roots, the research may demonstrate how whole plants
can be grown more efficiently in the field. In fact, Weathers and
Cheetham are using the expertise they've gained so far to help
researchers at Pennsylvania State University, including Laura J.
Wagner '90, improve the rooting of a type of fast-maturing Taxus
plant they have developed.
"With Taxus, there are a lot of unknowns," Cheetham says.
"Different species of the plant may produce different products in dif-
ferent amounts. Products produced in Taxus roots may be different
than those produced in the bark and needles. Things that work in
the lab, may not work at larger scales. So while we have been seeing
small success stories here and there, they may or may not be the
routes that lead to commercial production."
New Catheter Will Find and
Treat Cardiac Arrhythmias
Jl It iHions of Americans suffer from cardiac arrhythmia, a con-
■ l/jf dition characterized by irregular and often inefficient heart
■ W m pumping. Each year, more than half a million people die
from the condition when the arrhythmia causes the heart to begin
beating spasmodically, a state known as fibrillation.
In a normal heart, a small mass of tissue in the right atrium called
the pacemaker sends out regular
electrical pulses that synchro-
nize the contraction of the heart
muscle, producing a regular, co-
ordinated beat. But in arrhyth-
mia, a second point in either the
right or left ventricle begins gen-
erating its own pacemaker sig-
nal, which causes the efficiency
and output of the heart to drop;
in severe cases, the result can be
fibrillation.
Current medical procedures
for detecting and treating
arrhythmias are expensive and
highly invasive, notes Robert A.
Peura, professor and head of the
Biomedical Engineering Depart-
ment. A commonly used tech-
nique involves opening the heart,
searching out the source of the
aberrant pacemaker signal with
an electrical probe, and then de-
stroying it surgically.
With a three-year, $115,000
grant from the National Insti-
tutes of Health, Peura and
Stevan Kun, a research associate g
in the Biomedical Engineering §
Department, are developing a | js|
new technology that will enable
physicians to locate arrhythmogenic foci and remove them in a mini-
mally invasive manner. The technique will employ a catheter that,
when introduced into the right or left ventricle through an artery or
vein, will generate a map of the electrical potentials of the inside of
the chamber. An arrhythmogenic focus will show up as a disruption
in this potential map.
Called the Intraventricular Impedance Imaging Catheter, the de-
vice includes eight columns of electrodes arranged on the surface of
a small balloon catheter that is inflated once the probe enters the
heart cavity. Each column has seven electrodes. Two of them gener-
ate a low-magnitude electric field of a high enough frequency so as
not to stimulate the heart. The others are used to measure the elec-
trical potential inside the heart. The measured potentials are used to
determine the position of the probe.
18
Summer 1993
"We want to be able to precisely locate the arrhythmogenic foci,"
Peura says. "This is complicated by the fact that the probe moves as
the heart beats. To overcome this difficulty, we must continuously
measure the position of the catheter with respect to the walls of the
heart."
To make this measurement, Peura's team is turning to a tech-
nique known as impedance imaging. Impedance is the measure of
the apparent resistance to the flow of alternating current. Since
blood is far less electrically resistive than heart muscle, the bound-
ary between blood and muscle in the heart creates a discernible
change in impedance.
Robert Peura, left, and research associate Stevan Kun
use a model to demonstrate how a catheter they are
developing will be inserted into a ventricle in the heart.
The cathode will use impedance to accurately locate
tissue in the ventricle responsible for arrhythmias.
By sending out a current and then measuring this characteristic
change, the probe generates data that can be used to produce a con-
tinuous three-dimensional geometric approximation of the heart
ventricle. Using this image, it should be possible to accurately guide
the probe to the spot on the ventricle wall responsible for the
second pacemaker signal and then to use a device attached to the
catheter to destroy it.
In addition to providing a means to detect and treat arrhythmias,
the catheter will provide valuable information about the state of the
heart that currently can be obtained in no other way, Peura says. For
example, a three-dimensional geometric approximation of the heart
can be used to calculate the heart's volume. Adding a pressure
transducer to the catheter will permit the generation of a pressure/
volume curve, which can provide clues about the condition of the
heart muscle. It can also be used to calculate cardiac output and
measure the efficiency of the heart.
"Some of these measurements can be made — with limited accu-
racy— using existing techniques like echocardiography, angiography
and radioisotope imaging," Kun says. "But none of these techno-
logies provides continuous, real-time data. And no technique can
reliably measure the heart's volume in real time. Our probe will pro-
vide an invaluable source of data for clinical diagnosis and can also
be used in research on human and animal hearts."
Peura says laboratory experiments with a prototype of the
catheter and a simulated ventricle have demonstrated that the basic
concepts employed in the device do work. Currently, a team of grad-
uate students is at work further developing the mathematical mod-
els of the relationship between the electric field generated by the
probe and the conductive properties of blood, muscle and heart tis-
sue. Another student is using such sophisticated computing tools
as neural networks to better understand how to use the impedance
measurements to approximate the shape of the heart.
Horseshoe Crab Focus of
Medically Related Discoveries
For more than a decade, the blood of the horseshoe crab has
provided the key ingredient for a standard test of bacterial
contamination in injectable drugs. The chemical, known as
Limulus Amebocyte Lysate or LAL, becomes a thick, milky gel in the
presence of gram-negative bacteria — a class of microorganisms re-
sponsible for many human diseases.
To get an adequate supply of LAL, horseshoe crabs, mostly
larger females, are captured and bled once a year when they come
inshore on the New England coast to mate and feed. While the pro-
cedure kills fewer than 1 percent of animals that are bled carefully,
more are probably lost in large commercial operations and some
scientists worry that the bleeding process may diminish the crabs'
reproductive success.
In addition, the sensitivity of LAL produced by different manufac-
turers— and often within different lots made by the same manufac-
turer— can vary significantly. This is probably due to differences be-
tween crabs and to seasonal and environmental factors that affect
blood cell production within crabs.
Daniel G. Gibson 111, assistant professor of biology and biotech-
nology, has spent the past several years developing a technique for
culturing the cells that manufacture the horseshoe crab's blood. The
procedure would eliminate the need for the yearly bleeding of crabs,
assure a more uniform supply of lysate, and prepare for the day
when a natural calamity might well decimate the horseshoe crab
population.
The first and most challenging step in this process was discover-
ing just where the crab keeps its blood-producing cells. Gibson
found a clue to their location in a 12-year-old report that described
the presence of significant numbers of blood cells in the flaps of the
crab's gill. Since the horseshoe crab does not use its blood cells to
carry oxygen, Gibson wondered why they would congregate there.
Under low magnification the interior of the gill flaps appears
wrinkled. Upon closer observation, the wrinkles turn out to be a net-
work of pods. It is in and around these pods, Gibson suspected, that
the blood cells are created. To test this hypothesis, he removed the
flaps and treated them with a disinfectant that caused the blood
cells to rupture. Within a week new cells reappeared, clustered
WPI Journal
19
around the pods. In another week, the cells broke free and dis-
persed. Their source had been found.
The next step was finding a way to culture the pods and recover
the blood cells. Master's degree student Joan Hilly paved the way
for this breakthrough with her discovery that the gill flaps can be
opened with a fine glass needle. The opened flaps can then be cul-
tured in blood serum. As they mature, the amebocytes are tested for
their reactivity to endotoxin. The goal of the project is to harvest the
cells and extract the LAL, just as it would be extracted from blood
drawn from whole crabs.
In 1992, Gibson and Hilly received a U.S. patent for the entire
process of preparing and culturing the gill flaps for the purpose of
recovering the LAL. Gibson says he envisions a time when colonies
of horseshoe crabs might be kept in captivity. By regularly harvest-
ing small portions of their gill flaps (adults have about 1,000 flaps, a
few hundred of which can be spared), the crabs could continue to
produce a regular supply of LAL for many years.
Ideally, Gibson says, he would like to find a way to make the gill
flap cultures immortal, so once started they would produce ame-
bocytes continuously, entirely eliminating the need for the crabs.
Currently, the flaps remain productive for only a few weeks, but gradu-
ate student Jill A. Friberg is working to transform the amebocyte-pro-
ducing cells with a virus that may override the natural control mecha-
nism in the cells' DNA that prevents unrestrained cell growth.
In other work, Gibson and Friberg are investigating ways to stim-
ulate the gills to produce greater quantities of amebocytes. Summer
research they did at the Marine Biological Laboratory with Jack
Levin suggested that extracting blood from crabs has that effect.
Levin is a hematologist at the University of California at San Fran-
cisco and the co-discoverer of the reaction between LAL and bacter-
ial endotoxins. Injecting crabs with a hormone that triggers molting
may also bolster cell counts. "After a crab molts, it increases in
size — and volume — dramatically," Gibson says. "It needs to boost
its production of blood to compensate. We may be able to use that
effect to increase the output of our cell cultures."
As he has worked with horseshoe crabs over the years, Gibson
says he has become intrigued with other aspects of their physiology
and behavior. For example, he notes, as the crabs get larger, the
amount of muscle tissue per unit volume in the animals shrinks. He
became curious about how the crabs continue to generate adequate
energy to swim and move about on the ocean floor.
Gibson suspected that each time a crab molts, its muscle fibers
gain additional mitochondria — the organelles in cells that are respon-
sible for turning glucose into energy. In other words, the larger the
animal becomes, the more biological engines it has powering its
muscle fibers. Using an electron microscope to examine and count
the mitochondria in muscles from crabs of different ages, he
confirmed his hypothesis.
To make sure the differences were not somehow created by the
process of preparing and staining the muscle tissue, he is currently
examining muscle in living horseshoe crabs with a confocal micro-
scope at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass. A
confocal microscope uses special optics and a digital computer to
peer though the translucent shell of the crab and reconstruct a de-
tailed, three-dimensional image of its internal organs.
The preliminary results from living crabs also indicate that the
mitochondria multiply as the crab ages. Beyond helping to answer
Graduate student Jill Friberg and
Professor Daniel Gibson extract
a blood sample from a horseshoe
crab. The two are continuing
to develop ways to culture the
crab's blood producing cells.
They are also studying mitochon-
dria in crab muscle with confocal
microscopy, a technique that can
look through the translucent
shell of a living crab (see inset).
this question, Gibson says his work with the confocal microscope may
have implications for human medicine. "There are a number of mito-
chondrial diseases in humans," he says. "In ragged red fiber disease,
for example, the muscle fibers begin to look strange after the age of 50
or so. The patient becomes weak and can end up paralyzed."
The problem, Gibson says, can be traced to genetic defects in the
muscle mitochondria, which have their own DNA separate from the
muscle cell's genome. To improve the diagnosis of this and similar
conditions, he says it may be possible to design a fiber-optic probe
for a confocal microscope that could be inserted through a small slit
in the skin to examine the condition of muscle mitochondria.
20
Summer 1993
^^^ or the hundreds of thousands of serious
^y collectors of postcards, 1993 is a special
d^F year. It was exactly 100 years ago that the
m nation's first commercially produced picture
postcards appeared. Sold two for a nickel from
vending machines, the cards were marketed as souvenirs
to visitors at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
But their lineage is traced to Henrich von Stephan in Germany.
In 1865, the year WPI was founded, von Stephan devised the postal
card (no picture) as a way to make it easier and cheaper for people
to keep in touch. The Austrian government was the first to issue
postal cards; the first U.S. cards appeared in 1872.
William Henry Jackson, a mapmaker for the Union Army during
the Civil War and a well-traveled explorer and artist, may have
made the first true picture postcards — sketches he mailed home
Postcards from about 1912
depict Boynton Hall, right,
and the Washburn Shops.
forces.
embellished with personal messages. Later, Jackson's
photographs of the U.S. were used on a wildly suc-
cessful series of postcards published by the Detroit
Printing Co. starting in the 1890s.
But picture postcards were already coming
into their own by the time Jackson's photos first
appeared. Early subjects tended to be major exhibi-
tions, like the Paris Exhibition of 1882, where com-
mercially produced picture postcards— depicting
the Eiffel Tower— made their world debut.
In the U.S., postcards bearing photographs and
other images enjoyed increasing popularity in the
years just after the Columbian Exposition. But it B;\
took an act of Congress to launch the picture
postcard's true "golden age." Until 1898, the federal
government maintained a double standard for postcard
users. Using a government-printed card to send one's greetings
cost Americans 1 cent; but the postage on privately printed cards was 2 cents.
The Private Mailing Card Act of May 19, 1898, established a uniform 1-cent
postage rate for all postcards. The act unleashed the nation's pent-up hunger for
card collecting, and dozens of postcard publishers sprang up around the nation
only too eager to satisfy the demand. In short order, the picture postcard became
a ubiquitous part of the American landscape, and deltiology (what some fans call
postcard collecting) became a hobby that still rivals philately (stamp collecting)
in popularity.
Over the years, it seems virtually every city, state, region, historic site, county
fair, landmark, tourist trap, scenic overview, amusement park, motel, restaurant,
historic event and famous person has been immortalized on a picture postcard—
__
Top, Higgins House
is the star of this
card published in
1988. Bottom, the
Institute's most
recent postcard,
published in 1990.
or a whole series of cards. Collectors divide the vast assortment of such cards
into anywhere from 300 to 400 categories.
While WPI might not merit a category all its own, it has issued its share of
the popular mailers over the years. The earliest in the collection have post-
marks or inscriptions dated 1906. Many of the early cards sport hand-tinted
black and white photographs. The Institute's most recent card — which depicts
an aerial view of the campus adorned in fall colors — was published in 1990.
On these pages we have presented a small sample of the many postcards
that have portrayed views of the WPI campus over the years. Our thanks to
WPI archivist Lora Brueck for her help in assembling this collection.
D
AND THE
Here are the stories of
15 alumni who've used
their educations as
stepping-stones to
careers in medicine.
By Diane Benison, Carol Campbell,
Allison Chisolm and Ruth Trask
i mong WPI's more than 20,000 alumni is a
ksmall but growing group who have
found their degrees in engineering,
science, management and the liberal arts to be ideal preparation for
careers in medically related professions. They work today as doctors,
nurses, dentists, hospital engineers, public health professionals, med-
ical researchers, administrators of medical facilities, and in many,
many other related occupations.
They are fighting the ravages of heart disease and cancer, minis-
tering to the sick and injured in city emergency rooms, treating all
manner of health problems and patients as general practitioners and
specialists, developing new devices and medical procedures to save
lives and improve the delivery of health care, teaching the next gener-
ation of physicians in teaching hospitals, and even helping the termi-
nally ill live well until they die.
In the pages that follow, we invite you to meet several of these tal-
ented men and women. Their stories were reported by Diane Benison,
a former newspaper editor who writes regularly for the WPl Journal,
Carol Campbell, a free-lance writer from Sturbridge, Mass., who last
wrote about manufacturing executives for the Journal (Winter 1992),
Allison Chisolm, a Worcester-based writer who recently moved to the
area from New York City, and Ruth Trask, who recently retired as
WPI's alumni news editor, but who plans to continue to delight Journal
readers with her profiles of alumni.
WPI Journal
25
L
Pediatric care can begin before birth and generally ends when the
patient turns 19," says Dr. Athina Kyritsis '87, a second-year resi-
dent in pediatric medicine at All Children's Hospital in St. Peters-
burg, Fla. "But it can continue into adulthood when patients have
childhood illnesses like cystic fibrosis. In such cases, pediatric medi-
cine has sometimes
made discoveries and
breakthroughs with
which physicians who
treat adults may not
be familiar."
When tests and di-
agnostic procedures
like sonograms iden-
tify medical problems
in a developing fetus,
pediatricians may be-
come involved in a
child's prenatal care,
Knowledge of
Technology
Helps Athina
Kyritsis in her
Training in
Pediatrics
she says. "A pediatri-
cian or neonatologist
may be called in to discuss with the parents the likely outcome and
prognosis for the child, and what the management might involve."
All Children's Hospital is a "subspecialty hospital that accepts
transfers from other hospitals that have patients with complicated
cases or who need special attention," Kyritsis says. "We have all the
subspecialties of pediatrics at our hospital. As part of the University
of South Florida, it is also a teaching hospital, so it carries the high-
est standard of care."
Kyritsis says doing her undergraduate work at a college known
primarily for its engineering and science programs was a help to her
in medical school. "It's good to go into medicine with a background
in engineering or anything that introduces you to technology,
because medical diagnosis is now so technologically advanced; it
takes quite a bit of understanding to be able to apply that tech-
nology to clinical practice.
"The breakthroughs happening in medicine are extraordinary.
A thorough grounding in technology helps you understand how the
diagnostic studies are done and the implications of the methodolo-
gies. Then you can apply that understanding to your own diagnosis.
It's also helpful to know how medical technology like MR] or CT
scanners work so you can understand their limitations."
Despite her technical background, Kyritsis says she found med-
ical school "initially overwhelming. It was like being given a spoon
to scoop out the ocean. It's overwhelming how much information
you're expected to learn in a short period of time. It seems beyond
your capacity to do so, then all of a sudden you find that you're able
to do it.
"Just when you think you can't possibly make room for more
information, your second year starts and your work load doubles.
You really think that you're likely to lose your mind. But somehow
you find you can do it. With some sacrifice and some perseverance
you get through it. In the third year you're introduced to clinical sci-
ences and you realize that what you've read in books didn't tell you
all you need to know to diagnose patients. You start to develop your
diagnostic skills and your physical exam skills.
"Then you're thrown into residency. That's unbelievable. All of a
sudden you're responsible for patients. You're on call, so most of
the time you're exhausted. You're constantly second-guessing your
decisions and you're hoping you've done the right thing. You're
hoping you've had good communications and interaction with the
patient and the family, since you are the critical link between them
and the illness. It's a scary time, but your confidence builds and it's
not so overwhelming anymore — finally."
Part of what makes residency so overwhelming are the 36-hour
shifts a resident must endure every four days. Kyritsis says she
accepts this on-call duty as part of the rite of passage in a doctor's
training. But, she adds, "it's difficult when you get home at night and
you have a baby and a husband and a house and you haven't slept.
You need to prioritize the little time that you have while your eyes
are still open."
She and her husband, Dr. Zannos Grekos, who is doing a fellow-
ship in cardiology, have a 14-month-old daughter and a second child
due in January. Any doubts about her powers of organization are
dispelled by the offhand comment that she breastfed her daughter
during her first year of residency.
Like some other WP1 Plan graduates, Kyritsis had trouble getting
medical schools to accept her WP1 grades. The University of South
Florida Medical School in Tampa accepted her, but required her to
take a course of its choice at the university before she started. The
course was comparable to one she'd taken at WP1; after doing
extremely well on the first two tests, she was excused from finishing
it. "I guess they saw that the standard of education at WPI was more
than adequate.
"I really enjoy what I do. I like pediatrics. 1 like medicine. I recom-
mend medicine to anyone who would like a career that has a
tremendous interaction with people and is intellectually
challenging." — Diane Benison
26
Summer 1993
L
IE
About 2 million Americans— young and old— suffer from chronic
leg ulcers caused by venous insufficiency. The ulcers, which
typically appear on the inside of the leg near the ankle, are unpleas-
ant, unsightly and painful and can make it difficult to lead a normal,
active life.
Chronic venous ulcers are the final stage of a process that begins
with the formation of a blood clot in veins of the leg. The clot, which
can form for a number of reasons, including injuries and pregnancy,
often grows to engulf one of more of the valves inside the vein that
/
help blood to flow back to the heart. In time, the body dissolves the
clot, but in the process the valves are often damaged or destroyed.
Without the valves to keep it moving, blood pools in the vein, a
condition known as venous stasis. Over a period of time, the blood
may seep out into the surrounding tissue. As they diffuse through
the tissue of the leg, blood cells die, releasing compounds that dam-
age the tissue. For many people with this condition, that tissue
damage leads to leg ulcers.
For some 3,000 years, the treatment of choice for leg ulcers has
been elevating the leg above the heart. Over the course of weeks, the
pooled blood flows out of the vein and the ulcer usually recedes. But
this is only a temporary solution, since the ulcers often return once
activity is resumed, and prolonged bed rest — up to three months — is
often impractical for younger patients. Surgical solutions, including
vein repairs and skin grafts, can bring about relief, but too often
these procedures also fail to provide a permanent cure.
According to Dr. Raymond M. Dunn 78, assistant professor of
plastic surgery and clinical director of the Plastic Surgery Research
Laboratories at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, the
lack of an adequate treatment for leg ulcers may be due, in part, to
the fact that the condition is not typically life threatening. In addi-
tion, it affects sections of the body that fall with the province of
three different medical specialties.
"Ulcers and wounds fall under plastic surgery," he says. "Veins
and arteries are the domain of vascular surgery. And skin problems
are covered by dermatology. This problem has gotten lost some-
where in between. A vascular surgeon will think about how he can
fix the veins; a dermatologist will treat the skin; a plastic surgeon will
deal with the wound. The problem is truly interdisciplinary."
It was during his medical training that Dunn says he first got an
insight into how an effective treatment for leg ulcers might be devel-
oped. His inspiration came when treating a young patient at a Veter-
ans Administration hospital in Virginia. "He had had a leg ulcer and,
for no good reason, a plastic surgeon had done a microsurgical flap
procedure on him," Dunn says. "I asked him how the leg was doing,
and he made a statement that turned a light bulb on in my head. He
Raymond Dunn Gives
Leg Ulcer Sufferers a
New Lease on Life
said, 'When I get a scratch or a bruise on the area with my flap, it
heals just like normal.'"
When leg ulcers are treated with skin grafts— a common approach,
Dunn says — scratches and bruises may cause the ulceration to reap-
pear. But for some reason, the skin flap had held up well to normal
wear and tear. "That's where my interest in this procedure began,"
he says.
Unlike a graft, where only the skin is removed and transplanted
to the area affected by the ulcer, microsurgical flap surgery involves
also taking the tissue underlying the skin— including arteries and
veins. In the surgical application Dunn pioneered, a flap is removed
from the back and attached to the area from which the ulcer has
been removed. The blood vessels in the flap are then painstakingly
hooked up to the leg's own vasculature.
As Dunn and his colleagues at UMass studied the results of the
procedures they performed, they were surprised to find that the
veins in the flaps they transplanted from their patients backs con-
tained numerous small valves. "No one had ever reported seeing
valves in these veins," he says. "We're not sure why they are there,
since blood in the back veins flows down— with the force of gravity
— toward the heart.
WPI Journal
27
"With this operation," Dunn adds, "we are able to address all of
the problems that contribute to leg ulcers. In one procedure, we
transplant valves, we graft skin and we remove the scarred wound."
Dunn has performed 10 flap procedures for leg ulcer sufferers. To
date, none of the ulcers has reappeared.
Dunn says the procedure has met with some skepticism in the
medical community, particularly from vascular surgeons who are
puzzled by how the procedure can be effective if the original source
of the ulcer — the damaged vein — is not repaired. Dunn says more re-
search needs to be done to fully understand
why the technique works, but he notes that
its success may indicate that the cause of
leg ulcers is more complicated than
previously thought.
Dunn, along with a vascular surgeon and
a dermatologist, sees patients with leg ul-
cers and other vascular diseases in the Ven-
ous Clinic they founded at the UMass Medi-
cal Center. The clinic is the only one of its
kind in New England. "Actually," Dunn says,
"we don't know of any other center in the
country that has brought these three disci-
plines together to address this problem."
Dunn, who received his bachelor's
degree in chemistry from WP1, earned his
M.D. at Albany (N.Y.) Medical College in
1982. "Early in my education, it became
apparent to me that 1 was interested in
surgery," he says. "No doubt my strong
engineering orientation as a WPI student
predisposed me to this inclination."
He undertook his residency in general
surgery at UMass in 1982 and was board certified in that discipline in
1988. In 1987, he began his training in plastic surgery at the Eastern
Virginia Medical Center in Norfolk, completing the program in 1990.
He says he was attracted to plastic surgery because it enables a
practitioner to put the principles of surgery to work on a constantly
changing array of surgical challenges.
"In many surgical disciplines, doctors learn a set of operations
that they perform over and over again," he notes. "The plastic sur-
geon's task is different with each patient. Doing this type of work
involves a lot of problem solving, and that's a lot like engineering.
1 honestly believe the education 1 received in engineering at WPI has
made me a better practitioner, because problem solving is really
what medicine is all about."
During his stay in Virginia, Dunn traveled to West Africa, the
Philippines and Turkey, where he worked with volunteer surgical
organizations from the Norfolk area providing care for children with
burns and congenital defects, such as cleft lips. "That was a particu-
larly gratifying part of my training, which I hope to continue through-
out my career," he says. Today he is a surgical volunteer with the
Federico Trillo Foundation in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
A Maimonides Fellowship, which he received during his training
program in Virginia, enabled him to travel throughout Israel to ob-
"With this operation,
we are able to address
all of the problems that
contribute to leg ulcers.
In one procedure,
we transplant valves,
we graft skin and we
remove the
scarred wound. "
serve plastic surgery at various universities. The fellowship is given
each year to one resident in plastic surgery in Virginia.
While in Virginia he also received the Burroughs-Welcome Resi-
dent Leadership Award from the American Medical Association for his
voluntary surgical activities and was appointed a resident delegate to
the American Medical Association by the American Society of Plastic
and Reconstructive Surgery, which enabled him to participate in na-
tional forums on medicine. Basic research he performed in Virginia re-
sulted in a paper on microsurgical monitoring, which earned him the
Best Paper Award from the Plastic Surgery
Education Foundation in 1990.
Dunn began his full-time practice in
plastic and reconstructive surgery at
UMass in 1990. He says the bulk of his time
in the operating room is spent in reconstruc-
tive surgery. In addition to his work with
patients, Dunn also spends time teaching
and mentoring medical students at the
university.
As an affiliate assistant professor of
biomedical engineering at WPI, he advises
undergraduates completing MQPs and
master's degree candidates on a variety of
research projects at UMass. And, he is a
member of WPI's Pre-Health Professions
Advisory Committee, which helps to im-
prove opportunities for undergraduates
who aspire to medical careers.
His busy life also includes raising 18-
month-old triplets— Katie, Meaghan and
Sarah — with his wife, Beth. Still, Dunn has
found time to become active in the national
medical community. A member of the American Association of Clin-
ical Anatomy, the American College of Surgeons and the Massachu-
setts Society of Plastic Surgery, he is a delegate representing plastic
surgery in the Young Physicians Section of the American Medical
Association and chairman of the Young Physicians Section for plas-
tic surgery of the American Society for Plastic and Reconstructive
Surgery.
"I find this work exciting," he says, "because there are an incredi-
ble number of changes coming along in medicine. We will have to
find ways in this country to deal with our inability to provide care
for everyone. My generation will not only be affected by these
changes, but will be involved in the evolution of medicine."
Dunn says one of the goals of his fellow young plastic surgeons
is to better educate Americans about what this specialty is all about
and to dispell the myth that all plastic surgery consists of face lifts,
breast implants and other cosmetic procedures. "People don't have
any idea of the breadth of what we do," he says. "We take care of
trauma patients and cancer patients. We correct congenital defects.
We do surgery of the hand. We do laser surgery, and so on. More
than 80 percent of our work is reconstructive surgery. It's really a
diverse and exciting field."
—Michael Dorsey and Ruth Trask
28
Summer 1993
LUM
w
hen Dr. Daniel Pender '63 was a mechanical
engineering major at the Institute, he never
imagined that his future career would find him ap-
plying the principles he learned in his engineering
courses to the study of the human body. That, how-
ever, is precisely how he views his work today as
an otologic, or ear, surgeon at the New York Ear
Institute and at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in
New York City.
"Otology is a wonderful specialty for a mechanical engineer," he
says. "As an ear surgeon, I work on the mechanical structure of the
ear. Surgery in that area is interesting — and meticulous. I like metic-
ulous things. Usually that means small, neat machines where you
can appreciate how things fit together and work."
