AC_1965_Web

32 AN T I OC H CO L L E G E C L A S S O F 19 6 5 5 0 t h A N N I V E R S A R Y B O O K A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z E C K R O A D of which was meeting my soul mate and life companion,Barbara.We have now been together for 47 years,mar- ried for 45. Having met in the Haight- Ashbury of San Francisco, Barbara and I and our daughter Megan soon moved to Mendocino to live in a converted chicken shack and cook on a wood stove.Drugs,macrobiotic diet, astrology and acid rock music were staple items. After a while we joined a new-age commune situated in Lake County and then another commune in Oakland. Finally, tir- ing of the hippie life-style, we opted for an “enlightened” return-to-so- ciety life in various cities of Marin and southern Sonoma counties. However, as a result of drug usage and a dysfunctional relationship our return was not very successful.We just could not relate to “normal” so- ciety—it was not working. Barbara’s father was doing church work in Mexico. His visit with us in 1970 changed the whole focus of my spiritual