Pender says repair of the middle ear requires an understanding
of middle- and inner-ear biophysics, impedance or resistance match-
ing, and electrophysiology. He says the ear is essentially an
electromechanical device, "a black box that transfers signals in
an elaborate way to the brain."
Sound energy arriving in the ear vibrates the eardrum. This
movement is transferred, via the linkage formed by the three
bones of the middle ear, to a membrane in the cochlea, creating
pressure waves in this fluid-filled organ. Receptor cells in the
cochlea respond to these waves, converting the various
frequencies of sound into electrical sig-
nals that travel to the brain along
the auditory nerve.
Pender did not always
intend to pursue a career
in ear surgery. Origin-
ally, he says, he was in-
terested in plastic sur-
gery, but was deterred
by what he calls "the
credentials obstacle.
This would require five
full years of surgery,
which did not interest
me," he says. Instead,
he chose an ear, nose
and throat specialty
that he further limited to otology.
After receiving his undergraduate degree from WPI, Pender
moved on to the Yale Graduate School of Engineering to work
toward a Ph.D in mechanical engineering. After completing one
year there and earning his master's, he received a mailing about a
summer program at the University of California's Lawrence Radia-
tion Laboratory. Enticed by the idea of spending a summer on the
West Coast, he applied. That summer, he moved to California to
work full time at the radiation lab.
He later enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania Medical
School to complete his M.D. degree. He did his surgical residency at
the University of Vermont and completed a two-year research fellow
ship at Harvard. At Harvard, he studied a drug used in the treatment
To Otologic Surgeon
Daniel Pender, the Ear Is a
Marvelous Mechanical Device
of Meniere's Syndrome, which causes hearing loss and acute
dizziness. The study was published in the American Journal of
Otolaryngology.
Pender has continued his interest in applied research as a prac-
ticing surgeon. One of the products of that work is a device he calls
a laser-oto-injecto-scope. The patented apparatus is designed to
treat a condition called serious otitis media, a common and persis-
tent ear infection — mostly in
children — caused by a build-up of
fluid in the middle ear. Pender says
the procedure often used to correct
the condition — inserting a small
drainage tube into the eardrum — is
the most commonly performed mi-
nor operation in the United States.
Lasers have been used experi-
mentally to make drainage holes in
the human eardrum, but the tech-
nique has failed to gain widespread
acceptance because of the difficulty
of keeping the resulting hole open long
enough to drain the fluid. Pender's device
solves this problem.
After a topical anesthetic is applied to
the eardrum, the laser-oto-injecto-scope
is inserted into the ear canal, enabling the
physician to sight the proper spot on the
eardrum. The device emits a laser pulse
and a small, conical grommet. Like a dart
shot from a blowgun, the hollow grom-
met is impelled by a puff of air.
Traveling at the speed of light, the
laser pulse opens a small hole in the tis-
sue of the eardrum; a fraction of a second
later, the grommet is embedded in the
hole to form a drainage tube. The simple,
quick procedure can be performed in a doctor's office, Pender says,
whereas existing procedures are normally performed in a hospital set-
ting and require general anesthesia.
Pender is in the process of seeking funds to have a prototype
built. He said he has recently contacted several venture capital
groups. "I'm looking for only $100,000," he says with a laugh,
"but some of these groups don't give out less than a million. Any
interested investor is welcome to call me."
—Carol Campbell
The diagram shows a de-
vice invented by Dr. Daniel
Pender to treat chronic
ear infections. A laser
opens a small hole in the
eardrum into which a
drainage tube is impelled.
WPI Journal
29
L
INI II
IE
IE
Dentist David
Crimmins
Benefits from
Background
in Materials
Being a dentist was the
farthest thing from
my mind while I was
studying chemistry at
WPI," says Dr. David S.
Crimmins '58, who has
a private practice in
Wilbraham, Mass. "But
when you get right down
to it, it came about natu-
rally, though in a round-
about way."
After earning his undergraduate degree at WPI, Crimmins set out
on an educational marathon that continues today. He did graduate
work in physical chemistry at the University of Wisconsin and
earned his doctor of science degree in metallurgy at MIT. He would
later take courses in electrical engineer-
ing at the University of Hartford and
earn a doctor of dental medicine degree
at the University of Pennsylvania School
of Dental Medicine.
After MIT, Crimmins served in the
U.S. Army Signal Corps as the post signal
officer at the Watertown, Mass., Arsenal
and as a research metallurgist at the
Army's materials lab in Watertown. In
1965 he took a post as a research metal-
lurgist at Du Pont's Engineering Mater-
ials Laboratory at the Experimental
Station in Wilmington, Del.
A year later he accepted an appoint-
ment as an assistant professor in the
Biological Materials Department at
Northwestern University Dental School
and soon moved on to the Department
of Metallurgy at the University of
Denver. While in Denver, he also taught dental biomaterials two
days a week at the UCLA Dental School, commuting over the Rockies
on Monday mornings and heading "back over the bump" on Tuesday
evenings.
At Northwestern, he taught courses in medical and dental mater-
ials, emphasizing the problems encountered in using materials like
metals, ceramics, polymers and composites in the biological envi-
ronment of the human body. At Denver, his teaching focused on
physical metallurgy, the physical chemistry of polymer solutions,
biomedical materials, and the surface chemistry of materials. He
also organized a conference on biomedical materials.
Early in his career, Crimmins left academia to begin a wide-rang-
ing tour through industrial laboratories. He worked first as research
manager for Emhart Corp. in Bloomfield, Conn. In 1969 he joined the
Military Arms Division of Colt Industries in Hartford, where he was
manager of the Advanced Manufacturing Engineering Department in
charge of manufacturing planning, facility engineering, cost analysis
and manufacturing technology.
He also supervised manufacturing engineers working on advan-
ced projects related to the production of the M-16 rifle and the com-
pany's new products. In 1971 he provided engineering assistance
and developed training programs in materials and manufacturing as
Colt prepared to begin manufacturing the M-16 in Korea.
Crimmins next served two years as manager of manufacturing
and product development for the Smith Kline Surgical Specialties
Department of Smith Kline & French Laboratories in Philadelphia. He
was responsible for the development and marketing of advanced
surgical implants and instruments. "I went from one extreme to the
other," he says with a smile. "I guess I don't feel comfortable with
the 'killing stuff.'
"By 1973, 1 decided I wanted to get into a more personal, hands-on
type of career," Crimmins says. After earning his dental degree, he
opened his own practice in Wilbraham. Unlike most dentists, Crim-
mins brought to his practice an extensive background in metallurgy
and in the types of
advanced materials that
were already beginning
to impact the way
dentists approach their
work.
That background can
be seen in the articles
Crimmins has authored
and co-authored in sci-
entific journals. They in-
clude "The Selection and
Use of Materials in
Surgical Implants,"
"The Electrochemical
Properties of Dental
Amalgam," "Mechanical
Properties of Stress
Relief of Stainless Steel
Orthodontic Wire," and
"An Apparatus for In Vitro Corrosion Testing of Biological Materials."
Crimmins says the education in engineering and chemistry he re-
ceived at WPI has been helpful at each stage of his career. Today, he
notes, he takes a chemist's point of view when it comes to deciding
what should and should not go into the human mouth. "Toxicology
is a timely topic in dentistry these days," he says. "For example, it's
important not to subject patients to reactive materials that can
cause deleterious effects on the body."
Crimmins says he is looking beyond private-practice dentistry to
yet another career. "I'm interested in working in the area of public
health," he says. In fact, in 1992 he completed a master's degree pro-
gram in public health at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
His ultimate goal, he says, is to work in the public health area for
the United Nations or the World Health Organization. "I'm studying
German, Russian and Mandarin Chinese so I can be as effective as
possible, wherever I'm assigned to serve. I'm looking forward to the
challenge."
—Ruth Trask
30
Summer 1993
AIL
IE
IE
Maybe it was the experience of being one of the only Jewish stu-
dents at a Catholic high school in Lawrence, Mass., that nur-
tured in Dr. Bruce Minsky 77 a tendency to value the nontraditional
and to persist against the odds. Today, as a successful physician at
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, he says
he values those qualities in himself and laughs at the memories of
the problems he encountered on his way to becoming a doctor.
A late bloomer, Minsky did poorly during his first three years of
high school. "1 didn't really care about academics," he says. "I was
busy growing up. The last year I got serious." He decided WP1 might
be just the place for him to start down the road to becoming a doc-
tor, something he had long dreamed of. "I fought hard to get in," he
says. "It didn't come on a silver platter."
The Institute rejected Minsky's application. In those early days of
the WPI Plan, the college had an option called negotiated admissions
that allowed a rejected applicant to press his case. Minsky went
back for a second interview and was accepted with the warning that
half of students admitted under negotiated admissions ultimately
flunked out. "1 did well," he says. "I realized that I flourish where I
have a lot of freedom and where 1 must be self-motivated. Very few
institutions offer students that opportunity."
Minsky says one of the most valuable parts of his WPI education
was the opportunity to do independent research. He completed his
Interactive Qualifying Project and Major Qualifying Project in the
biochemistry laboratory at the University of Massachusetts Medical
Center. "It was a good experience; I ended up publishing two
papers," he says. "I think that helped me immensely in getting into
medical school. Usually colleges don't allow undergraduates to
spend two years doing major research projects."
In 1977, Minsky hit another roadblock when medical schools de-
nied him admission because of confusion over WPI's unusual grad-
ing system. Instead of A's, B's and C's, the Institute then awarded
grades of Acceptable (AC) and Acceptable With Distinction (AD).
But medical schools wouldn't accept his AD's as A's — despite an
explanatory letter from Dean John van Alstyne — making his grade
point average too low to meet their requirements. "It was very frus-
trating," he says.
After a year spent working in the biochemistry department at
the University of Massachusetts Medical Center and in the
pathology department at Boston University, he reapplied to medical
school and was admitted to the UMass Medical School. By that time,
the medical school admission system had accepted the value of
WPI's AD grade.
At Sloan-Kettering, where he's been since 1986, Minsky divides his
time among three functions. In his clinical practice in radiation oncol-
ogy, he specializes in gastrointestinal cancer. He conducts clinical re-
search in the development of new treatment protocols for patients
and basic laboratory research in magnetic resonance spectroscopy.
Persistence Helped
Bruce Minsky Overcome
Obstacles on the Road
to Becoming a
Successful Oncologist
He also directs the residency program for the
Department of Radiation Oncology, supervising the
training of about 17 residents and fellows each year.
He says he likes all three components of his job
equally. "I couldn't live without any of them. I couldn't
do any one of them full time. I couldn't practice full
time because it would be emotionally overwhelming.
I couldn't just do research full time because I would
miss the patient care. And it's a lot of fun to train good
residents. That's sort of a payback for me."
His research on new cancer treatments focuses
on rectal and esophageal cancer. The goal is to find
the optimal amounts and sequence of radiation,
chemotherapy and surgery to improve a patient's life
expectancy and quality of life. He says a significant
measure of quality of life is the preservation of a pa-
tient's own organs. For people with rectal cancer, for
example, that can mean avoiding a colostomy.
Minsky's lab develops the initial clinical trails at Sloan-Kettering
and runs them there. Successful trials then move to the national
level. He is currently running three national trials of 600 to 1,000 pa-
tients each. Funded by the National Cancer Institute, two of the trials
are looking at protocols for esophageal cancer and one is studying
the treatment of rectal cancer.
Minsky says he became interested in oncology through labor-
atory research— beginning with his MQP at WPI. "I later found that
clinically it was very rewarding to help people with cancer," he says.
"I decided that I was going to go into that specialty when I went to
medical school."
—Diane Benison
WPI Journal
31
IE
It was 1985. A full-time mother of three young children, Allison
Huse Nunn 73 was considering getting back into the work force.
She had worked for four years as a research chemist after graduat-
ing from WP1, but had taken a break to start her family. For the previ-
ous six years, she and her family had lived in the Pacific Northwest,
where her husband, Bruce, also a 1973 WPI grad, worked in the pulp
and paper industry.
Knowing the likelihood that Bruce's work might require another
move, she decided to go back to school and become a registered
Allison Nunn Enjoys the
Challenges and Rewards of Being
a Part-time Critical Care Nurse
nurse, something she says had been in
the back of her mind for years. "I wanted
to be able to work wherever Bruce's work
took us," she says. "Although we lived
right near Seattle, where I could get a job
in the biochemical field, my fear was that
we would end up in the backwoods some-
place, where many paper mills are, and
there wouldn't be any research jobs.
"Also, I had discovered that I'm more
of a people person than I had thought. I
had never considered myself a people
person — I'd thought of myself as a loner.
Three kids will change you."
Nunn says the interests that led to her
choice of a career in nursing were kindled
at WPI. Having been accepted by MIT and
the Institute by the time she graduated
from high school in Skaneateles, N.Y., she
enrolled at WPI to become a chemist. But
after four semesters of calculus, she de-
cided to develop an interdisciplinary science major instead.
"I had taken pharmacology and biochemistry and decided that I
really liked those subjects," she says. Her new major enabled her to
continue to study chemistry without taking more calculus — a pros-
pect she found appealing. She also focused more of her course work
on the life sciences, which led her to develop an incipient interest in
medicine.
Nunn enrolled at Tacoma Community College School of Nursing
in 1985 and received her associate's degree two years later. While
nursing school included some subjects she hadn't taken at WPI,
including sociology and psychology, she says her WPI education
helped her complete some parts of the curriculum far more quickly
than her classmates.
"I finished one required self-study math class in five days; it
was supposed to be a normal, semester-long class," says Nunn,
who finished nursing school with a 4.0 grade point average. "I found
the education I had at WPI made a big difference. Among other things,
I already knew how to buckle down and study and pay attention in
class."
As a student, she spent six months working as a "monitor tech,"
interpreting various cardiac monitors in a critical care ward. "Card-
iac monitor alarms aren't 100 percent foolproof," she says. "Our job
was to make sure the nurses were alerted when there was a real
problem."
After graduation she worked as a criti-
cal care nurse at a community hospital in
Puyallup, starting out full time but soon
switching to part-time status. After mov-
ing to Spokane in 1988, she worked for a
year in the recovery room of the city's
largest hospital. She then became a part-
time critical care nurse at Holy Family
Hospital in Spokane, a 300-bed facility
with a 10-bed combined intensive care
and coronary care unit.
"We say we live on adrenaline rushes,"
she says. "In all honesty there are very
few of those, but when they come, they
come big time. I enjoy the challenge." The
real challenge, she is quick to add, is
understanding how a patient on multiple
medications is being affected by an indi-
vidual drug or the combination of those
drugs.
"We have really sick patients who are
frequently on ventilators, multiple moni-
tors and multiple medications simultane-
ously," she says. "We have to know the
drugs, know the reactions those drugs can
cause, and know how they react in combi-
nation.
"We have to be sure we're aware of
how a patient is affected. We are given
guidelines by the doctors and we can indi-
vidualize treatment to the patients' needs without having to call the
doctors in many cases. We have to know enough so we can react
quickly in a crisis. We have to think about whether one medication
is masking something else and about how diminishing or increasing
a drug is going to affect a patient's various systems. We feel we can
make a real difference to a lot of the patients we care for. It's much
more intellectually stimulating than many other parts of nursing."
Nunn says she's pleased she was able to find a way to rejoin the
work force and continue to be a nearly full-time mom. She says she
also enjoys the sense of responsibility her job gives her. "Critical
care nurses have historically been treated with a lot of respect by
doctors," she says. "They recognize that we're with the patients
many more hours than they are and, therefore, that we can see
things that they can't."
—Diane Benison
32
Summer 1993
L
Bruce Haffty 76 is used to having his name appear in the national
spotlight. As a graduate student at WPI, he was the subject of a
feature story in a national publication that described a portable
recording system he and research partner Peter W. Kotilainen 74
designed to monitor heart functions during normal activity. Today,
his research on breast cancer, biomedical engineering and clinical
radiotherapy often draws the attention of publications like USA
Today and Prevention.
Haffty is a radiation oncologist at Yale-New Haven Hospital
in New Haven, Conn., where he also serves as associate profes-
sor of therapeutic radiology at the Yale University School of
Medicine and director of residency in the radiation therapy
program. A radiation oncologist is a physician who evaluates
to the brain to destroy specific areas of tissue, leaving surrounding
regions virtually unaffected.
Stereotactic radiosurgery is used to treat various types of brain
tumors, as well as tumors that reside in and around the skull,
tumors of the meninges (the membranes surrounding the brain and
spinal cord), and tumors of the pituitary gland, among other condi-
tions. The linear accelerator is able to rotate around the patient's
Bruce Haffty' s Scalpel is a
Thin Beam of Radiation
Haffty, right, and colleague Dr. Alain C.J. de Lotbiniere,
look over magnetic resonance images of a patient to
determine a suitable course of radiation treatment.
cancer patients to see whether and what type of radiation treatment
may be appropriate for them. He then delivers that treatment, when
needed.
Haffty has become well known in the medical community for his
research on cancers of the breast, brain, and head and neck, and for
his work on the lumpectomy in combination with radiation instead
of the more extensive mastectomy in treating breast cancer.
For the last year and a half, Haffty has been performing an
advanced procedure called stereotactic radiosurgery at Yale-New
Haven's Hunter Radiation Therapy Center. The procedure uses a
linear accelerator to deliver a narrow beam of high-energy photons
head, making it possible to precisely aim the beam and
control the dose of radiation delivered to the target
site, Haffty says.
Though the procedure was conceived more than
40 years ago by a Swedish neurosurgeon and scientist,
neurosurgeons and radiation oncologists have taken a
significant interest in it only within the past few years.
Haffty says the sophisticated radiation delivery and
computer imaging technology available today have final-
ly made this type of surgery feasible and cost effective.
"1 went into the field of radiation oncology because
of its technological bent — it's very heavy into physics
and engineering," says Haffty, who completed a master's
degree at WPI in biomedical engineering. As a graduate
student, he did research at Saint Vincent Hospital in
Worcester on biomedical applications in cardiology and
cardiovascular hemodynamics. As part of the research,
he studied the feasibility of passing electrical currents
through the body to measure blood flow. The results of
the work were published in the Journal of Applied Physi-
ology and Chest, among other journals.
After earning his master's degree, Haffty attended
Yale University School of Medicine, completed his
internship in internal medicine at Yale-New Haven
Hospital, and trained in radiation oncology at the Yale
medical school. Today, as director of the residency
program in radiation therapy, he is responsible for the training given
to six radiation residents.
He is also engaged in research aimed at evaluating a new drug
called Porfiromycin, which is used as an adjunct to radiation in the
treatment of cancers of the head and neck. Yale-New Haven is cur-
rently the only hospital in the world to have a supply of this drug.
While the compound is actively being tested on patients, Haffty says
it is too early to determine its success.
Despite the time he devotes to research, teaching, writing, confer-
ence presentations, and speaking engagements that have taken him as
far away as Italy and Venezuela, he says he manages to spend about
70 percent of his time treating patients. "I enjoy the patient interac-
tion," he says. "I see the service I give to patients as very rewarding."
—Carol Campbell
WPI Journal
33
L
Dr. Mark Mahoney 74 used to open his local newspaper and head
straight for the sports section. Now he skips past sports and
reads the obituaries first. An emergency room physician, he says he
wants to see "if anyone 1 treated went home and came back dead."
Mahoney is a six-year veteran of the Emergency Department at
St. Luke's Hospital in New Bedford, Mass., the state's third busiest.
Mark Mahoney Enjoys
the Rewards of the
High-Stress World of
Emergency Medicine
When he started there full time in 1987, he says he might have dealt
with one or two trauma cases — car crashes, shootings or stabbings
— a week. Now he sees one or two a night.
"This has become a more violent place," he says. "A lot of these
cases are probably drug related. New Bedford is an old fishing and
seaport town struggling with high un-
employment." Because St. Luke's is the
area's only large hospital, he adds, "we
don't have the luxury of diverting
patients. We take all comers."
During his typical 12-hour shifts in
the ER, he sees "everything," he says.
His work runs the gamut from walk-in
patients with colds or sprains to people
with recurring illnesses. Summer, with
its boating accidents, bee stings, heat
stokes, fireworks injuries, and other sea-
sonal emergencies, is the busiest time of
year. In a 24-hour period during warm
weather, he and another staff doctor are
likely to see 150 to 180 cases.
Mahoney has not spent his entire ca-
reer as an emergency room doctor. After
completing his medical training, he opened a family practice in
Mattapoisett. Mass., in 1981. He also took a 24-hour shift twice a
week as the head of an area emergency room. Six years ago, he de-
cided those marathon nights on call were too much, even for a doc-
tor who enjoys distance running in his off hours. When his practice
started to generate more paperwork than patient care, he decided
the time had come for a change.
His hours in the ER had qualified him to take the Emergency
Medicine board exams, so in 1987 he gave up the family practice and
moved full time into emergency medicine at St. Luke's. Responding
to health emergencies became for Mahoney the foundation of a sat-
isfying career with surprisingly predictable hours.
"Once you're home, you're off," he says, noting that his set
schedule, which places him on call only occasionally, "gives me
better hours and more time to relax." He can also spend more time
with his wife, Kathryn, a veteran marathon runner, and three boys,
ages 10, 11 and 13. Still, he admits, it can take a few hours to unwind
from the pressures of emergency room work. "If I work until mid-
night or 2 a.m., I might
not get to sleep until
3 or 4 a.m.," he says.
Mahoney's arrival in
medicine was, as he de-
scribes it, a case of
"serendipity." An
organic chemistry ma-
jor at WPI, he was con-
sidering biochemistry
positions in California
when a friend told him
he was planning to take
the MCAT, the entrance
exam for medical
schools. "1 went along
with him and did all
right," Mahoney recalls
with a nonchalance unknown to most pre-med
students. "It wasn't something I had planned ahead for."
He landed at the University of Connecticut Medical School in
Farmington, 10 miles from his home in New Britain, Conn. He says
his WPI education gave him a good grounding for his first two years
of basic science courses. After another two years in clinical rota-
tions, Mahoney arrived in Abington, Penn., for a three-year family
practice residency.
Now, after 12 years in emergency medicine, Mahoney says he
may be nearing the burnout stage. Despite the endurance he's
gained as a runner (having completed five marathons, he'll run in
the New York City Marathon again this fall with his wife), he says the
stress of the ER is tiring. Adding to the usual pressures of ER medi-
cine is the new threat of violence against health care providers.
34
Summer 1993
Security officers at St. Luke's have confiscated knives and guns from
family members and patients, alike.
Health care reforms brewing in Washington are likely to change
one aspect of life in the emergency room for the better, by reducing
the walk-in cases many people bring to emergency rooms because
they have no where else to go. Mahoney looks forward to that
change. "In busy times, patients can wait two and a half to three
hours to see a physician," he says. "Treating routine illnesses
through the ER just bogs down the system and diverts
attention from acute cases."
Yet even in this pre-reform world, Mahoney finds his
work rewarding. "You develop a real camaraderie with
your co-workers," he says. "We really pull together. And,
working in the emergency room, I know that if we hadn't
been there, some of those patients might not have sur-
vived."
— Allison Chisolm
Emergency room physician Mark
Mahoney says he sees "everything"
in the way of medical problems dur-
ing a typical 1 2-hour shift in the
emergency room of St. Luke's Hos-
pital in New Bedford, Mass. Clock-
wise from left, on a recent summer
afternoon in the ER a photographer
caught him stitching up a wound,
checking the X-rays of a patient be-
fore deciding on a course of treat-
ment, doing a routine exam on a
walk-in patient, and bandaging an
injured foot.
WPI Journal
35
L
IE
An 84-year-old New Jersey man, diagnosed with cancer, had
about a month to live. A lifelong artist and photographer, he at-
tended an exhibit of his work arranged in 10 days by staff members
of West Essex Community Health Services/West Essex Hospice, a
local health service agency. Forty people, a cable TV station and the
Newark Star-Ledger came to his opening party to see the art and to
honor their old friend.
"We believe it's important to do things for people while they
live," says George Batten '67, executive director of West Essex
Community Health Services Inc. in Verona, N.J. His staff's work on
the art retrospective is typical of their efforts to help clients enjoy
their last days.
Batten takes life seriously. He has spent nearly 15 years helping
people live until they die through the West Essex Hospice program
sponsored by West Essex Community
Health Services. He directs a corps of 150
George Batten
Has Dedicated
His Life
to Helping
Others Live
Until They Die
visiting nurses, home health aides and phys
ical therapists who enable terminally ill
clients to stay at home and still be safe.
"We're trying to make people as independent as possible so they
don't have to move into an institution for their last days," says
Batten. "Almost two generations of people have grown accustomed
to dying in hospitals. We've gotten away from home care and we
can't afford to continue that way."
Batten notes that 20 to 30 percent of all health care expenditures
are spent in the last year of a person's life. Hospices offer a money-
saving option by providing services outside institutions. The concept
should appeal to the Clinton administration's health care reformers,
he says. "So much of health care is still controlled by doctors and hos-
pitals," Batten says. "There's not enough interest or money in preven-
tive care — keeping people healthy and out of institutions."
Batten came to West Essex in 1974 with a master's degree from
Cornell's School of Business and Public Administration. "I was anx-
ious to put all my grand ideas to work," he says. A management engi-
neering major at WPI, he decided he wanted to help people, though
he didn't want to work in industry. He found a mentor in Robert Hall,
former professor of management and director of continuing educa-
tion at WPI. Hall helped him think through possible career choices
and suggested health care administration.
After graduating from Cornell's program, Batten worked for two
years as a planner for the Health Planning Council for Greater Bos-
ton, examining overlapping health services in the area. There he met
Alice Dempsey, then executive director of the Boston Visiting Nurse
Association. She helped him land a job as state associate director for
the Home Health Agencies in New Hampshire and Vermont. It was
while doing that job that West Essex Community Health Services
recruited him nearly 20 years ago.
He began the hospice program at West Essex Community Health
in 1979 and recently added a personal emergency response system
to the other more traditional visiting nurse and hospice services. A
pager worn as a necklace or belt buckle allows for two-way conver-
sation in an emergency with an operator who can summon help.
Caring for the caretakers is another concern of Batten's. With this
new response
system in place, they
can leave their
patients for short re-
lief periods to run er-
rands and do other
things outside the
home.
Batten is clearly
in a growth industry.
The fastest growing
segment of the Amer-
ican population is
women over 85, and
the number of AIDS
cases among younger
people continues to
rise. Both
populations benefit
from home care ser-
vices, he says. In fact, the past two years have seen a 25 percent
annual increase in home visits by West Essex staff members.
Serving about 600 patients monthly in mostly suburban commu-
nities surrounding Newark, Batten's staff made 6,300 patient visits in
June alone, which translates into 75,000 visits per year. On any given
day, West Essex staff cares for about 70 hospice clients.
Managing workers who see death every day requires great sensi-
tivity and support, says Batten. A nurse with a psychiatric specialty
works both individually and with groups of staff members to discuss
handling their own grief. "Most nurses have one patient die each
day," Batten says. "You have to have empathy for the patient, but
not sympathy. Sympathy means you take your work home with you.
You have to be able to carry on your own life or you'll burn out."
Batten follows his own advice with an active home life. He and
his wife, Kathleen, enjoy jogging and tennis, and they take 12-year-
old daughter, Abigail, on family ski trips and white water canoeing
outings. He says celebrating life helps remove the stigma of death.
"I shuffle paper all day long," he says. "But I can go home at the end
of the day knowing I'm helping people enjoy their last days."
—Allison Chisolm
Batten and Barbara Piwinski, home health aid training
director at West Essex Community Health, present a
certificate of training to Joyce Fugate.
36
Summer 1993
L
IE
IE
As assistant director of the Cardiac Laboratory at Hartford Hospital
in Hartford, Conn., and clinical professor at the University of
Connecticut School of Medicine in nearby Farmington, Dr. Francis
Kiernan 75 specializes in interventional cardiology, which uses inva-
sive techniques to diagnose problems in the heart. These techniques
include angiograms and angioplasties, he says. An angiogram is a
diagnostic test in which a rapid sequence of X-ray images is taken
of an artery or vein after a dye opaque to X-rays is injected into the
blood vessel. By recording how the dye passes through the vessel,
the test can determine its shape and locate places where it may have
narrowed or
become blocked.
Narrowing can indi-
cate the presence of
blood clots or ather-
osclerotic plaque,
Kiernan says.
Angiography can
also be used to diag-
nose problems in
the cavities and
valves of the heart,
and can provide in-
formation about the
heart muscle itself,
Kiernan says. "We
can see if the mus-
cles of the pump
are weakening,
since the cathe-
terization proce-
dure will measure the blood pressure and flow in all of the chambers
of the heart."
When fatty deposits narrow One of the coronary arteries that
feed blood to the heart muscle, it can be widened with angioplasty.
The procedure involves inserting a balloon catheter into the vessel
and inflating it. "The first angioplasty was done in 1977," Kiernan
says, "but the procedure did not take off in the United States until
around 1980."
The benefits of angioplasty are two-fold, he notes. First, the
inflated balloon compresses plaque against the walls of the artery
and creates a channel that restores more normal blood flow. The
technique is often used to restore blood flow to the heart after a
heart attack and in patients with angina, a condition marked by
severe chest pain caused by insufficient oxygen reaching the heart
muscle.
Second, the procedure, which requires only a two-day hospital
stay, can help patients avoid the need for bypass surgery, which re-
quires a week's hospital stay and at least six weeks of home recuper-
ation. Kiernan says about 1,000 angioplasties are done each year at
Hartford Hospital, a major teaching facility in central Connecticut
with 900 beds and a large program in cardiac teaching and research.
Kiernan became interested in interventional cardiology as a resi-
dent at Hartford Hospital. In part, he says, he was attracted by the
prospect of helping treat and diagnose a major killer of Americans.
"Heart disease is a major source of mortality," he says. "We see it
develop in people in their 40s — sometimes in their 30s. Factors such
as diet, family history and
smoking are among its •--, _.
leading causes." One of the rRANCIS KlKRNAN
fastest growing fields of _.
medicine, it is also one X ROBES THE
marked by constant tech- T _
nological developments. JTlEARI FOR
Signs of
Disease
"It's a very technical field, in terms
of equipment and concepts. There
are lots of gadgets," he notes with
pleasure.
Kiernan dates his interest in medi-
cine to his days as a life sciences major
at WPI. "1 had an inkling then that 1
might want to do this," he says, noting
that the Institute gave him some of the
skills he finds valuable in his work to-
day. "WPI taught me the concept of
working independently to think out
problems. Each patient we get pre-
sents a new set of challenges. We use
the knowledge we've gained, and the
new techniques we have available, to make things go smoothly."
In addition to overseeing a broad program of diagnostic and ther-
apeutic tests at the hospital, Kiernan conducts research with experi-
mental devices. He says he got his first taste of medical research at
WPI. For his Major Qualifying Project, he was part of a team that
studied how the shape of red blood cells changes when they are
affected by chemical stress, sickle cell anemia and enzyme deficien-
cies. The results of the project, which was conducted at Saint
Vincent Hospital in Worcester, were published in the journal Blood.
Currently, Kiernan is studying an experimental catheter that will
remove plaque from blocked arteries. Factors that increase the risk
of plaque buildup include heredity, high blood pressure, high cho-
lesterol, smoking and diabetes. "It's an experimental rotational
atherectomy device being developed by one of the angioplasty man-
ufacturers," he says. "We've been working with them on an early
prototype to help refine the design."
The unique device, which is just a few millimeters in diameter,
consists of a stainless steel mesh coated with an abrasive. When
attached to a catheter, it will be used to shave the plaque from the
artery walls. The procedure should not damage a normal artery,
Kiernan says. "It's now being tested in the lab, but not yet in
patients. I hope to be able to use it on patients within a year or so."
—Carol Campbell
WPI Journal
37
IE
Iwas always interested in health-related issues, even as a mechan-
ical engineering major," says Carolyn Jones 79, an industrial
hygienist for the Environmental Health and Safety Program of the
Department of Public Works for the City and County of San Fran-
cisco. "In fact, my plan was to be a biomedical engineer."
But Jones had a change of heart after she attended a conference
on women's health in the workplace while still an undergraduate.
"That was where 1 discovered industrial hygiene as a career field,"
Carolyn Jones Protects
Health of City and County
Workers in San Francisco
she says. The discipline seemed to offer an
ideal blend of engineering and health, but
none of the companies she interviewed with
had jobs in the field.
The one exception was the Air Force,
which offered her a post as bioenvironmen-
tal engineer, a job that included work in in-
dustrial hygiene, environmental engineering
and emergency response. After seven years,
she left active duty and entered the reserves
so she could study for a master's degree in
public health with a concentration in indus-
trial hygiene at the University of California at
Berkeley. She then worked for one year at a
public utility before taking her present posi-
tion in 1989.
Industrial hygienists, Jones says, "iden-
tify, assess and recommend controls on
workplace hazards." While safety engineers
deal with physical hazards that might cause
serious injuries, industrial hygienists evalu-
ate environmental hazards like toxic chemi-
cals, radiation, noise and vibration. They
may also evaluate ergonomic hazards that
can cause conditions like carpal tunnel syn-
drome.
"Employee training is also a large part of our job," she notes.
"We teach people how to recognize when they are working with a
hazardous material like asbestos, how they can learn about such
materials and their hazards, and how to protect themselves. We
teach them to think about the substances they work with so if they
develop medical problems or symptoms at work, they'll know what
might be causing them."
When employees report such problems, Jones determines the
chemicals contained in the products they use and looks at the
known clinical effects of those chemicals. She may take air samples
to measure the concentrations of the chemicals in workplace. If
appropriate, she'll make recommendations to reduce worker expo-
sure, perhaps by substituting a different product, improving ventila-
tion, or giving workers heavy-duty gloves or respirators.
Regulations governing permissible workplace exposure to chemi-
cals are promulgated at the federal and state levels, Jones says.
"Exposure limits are set such that the vast majority of workers will
be protected, but they don't guarantee that every worker will be
protected. A person with a greater than average sensitivity to a par-
ticular substance might have problems at a level that is
perfectly safe for everyone else."
Recently, the procedures the San Francisco DPW uses at
two specific sites to minimize worker exposure to hazard-
ous materials were evaluated by a team of WPI students
completing an Interactive Qualifying Project at the San
Francisco Project Center. The project was one of three
sponsored by the department.
"I was happy to see that the students
found our procedures to be good," says
Jones, who was instrumental in arranging
the department sponsorship. "It was nice
to have somebody with an unbiased opin-
ion come in and look. All three projects
worked very well."
The field of industrial hygiene was first
recognized as a profession in the 1930s,
Jones says. It grew slowly until 1970, when
Congress passed the Occupational Safety
and Health Act. The need to comply with
the myriad federal regulations that resulted
from that act created a demand for indus-
trial hygienists. Today there are about
10,000 people in the field in the U.S.
Many work for large companies,
although there are also jobs in federal,
state and local governments, consulting
firms and academia. "Industrial hygienists
come from all sorts of backgrounds, includ-
ing environmental sciences, biology, chem-
istry and engineering," Jones says.
"Chemical engineering is good preparation
because
it helps you evaluate chemical processes.
Mechanical engineering is also good be-
cause a lot of the work industrial hygienists do is in industrial work-
places and mechanical engineers understand the processes used in
these environments."
While concern within government and industry for worker safety
and health has increased over the past two decades, Jones says pub-
lic opinion has lagged behind. "Unfortunately, the public gets far
more upset about environmental hazards than they do about work-
place hazards. They're more apt to act if they think that a company
is polluting a stream than if they think a company is harming its em-
ployees. I think people see what affects them, and environmental
hazards affect them more directly." — Diane Benison
38
Summer 1993
L
Dr. William AuBuchon '82 has often demonstrated that he is not
afraid to take on challenging opportunities. That is particularly
true in his choice of career paths. As a second-year anesthesia resi-
dent in training at Vanderbilt University Hospital in Nashville, Tenn.,
he often makes the kind of split-second decisions that can only be
evaluated in hindsight. He says he is accustomed to work that in-
volves precise calculations, a steady hand, and clear, quick thinking.
As a resident, AuBuchon has also become accustomed to a gruel-
ing schedule, which includes 50- to 90-hour work weeks and being on
call every fourth night. "I'm usually dressed and in the operating
room by 6 a.m.," he says. "I may remain in the hospital until 8 p.m.
Some days I'm on call for 25 hours. I generally have just one free
weekend a month."
He is involved in two to four operations a
day, each spanning from 30 minutes to four
or more hours. While he generally does not
see a patient again once a procedure is com-
plete, he may spend several hours in prepa-
ration for the operation the evening before.
"I have to do a history and physical exam
for each patient, review the X-rays and lab
work, review any prior diagnosis, and evalu-
ate the patient's overall medical condition
and other related problems."
The next morning AuBuchon helps
prepare the patient for surgery in a holding
room adjacent to the operating room. "For an
uncomplicated case, we insert an intravenous
line into an extremity vein; a complex case,
such as a liver transplant, requires multiple
lines that include a heart monitor inserted
through a neck vein and floated into the heart
chambers," he says. An arterial catheter,
which measures blood pressure, is inserted directly into an artery in
the leg or arm to assure continuous accurate readings. The catheter is
connected to an electrical transducer that is, in turn, plugged into a
display screen.
Throughout an operation, the anesthesiologist is constantly
busy, AuBuchon says. Each operation is unique, he notes, so the
anesthesiologist must prepare an individual anesthetic plan for each
case — even if it involves a procedure he may have done many times
before. The length of the case, the surgeon, and the patient's age,
medical problems and tolerance for certain medications and
techniques are all factors that must be considered individually.
Though he was an electrical engineering major at WPI, AuBuchon
focused both of his qualifying projects on medicine. For his Inter-
active Qualifying Project, completed at Norton Co. in Worcester,
he examined ways the company could save money by purchasing
generic rather than name-brand drugs for its employees. He also
studied several programs for Norton, including the feasibility of
establishing a company drug store and a proposal to arrange a
discount program for employees at a local pharmacy.
For his Major Qualifying Project, AuBuchon was part of a team
that worked with biomedical engineers at Saint Vincent Hospital in
Worcester to build a customized Holter Monitor, a portable device
used in cardiology that records key parameters about a patient's
heart over a 24-hour period. He says the emphasis of the WPI Plan
on problem solving has proved valuable in his profession. "We had
to take facts and circumstances, define the problem, and then try to
master it. That's what I do in my work now."
After AuBuchon graduated
from the Tufts University
School of Medicine in 1986, he
and his wife, Lesley, moved to
Tennessee, where he com-
pleted an internship at the
University of Tennessee
Split-Second
Decisions
Punctuate
Long Days
for Anes-
thesiologist
William
AuBuchon
Medical Center at Knoxville. In 1987
he entered the U.S. Navy as a gen-
eral medical officer in fulfillment of
his Naval scholarship obligation.
He served until 1992.
As part of his naval training, he
was stationed in Pensacola, Fla.,
where he attended the Naval Aero-
space Medical Institute and studied aviation medicine. He also
received basic cockpit flying instruction "to get a grasp of what
pilots undergo, especially under stressful conditions." That training
proved helpful when he was deployed to Saudia Arabia as a flight
surgeon with a Marine Corps helicopter squadron for seven months
beginning in August 1992.
AuBuchon says his military experience has proven helpful in his
work as an anesthesiologist. "Administering anesthesia requires you
to think on your feet," he says. "You are often involved in procedures
that could mean life and death for the patients. It's not unlike flying
an airplane. It requires you to make immediate, rapid responses,
then make your evaluations based on what happens."
He says part of the challenge and excitement of the field is keep-
ing up with the constantly changing technology available to anesthe-
siologists. He says that technology has changed dramatically since
he was a medical student. "In 1985 most operating rooms were not
yet using devices like the pulse oximeter, which indicates the
fraction of oxygen saturated hemoglobin in the bloodstream, or the
mass spectrometer, which measures the concentration of inhaled
gases. These are now essential tools."
—Carol Campbell
WPI Journal
39
ALU Ml Nil IN
IE ID II C
As preclinical program manger for new experimental medical de-
vices at Boston Scientific Corp. in Watertown, Mass., Lauren
Stratouly Baker '82 has carved out a unique niche for herself in the
halls of medicine.
Baker, who has been with Boston Scientific for about two years,
works with a special team developing information the Food and
Drug Administration requires before it can approve clinical trials for
new medical technology. "These devices include permanent body
implants as well as devices that are in the body for only a short time,
such as the balloon catheters used by cardiologists to do angio-
plasty," she says.
Lauren Baker Paves the
Way for Clinical Trials
of New Medical Devices
The documents Baker prepares describe in detail the results
of mechanical tests and other procedures that demonstrate the in-
tegrity and performance of the new devices. Also included is a litera-
ture review that shows how the product is to be used and summa-
rizes any clinical experience that may have been gained with the
product in other countries.
Finally, the FDA submission includes a clinical investigation plan,
which describes how the human clinical trials will be conducted.
"These submissions are quite a chore to develop," Baker says.
"Sometimes I think they're worse than writing my dissertation."
Baker is also responsible for supervising all clinical trials of
Boston Scientific products conducted outside the U.S. "This facet of
my job has enabled me to take several trips to Europe. This is partic-
ularly challenging, given the time changes and language barriers, but
the trials provide our development team with vital information on
product performance."
The third phase of Baker's job is new. She says she is developing
a testing facility the company can use to evaluate the essential per-
formance of its products. The facility will ultimately include labora-
tory models of a number of physiological systems — such as coron-
ary arteries or gall bladder bile ducts — in which or upon which
Boston Scientific products are designed to operate.
"This aspect of my job utilizes my engineering background the
most and consequently offers me the most technical challenge," she
says. "I also work with all the engineering and marketing groups
within the company, as well as with many outside physicians."
Before joining Boston Scientific, Baker was an assistant professor
in the Department of Surgery and co-director of the Division of
Cardiothoracic Research at the University of Massachusetts Medical
School in Worcester. Her job there was devoted to research on the
mechanics of the heart. In that post she was involved with the
design, manufacture and maintenance of instrumentation used to
monitor heart functions. The equipment was employed in research
on the treatment of cardiovascular disease.
The instrumentation she helped develop included a device that
monitors tissue pH and potassium levels during cardiopulmonary by-
pass surgery, a balloon catheter that can be inserted into the heart
through the pulmonary artery and inflated to assist a failing right ven-
tricle, a catheter that uses impedance plethysmography to determine
ventricular volume, and a noninvasive cardiac output monitor.
She was also
involved in a num-
ber of research
projects at the
medical center.
With a grant from
the National
Institutes of
Health, she helped
investigate the ef-
fects on the heart
of tumor necrosis
factor, a protein
found in the body
that destroys cells
that divide abnor-
mally. Another
project tested the
use of warm car-
dioplegia (a technique in which the heart
is temporarily stopped) during coronary bypass surgery.
As a faculty member at UMass, she taught the techniques of sig-
nal processing and data acquisition and analysis to research fellows,
medical students and graduate
students in her division, and developed and managed a database
system for tracking all cardiovascular surgery patients. She
managed and hired division personnel, designed and managed the
yearly budget of the division, and coordinated the preparation of
grant proposals and manuscripts.
Until recently, Baker also served as an adjunct assistant profes-
sor of mechanical engineering at the Institute, teaching courses in
fluid mechanics, stress analysis, engineering statics and biomedical
engineering, and advising graduate and undergraduate research
projects.
Baker earned her B.S. in chemical engineering at WP1 and went
on to complete a master's and a doctorate in mechanical engineer-
ing at the Institute. In 1985, she won WPI's Outstanding Thesis of
the Year award for her master's thesis, "Noninvasive Detection of
Arterial Occlusive Disease: A Theoretical and Model Study." For her
Ph.D. dissertation, she developed an analytical and experimental
model to study the propagation of a pulse through an artery in
healthy and diseased individuals.
Although Baker says her job is demanding, she and her husband,
David Baker '81, still find time for recreation. They enjoy sculling and
are officers of Friends of WP1 Rowing, an organization established
through an endowment provided by the late Professor Richard
40
Summer 1993
L
IE
Fifteen years after he graduated from the Institute, Lt. Cmdr.
Thomas M. Gudewicz 78 remains enthusiastic about WPI's
project-based education. Now in the third year of a four-year
residency at the Naval Medical Center at San Diego, he is one of
many alumni who leveraged their technical education into a career
in medicine.
Dr. Gudewicz had been accepted to WPI by the time he gradu-
ated from high school, but he enrolled as a mechanical engineering
major at the University of Connecticut because, as a state school, it
was significantly cheaper. After one year in UConn's traditional engi-
neering program, Gudewicz, unhappy, dropped out and took a job as
an apprentice machinist at Pratt and Whitney to earn some of the
money he needed to attend WPI. He hadn't abandoned the notion of
going to an engineering school, he just wanted a different kind of en-
gineering school.
"I wanted to get my fingers into the pie as soon as possible," he
says. "I'm a poor book learner, but give me a practical problem and
I'll solve it and learn the concepts a whole lot better. I loved the WPI
Plan. I could not have survived college if it were not for the Plan. I'm
sort of nontraditional and WPI is a nontraditional school."
Thomas
Gudewicz'
Specialty
is How THE
Human Body
Works Deep
Beneath
the Sea
By the time Gudewicz en-
rolled at WPI, his interest in
mechanical engineering had
waned (his experience at Pratt
& Whitney helped him decide
the field was not for him). He
ultimately decided to major in
the life sciences with the idea
that he'd figure out a way to
meld that field with his already
well-developed love of the un-
dersea world.
Stan Waterman, the under-
sea filmmaker, was a friend of
one of Gudewicz' high school
teachers at Wilbraham and
Monson Academy in Wilbra-
ham, Mass. Periodically, Waterman stopped by the school to show
his films. Those films were the catalyst that prompted Gudewicz to
get certified as a sport scuba diver; they also started him on a path
that eventually led to medicine and the Navy.
At WPI, his love for diving became a passion. Three or four times
a semester, Gudewicz made the two-hour trek to Massachusetts'
North Shore with Ronald Fish 78 and William Dino 75, both certified
scuba divers. They'd leave campus at 2 a.m., enter the water while it
was still dark, and return to Worcester in time for 8 a.m. classes.
His interest in diving helped shape his studies. "I took engineer-
ing courses," he says. "I took chemistry, biology, physiology, etc. I
did an IQP in marine biology and an MQP in biochemistry. I was sort
of headed toward the water even then." He also found time for an in-
dependent study on nitrogen narcosis, a danger for scuba divers.
As graduation approached, he considered his options. "I really
don't want to go to graduate school," he remembers thinking. "I re-
ally don't want to go to medical school right now. What I really want
to do is get a job, make some money, and live a life, not as a poor
student, but as a normal human being."
So after graduation he went to the University of Texas Medical
Branch in Galveston, Texas, with the intention of working with Brian
Hills, a chemical engineer who had done thermodynamic studies of
decompression sickness. But when Gudewicz arrived, he discovered
that Hills' grant hadn't been approved. There was no job.
He used his chemistry background to get a job as a technician in
the biochemistry department at Baylor College of Medicine. "It was
there that I was introduced to a working research laboratory, to lab-
oratory management, to experimental design, to instrumentation, to
writing papers, to getting grants, and so on," he says.
He says his life sciences education had prepared him well for
work in biochemistry. "It doesn't really matter whether you're doing
biology, molecular biology or biochemistry. They all use the same
techniques nowadays — restriction enzymes, DNA probes, etc. It's a
molecular biology approach to research. People in all of the life sci-
ences tend to understand each other."
After a few years, he decided it was time to get a "real career."
He was accepted to the University of Texas Medical Branch in
WPI Journal
41
Galveston, financing his medical education through the Armed
Forces Health Profession Scholarship Program (AFHPSP). Under
AFHPSP, the Navy paid his tuition and fees, bought his textbooks,
and gave him a small stipend; in exchange, he agreed to give back
one year of military service for each year of education he received.
The Navy program was appealing, Gudewicz says, because it held
the prospect of work in underwater research. "I figured, the Navy
has the water— they're the guys to be with."
After he received his medical degree in 1986, he did an internship
in internal medicine at the Naval Hospital in San Diego. Before going
on to a residency, he chose a four-year oper-
ational tour in undersea medicine as part of
his obligation to the Navy. His tour included
a six-month program at the Navy's subma-
rine training center in Groton, Conn., nine
weeks of diving training at the Navy Diving
and Salvage Training Command (NDSTC) in
Panama City, Fla., and four months of
specialized training in saturation diving at
the Naval School of Deep Diving Systems
(NSDDS) in Charleston, S.C.
"We learned a little bit about submarines
and submarine medicine," he says. "Since we
have nuclear submarines, we also learned
something about radiation health. And, since
we're going to be dealing with divers, they
sent us down to a course in diving medicine.
At NDSTC we trained in all Navy diving tech-
niques, including using heliox (helium-
oxygen) for deep-sea diving. We are now cer-
tified Navy divers. We can go anywhere in the
world where the Navy dives, be issued equip-
ment, and dive with Navy divers."
Gudewicz, only the second physician to
complete the course at NSDDS in Charles-
ton, says the training was designed to prepare him for his
assignment at the Commander Submarine Development Group I
in San Diego, created by the Navy after the loss of the nuclear sub
Thresher in April 1963. "It consolidated Navy programs involving
submarines, deep-submergence vehicles and saturation diving tech-
niques into one command responsible for overseeing the develop-
ment and implementation of complex systems used for various
operational reasons," Gudewicz says.
Among the technologies developed by the San Diego group are
deep-submergence vehicles (DSVs), which can carry out scientific
and salvage operations at depths down to 15,000 feet; deep-submer-
gence rescue vehicles (DSRVs), used in submarine rescue opera-
tions; salvage and rescue platforms for use with DSRVs; and equip-
ment and techniques for saturation diving. "The whole problem with
saturation diving is that when you do a dive you breathe an atmos-
phere at the pressure of the water around you, so your tissues
absorb the gases at that pressure," he says.
"When you come to the surface, the ambient pressure is low,
but the pressure of the gases within your tissues is high. So if you
ascend too rapidly, the gasses bubble out — it's like opening a bottle
of soda pop." Gas bubbles can be fatal, he adds.
If a diver works under pressure for only a short time, decompres-
sion on the surface poses little danger. But long dives, for example
salvage operations that involve numerous long dives over several
days, require saturation diving. Such operations are usually carried
out by several teams of divers who work in shifts. The divers are
pressurized at the surface to the depth at which they'll be working.
They remain under that pressure until the work is complete, des-
cending to the work site in personal transfer capsules (PTCs) and re-
— — ^^— ^^— turning to the ship to rest in between shifts
"IJ/U 4- 'n a ^ec^ decompression chamber.
WtlCn yOU COme tO "That is much more cost-effective— and
safer," he says. "When the job is done, you
the SUffaCe, the ambient decompress the divers at a very, very slow
rate. Of course the deeper you go the more
pressure is low, but the
pressure of the
gasses in your tissues
is high. So if you
ascend too rapidly, the
gasses bubble out-
it's like opening a
bottle of soda pop. "
problems there are, including physiological
problems. That's where I came in."
Recently, Gudewicz left the undersea
world to pursue additional training in
pathology and laboratory medicine. His
work now focuses on anatomical and clinical
pathology. He says one of the reasons he
chose pathology is because it "gives you a
broad view of medicine." He says he also
enjoys the analytical work.
"Anatomical pathology has to do with
the anatomical manifestations of disease,"
he says. "Anytime tissue is removed from
the body by a surgeon, it is sent to us for
analysis and diagnosis. We are physician
consultants, with surgical pathology consti-
tuting the biggest portion of this field."
Gudewicz also works in cytology, which
is the diagnosis of disease based on the mi-
croscopic examination of cells. "You can use a small needle to aspi-
rate a few cells, and then look at those cells to determine important
characteristics, such as whether they are malignant or benign. You
direct therapy from there. You can get a diagnosis quickly, but you
have to train your eye to distinguish healthy from unhealthy cells."
Gudewicz also supervises the microbiology lab, the blood bank
and blood component therapy and does analysis of blood and other
body fluids, he says. "Years ago, the clinical pathologist had a lot
more hands-on work to do in these analyses, but now most of it is
automated. Today, we have to be familiar with the problems associ-
ated with the answers that the machines generate and how those
problems relate to the clinician's decision-making process."
When he finishes his residency, Gudewicz will still owe the Navy
two years. After that, should he choose to continue to work for the
service, he says he might like to serve at a naval diving training unit
or at the Navy Medical Research Institute in Bethesda, Md. But wher-
ever he goes, he'd like to continue to do research into the way
human physiology works under the sea.
—Diane Benison
42
Summer 1993
L
IE ID II C
After 21 years as director of biomedical engineering at the
University Medical Center in Tucson, Ariz., Emanuel F. Furst,
who received his Ph.D from WPI in 1969, says he is once again asking
himself the age-old question, "What do 1 want to be when I grow up?"
Since his position was eliminated earlier this year — the result of the
merger of two departments at the hospital — he has been preparing
for a new career as a consultant.
Furst joined the faculty of the University Hospital (now the
University Medical Center) in 1972. He was also named an assistant
professor of electrical engineering at the University of Arizona. "I
was hired to bring an engineering perspective to the hospital and to
develop collaborative research and teaching programs between fac-
ulty in the colleges of Engineering and Medicine," he says. "I pro-
vided consulting in areas such as electrical safety and the use of
medical equipment."
He taught electrical engineering part time for several years. His
other responsibilities included advising the hospital on the types of
medical equipment it needed, making sure the hospital continued to
meet the requirements for accreditation, and investigating unusual
incidents involving medical equipment to assure that similar prob-
lems would not occur again.
He was also instrumental in developing the Shared Service Main-
tenance Program in collaboration with the University of Arizona's
College of Engineering. The program provided maintenance services
and engineering consulting to rural hospitals in Arizona, freeing the
hospitals from reliance on manufacturers to repair and maintain
equipment.
This is especially important in rural areas where hospitals are far
removed from manufacturers' service representatives, resulting in
substantial delays and increasing the cost of service visits, Furst
says. The program was started with a grant from the W.K. Kellogg
Foundation. The grant also enabled Furst to launch an academic
program in clinical engineering — a field that merges medicine and
engineering — at the university.
Furst says it was his expertise in equipment management and reg-
ulatory matters that led him to consider consulting. He says his inter-
est in regulatory issues includes safety, plant and equipment manage-
ment, and requirements for obtaining accreditation. He serves on
an advisory committee of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of
Health Care Organizations, a voluntary agency. Accreditation qualifies
hospitals to bill through the Medicaid system.
At the University Medical Center, Furst says he also developed a
great deal of expertise on the Safe Medical Devices Act of 1990, an
effort of Congress and the Food and Drug Administration to promote
the safety of medical devices. Since 1986, he has served on an FDA
panel that reviews applications from manufacturers for approval for
new high-risk medical devices.
He says these experiences, in addition to his work at the Univer-
sity Medical Center, have convinced him of the value of having an
engineer involved in the evaluation and selection of new technology
for hospitals. "Many hospitals don't take full advantage of what engi-
neers can do and the expertise they can bring to hospital manage-
ment in purchasing, operating budgets, and the design and mainte-
nance of facilities," he says.
Furst received the first Ph.D. in biomedical engineering awarded
by WPI. Before coming to the Institute, he received his bachelor's de-
gree at Clarkson University and his master's at Columbia University.
He then worked for three years as an assistant professor at California
State Polytechnic University. While there, he received a National
Science Foundation grant to attend a summer graduate program.
After a Long Career in
Clinical and Biomedical
Engineering in Arizona,
Emanuel Furst Tries
Consulting
For two summers, he came to WPI to take graduate courses.
Then, after another year of teaching, he enrolled full time in the
Institute's new graduate program in biomedical engineering. He did
his dissertation research in neurophysiology at the Worcester
Foundation for Experimental Biology. The work involved recording
the signals from individual neurons in the cerebellum that respond
to the body's position in space.
After receiving his Ph.D., he worked for three years as a develop-
ment engineer at Hewlett-Packard Co. before joining the University
of Arizona. In the late 1980s, Furst was honored for his career
achievements in biomedical and clinical engineering when he
received the Clinical Engineering Achievement Award from the
Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation.
—Carol Campbell
WPI Journal
43
FINAL WORD
Chandler Jones is Home as
Host of Venerable Old Cobb's Tavern
Nothing makes WPI Trustee
Emeritus Chandler Jones
'26 happier than welcoming
a busload of school children to his
home, Cobb's Tavern, a National
Register of Historic Places treasure
built in Sharon, Mass., about 1740.
"I love having visitors come by,"
he says. "If I've got something in-
teresting to show, I like to share it.
I don't like to hide it away. The tav-
ern gives kids a chance to see how
people lived in the old days."
With help from local history
writer Claire Forman, Jones
recounts his tavern tales as they
guide groups around the 12-room, black-
shuttered colonial. Their presentations
make the tavern come alive for guests of
every age. Listening to Jones, it's easy to
imagine 19th century innkeeper Jonathan
Cobb pouring spirits in the taproom refresh-
ing weary wayfarers during stagecoach lay-
overs. A low bench in front of the 15-foot
pine bar allowed male travelers to sit down
before the fireplace for warmth.
The twin doors that open into the tap-
room from the outside, Jones explains, were
deliberately made wide enough "so a couple
of jolly fellows could go out arm in arm, side
by side."
Female travelers of the day were not al-
lowed to drink in the taproom; women were
customarily relegated to an upstairs parlor
reached via a winding, pulpit-style staircase.
Legend has it, however, that Deborah Samp-
son, a Sharon Revolutionary War veteran,
met with Paul Revere in the taproom to talk
about her getting a pension for her military
service.
The tavern stood between Boston and
Taunton on the Old Bay Road, a link be-
tween Massachusetts Bay and Narragansett
Bay, Jones says. It was a busy place with a
lot of traffic on Bay Road going to Taunton
and on to New York. It was also an ideal
stopping point for coaches carrying the
mail; in fact, Jonathan Cobb served as
Sharon's postmaster and the taproom dou-
bled as a post office (the post office sign
now hangs over the fireplace).
In those days, Cobb's offered overnight
accommodations with rooms in the main
tavern and an annex. It was the biggest inn
in the East, and for a number of years a 125-
member traveling circus troupe stopped
there every summer and performed on the
grounds. The inn was large enough to put up
the entire troupe. An 1846 poster in the tap-
room commemorates one of the group's
many visits.
On their annual "Wheel Around the Hub,"
members of the famous Boston Bicycle Club
made Cobb's Tavern their country headquar-
ters, all enjoying Mrs. Cobb's dinners. Two
years ago, the present-day Wheelman's Club
recreated a portion of the first organized bi-
cycle tour ever held in the U.S. on Sept. 11,
1879, and made the traditional stop at Cobb's.
According to Jones, the original house
was built in the mid-18th century; a two-
chimney brick end-addition was added
about 60 years later. A large upstairs room
with a unique barrel-vaulted ceiling served
successively as a Masonic lodge meeting
room, a ballroom and two bedchambers. In
1895, after more than 150 years
of service, the tavern closed to
the public when Jonathan's son,
Warren, died.
In 1935, upon the death of
Warren's daughter, Gertrude
Cobb, the tavern left the family
for the first time in 144 years.
Fortunately, one of the subse-
quent owners appreciated
historical homes. Frederick S.
Tobey wrote The Tavern at
Cobb's Comer, which is on file in
the Library of Congress along
with nine photographs.
Chandler Jones and his wife,
Dorothy (now deceased), purchased Cobb's
Tavern in 1959. "We loved the place right
away," he says. "But we had somewhat of a
dilemma because I was about to retire and
we had to reduce our real estate holdings.
Through my family I had inherited the Cape
Cod birthplace of Katherine Lee Bates, who
wrote America the Beautiful, and my wife
had acquired her great grandmother's old
homestead in South Berwick, Maine. In the
end, the tavern won out."
Continuing the restoration of the tavern,
which was begun by Tobey, became a labor
of love for Jones. Guided by extensive re-
search and reading, he was careful to make
sure all work done on the sturdy structure
conformed to the original construction.
When part of the roof was replaced, he even
saved the original hand-wrought iron nails,
in case they would ever be needed to
restore the inn's finish.
More than 30 years after the purchase,
Jones is still enjoying life in his tavern-home,
especially reading the thank-you letters he
often gets from grade-schoolers after his
guided tours. He still chuckles over the note
he received a couple of years ago from a fifth-
grade boy who wrote, "You are a real kind
person and you are in really good condition
for your age. Thank you for everything."
44
Summer 1993
At 90, Chandler Jones can look back over
nearly seven decades of achievement, most
of it far removed from tavern-keeping. After
graduating from WPI as an electrical engi-
neer, he joined the New England Power
Construction Co. of Worcester (now the
New England Electric System), where he
concentrated on engineering, purchasing,
construction, safety, labor and operations.
He retired as vice president of the New
England Electric System in 1968.
During World War II, Jones was on loan
to the U.S. government as a $l-a-year consul-
tant with the Office of War Utilities, War
Production Board. He was also a consultant
to the Civilian Production Administration,
the National Security Resources Board, the
Mutual Security Agency and the Economic
Cooperation Administration.
During the Korean conflict, he was on
loan as a consultant to the Secretary of the
Interior to help organize the Defense Electric
Power Administration and, later, to the
Atomic Energy Commission's Advisory
Committee on Reactor Safeguards.
Jones was a professional engineer in Mas-
sachusetts, Vermont and Rhode Island and
has been active in numerous local, state and
national organizations. After he retired, he
helped organize the Sharon Historical Com-
mission and a historic district in the town.
Opposite page, Chandler Jones tells
visiting schoolchildren about the
history of Cobb's Tavern. The 1 8th
century inn, below, left, was once a
stop on the "Wheel Around the Hub,"
an annual tour by the Boston Bicy-
cle Club, top. Bottom, right, Jones
shows off one of the unwieldy bicy-
cles ridden by club members.
A former member of the President's
Advisory Council, Jones is also a past chair-
man of the Development Committee of the
WPI Board of Trustees and a past president
of the Boston and Providence chapters of
the Alumni Association. In 1970 he received
WPI's Herbert F. Taylor Alumni Award for
Distinguished Service.
For now, Jones is content to preside over
the venerable old tavern he calls home and
to help give the youth of today a look at how
their ancestors lived and enjoyed life. In the
conclusion of his book on Cobb's Tavern,
Frederick Tobey wrote, "whether or not the
Tavern at Cobb's Corner will have any future
history worth recording remains to be seen."
Thanks to Jones and his dedication to keep-
ing a bit of the past alive for future genera-
tions, the inn continues to make history
quite worthy of note.
—Ruth Trask
WPI Journal
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VOLUME XCVI NO. 4 FALL 1993
■' 1992
• ANNUAL 5
-_ cram;-:
AMERICA'S
BEST COLLEGES
AMHERST
WJU.
HOLY CROSS
The Cover: The WPI campus is framed
by fall splendor. Efforts now under way
are aimed at determining what the
campus — and the social and intellectu-
al life that thrives within its bounds —
should be like in the decades to come.
Photo by Northeast Airfoto Service.
Opposite: At the conclusion of a long
and productive year of study, planning
and open debate, the Blue Ribbon Task
Force held an all-day forum in Alden
Memorial to share its findings with
members of the WPI community and to
actively solicit their help in shaping
the group's final recommendations to
the Board of Trustees. Photo by Neil
Norum. Story on page 3.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Each summer the Institute pauses a moment to reflect on
where it's been and where it's going. As one fiscal year ends and a new
one begins, it seems a natural time to look back at the accomplishments of the
previous 12 months and to peer ahead at the challenges and opportunities that
lie just over the horizon. The result of this reflection is the annual report. To
place this year's report into the hands of as large a readership as possible,
we've chosen to include it in the Fall issue of the WPI Journal.
As you will read in the pages that follow, this seems an especially fitting deci-
sion. In Fiscal Year 1993, the college completed a major period of self-evaluation
and began the weighty task of determining how it will mold itself into the type
of institution best able to thrive and grow in the decades ahead. To be success-
ful in this process, the Institute will need the participation and enthusiasm of all
members of the WPI community. It will also need to keep that community
informed about how things are going here on Boynton Hill. Consider this report
an integral part of that communications effort.
We hope you enjoy this special issue of the Journal; as always, we welcome
your thoughts and opinions on what you find between the covers of this magazine.
— Michael Dorsey
FEATURES
The 1992-93 Annual Report JonC. Strauss
Introduction: What's Next for WPI?
2
0 A Rough Draft of the Future: Building on the Work of the
Blue Ribbon Task Force
13 The Year in Review, 1992-93: Setting the Stage for the Future
DEPARTMENTS
11 Financial Summary
A look at the Institute's financial performance in FY 93. Robert W. Galley
\L Financial Highlights
The fiscal year at a glance.
L\) Development Highlights
Saving the best for last. Donald F. Berth '57
LL Honor Roll of Donors
Giving to WPI: 1992-93.
Staff of the WPI Journal: Editor, Michael W. Dorsey • Contributing Writers. Diane Benison. Bonnie Gelbwasser, Joan Killough-Miller, Neii Norum and Ruth Trask • Designer, Michael J. Sherman •
Photographer, Janet Woodcock. Alumni Publications Committee: Samuel Mencow '37, chairman • Paul J. Cleary 71 • James S. Demetry '58 • Judith Donahue SIM '82 • William J. Firla Jr. '60 •
William R. Grogan '46 • Carl A. Keyser '39 • Robert C Labonte '54 • Roger N. Perry Jr. '45 • Harlan B. Williams '50 • The WPI Journal (ISSN 0148-6128) is published quarterly lor the WPI Alumni
Association by the Office of University Relations. Second-class postage paid at Worcester, Mass., and additional mailing offices. Printed by The Lane Press, Burlington, Vt. Printed in the U.S.A.
Diverse views presented in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or official WPI policies. We welcome letters to the editor. Address correspondence to the Editor, WPI Journal,
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lo the address above. Do not return publication. Entire contents © 1993, Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
Introduction
What's Next for WPI?
THIS ANNUAL REPORT, the eighth in the series spanning my
presidency, focuses on the work of WPI's Blue Ribbon Task
Force (BRTF). The BRTF, with its membership drawn from
faculty, staff, students and trustees, was charged in 1992 with
developing a comprehensive plan that will take the Institute through
the 1990s and beyond. The plan was to be consistent with the goals
of our strategic plan and was to give particular attention to the chal-
lenging financial environment in which we must operate.
1 proposed this topic in last year's annual report because of its
importance to WPI's future — and our future is what this essay
series has been about. The series began seven years ago when I set
forth an agenda for achieving strategic excellence at WPI. In each
successive year, I have commented on some aspect of our progress
on that agenda.
Along the way, I've reviewed the five-year plans of our academic
departments, the progress made on those plans, the Institute's stra-
tegic planning process, the strategic plan that resulted from that
process, and our encouraging progress in implementing the strate-
gic plan despite the growing challenges we face. The series culmi-
nated last year with a report on how our own perspectives on this
progress were validated by our decennial regional accreditation.
The Blue Ribbon Task Force ushered in a new era of community
involvement in the planning of WPI's future and, perhaps more
important, in the implementation of those plans. That spirit of par-
ticipation, particularly as it affects how the Institute will act on the
task force's recommendations, is reflected in this year's report.
The work of the BRTF was a major accomplishment. But as the
members of the task force are the first to proclaim, that is not be-
cause they satisfied completely their charge to develop a compre-
hensive plan for the Institute. Rather, it is because this group of
faculty and staff members, students and trustees
— first, confirmed that we face vexing, largely externally imposed
financial problems,
— then, developed a framework for attacking those problems in the
contexts of quality of life, academic experience and financial
equilibrium,
— and finally, established a collegial, participatory process that
encouraged all members of the campus community to take part.
(That process — and the goodwill it engendered — may be the
greatest hallmarks of the BRTF.)
These accomplishments are the prelude to a very challenging task.
Now we must organize follow-on cooperative activities that will pro-
duce specific plans to implement the BRTF's recommendations for
improving the quality of life and the academic experience at WPI
while achieving the financial equilibrium necessary for our future
well-being.
—Jon C. Strauss
^:
■■Ml
A Rough Draft of the Future
Building on the Work of the
Blue Ribbon Task Force
By Jon C. Strauss
President
0'
V.X tie
n Feb. 28, 1992, I charged the Blue Ribbon Task Force
(BRTF) with evaluating both the challenges we face as
an institution of higher education and the opportuni-
ties we might be ready to seize, given our unique aca-
demic program and our considerable human resources. Then,
having laid this foundation, the task force was to propose an
overarching plan to guide WPI along the road from what we
are today to what we must become if we are to excel in the
world of the next few decades.
Over the following 15 months, the task force undertook
this prodigious assignment. After first defining their mission
and their method of attack, they established subcommittees
to study the various financial issues that impinge on the
Institute's future and completed an extensive benchmarking
study that measured our progress toward the six goals of
our strategic plan against what our competitors have accom-
plished in similar areas.
In February 1993, the task force gave the WPI community
Drogress report in the form of two open meetings on cam-
ic ^nrl q rM-oonntatirin tn tin a Ri-voi-H r\( TVi ?^+aac In A r\vil
pus and a presentation to the Board of Trustees. In April,
task force members held numerous small-group meetings
with the various constituents that collectively make up WPI.
In May, the community had another chance to contribute to
the planning process as the BRTF held an all-day campus
meeting to present its findings and solicit input from the
nearly 300 faculty, staff and students who attended.
The task force spelled out its recommendations on
WPI's future in Positioning WPI for the 21st Century, its final
report, presented to the annual meeting of the Board of
Trustees on May 21, 1993. At right, we've reprinted the
report's executive summary. In the following pages, I
quote from many of the task force's specific recommen-
dations. As I go along, I explain the steps being taken to
evaluate and implement those recommendations.
In the conclusion to its final report, the BRTF urged
that the next phases in WPI's evolution— the activities
that will translate the task force's recommendations into
a plan of action — "be organized and assigned by the
administration to appropriate groups, keeping in mind
the necessity to maintain community involvement and
collegiality in the process."
The specific implementation processes I describe
below are consistent with that request. They are pre-
sented along with the task force recommendations
themselves in the categories of Quality of Life, Aca-
demic Experience and Financial Equilibrium.
Executive SummaryoftheBRTF
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respond t0 emergmg tech^ ^™.^ ethical Issues. To
tends and needs, WPI should bZtecnn'l ^ ^ ^national
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tory to build on three inteZSed ^^ "* WPI of ^ next cln-
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ence base. A broademng ofiZZoZ ""*"" Sneering and sci-
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delude interface technology Zeis ofZZ'J edaDatlon act'^s to
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both the <n^^Z%^«°»^®n^ZZ
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all new mitiatiues-both academic andaZ "*' Cmtai"™nt; that
° low cost; that a severance pZ Zr T^"^ deli^ed at
™est in marketing our programs ZZZZZ'' "" *» "* ****
m base where appropriate Th BRtZT^' *^ *" ofe-
nance program and recommends Z" an ^ ^ dekrred Zie-
hen not involve the operating bule 7u«h ^ *" ^ C™<™c-
mends that a marketing firm beretZej^T0^ "» BRTF recom-
emerging technology to e^ZsLT™* "* <«*«»*>*
»ons, and to assess the marketable of hmeZ W"W P°^
In conclusion, WPI must invev L n " Pm§mm °P^ns.
s'aff and admmtstratton. QuahTm a" ^ T ^ StUde^ ^ulty,
•ng success. WPI must take advantage jftsZ "7™ * W C*
broaden along technical lines- belt^ "^S " Analogy and
both financially and ed^aTT* Z ""* "* "A
meet their needs; and produce ahLJ r * pr°S^ma,ical,y to
sumer and institutional cos" § ^^ ' pr°^am * a lower'con-
WPI Journal
The BRTF recommended:
• That all sectors of the Institute adopt proactive
communication mechanisms, including all<am-
pus forums.
• That all sectors of the
Institute — administration,
faculty, students and staff
— recognize the impor-
tance of such concepts as
shared governance and community consensus.
Consistent with these recommendations — and the
corresponding practices established by the BRTF
itself — the Community Council will serve as the
steering committee for the collegial implementa-
tion of the BRTF recommendations, much as it did
this past year for the recommendations of the
Commission on Residential and Social Life. The
council, a representative body of faculty, staff and
students, will schedule periodic open campus
meetings to review the progress of the various
groups assigned responsibility for specific recom-
mendations and tasks.
• That the Institute address the recognized urgent
need for a campus center. We recognize that
learning does not occur only in the classroom
and that the needs of our students (as recom-
mended by the Commission on Residential and
Social Life) be seriously considered. Invest-
ments will be needed to attain these objectives.
No one questions the priority of the proposed
campus center project. The Physical Facilities
Committee of the Board of Trustees is reviewing
conceptual designs for two of the campus center
concepts developed by Earl Flansburgh & Asso-
ciates. These are a freestanding structure and a
gateway/connector that might link to Daniels
and/or Sanford Riley halls.
Further, the trustee Development Committee
has begun to identify potential sources for the
necessary funding. WPI's Office of Student Affairs,
the undergraduate Student Government Asso-
ciation and the Graduate Student Organization
will coordinate faculty, staff and student involve-
ment in this work.
• That the parking needs of our campus be
addressed in a systematic and timely manner.
WPI's Parking Committee will be reinstituted as
soon as possible with a charge to organize a cam-
puswide review of all options. It will be asked to
develop, in cooperation with the trustees' Physi-
cal Facilities Committee, specific, financially feasi-
ble parking plans.
• That the Institute invest in education and train-
ing of the work force.
This recommendation reminds us again of the
apparent dichotomy of an institution devoted to
the education of others, and yet seeming to
ignore the educational needs of its own work
force. While progress has been made to liberalize
the tuition remission benefit for our staff, and
u..vi
though extensive training in n
total quality management
has been under way in the
Office of Business Affairs,
more needs to be done.
The Human Resources
Office has been directed to
review training needs in gen-
eral and to begin immediately
a new staff orientation pro-
gram. The Office of Academic
Affairs continues to improve
the new faculty and adminis-
trative staff orientation pro-
gram and is working with Bus-
iness Affairs and Human Re-
sources to organize a training
program for new department
heads.
• That efforts be directed at inte-
grating the students and
resources of the graduate pro-
gram into the mainstream of
the WPI community.
Mike Shipulski, president of the
Graduate Student Organization,
has articulated strongly the
needs and attitudes of the Insti-
tute's graduate students. Dean of
Students Janet Begin Richardson
and the new dean of graduate
studies and research will be work-
ing with the GSO to address this
issue.
• That the emphasis on globalization and respect
for diversity that we have already launched be
continued and increased.
Globalization is seen by virtually everyone as a
strategic priority for WPI. The Office of Academic
Affairs is seeking to expand our global projects
program and may market to students at other
institutions the opportunity to do project work
abroad next year. Good progress has been made
on student and staff diversity, and a new Plur-
alism Action Plan, to be implemented in the 1993-
94 academic year, will help increase respect and
appreciation for difference throughout the WPI
community.
Fall 1993
uaMu«Huai •SBBKBBS83&&&8&
'Quality is what we sell. In the coming decades, we
must consistently strive to make a WPI education
the best there is in an ever more competitive world.
However, quality of programs is not enough. The
social environment and the quality of the workplace
must be improved for the entire WPI community."
A member of the dance troupe Message From Our Ancestors performs at WPI's first African
Marketplace in the spring of 1993. To improve the quality of life for all members of the WPI
community, the Blue Ribbon Task Force recommended expanding WPI's globalization and
diversity efforts. Other recommendations included building a campus center, improving com-
munications on campus, investing in the education of WPI employees, and finding solutions
to the Institute's parking problems.
'WPI's educational program is still relevant and appropriate
to the needs of the 2 1 st century. However, it appears un-
likely that WPI can hope for much expansion from its current
engineering and science base. A broadening of its programs
in emerging interface technologies and the development of
new, technically based initiatives are necessary."
At the start of the school year last fall, a student searches the bookstore for texts he'll need for his courses.
With regard to the Institute's academic program, the Blue Ribbon Task Force recommended that WPI become
a technologically based, comprehensive university, broadening its scope to include a greater role for disci-
plines like the humanities and the social sciences, and developing the flexibility to respond to society's needs
by offering unique, interdisciplinary majors.
,Jva**M
The BRTF recommendations in this area can be
grouped as follows:
• That the WPI of the 21st century be a technologi-
cally based, comprehensive university.
• That the concepts of the Plan
be broadened to extend to
humanists who need to func-
tion in a technological world.
' « i
69^m
• That WPI's
'broadening' include a more
vital role for the Humanities and
Social Science and Policy Stud-
ies departments in contributing
to these emerging interface tech-
nologies in generating revenue
by offering unique technology-
based majors in these disci-
plines (technical journalism,
technical theater, environmen-
tal law, etc.). We also recom-
mend a more vital role for such
departments as Management.
• That WPI develop an organization-
al structure and mindset that can
respond to society's needs. We
must have a flexible curriculum to
respond to industry's needs and stu-
dent interests.
• That WPI invest in and expand its
globalization programs across the
curriculum.
< We confirm the work of the Com-
mission on Innovative Graduate Edu-
cation and, in addition, recommend
that WPI's graduate programs incor-
porate a global perspective through-
out the curriculum. This may be ac-
complished through internships, such
as graduate co-op experiences, or
through internships within industries
that have global interactions.
• That our existing co-op programs and
internships be redefined and expanded.
Furthermore, we see international
internships as a distinct advantage that
could help WPI take a leadership posi-
tion in setting the course for a globally
oriented, technologically based educa-
tion for the nation.
< That the continuing education program be
expanded and strengthened. We also recom-
mend that WPI investigate the potential for a
part-time undergraduate program for the adult-
learner sector of our society.
• That WPI's programs have flexibility and be
responsive to student program needs.
We can summarize by the following:
WPI of the 21st century must take advantage of
its strength in technology and broaden along tech-
nical lines. It must be sensitive to the needs of its
customers, both with respect to educational needs
and financial needs. It must be flexible program-
matically to meet these needs and to produce a
higher-quality program at a
lower consumer cost. The
WPI faculty, administration
and staff must respond rapid-
ly and effectively to focused
education initiatives. The institution must be pre-
pared to provide resources. The administration,
faculty and staff must work as a team to success-
fully respond to these initiatives.
The truly exciting aspect of these recommenda-
tions is the focus they place on the major thrusts
of WPI's strategic plan. The challenge, however, is
that while these recommendations will clearly
increase WPI's attractiveness, they may act more
to protect existing enrollments and revenue than
to generate additional net revenue. And nearly all
of the recommendations call for more resources.
In the absence of additional revenue, the Institute
will have to fund their implementation by real-
locating resources from existing, presumably
lower-priority activities, with some of the one-
time start-up costs perhaps being funded by the
Board of Trustees as "bridge investments."
Provost Diran Apelian has assigned the role of
coordinating the development of specific imple-
mentation plans consistent with the BRTF recom-
mendations on academic experience to Lance
Schachterle, associate dean for undergraduate
studies. Schachterle will seek the advice of the
faculty's Committee on Governance to determine
the most productive roles for the various faculty
governance committees, individual faculty mem-
bers, staff, students and the relevant administra-
tive officers and offices in this process.
A key requirement of these implementation
plans will be corresponding business plans that
specify the requisite capital (space and equipment)
and start-up resources. These business plans must
also forecast the revenues and operating expenses
from initiation to steady state. The provost will
appoint an advisory group of governance commit-
tee chairs, the secretary of the faculty and an acad-
emic department head to assist in prioritizing these
various implementation plans as they compete for
resources. Some or all of these plans may well
become candidates for the type of bridge invest-
ments proposed by the BRTF.
WPI Journal
The BRTF presented its recommendations in this
category under the headings of Cost Contain-
ment, Enhancing Net Revenue and Capital Expen-
ditures:
Cost Containment
• That the faculty and administration develop a
process to significantly and continuously
improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the
educational process at WPI.
• That our existing programs be critically
reviewed not only with respect to quality, but
also to cost containment.
• That the goal of any new academic program ini-
tiatives be an educational cost less than that
incurred by our traditional engineering and sci-
ence programs.
• That the hzistees review and consider the con-
cept of a severance plan.
The creation of a provost's advisory group on the
implementation of BRTF recommendations, as
outlined on page 7, speaks to the intent and letter
of these process recommendations. Diran Apelian
had previously inaugurated a process for periodic
external review of the quality of our existing pro-
grams. In view of the BRTF recommendations, the
implementation of this review process will be
accelerated and an emphasis on cost effective-
ness will be added to the charge.
The results of these studies will be reviewed
by the same provost's advisory group, since
existing programs compete for resources with
proposed new academic initiatives. The advisory
group will be cognizant of the BRTF recommen-
dation regarding lower educational cost for new
academic program initiatives.
As noted in the BRTF's report, the firm of
William M. Mercer is working with a task force
subcommittee and with administrative officers to
propose a severance plan. The objective is to
provide alternatives to senior faculty — and possi-
bly staff — who wish to consider other career
options. The task force subcommittee envisioned
that this process could facilitate adjusting to
changing conditions and priorities or attracting
new colleagues at relatively little net cost.
Enhancing Net Revenue
• That the trustees retain the marketing firm of
Barton and Gillet to determine what new skills
and disciplines will be needed in the future so
that WPI can offer new and broader career
opportunities to its students.
• That the trustees retain Barton and Gillet to
determine the demand for the program options
outlined above.
• That WPI continue its current financial aid poli-
cy at least until the implementation of new aca-
demic programs, and the markets they are
aimed at, provide the opportunity for different
financial aid strategies. Further, that in the
meantime the administration continue to study
innovative financial aid approaches, such as
the funding of WPI loans to students on a struc-
tured payback basis.
• That the administration develop proactive
means, including more effective use of alumni,
to enhance the image and profile of WPI gradu-
ates in the eyes of prospective employers in
order to maintain a successful job place-
ment record as an advantage in attracting
prospective students.
Barton-Gillet has been retained to see how
receptive the prospective student market-
place might be to the BRTF recommendations
regarding the academic experience. Further,
they have been encouraged to provide advice
on the much more difficult issue of how best
to match WPl's considerable strengths with
the perceived needs of the marketplace.
The scope of this study will also include
continuing education, nontraditional and part-
time undergraduate students. A client com-
mittee of key faculty and administrative staff,
chaired by the provost, will coordinate input
and review progress of this study. Preliminary
results are expected this fall.
Another important focus of the Barton-Gillet
study will be the comparative cost effectiveness
of our financial aid policies. New comparative
data analysis capabilities make it possible to cus-
tom tailor financial aid to the needs of individual
market segments, thereby optimizing net pricing
attractiveness. Given the relatively large amounts
of money involved in financial aid, small percent-
age improvements mean large savings that can
be employed to strengthen other aspects of insti-
tutional attractiveness.
At the 1993 Reunion, 1 challenged alumni to
help us with job placement, and I found great
receptivity. The Alumni Office, the Career Devel-
opment Center and the WPI Alumni Association
have begun working more closely to mobilize this
interest in helping us develop more effective job
placement programs. Successful job placement is
a requisite for technological education, and the
dramatic change in the demand for new engi-
neers and scientists in our traditional markets
requires new strategies and tactics.
Capital Expenditures
• That... major construction be financed by capital
funds obtained through development efforts so
that acquisition costs are not funded by the
operating budget.
• That the trustees spend an appropriate amount
each year on deferred maintenance to maintain
the existing discipline now being applied to our
physical assets.
The trustees are committed to funding any new
capital construction so as to minimize any depen-
dence on the operating budget and are quite sen-
sitive to the need to reduce deferred maintenance.
Fall 1993
"WPI in the 2 1 st century must be financially stable.
All institutions of higher education face and will
continue to face ever-increasing pressures to deliv-
er high-quality education at a substantially reduced
cost to both the institution and the consumer."
The cost of delivering a superior technology-based education in engineering and science
is high and growing higher all the time. The Blue Ribbon Task Force recommended that WPI
work toward financial equilibrium by critically examining the costs and efficiencies of deliver-
ing academic programs, better matching its program offerings to the demands of the market-
place, exploring new approaches to financial aid, and financing major new construction solely
through development efforts.
The BRTF ended its report by focusing on the
process going forward. Here are the
recommendations
from that section:
• The task force rec-
ommends that as a
critical strategic ef-
fort, the process continues to full
conclusion, in accord with the
president's charge. We further rec-
ommend that the follow-up phases
be oiganized and assigned by the
administration to appropriate
groups, keeping in mind the
necessity to maintain community
involvement and collegiality in
the process.
• The task force strongly recom-
mends that the concepts pre-
sented, especially as they relate
to broadening of our programs,
be validated by the market-
place. We recommend that the
firm of Barton and Gillet be
commissioned to conduct a
market study of our program-
matic recommendations dur-
ing the summer of 1993. Their
charge should be to validate
the concepts and recommen-
dations we have made to
broaden our scope and to
specifically forecast the mar-
ket acceptance and resource
requirements of competing
alternatives.
• We recommend that the WPI Board of Trustees
reaffirm its commitment to make an appropriate
bridge investment in support of the implementa-
tion of the comprehensive plan ultimately result-
ing from this process.
As I've already suggested, follow-up phases have
been organized and assigned to appropriate
groups. The Community Council will assure that
community involvement and collegiality are main-
tained. Every effort will be made to structure spe-
cific action steps so that they qualify for the
bridge investments recommended to the trustees.
These investments could come from capital
assets (endowment), development activities or a
combination of the two.
The WPI community owes the Blue Ribbon
Task Force a great debt of gratitude for reaffirm-
ing so clearly the difficult financial and attitudinal
environment in which we operate, and for sug-
gesting so succinctly approaches to the compre-
hensive plan we seek for the future. The 1993-94
academic year promises to be particularly excit-
ing as we involve every member of the WPI family
in this process.
"Quality in all we do is essential
to our continuing success. WPI
must take advantage of its
strengths in technology and
broaden along technical lines;
be sensitive to the needs of its
customers, both financially and
educationally; be flexible pro-
grammatically to meet their
needs; and produce a higher
quality program at a lower con-
sumer and institutional cost.**
At Reunion in 1993, President Strauss enlists alumni in
the process of reshaping WPI for the 21st century. In the
months ahead, all sectors of the WPI community will
make their voices heard as the Institute maps out a com-
prehensive plan for the future.
10
Fall 1993
FINANCIAL SUMMARY
By Robert W. Gailey
Vice President for Business Affairs
and Treasurer
WPI's financial position at June 30, 1993,
continues to be strong. Led by the
Endowment Fund, the Institute's invest-
ments and fund balances are at all-time
highs. The Endowment Fund realized an increase in
balance of $12.2 million for the year.
Total assets increased by approximately $16.3
million, or 7.7 percent, to $211 million, while total lia-
bilities decreased slightly. Debt service (principal
and interest) represented only 5.1 percent of unre-
stricted current fund expenditures and mandatory
transfers for the year, which is comparatively low
for educational institutions. Investments in property,
plant and equipment — less accumulated deprecia-
tion— increased by 3.6 percent to $51.8 million.
The 11.4 percent increase in the book value of
the Endowment Fund was due to new gift additions
($4 million), transfers from other funds ($360,000),
and net reinvested returns ($7.8 million). The mar-
ket value of the fund was $127,897,992 as of June 30,
1993. It produced an annual total return (net of fees)
of 11.9 percent. This total return compared with the
Standard and Poor's stock index gain of 13.6 per-
cent and the Shearson Lehman intermediate bond
index gain of 10.5 percent.
Total Current Fund revenue increased by $5.2
million in fiscal year 1993 to a total of $78 million;
this represented a gain of 7.1 percent over fiscal
year 1992. There was a positive bottom line from
operations for the fiscal year of $18,401. The Insti-
tute increased its overall fiscal position (total fund
balance) by $17 million, an 11 percent gain for the
year.
Total funds expended for instruction and depart-
mental research represented 34 percent of unre-
stricted educational, general and auxiliary revenue.
While the annual funds expended for operation and
maintenance of the physical plant increased by 4.9
percent, accumulated deferred maintenance on the
WPI campus continued to total about $15 million.
Student aid awarded from unrestricted current
funds increased by 16.9 percent to more than $10.1
million; it represented 22.6 percent of the total
revenue (including room and board) collected from
undergraduate students. Sponsored research and
other sponsored programs increased by 35.9 per-
cent to $9.1 million. This substantial increase re-
sulted from a full year's activity by the Center for
High Performance Computing.
While auxiliary operations (housing, food ser-
vice, bookstore, etc.) generated $6.3 million in rev-
enue, the cost to generate that revenue ran slightly
more. The Institute's policy of operating auxiliary
services on a self-supporting basis was essentially
maintained.
Total Expenditures
(percent)
Total Revenue
(percent)
y
y^^
/ / / /
y
/ / / /
' / / / /
/
/ / / /
/ /
/^ /
/■
y
/
y / / ^
■ s-
/■
/ /
/
Other, 4%
Other, 13%
Physical plant, computing
and other administrative, 16%
Endowment income, gifts and
other internal revenue, 20%
Student Aid, 21%
7^\
,*•
Tuition, room and board,
educational and otherfees, 67%
Direct expenses for educational
and research operations, 59%
WPI Journal
11
FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS
.. . . .
Years ended June 30, 1993 and 1992
/. General Operating Funds (Thousands of Dollars)
1993
1992
Percent
Change
Tuition, fees and other educational revenues
Student financial aid
Gifts, grants and bequests, as recognized
Revenues from sponsored research programs
Total staff benefit expenses, before allocation
$46,311
15,885
8,193
9,109
6,930
$44,772
13,920
6,597
6,701
6,253
+3.4
+14.1
+24.2
+35.9
+10.8
2. Endowment and Similar Funds (Thousands of Dollars)
1993
1992
Percent
Change
Beginning market values
$114,757
$107,041
+7.2
plus:
Investment results
Income (interest and dividends)
Realized gains
Change in unrealized gains
$5,013
8,754
3,636
$5,934
2,193
3,762
Total investment results
$17,403
$11,889
+46.4
less:
Used in support of college
Transferred to restricted funds
(3,996)
(266)
(3,963)
(1,900)
+0.8
-86.0
Net reinvested in endowment
13,141
6,026
+ 111.7
plus:
Additions to endowments, mostly from gifts
4,389
1,690
+159.7
Ending Market Value
$127,898
$114,757
+11.5
Five-Year Summary of Total Return Data
'93
'92
'91
'90
'89
WPI Total Return
WP1 Policy Index
S&P500
Shearson Lehman Intermediate Bond
CPI Index
11.9% 12.4%
13.5 13.5
13.6 13.5
10.5 13.2
3.0 2.8
8.5%
8.7
7.4
10.5
5.1
5.0%
13.7
16.4
7.8
4.8
11.6%
17.1
20.5
10.2
4.7
Copies of the complete audited financial reports for
Worcester Polytechnic Institute for fiscal year 1993
can be obtained by writing to:
Office of Business Affairs
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
100 Institute Road
Worcester, MA 01609-2280
12
Fall 1993
Financial
Statements
Report of Independent
Accountants
The Board of Trustees
Worcester Polytechnic Institute:
We have audited the accompanying balance sheet of
Worcester Polytechnic Institute as of June 30, 1993 and
the related statements of changes in fund balances and
of current fund revenues, expenditures and other
changes for the year then ended. We previously audited and
reported upon the financial statements of Worcester Polytechnic
Institute for the year ended June 30, 1992, for which condensed
statements are presented for comparative purposes only. These
financial statements are the responsibility of Worcester Polytechnic
Institute's management. Our responsibility is to express an opinion
on these financial statements based on our audit.
We conducted our audit in accordance with generally accepted
auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and per-
form the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the
financial statements are free of material misstatement. An audit
includes examining, on a test basis, evidence supporting the
amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. An audit also
includes assessing the accounting principles used and significant
estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall
financial statement presentation. We believe that our audit provides
a reasonable basis for our opinion.
In our opinion, the financial statements referred to above pre-
sent fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of
Worcester Polytechnic Institute as of June 30, 1993, the changes in
its fund balances and its current fund revenues, expenditures and
other changes for the year then ended in conformity with generally
accepted accounting principles.
Boston, Massachusetts
September 10, 1993
Audited Reports
Balance Sheet
June 30, 1993
(with comparative totals at June 30, 1992)
Endowment
Trust and
Current Funds
Loan
and Similar
Life Income
Plant
Total All Funds
ASSETS Unrestricted
Restricted
Funds
Funds
Funds
Funds
1993
1992
Cash and cash equivalents
$ 860,752
$ 63,350
$ 98,934
$ 1,023,036
$ 2,052,834
Investments, at cost (Note 4)
8,683,072
2,252,063
180,719
$ 120,905,954
$ 5,525,364
$ 4,530,729
142,077,901
125,321,055
Accounts receivable, net (Note 2)
982,561
2,315,430
37,776
873
3,336,640
4,779,835
Notes receivable (Note 3)
39,593
11,568,322
11,607,915
10,962,289
Inventories
21,792
21,792
68,013
Deposits with trustees (Note 6)
455,330
455,330
493,102
Property, plant and equipment,
net (Note 5)
51,249,488
51,249,488
49,615,275
Construction in progress
581,347
581,347
437,026
Prepaid expenses
64,726
64,726
334,029
Deferred financing costs (Note 1)
1,003,480
1,003,480
1,056,051
Interfund balances, net (Note 1)
(5,477,315)
6,458,075
(2,046,713)
(1,651,757)
(53,499)
2,771,209
—
—
Total assets
$5,175,181
811,088,918
8 9,801,262
$119,254,197
85,509,641
860,592,456
$211,421,655
$195,119,509
LIABILITIES AND FUND BALANCES
Liabilities:
Accounts payable
783,956
377,767
58
5,490
88,042
1,255,313
1,344,150
Accrued expenses
1,928,257
12,975
668,587
2,609,819
2,733,557
Annuities payable (Note 1)
1,086,293
1,086,293
885,201
Deposits and deferred revenue 1,708,458
1,708,458
1,606,965
Funds held for others
128,875
90,833
219,708
157,491
Long-term debt (Note 6)
34,163,774
34,163,774
35,020,673
Commitments (Note 9)
Total liabilities
4,420,671
506,642
58
18,465
1,177,126
34,920,403
41,043,365
41,748,037
Fund balances:
Unrestricted
754,510
754,510
736,109
Restricted
10,582,276
1,482,270
53,600,872
4,332,515
69,997,933
61,297,794
Internally designated
65,634,860
65,634,860
60,834,556
Plant Fund
25,672,053
25,672,053
22,311,230
U.S. Government
8,318,934
8,318,934
8,191,783
Total fund balances
754,510
10,582,276
9,801,204
119,235,732
4,332,515
25,672,053
170,378,290
153,371,472
Total liabilities and
fund balances
85,175,181
811,088,918
8 9,801,262
8119,254,197
85,509,641
860,592,456
$211,421,655
$195,119,509
The accompanying notes are an integral part of the financial statements.
F2
Fall 1993
Statement Of Changes In Fund Balances
June 30, 1993
(with comparative totals at June 30, 1992)
Endowment
Trust and
Current Funds
Loan
and Similar
Life Income
Plant
Total All Funds
l
Jnrestricted
Restricted
Funds
Funds
Funds
Funds
1993
1992
Revenues and other additions:
Student tuition and fees
$41,748,891
$ 41,748,891
$ 39,966,948
Other educational operations
4,562,376
4,562,376
4,804,567
Auxiliary enterprises
6,257,508
6,257,508
6,349,002
Sales and services
25,410
25,410
38,543
Other operating sources
767,265
767,265
725,876
Endowment income
3,316,153
$ 1,663,762
$ 32,168
$ 17
$ 1,227
5,013,327
5,934,203
Investments and similar income
984,444
94,734
257,253
$ 159,138
499,592
1,995,161
1,764,387
Net realized gain on investments
8,753,643
125,942
8,879,585
2,254,833
Contracts, grants and
financial aid
1,564,695
12,837,355
24,604
14,426,654
11,239,280
Gifts and other receipts
1,670,815
4,141,161
4,009,677
460,256
3,267,613
13,549,522
7,592,100
Other additions in funds
90,496
2,324
63,673
55,149
211,642
339,341
60,897,557
18,827,508
316,349
12,827,010
745,336
3,823,581
97,437,341
81,009,080
Expenditures and other deductions
Current fund expenditures
56,912,284
17,149,519
74,061,803
68,251,452
Cancellation of principal and
interest on student loans
10,431
10,431
41,301
Depreciation
3,954,317
3,954,317
3,499,400
Interest on indebtedness
2,217,893
2,217,893
2,492,387
Administrative and custodial fees
120,220
38,768
158,988
157,755
Other financing charges
—
879,289
Other deductions in funds
27,091
27,091
163,026
56,912,284
17,149,519
130,651
—
65,859
6,172,210
80,430,523
75,484,610
Transfers between funds:
Mandatory:
Principal and interest
(3,053,978)
3,053,978
—
—
Nonmandatory:
Funded depreciation (Note 5)
(1,481,094)
(200,000)
1,681,094
—
—
Investment earnings transferred
(to) from endowment
680,462
303,767
6,464
(990,939)
246
—
—
Unrestricted gifts allocated
(379,000)
379,000
—
—
Repair and replacement reserve (161,679)
161,679
—
—
Other transfers (Note 5)
428,417
(1,220,857)
(20,015)
812,455
—
—
(3,966,872)
(1,117,090)
6,464
(631,954)
—
5,709,452
—
—
Net increase in fund balance
18,401
560,899
192,162
12,195,056
679,477
3,360,823
17,006,818
5,524,470
Beginning fund balance
736,109
10,021,377
9,609,042
107,040,676
3,653,038
22,311,230
153,371,472
147,847,002
Ending fund balance
$ 754,510
$10,582,276
$9,801,204
$119,235,732
$4,332,515
$25,672,053
$170,378,290
$153,371,472
The accompanying notes are an integral part of the financial statements.
WPI Journal
F3
Total Revenues
'93 EE
53.8
'92EB
51.7
'91 EE
51.2
'90133
50.7
'89EB
49.0
'p.Ri^n
46.9
'87EO
45.4
86EE
45.3
'85 Km
42.8
'84 KM]
40.5
60 75
0 15 30 45
BBSB1 MillionsofDollars
•Constant Yearsendingjune30. 1984-93
'1983 Base
Total Expenditures
(before transfers)
0 15 30 45
Wtllli.-liH MillionsofDollars
"Constant Years ending June 30, 1984-93
•1983 Base
75
Statement Of Current Fund Revenues,
Expenditures And Other Changes
for the year ended June 30, 1993
(with comparative totals for the year ended June 30, 1992)
Current Funds
Total Current Funds
Unrestricted
Restricted
1993
1992
Revenues:
Educational and general:
Student tuition and fees
$41,748,891
$ 41,748,891
$ 39,966,948
Other educational operations
4,562,376
4,562,376
4,804,567
Sales and services
25,410
25,410
38,543
Other operating sources
767,265
767,265
725,876
Endowment, investment and
similar income
4,300,597
$ 1,518,383
5,818,980
6,669,635
Contracts, grants and gifts
3,235,510
15,631,136
18,866,646
14,283,025
54,640,049
17,149,519
71,789,568
66,488,594
Auxiliary operations
6,257,508
—
6,257,508
6,349,002
Total revenue
60,897,557
17,149,519
78,047,076
72,837,596
Expenditures:
Educational and general:
Instruction and department research
18,684,508
2,037,255
20,721,763
20,635,059
Library
1,424,996
538
1,425,534
1,467,538
Student services
2,981,635
191,700
3,173,335
2,927,140
Public services and information
1,663,636
39,405
1,703,041
1,711,957
Operation and maintenance of plant
5,105,293
17,239
5,122,532
4,884,892
General administrative and institutiona
3,145,556
7,732
3,153,288
2,830,412
Staff benefits
5,972,436
5,972,436
5,429,565
Student aid
10,138,743
5,746,311
15,885,054
13,919,989
Sponsored research and other
sponsored programs
9,109,339
9,109,339
6,701,131
Other educational operations
1,717,652
1,717,652
1,802,884
College computer center
1,383,308
1,383,308
1,271,805
52,217,763
17,149,519
69,367,282
63,582,372
Mandatory transfer for principal
and interest
1,402,859
1,402,859
1,131,059
Total educational and general and
mandatory transfer
53,620,622
17,149,519
70,770,141
64,713,431
Auxiliary expenditures:
Expenditures
4,694,521
4,694,521
4,669,080
Mandatory transfer for principal
and interest
1,651,119
1,651,119
1,505,542
Total auxiliary expenditures and
mandatory transfer
6,345,640
—
6,345,640
6,174,622
Total expenditures and
mandatory transfers
59,966,262
17,149,519
77,115,781
70,888,053
Excess of restricted receipts over
revenue transfers
Nonmandatory transfers:
Investment earnings transferred
(to) from endowment (Note 4) 680,462
Funded depreciation (1,481,094)
Repair and replacement reserve (161,679)
Unrestricted gifts allocated (379,000)
Other transfers 428,417
1,677,989
303,767
(200,000)
(1,220,857)
1,677,989
984,229
(1,681,094)
(161,679)
(379,000)
(792,440)
Nonmandatory transfers
Net increase (decrease)
Beginning fund balance
18,401
736,109
10,021,377
10,757,486
2,791,176
(71,028)
(1,693,269)
(130,155)
(5,830)
(2,953,163)
(912,894) (1,117,090) (2,029,984) (4,853,445)
560,899 579,300 (112,726)
10,870,212
Ending fund balance
$ 754,510 810,582,276 $11,336,786 $10,757,486
The accompanying notes are an integral part of the financial statements.
F4
Fall 1993
Notes To Financial Statements
I. Accounting Policies:
Basis of Presentation The accompanying financial statements have been prepared on the accrual basis of
accounting. The statement of current fund revenues, expenditures, and other changes is a statement of finan-
cial activities of current funds related to the current reporting period. It does not purport to present the
results of operations or the net income or loss for the period as would a statement of income or a statement
of revenues and expenses.
To the extent that current funds are used to finance plant assets, the amounts so provided are accounted
for as (1) expenditures, in the case of normal replacement of movable equipment and library books;
(2) mandatory transfers, in the case of required provisions for debt amortization and interest and equipment
renewal and replacement; and (3) transfers of a nonmandatory nature for all other cases.
Gifts and pledges are recorded when collected. Fair value is assigned on the date of receipt. During 1993,
gifts-in-kind of $3,267,613 were recorded in the plant fund.
Fund Accounting In order to ensure the observance of limitations and restrictions placed on the use of the
resources available to Worcester Polytechnic Institute (the "Institute"), the accounts of the Institute are
maintained in accordance with "fund accounting" principles. This is the procedure by which resources for
various purposes are classified for accounting and reporting purposes, into funds that are in accordance with
activities or objectives specified. Separate accounts are maintained for each fund; however, in the accompa-
nying financial statements, funds that have similar characteristics have been combined into fund groups.
Accordingly, all financial transactions have been recorded and reported by each respective fund group.
Within each fund group, fund balances restricted by outside sources are so indicated and are distin-
guished from unrestricted funds allocated to specific purposes by action of the governing board. Externally
restricted funds may only be utilized in accordance with the purposes established by the source of such
funds and are in contrast with unrestricted funds over which the Institute retains control to use in achieving
any of its institutional purposes.
Fund Groups The assets, liabilities and fund balances of the Institute are reported in five self-balancing fund
groups.
1. Current funds include all unrestricted and restricted resources that are available for operating purposes
of performing the primary missions of the Institute.
2. Loan funds are restricted for use in making loans to students and include resources received from
donors, governmental agencies and mandatory institutional matching grants.
3. Endowment funds include the following: (1) true endowment funds that are subject to restrictions of the
gift instruments requiring the principal be invested in perpetuity with only the income to be expended,
and (2) internally designated endowment funds that are established by the governing board to act as
endowments where the principal, as well as the income, may be expended.
4. Trust and Life Income Funds consists of funds acquired by the Institute subject to agreements whereby
assets are made available to the Institute on the condition that the Institute bind itself to pay stipulated
amounts periodically to designated individuals. Payments of such amounts terminate at a time specified
in the agreements.
5. Plant funds are used to account for the transactions relating to investment in the Institute's properties.
All gains and losses arising from the sale, collection or other disposition of investments and other non-
cash assets are accounted for in the fund that owned such assets. Ordinary income derived from invest-
ments, receivables and the like is accounted for in the fund owning such assets, except for income derived
from investments of endowment and similar funds, which income is accounted for in the fund to which it is
restricted or, if unrestricted, as revenues in unrestricted current funds.
All other unrestricted revenue is accounted for in the unrestricted current fund. Restricted gifts, grants,
appropriations, endowment income and other restricted resources are accounted for in the appropriate
restricted funds. Restricted current funds are reported as revenues and expenditures when expended for cur-
rent operating purposes.
Cash and Cash Equivalents Cash and cash equivalents include cash on hand and short-term investments,
principally the Common Fund Intermediate Cash Fund, which consist principally of U.S. government agency
obligations.
Inventories Inventories, consisting principally of personal computer equipment, are valued at the lower of
cost (first-in, first-out) or market.
Interfund Borrowings and Advances The interfund borrowings and advances are temporary in nature
except for $2,046,713 payable from the student loan fund to the current fund. The payable to the current fund
is expected to be paid from specific loan collections within a 10-year period without interest.
Tuition and Fees
Revenues
'93EB
28.8
'92 EH]
28.5
'91 EH
28.7
'90E13
28.1
'89EB
25.4
'88EE
24.5
'87EE
23.7
'86EE
20.9
'85EE
19.5
'84EEX3
18.7
0 7 14 21 28
WtlllJJJill MillionsofDollars
* Constant Years ending June 30, 1 984-93
* 1983 Base
Tuition and Feesasa Per-
centage of Total Revenues
'93EU
35
'92EE
'91 Ell
'90EH
'89EE
'88 EB
'87 EU
'86EE
'85133
'84UJFJ
52 55
40 43 46
Percent
Years ending June 30, 1984-93
WPI Journal
F5
Sponsored
Program Awards
'93KH
3.9
'92 KB
3.8
'91 KB
4.0
'90KB
3.0
'89KE1
3.3
S8H&1
4.2
'87KB
3.7
'86KB
1.7
'85KB
1.8
'84KB
2.1
0 12 3 4 5
KfflSSB MiUionsofDollars
'Constant Years ending June 30. 1 984-93
•1983 Base
Deferred Financing Costs Deferred financing costs relate to debt issuance costs that are amortized over the
life of the bonds. Total amortization expense for each of the years ended June 30, 1993 and 1992, were $58,573
and $56,363, respectively.
Sponsored Research In October 1991, the Board of Trustees voted to approve the establishment of the
Center for High Performance Computing (the "Center"). The nucleus group of engineers and computer
scientists that comprise the basis of the Center previously worked on government supported contract
research for Encore Computer Corporation. On Nov. 18, 1991, the Center began operations under active U.S.
government agency contracts specifically awarded to WPI. Commencing on Nov. 18, 1991, the revenue,
expenses and balance sheet accounts of the Center are included in the financial statements of the Institute.
Revenues associated with research and other contracts and grants at both the Institute and the Center are
recognized as related costs are incurred. Indirect cost recovery by the Institute on U. S. government agency
contracts and grants is based upon a predetermined fixed rate. The Center has been operating under a
negotiated fixed provisional indirect cost recovery rate negotiated with the principal U.S. government agency
and is subject to the results of an impending audit.
Total sponsored research revenue recognized in restricted current funds in fiscal 1993 and 1992
amounted to:
1993
1992
The Institute
The Center
- 3,902,921
5,206,418
: 4,254,927
2,446,204
Total sponsored research revenue
$9,109,339
$6,701,131
Property, Plant and Equipment Land and land improvements, buildings, and equipment are recorded at cost
at the date of purchase. When assets are retired or otherwise disposed of, the cost and related accumulated
depreciation are removed from the accounts, and any resulting gain or loss is reflected in operations for the
period. The cost of maintenance and repairs is charged to income as incurred; significant renewals and bet-
terments are capitalized.
The Institute depreciates capital assets based upon their useful lives. The policy applies to assets
acquired with an expected useful life of three years or more and a cost greater than $500. Depreciation is cal-
culated using the straight-line method, half-year convention over the following estimated useful lives:
Land improvements 10 - 20 years
Buildings and improvements 20 - 50 years
Equipment 3 - 10 years
Annuities Payable Amounts due to donors in connection with gift annuities is determined based on remain-
der value calculations that generally assume a rate of return of 10 percent, maximum payout terms of 20
years, and an interest payout rate of 7.5 percent.
Vested Vacation Accrual The Institute accrues a liability for estimatable compensated absences (vested
vacation for hourly and salaried employees) as required by FASB Statement No. 43.
Tax-Exempt Status The Institute is exempt from federal income tax under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal
Revenue Code.
Reclassification Certain amounts in the June 30, 1992, financial statements have been reclassified to conform
with the June 30, 1993, presentation.
2. Accounts Receivable:
Accounts receivable consist of the following
Sponsored research
Other receivables
Less: allowance for doubtful accounts
1993 Current Funds
Unrestricted Restricted
1992 Total
Current
Funds
$1,005,561
$ 2,000,030
315,400
$ 3,462,379
1,339,150
1,005,561
23,000
2,315,430
4,801,529
23,000
Total accounts receivable
$ 982,561
$2,315,430
$4,778,529
At June 30, 1993, sponsored research accounts receivable related to the Center amounted to $673,410, which
is net of an advance payment of $860,000.
F6
Fall 1993
3. Notes Receivable:
Notes receivable consist of the following:
1992 Total
1993
Notes
Current Fund
Loan Fund
Receivable
Student loans
Other
Less: allowance for doubtful accounts
$ 39,593
$ 11,584,171
15,849
$ 10,928,260
49,878
15,849
Total notes receivable
839,593
$11,568,322
$10,962,289
Notes receivable are principally amounts due from students under federally sponsored loan programs that
are subject to significant restrictions. Accordingly, it is not practicable to determine the fair value of such
amounts.
4. Investments:
Investments are stated at cost. Investments acquired by gift or bequest are recorded at market value at the
date of acquisition. Purchases and sales of investments are recorded on settlement date. Market value repre-
sents the fair value of investments at June 30, 1993. Realized gains and losses are accounted for within the
fund that holds the investments using the specific identification method. Investment income is recorded
when received. At June 30, 1993, short-term investments in the current unrestricted funds consisted of
$3,000,000 in fixed-income mutual fund and commercial paper with maturities ranging from July 1993 to
November 1993. There was no more than $1,000,000 invested in any single issuer of commercial paper.
Investments of endowment and similar funds are composed of the following:
Book Value
1993 1992
Market Value
1993 1992
Equities $ 48,207,923 $ 29,671,932 $ 50,080,960 $ 29,329,536
Bonds 15,884,315 25,015,486 16,976,358 26,537,101
Short-term notes 15,213,692 2,165,130 15,214,992 2,165,130
Mutual funds:
Equity funds 14,999,441 28,220,370 15,493,919 32,447,694
Fixed-income funds 15,328,086 13,900,623 18,391,297 15,908,498
Mortgages on real estate 27,792 46,423 27,792 46,423
Realty trust* 2,813,000 2,513,000 2,813,000 2,513,000
Oil and gas, L.P.* 6,000,000 3,450,000 6,000,000 3,450,000
Bioventures, L.P.* 1,724,518 1,259,933 2,192,487 1,631,322
Other 707,187 728,271 707,187 728,271
Total
$120,905,954
$106,971,168
$127,897,992
$114,756,975
* Not publicly traded.
Endowment Income and Spending Investments of endowment and similar funds, except for five funds with a
combined market value of $3,613,596, are pooled on a market value per unit basis at the beginning of the cal-
endar quarter within which a transaction takes place. At June 30, 1993, there was a total of 40,490,939 units,
each having a market value of $3,028. Of the total units, 17,569,683 were owned by endowment funds and
22,921,256 were owned by internally designated funds.
Market Value
of Endowment
'93 EH
86.9
'92EEE
81.6
91 wm
77.6
'90EH
75.9
'89EH
78.7
'88EH
75.5
'87EE
70.5
'86 EH
63.4
'85EH
59.9
53.2
0 24 48 72
BEfflBlffll Millionsof Dollars
" Constant Years ending June 30, 1 984-93
*1 983 Base
96 120
Endowment
Total Return
'93 EH I
0 5
Percent
Years ending June 30, 1 984-93
WPI Journal
F7
Operations and Plant
Maintenance Expenditures
D 1 2 3 4 5
MgjBEZl Miflionsof Dollars
•Constant YearsendingJune30.1984-93
•1983 Base
The following tabulation summarizes changes in the relationship between cost and market values of the
pooled investments:
June 30, 1993
June 30, 1992
Change in unrealized
appreciation for year
Net realized gains on
pooled investments
Less: realized gains on pooled
investments distributed as
investment income to the
current fund
Pooled Investments
Market Value
Market
Cost
Gains
Per Unit
$124,284,393
$117,634,503
$6,649,890
$3,028
111,341,624
103,644,369
7,697,255
(1,047,365)
8,828,808
2.857
(990,939)
Total net realized and unrealized
gain for year
$6,790,504
S.171
A summary of the market value per unit and the income per time-weighted unit for the pooled invest-
ments held as of June 30, 1993, and in each of the prior four years is as follows:
1993
1992
1991
1990
1989
The Institute observes a spending rule with respect to unrestricted investment income on investments of
the endowment and similar funds. In accordance with that spending rule, the Institute distributed 5.50 per-
cent of the average unit market value for the previous two years to current operations.
The spending rule distribution for fiscal 1993 is .146 per time-weighted unit that was comprised of .121 of
income per time-weighted unit and .025 per unit distributed from accumulated capital gains.
5. Property, Plant and Equipment:
Property, plant and equipment consists of the following:
Income Per Time-
Market Value
Weighted Unit
Per Unit
$.121
$3,028
.149
2.857
.163
2.676
.170
2.637
.190
2.680
1993
1992
Land and land improvements
Buildings
Equipment
Less: accumulated depreciation
4,370,848
58,890,108
15,321,481
I 4,258,848
57,441,189
11,383,872
78,582,437
27,332,949
73,083,909
23,468,634
$51,249,488
$49,615,275
In fiscal 1993, the Institute funded $1,681,094, a portion of the depreciation expense, as a nonmandatory
transfer from the current funds to the plant funds. Other transfers include $812,455 of gifts the Institute trans-
ferred relating to capital projects completed during the year from the restricted funds to the plant fund.
F8
Fall 1993
6. Long-Term Debt:
Long-term debt at June 30, 1993, amounted to $34,163,774. Schedule I summarizes the components of long-
term debt. The aggregate amounts of principal due for each of the next five fiscal years are as follows:
1994 $ 902,288
1995 968,082
1996 1,034,309
1997 1,091,004
1998 1,158,004
85,153,687
On Oct. 1, 1988, the Institute deposited with Trustees sufficient funds to defease HEFA Series B Bonds,
which mature July 1, 2000. The amount of Series B principal outstanding at June 30, 1993, was $5,285,000.
During fiscal 1992, the Institute issued $23,745,000 HEFA Series E bonds, which pay annual interest rates
ranging from 6.0 percent to 6.75 percent and mature Sept. 1, 2001 through Sept. 1, 2017. Proceeds of the
bonds were used to refund the $23,000,000 HEFA. Series D bonds, which had a fixed interest rate of 6.75 per-
cent to March 1, 1992, and a variable rate thereafter until maturity at Sept. 1, 2018. The bonds are collateral-
ized by pledged tuition receipts.
In compliance with the Institute's various bond indentures, deposits with Trustees at June 30, 1993,
include investments in debt service and reserve funds of $455,330.
The bond agreements contain restrictive covenants that, among other restrictions, include the mainte-
nance of certain financial ratios.
At June 30, 1993, the Institute had outstanding an interest rate swap agreement with an investment bro-
ker, having a total notional principal amount of $30,000,000. The agreement effectively changes the interest
rate exposure on the Series C and E (see Schedule I, below) bonds to a variable rate based on a specified
bond index, commencing in fiscal 1992 and terminating in fiscal 1997. The Institute is exposed to credit loss in
the event of nonperformance by the other party to the interest rate swap agreement. However, the Institute
does not anticipate nonperformance by the counterparty.
Schedule I. Summary of Bonds and Mortgages Payable, June 30, 1993
Student Aid
Amount
Balance,
Maturity
Interest
Original
Due Within
June 30,
Purpose and Description
Date
Rate%
Issue
One Year
1993
Bonds Payable:
Housing and Urban Development:
Series A- April 1, 1969 (1) July 1, 1997
Series B - April 1 , 1 969 (2) July 1 , 200 1
Series C -April 1,1969 (3) July 1,2019
Massachusetts Health and Educational
Facilities Authority:
Series A- July 1, 1977 (4) July 1, 2003
Series C - Oct. 1 , 1 988 (5) Sept. 1 , 2000
Series E- Dec. 1, 1991 (6) Sept. 1, 2017
2 7<
3JA
3.0
; 987,000
919,000
,160,000
45,000
35,000
20,000
237,000
324,000
817,000
100,000
,378,000
4.7-5.3 4,150,000
5.7-7.1 7,985,000
6-6.75 23,745,000
155,000
570,000
1,970,000
5,900,000
23,745,000
725,000
31,615,000
Mortgages Payable:
Ellsworth-Fuller Student
Residence Center (7)
Dec. 31, 2003
7'/<
1,950,000
77,288
1,170,774
77,288
1,170,774
Total bonds and mortgages payable (8)
$902,288 $34,163,774
0 3 6 9 12 15
MillionsofDollars
"Constant YearsendingJune30, 1984-93
* 1983 Base
Instruction and
Library Expenditures
'93 wm
15.
'92 EH
15.8
'91 BE
15.8
'90EE
16.0
'89EE
15.9
'88111]
15.1
'87B33
14.8
'86100!
13.9
'85 SEE
12.2
'84 nu
11.0
0 4 8 12 16 20
1*1HJ<'i!piI MillionsofDollars
"Constant Years ending June 30, 1 984-93
"1983 Base
mem
WPI Journal
F9
AnnualAlumni
Fund Giving
'93KB
1.3
"92KB
1.1
'91KB
1.1
'90KB
1.3
'89KB
1.3
'88KB
1.0
'87 KB
1.2
'86KB
1.0
'85KB
1.0
'84KB
1.0
i i
0 .4 .8 1.2 1.6
WtHTOI Millions of Dollars
' Constant Years endingjune30,1 984-93
"1983 Base
Gifts and
Bequests Received
'93EEB
9.3
'92KB
5.4
91 mm
8.0
'90KB
5.6
'89KB
7.9
'88KB
7.3
'87KB
5.5
'86KB
5.7
'85KB
5.3
'84KB
5.0
0 3 6 9 12
WtlllJJi'il Millionsof Dollars
■ Constant Years ending June 30, 1 984-93
'1983 Base
Includes $3.2 mil. gifts-in-kind
(1) Collateralized by land, building and equipment known as Morgan Hall (carried on the accounts at
$907,388) and pledged net revenues from the operations of the dormitory and dining hall located therein.
(2) Collateralized by land, building and equipment known as Daniels Hall (carried on the accounts at
$650,808) and pledged net revenues from the operations of the dormitory and bookstore located therein.
(3) Collateralized by land, building and equipment known as Stoddard Residence Center (carried on the
accounts at $864,052) and pledged net revenues from the operations of the dormitory and health service
located therein.
(4) Pledged as collateral are $2,167,000 of internally designated endowment funds equal to 110 percent of the
principal amount of the bonds outstanding and are held by a Trustee in the Debt Service Reserve Fund.
Various academic revenues are pledged as security for the HEFA Series A bonds.
(5) Various academic revenues are pledged as security for the HEFA Series C bonds.
(6) The bonds are collateralized by pledged tuition receipts.
(7) Interest is at 7 '/< percent, of which 3 percent is paid by the Institute and the balance is paid by the U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development.
(8) The total debt outstanding at June 30, 1993, approximates fair value based on estimates using current
interest rates available for debt with the same remaining maturities.
7. Pension Plans:
The Institute contributes to a defined contribution plan (TIAA-CREF) for academic and nonacademic person-
nel. Contributions to TIAA-CREF are based on a percentage of payroll. The Institute's pension costs amounted
to $2,058,090 and $1,886,501 for fiscal years ended 1993 and 1992, respectively.
8. Pledges Receivable:
As of June 30, 1993, management estimates that outstanding pledges approximate $7,902,000. The pledges are
not included in the financial statements since it is not practicable to estimate the net realizable value of such
pledges. Pledges consist primarily of restricted bequests that will be received at a future point in time.
9. Commitments:
The Institute is in the third year of an agreement with Endowment Realty Investors Inc. to purchase
$3,000,000 of shares by June 30, 1994. This fund invests in commercial real estate nationwide. As of June 30,
1993, the Institute had purchased shares amounting to $2,813,000 and has a remaining commitment under the
agreement of $187,000.
The Institute has guaranteed a $297,000 mortgage debt of a fraternity. The mortgage is collateralized by
the property.
The Institute is obligated under noncancelable operating leases for various facilities and equipment.
Assets under these lease agreements consist of office furniture, computer equipment, office space and stor-
age facilities.
Commitments under noncancelable operating leases provide for minimum rental payments aggregating
$682,700 for the five-year period ended June 30, 1998. Rental expense for the year ended June 30, 1993, was
$326,272.
10. Contingencies:
The Institute has pending several cases that have arisen in the normal course of its operations. The Institute
believes that the outcome of these cases will have no material adverse effect on the Institute's financial
position.
The Institute's sponsored research program and indirect cost recovery are subject to future audits by
the respective sponsoring federal agencies as provided for in federal sponsored research regulations.
Management believes that such audits will not have a materially adverse effect on the Institute's financial
position.
F10
Fall 1993
As of June 30, 1993
Board of Trustees
Numbers in parentheses indicate trustee committee appointments.
Officers of the Institute
M Howard Jacobson (3,5,6,10)
Chairman
Senior Advisor, Private Bank, at
Bankers Trust
John M. Nelson (1,3,5,6)
Vice Chairman
Chairman and CEO, Wyman-
Gordon Company
Paul A. Allaire '60 rag
Chairman and CEO, Xerox
Corporation
Paul W. Bayliss '60 (1.4,5,8)
Director of Continuing Education
for Business, University of
Southern Maine
Robert H. Beckett '57 (2,4,10)
Chairman and CEO, Robec
Distributors
William P. Densmore '45 (1,2,3)
Executive Director, Worcester
Consortium for Higher Education
Howard G. Freeman '40 (1,3,5)
Founder and CEO, Retired,
Jamesbury Corporation
John J. Gabarro '61 (1,3,5,8)
UPS Foundation Professor of
Human Resource Management,
Harvard Business School
Barbara Bain Gatison 74 (1,4,8)
President, SNET America Inc.
James N. Heald II (5,7,9)
Retired
Peter H. Horstmann '55 (1,5,9)
Director of Human Resources,
Chronicle Publishing Company
John E. Hossack '46 (2,3,7)
Retired
Wilfrid J. Houde '59 (1,4)
Partner, Knowledge Resources Inc.
Charles C. Johnston '57 (2,4,5, 7)
Ventex Technologies
Paul J. Keating II '64 (1,6,9)
Treasurer and CEO, P.J. Keating
Company
Gordon B. Lankton (4,6,7)
President, Nypro Inc.
Peter H. LevJne (1)
President and CEO, The Medical
Center of Central Massachusetts
Claude P. Mancel '71 (1,4)
Vice President for Research and
Development, Europe and Middle
East, N.V. Procter & Gamble
Company
F. William Marshall Jr. (3,5, 7)
President and CEO, Springfield
Institute for Savings
Myles McDonough (9,10)
Chairman of the Board, Flexcon
Company Inc.
Judith Nitsch '75 (1,5,9)
President, Judith Nitsch
Engineering Inc.
David P. Norton '62 (3, 10)
President, Renaissance Strategy
Group
John F. O'Brien (3, 7)
President and CEO, Allmerica
Financial
Windle B. Priem '59 (3,8,10)
Managing Director of Financial
Services, Korn/Ferry International
Leonard E. Redon '73 (1,9)
General Manager and Vice
President, Market Development,
Imaging Group, Eastman Kodak
Company
Carol L. Reinisch (1,2,3)
Chairman, Department of
Comparative Medicine, Tufts
University School of Veterinary
Medicine
John J. Shields '69 (3,5,10)
President and CEO, Spartis Inc.
Gordon H. Sigman Jr. '59 (3,10)
Vice President and General
Manager, Regional and General
Aviation Products, Hamilton
Standard
Robert C. Stempel '55 (4,10)
RP Associates; Chairman and CEO,
Retired, General Motors
Corporation
Jon C. Strauss (1,3,5,6)
President, Worcester Polytechnic
Institute
Donald Taylor '49 (4,5,8,10)
Associate, Sullivan Associates
Ronald L. Zarrella '71 (1,4,5)
President and CEO, Bausch &
Lomb Inc.
Emeriti Members
Walter J. Bank '46 (I)
Director of Marketing, DCS
Corporation
John Lott Brown '46
Retired President Emeritus,
University of South Florida
Robert Cushman
Chairman of the Board, Retired,
Norton Company
C. Marshall Dann '35 (10)
Dann, Dorfman, Herrell and
Skillman
Richard A. Davis '53 (1)
Vice President-Operations,
Creative Gifts International Inc.
William A. Delphos '74 (1,4)
President, Delphos International
Albert M. Demont '31
Retired
Irving James Donahue Jr. '44
Chairman of the Board, Donahue
Industries Inc.
Raymond J. Forkey '40 (3,4)
President. Retired, Coppus
Engineering Corporation
Anson C. Fyler '45
Management Consultant
Joseph Glasser '35 (1)
Consultant
Caleb D. Hammond '37 (1)
Chairman , Hammond Inc.
William E. Hanson '32
Retired
Francis S. Harvey '37 (9)
President and Treasurer, Harvey &
Tracy Associates Inc.
Milton P. Higgins
Retired
George L. Hogeman
Retired
Chandler W. Jones '26
Retired
Carl W. Lewin '39
Retired
C. John Lindegren Jr. '39 (1)
President, Lindco Inc.
Arthur J. LoVetere '60 (2,3,7)
Retired
John C. Metzger Jr. '46 (4)
Group Vice President, Retired, E.I.
du Pont de Nemours & Co. Inc.
Charles R. Michel '37 (1)
Retired
Stanley C. Olsen
President, Gulf to Lakes
Corporation
Hilliard W.Paige '41
Raymond J. Perreault '38 (9)
President, Falls Machine Screw
Company Inc.
Donald E. Ross '54
Retired, MPB Corporation
Miriam B. Rutman (1,4)
President, The Herald Press
George E. Saltus '53
Retired
Dorothy M. Simon
S. Merrill Skeist '40 (4,10)
President, Spellman High Voltage
Electronics Corporation
George A. Walker '22
Retired
Howard C. Warren '42
Retired
Robert J. Whipple (10)
Fletcher, Tilton & Whipple P.C.
Leonard H. White '41 (9)
Chairman and Treasurer, R.H.
White Construction Company
Key to the Committees
of the Board
(Assignments effective July 1, 1993)
1. Academic Planning
and Student Affairs
2. Audit
3. Budget and Finance
4. Development
5. Executive
6. Executive Compensation
7. Investment
8. Nominating
9. Physical Facilities
10. Trusteeship
Jon C. Strauss
President
Stephen J. Hebert
Vice President for
Administration
Office of Academic
Affairs
Diran Apelian
Provost and Vice
President for Academic
Affairs
Kevin A. Clements
Dean of Graduate Studies
and Research
Francis C. Lutz
Dean of Undergraduate
Studies
Ann C. Garvin
Director of Academic
Advising
Lance Schachterle
Associate Dean of
Undergraduate Studies
Helen M. Shuster
Head Librarian
School of Industrial
Management
Nicholas L. Onorato
Director
Master of Mathematics
Program
Peter R. Christopher
Director
Master of Natural
Science Program
Ronald D. Cheetham
Director
Office of Business
Affairs
Robert W. Gailey
Treasurer and Vice
President for Business
Affairs
Frank P. Conti
Controller
Sylvia Cucinotta
Assistant Treasurer
Computing Services
James J. Jackson Jr.
Director, College
Computer Center
Legal Counsel
Fletcher, Tilton &
Whipple P.C.
Office of Plant
Services
John E. Miller
Associate Vice President
for Business Affairs and
Director of Physical Plant
Division of Student
Affairs
Bernard H. Brown
Associate Provost for
Student Affairs
Janet Begin Richardson
Dean of Student Life
Office of University
Relations
Donald F. Berth
Vice President
Academic Department
Heods
James A. Walsh Jr.
Aerospace Studies
Joseph C. Bagshaw
Biology and
Biotechnology
Robert A. Peura
Biomedical Engineering
Albert Sacco Jr.
Chemical Engineering
James W. Pavlik
Chemistry
Robert W. Fitzgerald
Civil Engineering
Robert E. Kinicki
Computer Science
Lance E. Schachterle
Interdisciplinary Studies
Division
John A. Orr
Electrical and Computer
Engineering
David A. Lucht
Center for Firesafety
Studies
Jo Ann Manfra
Humanities
Helen G. Vassallo
Management
Samuel M. Rankin III
Mathematical Sciences
Mohammad N. Noori
Mechanical Engineering
Paul D. Jones
Military Science
Raymond R. Gilbert
Physical Education and
Athletics
Stephen N. Jasperson
Physics
Douglas W. Woods
Social Science and Policy
Studies
WPI Journal
Fll
': ■■ ■■■■
W'*S
i
■**&
Year in Review
Above, from left, Blue
Ribbon Task Force mem-
bers Raymond Hagglund
and Albert Sacco listen to
members of the audience
after an open meeting in
the spring of 1 992. Task
force member and WPI
trustee Peter Horstmann
is in the background.
Right, Clarkson Univer-
sity President Richard
Gallagher addresses
guests at the Alden Cele-
bration. The great hall of
Alden Memorial forms the
background for this page.
/ 992-93:
Setting the Stage for
the Future
By Jon C. Strauss
The work of the Blue Ribbon Task Force (BRTF)
formed the centerpiece of an eventful year at
Worcester Polytechnic Institute. In fact, the 365
days from July 1, 1992, to June 30, 1993, were
filled with the kinds of accomplishments and milestones
that not only advance the mission of the Institute, but
set the stage for future growth and excellence.
One of the more significant events of the year was
the completion of an updated campus master plan by
the firm of Earl R. Flansburgh & Associates. Flansburgh
drafted a detailed campus plan in 1982 that provided
the impetus for such campus improvements as
Founders Hall, and also helped in the site selection for
Fuller Laboratories.
The updated plan focused on four areas: facility
needs in student residences, mechanical engineering
space requirements, the feasibility of a proposed cam-
pus center, and issues surrounding parking on campus.
While a plateau in student interest in residing on cam-
pus appears to have rendered the residence question
moot (at least in the short term), significant interest has
been demonstrated in the other three areas.
The Blue Ribbon Task Force Report spoke directly to
the issues of the campus center and parking (see article
on page 3). In addition, good progress has been made
on the mechanical engineering project. Preliminary
plans have been drafted for a renovation of Higgins Lab-
oratories that should provide the needed upgrade of
existing space and the addition of new space for re-
search, education and project work. At the same time,
funding for the project is reaching a critical mass.
On April 22, 1993, the George I. Alden Trust
announced its gift of $2.4 million for the Higgins renova-
tion. The gift, announced during a celebration on cam-
pus of the 150th birthday of Alden, the Institute's first
professor of mechanical engineering, was the largest
ever made by the trust and the second largest gift ever
received by WPI. With earlier gifts, which total some
$2.5 million, with outstanding proposals to national
foundations seeking some $1.6 million, and with the
solid prospect of anniversary class gifts to make up the
difference, the bulk of the funding for this project could
soon be in hand.
What follows is a summary of some of the other signifi-
cant accomplishments of the 1992-93 academic year. These
are grouped under the headings of the six goals of the
Institute's strategic plan, illustrating the progress we con-
tinue to make toward reaching those overarching targets.
WPF JOITRNAL
Students register at the
start of another academic
year in August 1992.
From a grant to develop
a new model of education
based on collaborative
learning, to new develop-
ments in globalization, to
major curricular reviews
in several departments,
WPI's undergraduate
program was an impor-
tant focus of activity in
1992-93.
Fall 1993
Goal I: Enhance the
Level of Excellence in
Undergraduate Education
• The combined B.S./D.V.M. program that
WPI established with Tufts University
School of Veterinary Medicine in 1992
yielded 14 freshmen for 1993-94, up from
five for its first year of operation. The pro-
gram enables a student to earn admission
to both WPI and Tufts while still a senior in
high school.
• A major grant from the Davis Educational
Foundation supported educational initia-
tives in the departments of Biology and
Biotechnology, Civil Engineering, Com-
puter Science, and Mathematical Sciences.
These initiatives will introduce the active,
collaborative learning typical of the WPI
Plan projects into first- and second-year
courses in a cost-effective manner.
• The new Entrepreneurs Collaborative,
modeled on the highly successful Inter-
national Scholars Program, will begin next
year. Donald F. Berth '57, outgoing vice
president for university relations, and
Arthur Gerstenfeld, professor of manage-
ment, are leading a group of faculty repre-
senting most departments in this effort,
which will seek to teach students the skills
of entrepreneurship.
•The Massachusetts Academy of Math-
ematics and Science was integrated into
WPl's continuing commitment to improv-
ing pre-college science and mathematics
education. Forty outstanding high school
seniors from Central Massachusetts were
involved in the pilot-year program. They
will all be attending prestigious universi-
ties next year; 16 will be enrolling at WPI.
• WPI's highly successful Global Perspective
Program continued to expand. The pro-
gram, which exposes students to other cul-
tures through on-campus programs and
through project and course work abroad,
has received the support of the Depart-
ment of Education through its Fund for the
Improvement of Post-Secondary Education
(FIPSE), the Xerox Foundation, and the U.S.
Agency for International Development.
One of the highlights of the year for
the program was the opening of the Ecua-
dor Project Center, the newest of 18 pro-
ject sites around the world, which saw its
first IQP students complete projects. It is
anticipated that 221 students will partici-
pate in off-campus projects in 1993-94, an
increase of 21 percent over 1992-93.
• Major curriculum reviews were accom-
plished during the year in the Electrical
and Computer Engineering, Civil Engi-
neering, Computer Science and Mechanical
Engineering departments.
Above, with professor James
Rollings, director of the new Ecuador
Project Center, are four of the first
five students to conduct projects
there: from left, Robert Jessop '94,
James Watson '94, Joshua Dobbelaar
'94 and John Coyle '94. Right, stu-
dents work in WPI's Aluminum
Casting Research Laboratory-
• The Class of 1997 should exceed the bud-
geted 675 freshmen and will be of excellent
quality. Women should constitute 22 per-
cent of the class, up from 18 percent last
year. Almost 5 percent of the class will be
minorities, up from 2 percent last year.
This success is tempered, however, by the
fact that to achieve this class WPI admit-
ted 83.5 percent of all applicants, an antici-
pated yield of 30 percent. The Institute
also discounted its tuition an average of 28
percent with institutional financial aid to
attract the class. As the Blue Ribbon Task
Force pointed out, the recent unfortunate
trends in these indicators must be
slowed — if not reversed — to assure a
viable future for WPI.
Goal 2: Enhance the Level
of Excellence in Graduate
Education
• At Commencement on May 22, 1993, WPI
awarded 28 Ph.D.s. The four-year running
average number of doctorates awarded
has gone from seven to 21 over the last
nine years, a strong testament to the im-
proving quality and quantity of faculty
scholarship at WPI.
•Several new graduate programs were
developed during the year. They include:
-a master's degree program in computer
and communications, a joint venture of
the Electrical and Computer Engineering
and Computer Science departments,
- an interdisciplinary graduate program in
the Management of Manufacturing,
-a joint degree program with the Uni-
versity of Massachusetts Medical Center
in biomedical engineering and medical
physics,
- a graduate research internship program
developed by the Mechanical Engi-
neering Department in collaboration with
the Russian Academy of Sciences, and
-the new Industrial Internship Program in
fire protection engineering.
Goal 3: Increase the
Quality and Quantity of
Research and its
Recognition
• WPI's two new multidisciplinary research
centers, the Applied Bioengineering Center
and the Center for Intelligent Processing of
Materials — made good progress with the
help of modest seed funding.
• Research support totaled $5.7 million, an
increase of 4.9 percent from the previous
WPI Journal
15
\
T
k I
Per Enge, standing, left,
associate professor of
electrical and computer
engineering, works with
a Major Qualifying Proj-
ect team on research on
the Global Positioning
System. Enge spent
1992-93 on sabbatical
leave at Stanford Univer-
sity continuing this re-
search. The students are,
from left, Jay McGaffigan
'92, Melinda Nadeau '92
and Patrick Campbell '92.
Enhancing the quality
and quantity of research
on campus was a focus
of a number of initiatives
during the year.
/
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Fall 1993,
period. (This does not include funding for
the Center for High Performance Com-
puting and over $1 million in gifts designat-
ed to support research.)
• The Realization Manufacturing Coalition,
which includes WPI, MIT, Cornell, Tuske-
gee and North Carolina A&T, was initiated
under WPl's leadership with a proposal to
the Defense Conversion Technology
Reinvestment Program.
•The Aluminum Casting Research Lab-
oratory was designated a Department of
Energy Center for Metal Casting under the
metal initiative program.
• More than $500,000 in research equipment
was obtained through the new Excess Prop-
erty Program of the federal government.
Goal 4: Enhance the
Quality of Life on Campus
Diversity
• Two-thirds of the first class of students in
WPFs Strive for College and Careers in
Mathematics, Engineering and Science pro-
gram applied for admission to WPI; 10 will
matriculate as members of the Class of
1997. The second Strive class attracted 105
applicants.
• The Office of Human Resources is imple-
menting the recommendations of an affir-
mative action audit of WPI conducted by
the Office of Federal Contracts Compliance
Program, a division of the U.S. Department
of Labor.
• New initiatives are being explored to
attract more minority faculty members.
These include partnerships with historical-
ly black universities and the recruitment of
minority graduate students.
• A special minority student advising pro-
gram has been developed to facilitate aca-
demic success and student retention.
Community Life
• A new $300,000 Fitness Center in the lower
level of Alumni Gym opened for business in
early September 1992. The facility, funded
with anniversary gifts from the classes of
1952, 1953, 1967 and 1968, includes equip-
ment for aerobic exercise and weight train-
ing. The center has proven quite popular,
averaging more than 300 users per day.
• The new Community Council championed
the implementation of the recommenda-
tions of the Commission on Residential
and Social Life while working to improve
the sense of campus community.
• A late-night study facility for individual stu-
dents and project teams was opened in
Fuller Laboratories.
• The Board of Trustees voted to invite rep-
resentatives from the undergraduate
Student Government Association and the
Graduate Student Organization to attend its
meetings as observers.
• The services of the Career Development
Center were expanded to include a job
development coordinator, two new tele-
phone information systems, a departmen-
tal resume database, a job search support
network for alumni and graduating seniors,
a bimonthly newsletter, and a variety of
training programs.
Institute Hall became a 24-hour quiet living
area and space in Stoddard A was set aside
as a substance-free living area. In addition, a
grant has been solicited from FIPSE to devel-
op a Healthy Alternatives program and to
enhance alcohol education efforts.
Goal 5:
Meet the Needs of
Professionals for
Continuing Education
• Ninety professional development seminars
were held in such areas as project man-
agement, quality improvement, manage-
ment and communication skills, bar-code
technology, and laboratory automation.
• Forty customized in-house training pro-
grams were introduced at firms in New Eng-
land, New York, New Jersey and California.
• Several faculty-led short courses were held
on campus.
<5
3t
Top, participants in the Nypro Leadership Institute at WPI take part in a
team-building workshop. Bottom, the new Fitness Center in Alumni Gym.
Physical Environment
• Lounges, study areas and computer termi-
nals were added to residence halls and
academic buildings.
• Graduate student housing was developed
in two off-campus houses.
• Responding to student concerns, the WPI
Food Service renovated and restructured
several of its dining service facilities.
Included are a new wok station in Morgan
Commons where students can prepare
their own meals, a larger grill where items
are cooked to order, and expanded healthy
choice and vegetarian options. New meal
plan options give students greater flexibili-
ty in the number of meals they purchase
and where on campus they dine.
• WPI's Office of Residential Services inaugu-
rated two special-interest housing alterna-
tives in the fall of 1992. The third floor of
•WPI inaugurated the Nypro Leadership
Institute, a week-long residency program
for mid-level managers from the worldwide
facilities of Nypro Corp., a maker of preci-
sion plastic industrial components and as-
semblies headquartered in Clinton, Mass.
• An Advanced Certificate Program was im-
plemented in civil, electrical and mechani-
cal engineering, and in computer science.
Goal 6:
Strengthen WPI'S External
Relationships
• The WPI Alumni Association developed a
new Alumni Master Plan that places greater
emphasis on service and involvement.
• WPI was the focus of 300 news stories and
several radio and television interviews.
WPI Journal
17
A member of the Class of 1 993 shows off his
diploma at Commencement in May, the tradi-
tional close of the school year. Improvements
in WPI's Career Development Center in 1992-93
were aimed at helping graduates get a good
start in the world beyond WPI, while a new
Alumni Master Plan was designed to encourage
them to stay involved in the Institute once
they've made that all-important transition.
Fall 1993
• Once again in 1992, WPI was ranked No. 1
among comprehensive institutions in the
North by U.S. News and World Report.
• The George I. Alden Society was inaugu-
rated with 154 charter members making
planned giving commitments of at least
$25,000. The Presidential Founders, which
recognizes those with cumulative giving of
at least $100,000, added 17 new members.
• The grand total of cash gifts ($9.7 million),
gifts-in-kind ($3.4 million) and net new
pledges ($4.2 million) for the 1992-93 fiscal
year was $17.3 million, exceeding the all-
time record of $16.5 million achieved dur-
ing the Campaign for Excellence.
• Two new members were elected to the WPI
Board of Trustees during the year: Warner
S. Fletcher, attorney and a director of the
Worcester law firm Fletcher, Tilton and
EXCLUSIVE RANKINGS
0 1992
•ANNUAL ;
-- GUIDE :
■ ^% III NOILD HEPD«T
U.S.News
AMERICA'S
BEST COLLEGES
§5ji£SsBk. THE B£ST
FOUR-YEAR
COLLEGES
AMHERST
W.P.I.
HOLY CROSS
f i -
BRTF's recommendation that such projects
not be funded from the operating budget.
Finally, as we organize long-term efforts to
address the BRTF and Flansburgh recommen-
dations, we will have to continue the consid-
erable progress we've made toward achiev-
ing the goals of the strategic plan. Of particu-
lar concern will be our continuing efforts at
maintaining and enhancing our premiere aca-
demic programs, recruiting students, devel-
oping and maintaining a balanced budget,
building recognition, improving diversity,
assisting students and alumni with career
development, raising funds, and operating
our institution. Our work never stops!
Based on the positive reception this past
year to open campus meetings conducted by
the organizers of a series of budget seminars,
by the Community Council, and by the Blue
Ribbon Task Force, we will look to involve
the campus community in all of these endeav-
ors. And, we will be alert to the BRTF's rec-
ommendation to employ the considerable tal-
ents of our alumni wherever possible.
Every member of the WPI family should
take great pride in the quality of our distinc-
Top, for the third straight year, WPI
was ranked at the top of its category
in the annual review of America's
best colleges published by U.S. News
and World Report. Bottom, plans
moved forward in 1992-93 for a major
renovation of Higgins Laboratories.
The project may include the construe-
tion of a 1 4,000-square-foot addition
to the west side of the building, as
shown in these artist's renderings.
Whipple, P.C., and Robert A. Foisie '56,
president of Matik North America Inc., an
import, distribution and services firm
specializing in paper-processing machin-
ery. Foisie joined the board in July 1993;
Fletcher will take his seat in January 1994.
• The latest book in the "Worcester Poly-
technic Institute Studies in Science, Tech-
nology and Culture" series, Representations
of Science and Technology in British Lit-
erature Since 1880 by Professor Earl
Ingersoll of the State University of New
York at Brockport, was published in No-
vember 1992.
Conclusions
The work of the Blue Ribbon Task Force is
both a significant accomplishment in its own
right and an enormous challenge going for-
ward. The Flansburgh study also presents
challenges for the future.
Good progress has been made in plan-
ning and funding the renovation of Higgins
Laboratories, but needs for more teaching
and laboratory space remain to be ad-
dressed. The trustees' Physical Facilities
Committee is considering how best to create
these new facilities in combination with the
Higgins Labs renovation. The members of
that committee are mindful that these facili-
ties must inevitably compete for philan-
thropic funds with the campus center and
other high-priority capital projects.
In fact, the board's Development Com-
mittee has begun work on identifying the
funding necessary for completing the Hig-
gins renovations, new laboratory space and
the campus center consistent with the
fJk~; OS
tive institution, the substantial accomplish-
ments of the past year, and the exciting chal-
lenges facing us in the future. It is the regular,
day-in, day-out hard work of literally every
member of this group that provides the envi-
ronment that makes everything else possible.
While we can't begin to list this work and
thank those responsible here, we should all
be certain to recognize that some of the best
teaching, research, community service, gov-
ernance, administration, maintenance and
support are only noticed in their absence.
Against that standard, we do well indeed.
We should take pride in these many unsung,
but much appreciated, accomplishments.
All this didn't just happen, of course; it
was the culmination of the foresight and im-
agination of our predecessors over the Insti-
tute's first 128 years, and of the innovation
and diligence of the WPI community of today.
With the goodwill and hard work of all of us,
WPI's next years promise to be even more
exciting and filled with accomplishment.
WPI Journal
19
DEVELOPMENT HIGHLIGHTS
Saving the Best for Last
By Donald F. Berth '57
Vice President for University Relations
This was the year of George Alden.
First, we celebrated the 150th anni-
versary of his birth on April 22, 1992.
On that occasion we formally recog-
nized the charter members of the George I.
Alden Society and presented them with spe-
cially commissioned charter medallions.
Named in Alden's honor, the group was
launched at the 1992 Presidential Founders
dinner. Its first 154 members had all met the
requirement that they provide WP1 at least
$25,000 through their estates or through
another planned giving arrangement.
Crowning the April 22 event was an
announcement by Francis Dewey III, chair-
man of the George 1. Alden Trust, that he
and his fellow trustees had voted to award
WP1 a grant of $2.4 million for the renovation
of Higgins Laboratories. Combined, the mini-
mum commitments of the Alden Society
members and the Alden Trust grant made
for a $4.7 million birthday party with WP1 as
the fortunate recipient.
The $2.4 million grant was the largest in
the 81-year history of the Alden Trust and
the second largest gift in WPI's long history.
It brought the trust's total giving to WP1
since 1920 to $10.8 million (half of which we
received in the past decade). What a remark-
able legacy, one that had its start when a
young George Alden, fresh from graduat-
ing— summa cum laude — from Harvard,
came to WPI in 1868.
Just 25, Alden was the youngest of the
original five instructors who greeted the first
class of students at the doors of the newly
finished Boynton Hall on Nov. 11, 1868. For
25 years, Alden would be synonymous with
excellence in instruction and leadership in
mechanical engineering at WPI. In 1896,
through what would prove to be fortuitous
circumstances for WPI, he turned his atten-
tion full time to the development of the
Norton Emery Wheel Co., eventually becom-
ing its chairman and a wealthy businessman.
It seemed especially fitting to identify
WPI's newest donor recognition group with
Alden. The planned giving commitments
made by the charter members, and those
that will be made by future members, are
analogous to Alden's own living trust, which
continues to benefit WPI significantly today.
And the charter membership forms a solid
foundation for further development and
growth of WPI's total planned giving pro-
gram. Currently, the value of the various
forms of established planned gifts (insur-
ance policies, unitrusts, pooled income
funds and known bequests) exceeds $14 mil-
lion. The Alden Society will help ensure an
ever larger and more important flow of
resources to WPI in years to come.
On Nov. 11, 1992 (Founders Day), we cel-
ebrated the seventh annual dinner
event in honor of our new Presidential Foun-
ders— some 17 in all. Our custom has been
to choose one founder each year for special
attention. In 1992 we recognized Ray Per-
reault and his late wife, Ina, for their most
generous support of many projects and
activities before and during the 16 years he
has spent on the Board of Trustees. A mem-
ber of the Class of 1938, Ray continues his
active entrepreneurial career as president of
Falls Machine Screw Co. in Chicopee, Mass.,
and his active work for WPI, particularly as a
member of the board's Physical Facilities
Committee.
Presidential Founders are individuals or
family foundations who have given or
pledged to the Institute at the level of John
Boynton's 1865 "challenge gift" of $100,000.
The development and growth of this pro-
gram has become key to WPI's development
momentum at the highest end of the giving
pyramid. Since the establishment of the
Founders in 1986, a growing number of WPI
alumni and friends have been captivated by
the magic of "re-endowing" WPI by matching
the challenge Boynton made so many years
ago. During those seven years, 98 new Foun-
ders were added to the roster, bringing the
grand total to 202, including Boynton.
Annual giving to WPI's long-running and
well-established Alumni Fund is another
important component of the Institute's de-
Ray Perreault and his late wife, Ina,
in 1978 at the dedication of the ren-
ovated Boynton Hall, one of the many
projects at WPI the Perreaults sup-
ported. Ray and Ina's generosity was
celebrated at the seventh annual
Presidential Founders dinner in 1992.
New Presidential Founders:
Ten Years of Growth
20
Fall 1993
Fund-Raising Results
(Fiscal Year 1993)
Cash Received
$10,826,287
Individuals [] 57.5%
Corporations | 1 16.0
Corp. Matching Gifts § J 5.0
Foundations | 15.1
Other | 6.4
Total Activity*
$17,859,798
Cash [^57.6%
Gifts-in-Kind [|l9.1
Net New Pledges | J 23.3
v Includes all new gifts and pledges received
during the fiscal year. In addition to these,
there is approximately $24 million in outstanding
pledges and other future gift commitments made
in previous fiscal years.
velopment efforts. This year, through the
leadership of the Alumni Fund Board and
hundreds of volunteers, a new record was
established— $1,891,383. With corporate
matching gifts, the total reached more than
$2.4 million. Nearly 6,000 individuals con-
tributed to this achievement.
This grass-roots giving is extraordinarily
important, for it helps provide WPI re-
sources at the margin, where a lack can
have greater limiting potential than is often
realized. Any successful private institution
must continually attract
"investors" who represent
all levels of support. No
alumnus or alumna —
young or old — should ever
feel that his or her gift is
too small to matter. In this
regard, I'm pleased that
the Fund Board is making
a special effort to reach
alumni who graduated
within the past 10 years to
bring them on board as
new investors.
The President's Advisory Council (PAC)
set a new membership mark of 224 individu-
als in FY 1993. This high-end Alumni Fund
group includes donors of at least $1,500.
Collectively, PAC members established a
new giving record of $1,274,908— a little bet-
ter than two-thirds of the overall Fund total.
It might be worth pointing out that, given
the annual nature of this giving program, the
funds raised from individual alumni, friends
and parents provide a dynamic, continuous
income stream. In the absence of the Fund,
WPI would need to add an additional $44
million to the value of its endowment (using
WPI's current spending rule) to generate the
same level of resources.
While the highlights above focus on
individual giving, which has account-
ed for between 60 and 65 percent of our
total program over the past decade, our cor-
porate and philanthropic foundation fund-
raising initiatives also contributed strongly
to this year's overall totals. With the Alden
Trust grant (payment being spread over four
years), foundations provided about $1.6 mil-
lion in cash. Once again, corporate giving set
an all-time record for gifts-in-kind (about
$3.4 million) and contributed $2.3 million in
cash to the bottom line (including the
matching gift dollars from the Alumni Fund).
To calibrate the extraordinary success
we realized in Fiscal Year 1993, note that our
"It has been the
greatest privilege of
my life to have served
my alma mater as its
vice president for
university relations
during this run."
previous high-water mark for cash and gifts-
in-kind was $12,188,900, set in FY 1991. The
total for FY 1993 was $13,691,117. The aver-
age for the four years of the Campaign for
Excellence (November 1986 to November
1990) was $9.6 million/year. Our net secured
pledges (pledges made during FY 1993 net of
partial payments) totaled $4,168,681. Much
of this can be credited to the success of the
Alden Society launch and the remaining bal-
ance on the Alden Trust grant. For FY 1993,
then, I am especially pleased to report a
grand total of activity of
$17,859,798— an all-time
winning year!
These past 10 years
have been a great run
for WPI. Overall, some
$111 million was gener-
ated, enabling the In-
stitute, among many
thrusts, to provide for
new and improved phys-
ical resources, enhance
the growth of the en-
dowment, and increase
financial aid, all of which has helped us
serve as an innovative and caring institution
of higher education in these increasingly
challenging times.
It has been the greatest privilege of my
life to have served my alma mater as its vice
president for university relations during this
run. I returned to WPI in September 1983,
some 30 years— almost to the day— after my
parents brought me to this campus as a
freshman. Just as was true during my stu-
dent days and my career elsewhere, a lot of
folks have long had to put up with my inde-
pendence and irascibility; to all of them,
through whom and with whom 1 have been
able to accomplish so much, 1 owe an endur-
ing debt of thanks.
When 1 set out to take WPI to a much
higher (and needed) level of support and
recognition, that goal was initially greeted
with some skepticism. But as time passed,
more and more of you believed— as 1 did —
that we were better and that we could do
better, and by doing so make for an even
finer institution.
To the investors, to the Board of Trus-
tees, to the presidents I've served, Edmund
T. Cranch and Jon C. Strauss, and especially
to our staff in University Relations, my
thanks for your forbearance and support.
My successor, Albert Doig Jr., merits your
talent and energy as he takes the baton to
run the next leg of this enduring relay. Give
him your best!
WPI Journal
21
HONOR ROLL OF DONORS
Giving to WPI: 1992-93
WPI gratefully acknowledges the support of the thousands of individ-
uals, foundations and corporations whose contributions of
$13,691,117 in cash and gifts-in-kind through the Alumni Fund, the
Parents Fund, minicampaigns and general development efforts dur-
ing the 1992-93 fiscal year are already at work making WPI a stronger and more
outstanding institution. Space does not permit the listing of all their names. An
additional $4,168,681 was pledged during the fiscal year. These commitments
will be listed in future reports as they are received as cash or gifts-in-kind.
$100,000 and
above
George I. Alden Trust
Altera Corporation
Commonwealth of
Massachusetts
Davis Educational
Foundation
Digital Equipment
Corporation
Estate of Marion S.
Fletcher
George F. and Sybil H.
Fuller Foundation
General Electric
Foundation
Estate of Laura E. Hansen
Howmet Turbine
Components
Corporation
IBM Corporation
Richard A. Lufkin Trust
Mrs. Luther B. Martin '25
Daniel L. McQuillan '49
Edward H. Peterson '43
Carl E. Rylander '31
Kenneth W. Shiatte '53
Dr. Stedman W. Smith '36
Stoddard Charitable
Trust
Estate of Dorothea M.
Styffe
Edward J. and Mildred P.
Sydor '50
United Technologies
Corporation
Viewlogic Inc.
Estate of Katharine
Wellington
Joy P. and Leonard A.
Young '37 Trust
$25,000 to $99,999
AT&T Corporation
Philip G. Atwood '37
Mrs. David C. Bailey '25
Eleanor W. Bateman
Robert H. Beckett '57
Mrs. Harold S. Black '21
Cerberus Ltd.
Estate of Mary M.
Clarkson
Clearpoint Research
Corporation
Raymond B. Crawford '33
Charles H. Decater '28
Robert E. Duffy '45
Exxon Education
Foundation
Ford Motor Company
Fund
Estate of Moxie F. Goll
Winfield D. Gove '24
GTE Corporation
John P. Harding Jr. '47
Hewlett Packard
Company
Milton P. Higgins
Hoche-Scofield
Foundation
Rolf Jensen & Associates
Edwin L. Johnson '33
Kemper National
Insurance Companies
Estate of Mary C. Knight
Liquid Carbonic R&D
Group
The Macamor Foundation
Herman Medwin '41
S. Bailey Norton Jr. '43
Norton Company
Francis J. Oneglia '42
Windle B. Priem '59
Note: a "p " after a name indicates parentis) of
WPI students/ 'alumni.
Procter & Gamble
Company
William L. Raymond Jr. '44
Raytheon Company
Mrs. Franklin Roberts '33
John T. Rushton '39
Schlumberger-Doll
Research
Mrs. Arthur E. Smith '33
The Starr Foundation
State Farm Company
Foundation
WPI Alumni Association
Xerox Corporation
$10,000 to $24,999
Aetna Life and Casualty
Company
American Nuclear Insurers
BASF Corporation
Anna Harrington Boardman
John R. Brand '36
Martin G. Bromberg '51
Cambridge
NeuroScience Inc.
Brian D. Chace '69
Carl C. Clark '45
Richard A. Davis '53
Dining and Kitchen
Administration Inc.
Mrs. Robert H. Field '38
Raymond J. Forkey '40
Milton W. Garland '20
Alfred E. Green '45
Steven C. Halstedt '68
Hartford Steam Boiler
Inspection and Insurance
Company
Marie B. Knowlton Trust
Paul N. Kokulis '45
David A. Kuniholm '40
M. Leonard Kuniholm '38
Gordon B. Lankton
Massachusetts Electric
Company
Myles McDonough
Mobil Foundation Inc.
Motorola Inc.
Douglas G. Noiles '44
Northeast Utilities Service
Company
Roger N. Perry Jr. '45
Mrs. George W. Petrie
Clark L. Poland '48
Albert W. Rice Charitable
Foundation
Sean D.S. Sebastian '83
John J. Shields '69
Raymond B. Shlora '40
Robert C. Stempel '55
William R. Steur '35
Frans E. Strandberg '39
Wyman-Gordon Company
$5,000 to $9,999
James S. Adams '49
David E. Beach '53
C. Edward Bean '44
Richard A. Beth '27
J. Richard Bullock
Harold D. Burt '33
CIGNA Corporation
Dr. and Mrs. Noel L. Cohen p
Daniel I. Coifman '67
Herbert W. Coulter III '70
Donald G. Craig '57
Paul M. Craig Jr. '45
Michael A. DiPierro '68
Mrs. Dwight Dwineli '34
John E. Edfors '55
Robert E. Fay Jr. '44
Kidde-Fenwal Inc.
Robert Fowler Jr. '36
Dale G. Freygang '74
Francis J. Gamari '54
Richard T. Gates '52
A.J. Gifford
Charitable Trust
Greater Worcester
Community Foundation
Grinnell Corporation
Philip A. Henning '45
John E. Hossack '46
Johnson Controls
Owen W. Kennedy Jr. '45
Richard B. Kennedy '65
Arthur R. Koerber '40
Carl J. Lindegren III '82
Manostat Corporation
Samuel W. Mencow '37
Mrs. Joseph C. Molder
Monsanto Company
Neles-Jamesbury
Corporation
The Nellie Mae Fund
New England Power
Company
New England Power Service
Company
David P. Norton '62
OmniGene Inc.
Robert S. Parks '93 Trust
Perkin-Elmer Corporation
Polaroid Corporation
The Presmet Corporation
Richard Prouty
L. Howard Reagan '44
Estate of Louis Sherman
Silvaco International
J. Morrison Smith '37
Donald Taylor '49
John G. Underhiil '44
WPI Worcester
County Club
$2,500 to $4,999
Paul A. Allaire '60
Allendale Mutual Insurance
Anonymous
Anonymous
Kenneth E. Baker Sr. '52
Paul W. Bayliss '60
Craig Beyler and Judy
Hartman
Allen L. Brownlee '33
Arthur H. Burr '29
James L. Carr Jr. 74
Class of 1942
Charles H. Cole '30
Data Translation Inc.
Day Family Foundation
Fredrick DeBoer '53
Dow Chemical Company
Dr. Howard J.
Dworkin '55
Leland P. Ekstrom '42
Richard S. Fitts '45
Neil A. Fitzgerald '38
John F. Gabranski '75
Michael M. Galbraith '58
Herbert F. Gale '34
Mrs. Allan Glazer '47
Albert S. Goldberg '48
Robert W. Goodfader '60
Bennett E. Gordon Jr. '65
W.R. Grace & Co.
Edward L. Griffith Jr. '69
Michael S. Gutman '58
Raymond R.
Hagglund '56
Daniel J.
Harrington Jr. '50
Robert W. Hewey '40
Hughes Aircraft Company
22
Fall 1993
Industrial Risk Insurers
Ingersoll-Rand Company
Rolf H. Jensen
Charles C. Johnston '57
Franklin S. June '45
Margaret N. Kalenian
Paul J. Keating II '64
John F. Kelley III '65
Victor E. Kohman '43
William M. Lester '28
Marsh & McLennan
Companies Inc.
Frank D. Meoli 70
Alfred A. Molinari Jr. '63
Morgan Construction
Company
National Fire Protection
Association
John M. Nelson
Henry W. Nowick '56
R. Craig Pastore '69
Pfizer Inc.
Henry B. Pratt '32
Public Service Electric and
Gas Company
Irving M. Roberts '43
Kenneth W. Roberts '68
Mrs. Franklin
Robinson '43
Rodney Hunt Company
Sara Lee Corporation
Lawrence F. Scinto '51
The Stanley Works
Stone & Webster Inc.
Jon C. and Jean A. Strauss
Mr. and Mrs. Roger Sullivan p
Howard E. Swenson '44
Texaco Inc.
Leonard H. White '41
Kimball R. Woodbury '44
$1,500 to $2,499
Walter L. Abel '39
Michael L. Abrams 77
Acton Research Corporation
Robert H. Adams '48
American Cyanamid
Company
Arnold J. Antak '68
Arthur Andersen & Company
Herbert Asher '44
Roy E. Baharian '44
Bruce M. Bailey '51
Richard A. Barlow '57
Lawrence B. Barnard '29
Jonathan R. Barnett 74
James L. Bartlett Jr. '39
Bechtel Group Inc.
Peter M. Bell
L. Thomas Benoit Jr. '66
Harvey A. Berger '58
Donald F. Berth '57
Paul R. Beswick '57
Black & Decker Corporation
Roland C. Bouchard '66
J. William Bowen '66
John Lott Brown '46
Paul W. Brown Jr. '55
Daniel A. Bundza '57
John K. Busada '39
Wilder R. Carson '39
Hsien D. Chang 70
Edwin B. Coghlin Jr. '56
David S. Crimmins '58
Gordon F. Crowther '37
George H. Crozier Jr. '53
Henry S.C.
Cummings Jr. '50
Earl M. Curtis '36
Walter G. Dahlstrom '36
C. Marshall Dann '35
Mrs. Phillip R.
Delphos '26
William A. Delphos 74
Albert M. Demont '31
William P. Densmore '45
Robert L. Diamond '56
Walter G. Dick '49
Paul C. Disario Jr. '42
Cornelius J.
Enright Jr. '60
Robert H. Farrar '56
Robert L. Favreau '52
Gerald Finkle '57
Patricia A. Graham
Flaherty 75
The Foxboro Company
Daniel A. Funk 77
Anson C. Fyler '45
Michael Gaffin '55
MarkS. Gerber '69
The Gillette Company
Joseph Glasser '35
Joel P. Greene '69
Peter T. Grosch '69
Ralph P. Guertin '62
David H. Hall '68
Leslie B. Harding '41
Warren G. Harding '42
Stephen J. Hebert '66
Thomas S. Heefner '61
Jacob Hiatt
Jay P. Hochstaine '62
D. Brainerd Holmes
Peter H. Horstmann '55
Holbrook L. Horton '29
Mr. and Mrs. William Henry
Hough p
L. Brewster Howard '36
Clayton E. Hunt Jr. '34
Larry Israel '61
Leonard Israel '44
M Howard Jacobson
Harry T. Jensen '33
Edwin S. Johanson '45
Fritz E. Johanson '40
Chandler W. Jones '26
Steven M. Kay 72
Averill S. Keith '43
William A. Kerr '60
Ajay Khanna '92
Marshall J. Kidder '53
Douglas W. Klauber '67
Hans H. Koehl '56
Wilmer Kranich
Ernest R. Kretzmer '45
Walter E. Lankau Jr. '64
Carl E. Larson Jr. '37
John H. Lauterbach '66
John B. Lawson '63
Eino O. Leppanen '32
Allen H. Levesque '59
Frederick W.
Lindblad '42
Arthur J. LoVetere '60
Russell R. Lussier '54
Joseph J. Maggi '67
F. William Marshall Jr. p
Zareh Martin '40
Thomas G. McGee '64
John M. McHugh '56
Harry H. Merkel '43
Behrends Messer Jr. '43
Bruce D. Minsky 77
MITRE Corporation
Peter B. Myers '46
Donald F. Nelson
New England Telephone
New Jersey Bell Telephone
Company
The New York Blower
Company
North American Philips
Corporation
Richard J. Norton '63
John F. O'Brien
Robert W. O'Brien '38
Mark F. O'Neil '80
George B. Ordway '66
Alex C. Papianou '57
John A. Pelli 70
Robert A. Peura '64
Robert T. Pleines '68
Edward J. Power Jr. '54
Olive Higgins Prouty
Foundation Inc.
Simon D. Ramo
William W. Rawstron '57
Raymond J.
Remillard '49
Joaquim S.S. Ribeiro '58
Samuel Ringel '47
John E. Rogerson '42
Donald E. Ross '54
Milton E. Ross '40
Carleton R. Sanford '27
Reynald J. Sansoucy '55
Gabriel Schmergel
Donald J. Schulz '61
David M. Schwaber '65
Shearson Lehman
Hutton Inc.
Allan P. Sherman '61
Jeremy W. Smith '49
John W. Sutcliffe '38
Tektronix Inc.
W. Gordon Thatcher '40
Francis G. Toce '60
The Torrington Company
John M. Tracy '52
Irwin T. Vanderhoof '48
Helen G. Vassallo '82
Romeo J. Ventres '48
James S. Walsh
Howard C. Warren '42
Ross E. Weaver 70
Richard T.
Whitcomb '43
Philip A. Wild '50
John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Richard B. Wilson '39
Mr. and Mrs. Joseph
Wojtowicz p
Ronald L. Zarrella 71
Donald N. Zwiep
$1,000 to $1,499
Donald H. Adams '52
J. Carleton Adams '23
Air Products &
Chemicals Inc.
Allmerica Financial
Erving Arundale '37
James P. Atkinson '69
Gerald R. Backlund '55
Edwin G. Baldwin '45
Robert E. Behringer '53
Carroll O. Bennett '43
Gerald J. Bibeault '42
Henry S. Blauvelt '39
Nora A. Blum '73
BP America
Craig F. Bradley '69
Harry W. Brown Jr. '53
Brown & Williamson Tobacco
Kevin J. Burke '60
Richard S. Carrara '63
Frederick M. Chakour '45
Steven S.Chan '71
Chevron Corporation
William E. Cobb '67
Donald A. Colangelo 70
Deborah A. Coleman
Coopers & Lybrand
Richard H. Court Jr. '67
George A. Cowan '41
Custer Powell Inc.
Thomas R.d'Errico '41
Irving James Donahue Jr. '44
Henry C. Durickjr. '43
Larry Dworkin '58
John J. Dwyer '33
David M. Elovitz '53
Donald B. Esson '69
Mrs. Joseph O. Faneul '46
Mrs. Francis P. Farnsworth '28
Frederick A. Farrar '31
James C. Ferguson '41
Warren F. Follett '69
J. Perry Fraser '43
Howard G. Freeman '40
FREM Corp.
Doug Geeting Aviation
C. Stewart Gentsch '58
Raymond K. Haarstick '83
Lee P. Hackett'61
Joseph M. Halloran Jr. '40
William E. Hanson '32
Mrs. George W. Hazzard
Kent A. Healy '59
John T.E. Hegeman '45
Estate of Dana Higgins
John E. Hodgson
Hyde Manufacturing Company
D. Alden Johnson '54
David H. Johnson '69
Timothy C.Johnson '71
W. Evans Johnson '51
Johnson & Higgins
Atwater Kent Foundation
Friend H. Kierstead Jr. '43
Mr. and Mrs John A. Kirincich p
Jay B. Koven '82
Donald T. Kremer '70
Stephanie L. Kwolek
Theresa B. Langevin '79
Carl W. Lewin '39
C. John Lindegren Jr. '39
Bruce G. Lovelace '68
Charles F. McDonough '55
John T. McGrath III '36
Mechanics National Bank
Charles R. Michel '37
Millipore Corporation
Minnesota Mining and
Manufacturing Company
Paul E. Nelson '32
Robert J. O'Malley '39
Robert A. Painter '43
Ralph W. Piper Jr. '42
Richard A. Prokop '37
Scott W. Ramsay '68
John B. Robinson p
Rockwell International
Stephen E. Rubin 74
Philip B. Ryan '65
George E. Saltus '53
Arthur M. Shepard '53
Philip E. Simon Jr. '53
Irving Skeist '35
Eric W. Soderberg '35
Spag's Supply Inc.
Harvey W. Spence p
Raymond F. Starrett '35
Sidney Stayman '44
Frank J. Stefanov '45
Frederic A. Stevens '61
Lawrence R. Sullivan '40
JohnW.SztukaJr.'70
Donald A. Taft '72
Tambrands Inc.
The Textron
Charitable Trust
Samuel W. Thompson Jr. p
Robert F. Turek '52
Steven A. Udell 70
United Telephone-Eastern Inc.
William Van Herwarde '75
James L. Viele '67
William B. Wadsworth '39
William A. Webb
Mr. and Mrs. Warren L. Wellman
Westinghouse
Education Fund
Estate of Hester D. Wetherell
David A. Zlotek '69
$250 to $999
ABB Combustion Engineering
Crosby L. Adams '57
Joseph D. Adams Jr. '76
Aerospace Corporation
Arthur M. Aframe '69
Robert E. Akie '73
Paul R. Alasso '54
James A. Alfieri '59
Patricia A. Ailard '83
Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert Allen p
Robert A. Allen '59
Allied-Signal Inc.
Jonathan B. Allured '42
Aluminum Company of America
Raymond L. Alvey Jr. '50
Everett J. Ambrose Jr. '43
Richard E. Amidon '50
Analog Devices Inc.
Arthur W. Anderson '57
WPI Journal
23
Car] P. Anderson '88
Robert Bumstead '31
Scot P. Deal '89
Raymond G. Giguere '53
George L. Hogeman
G. Albert Anderson '51
Richard F. Burke Jr. '38
Debra R. Weinstein Dean '83
Frederick C.Gilbert '48
Franklin K. Holbrook '43
Gordon C. Anderson '44
Donald M. Burness '39
Phillip S. Dean '35
Jeremy H. Gilbert '89
William D. Holcomb '38
George C. Andreopoulos '42
Thomas I. Burns 74
Thomas E. DeBellis '80
Ralph H. Gilbert '30
Calvin B. Holden '43
Michael C. Annon '68
Carrol E. Burtner '47
Richard J. De Chard '56
Joseph B. Gill '58
Hollingsworth & Vose Company
Robert C. Appenzeller '46
Robert H. Cahill '65
Robert H. DeFlesco Jr. '68
William H. Gill Jr. '61
Honeywell Inc.
Merico E. Argentati 70
Henry J. Camosse '53
John L. Dehnert '59
Andrew J. Giokas 70
Keith E. Hongisto 71
Ashland Oil Inc.
Bernard M. Campbell Jr. '58
Richard W. DeLand '69
Robert W. Glamuzina '68
Lawrence B. Horrigan Jr. '56
Frank Aspin '42
Campbell Soup Company
Howard J. Dember '48
Rose R. Glazer
Malcolm D. Horton '50
ATOCHEM Inc.
Dana B. Carleton '32
David P. Demers 74
Paul R. Glazier '37
David W. Hoskinson '57
Mr. and Mrs. Edward J. Auger p
Carl H. Carlson '29
David B. Denniston '58
Gerald H. Gleason '49
Richard B. Hosmer '61
Avon Products Inc.
Allen S. Carnicke 75
Allen R. Deschere '38
Kenneth E. Gleason Sr. '33
Houghton Mifflin Company
Gerald S. Axelrod '69
William P. Casey Jr. 76
Richard J. DiBuono '62
Arthur E. Goddard 11 '63
Household International Inc.
John A. Backes '39
Donald E. Casperson '69
Arthur M. Dickey '65
Charles N. Goddard '63
Raymond K. Houston '38
Carl W. Backstrom '30
Caroline A. Cassidy '85
Monroe M. Dickinson Jr. '52
Loretta M. Goeller 76
Dr. David B. Hubbell 73
Everett E. Bagley '52
Paul M. Castle '66
Gregory S. Dickson 71
Cobb S. Goff '68
Harold W.Humphrey Jr. '39
Walter J. Bank '46
Donald A. Cauley 77
Thomas M. Di Francesco 73
George W.Golding Jr. '43
Leonard G. Humphrey Jr. '35
George M. Banks '69
Mr. and Mrs. Wilfred Ceppetelli p
Mario P. DiGiovanni 75
Edward M. Gonsalves '81
Charles F. Hunnicutt '65
Banta Corporation
Benjamin R. Chadwick '31
Ralph J. DiGiovanni '53
David L. Goodman '62
Lewis W. Huntoon '62
C.R. Bard Inc.
Gordon J. Chaffee '42
Stephen P. Diguette 72
Goodyear Tire & Rubber
Daniel Hurley '80
Carl P. Baron 77
Robert L. Chang '55
Anne M. McPartland
Company
Frederick E. Hyatt Jr. '36
Francis L. Barry '44
Richard M. Chapman '58
Dodd 75
Alexander L. Gordon '36
Alfred E. Irelan '61
Harry S. Barton Jr. '55
WalterJ.Charow'49
Philip J. Domenico '86
Michael G. Gordon '56
John P. Jacobson '65
Robert W. Batchelder '49
Mr. and Mrs. Salvatore
Michael W. Donahue '90
Saul Gordon '50
Robert S. Jacobson '46
Baxter International Inc.
Cherenziap
Robert W. Dreyfoos '80
Denise C. Gorski 75
James River Corporation
Edward J. Bayon '31
Chesapeake & Potomac
John E. Driscoll '28
Stephen P. Goudreau '90
Robert S. Jenkins '58
Robert C. Bearse '60
Telephone Company
Jackson L. Durkee '43
Willard T. Gove '40
Joseph H. Johnson Jr. '46
Arthur F. Beaubien '81
Chesebrough-Ponds Inc.
Neil W. Durkee '68
Philip J. Gow '43
Richard P. Johnson '57
Paul G. Beaudet '68
Mr. and Mrs. Peter T. Chingp
Joseph B. Dzialo 76
Robert N. Gowing '49
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Johnson p
Paul H. Beaudry '49
Alexander S.
Eastern Enterprises
Darius A. Grala '86
Johnson & Johnson
Elaine W. Becker
Chodakowski '41
Wayne E. Eastman 70
Walter J. Grandfield Jr. 76
Arthur W. Joyce Jr. '50
G. Standish Beebe '34
Paul A. Christian 73
Harvey W. Eddy '41
Thomas B. Graves 76
Charles A. Kalauskas '69
Hugh C. Bell '55
Chrysler Corporation
Charles J. Egan '34
Michael C. Greenbaum 73
Peter Kalil '49
Salvatore J. Bellassai '42
Church & Dwight
Edward W. Eidt Jr. '57
John B. Greenstreet 75
George Kalista '34
Bellcore
Company Inc.
Richard M. Elliott '38
George D. Greenwood '34
Frank A. Kania 73
BellSouth Services Inc.
George A. Clark 74
John W. Elphinstone '68
William E. Griffiths Jr. '58
Samuel B. Kaplan '39
Bemis Company Inc.
David S. Clayton '65
Richard E. Epstein '63
Walter J. Grimala'46
Carl H. Karlsson '60
Carl F. Benson '36
J. David Clayton '44
Paul E. Evans '48
Joseph R. Grimes Jr. '82
Daniel B. Katz '45
Kenneth C. Benton '63
Clorox Company Foundation
Henry J. Ezen '49
R. Reed Grimwade '50
Frank H. Kean Jr. '33
Norman A. Bergstrom Jr. '68
Richard W. Cloues Sr. '38
Wayne N. Fabricius '68
Campbell C. Groel Jr.
Richard C. Kee '55
Paul H. Bergstrom '38
William S. Coblenz 70
Factory Mutual System
William R. Grogan '46
John H. Keenan '34
Mr. and Mrs. William E.
Edward H. Coburn Jr. '48
David R. Fairbanks '52
Frank A. Gross Jr. '46
Robert C. Keenan 70
Bergstrom p
Richard A. Coffey Jr. '51
WalterJ.FarrellJr. '43
Grumman Corporation
Jean Keller p
April L. Hammond Berkol '85
Morrel H. Cohen '47
Charles J. Feeney Jr. '46
David J. Gumbley '68
Eleanor M. Cromwick
Stephen E. Bernacki 70
Raymond W. Coleman 72
Richard J. Ferguson '57
Berton H. Gunter '68
Kelly '81
Eugene R. Bertozzi Jr. '38
Christopher R. Collins '56
OscarA.FickJr. '38
Burritt Haag
Jean L. Kelly '85
Fred Besselievre '49
Commonwealth Electric
Morton S. Fine '37
James G. Hackendorf '60
Jeffrey T.Kelly '86
Fermo A. Bianchi Jr. 73
Company
George E. Comstock '46
Nancy Conley p
Norman Fineberg '63
Joseph Haddad '34
John F. Kelly '82
J. Alfred Bicknell '33
Niel 1. Fishman '48
Alan R. Hahnel 74
Kevin J. Kelly 75
Robert A. Bierweiler '43
Robert W. Fitzgerald '53
Allan L. Hall '30
Thomas R. Kelly '86
John R. Black '53
John F. Conlon Jr. '55
Connecticut Light & Power
Company
Connecticut Mutual Life
Insurance Company
Consolidated Edison of
John J. Fitzgibbons Jr. 75
Raymond E. Hall '31
Michael S. Kenniston 78
Charles L. Blake '67
Stephen L. Fitzhugh 75
Allan C. Hamilton Jr. '56
Carl A. Keyser'39
Louis A. Blanchard '57
Robert W. Flanagan Jr. 74
Janet L. Hammarstrom '80
Thaddeus J. Kielar '80
Henry R. Block 70
Estate of Paris Fletcher
Timothy B. Hardy '85
Dr. Francis J. Kiernan 75
Earl M. Bloom Jr. '55
Florida Power & Light Company
Bradford J. Harper '59
Carleton F. Kilmer Jr. '64
The Boeing Co.
New York
Fluor Corporation
Francis S. Harvey '37
Osmond L. Kinney '35
Joseph E. Boggio '58
Cooper Industries Inc.
FMC Corporation
Alan F. Hassett 70
George W. Knauff '41
John T. Bok 70
Paul A. Covec '64
Domenic J. Forcella Jr. 70
Philip J. Hastings '42
William L. Knoblock '56
Richard W. Bonnet '43
Walter E. Crandall '40
Alan S. Foss '52
David B. Hathaway '53
Michael J. Knoras '88
Paula Mesite Bordogna '80
Kenneth A. Crawford '68
Thomas R. Fournier '69
Philip K. Hathaway '38
Steven Kochman '83
Richard J. Bors 73
Bruce T. Croft 75
Gerda Frank
Richard E. Hathaway '50
Stephen R. Kolek 77
Boston Edison Company
Roger M. Cromack '48
Mr. and Mrs. Walter Frank p
Kenneth M. Healy '53
Victor A. Kolesh '41
August M. Boucher 73
Cummins Engine Company
Charles S. Frary Jr. '34
Herbert S. Hebel '59
Peter P. Koliss '38
Henry J. Bove '47
William D. Cunningham 77
Timothy A. French 73
Fred H. Hedin '26
Mark A. Koretz 71
Bowditch & Dewey
William E. Currie '43
Richard W. Frost '62
William C. Hees '59
Eugene V. Kosso '46
John R. Boyd '69
Merritt E. Cutting '34
Mr. and Mrs. Jerry J. Czarnecki p
Richard C. Furman '69
Mr. and Mrs. James
Mr. and Mrs. Leonard J. Kostekp
Russell P. Bradlaw '49
John J. Gabarro '61
Heidebrecht p
Robert J. Kowal 73
Antonia Carlos Braga '89
Chester G. Dahlstrom '34
Andre F. Gagnon '80
Mark F. Heinlein '81
Harold A. Krieger '44
Ronald S. Brand '40
Peter J. Dalton '49
Cynthia L. Gagnon '82
Robert W. Henderson '48
James A. Kudzal 74
Hugh M. Brautigam '43
Bernard R. Danti '56
Donald C. Gale Jr. '89
Harold F. Henrickson '36
David A. Kujala '52
Fred T. Brierly Jr. '42
C. Lynne D'Autrechy '82
George F. Gamache '68
John F. Henrickson '65
Albert J. Kullas '38
Alan K. Briggs 76
George G. Davenport III '69
John H. Gearin '53
Sumner W. Herman '50
Kenneth N. Kummins 78
Bristol-Myers Squibb Company
Warren H. Davenport '34
GEC Marconi Company
Peter M. Herron '67
Robert C. Labonte '54
Walter J. Brosnan '32
Daniel L. David 72
John H. Geffken '63
Joachim Herz '54
William J. La Barge '88
John J. Brosnihan '67
Harold C. Davis Jr. '44
General Dynamics Corporation
Leigh H. Hickcox '54
Patrick F. Lafayette 72
Harrison K. Brown '39
Dr. and Mrs. John Davis p
General Motors Corporation
Merrill W. Higgins '42
Richard W.F. Lai '90
Philip G. Buffinton '49
Davis Corporation ol Worcester
William F. Gess Jr. '58
Joseph F. Hilyard '68
M. Stephen Lajoie '64
Gary S. Bujaucius 77
F. Clark Gesswein '64
Hoechst Celanese
Peter A. Lajoie '60
24
Fall 1993
Albert J. Laliberte '33
Leonard B. Landall '39
Theresa A. Murphy
Landers '78
David G. Lapre 74
Joseph E. Laptewicz Jr. 71
Elizabeth Papandrea
Lariviere 76
Alfred F.Larkin Jr. '44
Alan G. Larsson '56
Craig B. Laub 77
Stephen R. Lawry '80
Luther C. Leavitt '34
John W. Lebourveau '44
Edward J. Ledden 74
Richard G. Ledoux '61
Sang Ki Lee '60
Henry E. Leikkanen '55
ThaddeusJ.Lelek'70
David R. Levasseur '85
Gary L. Leventhal '69
Marshall S. Levine '55
Peter H. Levine
Robert S. Levine '66
Daniel G. Lewis Jr. '47
John A. Lewis '44
Ching-Wen Lin '80
Edward E. Lindberg '60
Arthur E. Lindroos '43
Richard C. Lindstrom '55
Lester N. Lintner '32
Charles Lipson '60
Michael A. Littizzio '63
James M. Lockwood 70
Loctite Corporation
Eugene C. Logan '45
Joseph D. Lojewski '52
Lotus Development Corporation
Robert W. Lotz '45
Edward C. Lowe III 71
Francis C. Lutz
Leo O. Lutz '52
Richard J. Lyman '37
Israel Mac '68
John Machonis Jr. '63
Homer E. MacNutt Jr. '49
Frank A. MacPherson '51
Ellen E. Madigan '92
Francis W. Madigan Jr. '53
George A. Makela '35
Kenneth M. Makowski 73
Robert M. Malbon '63
Arthur H. Mallon '39
JohnF.MalloyJr.'54
Paul R. Malnati '66
Paul A. L. Mannheim '61
John F. Manning Jr. '80
William E. Mansfield '51
Suzanne J. Call Margerum '81
Jordan Markson
Louis J. Marsella '56
Herbert W. Marsh '43
George A. Marston '30
Christopher F. Martin '53
Estate of Douglas B.
Martin '24
Robert R. Martin 75
Lawrence J. Martiniano 74
Massachusetts Mutual Life
Insurance Company
Robert R. Mattson 70
Richard G. Mayer '40
Thomas M. McCaw '46
Richard H. McCue Jr. '69
Michael S. McDonald 79
McDonnell Douglas Foundation
Charles W. McElroy '34
' Donald J. McGee '32
James E. McGinnis '41
McGraw-Hill Inc.
Robert E. Mcintosh Jr. '62
James G. McKernan '48
Donald M. McNamara '55
Harold A. Melden Jr. '49
Brian C. Mellea 76
Andrew M. Melnyk '85
Orlando R. Mendez '66
Merck & Company Inc.
Michael E. Merkle 73
Richard T. Merrell '33
John E. Merritt '68
Ward D. Messimer '39
Thomas W. Meury '89
Theodore H. Meyer '43
William B. Miller
John D. Minott '57
Robert F. Mizula '80
Thomas G. Moog '87
Robert A. Moore '58
Benjamin B. Morgan '60
Leon A. Morgan '57
David M. Morley '36
John P. Morrill '53
Gerald F. Morris '65
Morton International
Dennis M. Moulton '81
Charles F. Mulrenan '51
Duncan W. Munro '51
David P. Murphy 71
Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Murphy p
William H. Nagel '53
Narragansett Electric Company
National Starch and Chemical
Company
Stanley P. Negus Jr. '54
Edwin F. Nesman '55
Robert M. Neumeister '45
Robert K. Neunherz '55
Rowland M. Newcomb '46
New England Business
Service Inc.
Thomas B. Newman Jr. '64
Donald L. Nichols '46
Charles R. Nickerson 74
William R Nims '66
Northern Telecom Inc.
Floyd C. Norton '52
William J. Norwood 111 '81
Allison J. Huse Nunn 73
Bruce E. Nunn 73
NUS Corporation
William T. Nutter 73
Walter O.Nygaard '38
Kenneth W. Oberg 70
Terence P. O'Coin '83
Mr. and Mrs. Francis E.
O'Connellp
Kevin W. 0'Connell71
Manus H. O'Donnell '83
John F. Ogorzalek Esq. '61
Michael A. O'Hara 78
Joseph R. Oliveri '88
Bruce A. Olsen 78
Richard C. Olson '50
Richard S. Olson '65
Verner R. Olson '35
William J. O'Neil'58
James F. O'Regan '49
John G. O'Reilly 75
Irving F. Orrell Jr. '51
Edmund S. Oshetsky '46
Joseph J. Osvald '65
Mr. and Mrs. Jose Pacheco p
Earl G. Page Jr. '43
Howard 0. Painter Jr. '58
John R. Palitsch 74
CaryA.Palulis'68
Anan Panananda '60
William D. Parent 70
Robert E. Parker '38
Parker Hannifin Corporation
John D. Payne '81
James Z. Peepas '49
Alton L. Penniman '51
PepsiCo Inc.
Edward G. Perkins 72
John J. Perrone '67
John H. Peters III '40
Donald W. Petersen Jr. '66
C. Raymond Peterson '44
Donald K. Peterson 71
Jeffrey L. Peterson 77
Donald F. Pethybridge '38
Philip Morris Inc.
Photo Electronics Corporation
Peter R. Picard '67
Gerald E. Piepiora 70
HalbertE. Pierce Jr. '29
Edward F. Pietraszkiewicz 75
Lawrence E. Pihl '66
Eric O. Pisila '67
Leonard Polizzotto 70
Gary G. Pontbriand 74
Richard R. Poole 78
Richard D. Popp '54
Frederick M. Potter '33
Foster C. Powers '37
James J. Powers '68
John W. Powers '61
Robert E. Powers '45
David A. Pratt '56
T. Richard Price 72
William Price '37
William S. Proctor '38
The Prudential Insurance
Company
Roger W. Pryor '68
Robert E. Purpura '60
Stephen M. Pytka '68
Quabaug Rubber Company
Manuel J. Queijo '44
Raymond J. Quenneville '35
Richard P. Quintin '55
Martin A. Rafferty '55
Donald P. Reed '28
Barbara A. Reincke p
Reliance Electric Company
Lynwood C. Rice '68
Douglas A. Riley '68
Riley Stoker Corporation
Donald B. Rising '57
Harvey G. Roberts '58
Nancy L. Roberts 77
Thomas D. Rockwood 79
Richard L. Rodier '46
John H. Rogers Jr. '56
William C. Rogler Jr. '57
Rohm and Haas Company
Ralph W. Rollo '69
Elijah B. Romanoff '34
Robert J. Rose '69
Morton J. Rosenberg p
Louis J. Rossi '61
Edward J. Roszko '39
Thomas H. Rothwell '53
Paul A. Rougeau '63
Eugene L. Rubin '53
Frederick D. Rucker '81
Walter J. Ruthenburg III '65
Edwin M. Ryan '41
Ryder System Inc.
Elmer S. Sachse '46
Scott L. Saftler 77
Donald R. Sanders '49
Donald F. Sanger '62
Edward A. Saulnier '59
Lawrence A. Savage '81
Alice A. Sayler 74
Walter C. Scanlon '50
Mr. and Mrs. Richard T.
Schachner p
Warren H. Schafer '38
Schering-Plough Corporation
Ralph P. Schlenker '57
John H. Schmidt '64
Steven H. Schoen 76
Bruce E. Schoppe '60
Robert J. Schultz '55
Arthur J. Schumer '37
David L. Schwartz 75
Richard J. Schwartz 70
Wayne E. Schweidenback 73
Frederic C. Scofield HI '64
Robert E. Scott '45
Robert J. Scott '69
Francis M. Scricco 71
Richard A. Seagrave '48
Paul S. Sessions '21
William A. Seubert '54
Michael D. Shapiro '65
Robert V. Sharkey '59
Jeffrey E. Shaw '68
Shawmut National Corporation
Shell Companies Foundation
Philip C. Sherburne '34
Philip R. Sherman '88
Michael J. Shorr '92
Ojars M. Silarais '65
Steven J. Silva 76
Robert F.H. Sisson '81
George R. Skoglund '68
Richard G. Skoglund '65
Charles S. Smith '35
Donald E. Smith '41
Edward H. Smith '46
Everett P. Smith '40
Ralph L. Smith Jr. '43
Robert W. Smith '69
Dennis E, Snay '63
Richard D. Souren '61
Southern New England
Telephone Company
Stephen W. Spakowsky '69
Earl C. Sparks III '66
Warren A. Spence 74
George V. Spires III '64
Prasarn Srisuppachaiya '85
Warren R. Standley '63
John E. Stauffer '60
Michael J. Stephens '57
Francis E. Stone '40
Penny J. Bergmann Story 76
George P. Strom '56
Lance G. Sunderlin 76
Sun Life of Canada
Roger W. Swanson '51
John H. Sylvester '30
David E. Szkutak 79
Joan M. Bolduc Szkutak 79
Robert M. Taft '38
Alvin E. Tanner '57
Norman J. Taupeka '58
Marshall B. Taylor '68
William R. Taylor '55
Tech Old Timers
Teledyne Charitable Trust
Foundation
Tenneco Inc.
Edwin D. Tenney '59
Harry W. Tenney Jr. '56
Nishan Teshoian '63
Texas Instruments Foundation
Peter A. Thacher 74
Thiokol Corporation
Leo J. Thomas
J. Headen Thompson '36
John S. Thompson Jr. '69
Norman J.A. Thompson
Ronald E. Thompson Jr. '82
Emery F. Thoren Jr. 71
George T. Thrasher '67
James M. Tolos '61
David A. Tone '63
Paul G. Trudel '67
Alden F. Tucker '52
Robert M. Tucker '28
Stephen J. Turek Jr. '44
Turner Corporation
Paul W. Ulcickas '63
Oliver R.Underhill Jr. '31
Mrs. L, Ivan Underwood '25
United Engineers & Construc-
tors International Inc.
The United Illuminating
Company
U S West Foundation
Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd S. Van Ess p
Milford R. VanDusen '47
Shirley Hossack Van Winkle
Henry A. Vasil '53
Spiro L. Vrusho '57
Kenneth R. Wad land 72
William M. Walker '43
Richard W. Wallahora '68
William M. Walsh '53
Warner-Lambert Company
Burl S. Watson Jr. '49
Steven C. Watson 71
Mr. and Mrs. John P. Wattu p
John B. Weigele 73
Clifford M. Weiner '81
J. Richard Weiss Jr. '42
Mr. and Mrs. George E. Wellman
Axel H. Wendin '26
John J. West Jr. '88
Westinghouse Electric Company
Westvaco Corporation
Edward C. Wheaton
Robert J. Whipple
Whirlpool Corporation
Harold E. White '39
Jeffrey D. White '84
Mark D. Whitley 73
George E. Whitwell 77
Plummer Wiley '35
George D. Williams '44
John H. Williams Jr. '47
Roberts. Williamson '31
GaryE.Wnek'77
Bruce W. Woodford '61
Charles E. Woodward '31
Robert D. Woog '68
John D. Writer '51
Yang Xu '91
Anthony J. Yakutis '43
Joseph A. Yanikoski '87
Anthony E. Yankauskas 71
Yankee Atomic Electric
Company
Mr. and Mrs. Alan F. Yates
Robert A. Yates '57
Thomas P. Zarrilli 76
William E. Zetterlund '65
Mary M. Zoeller 73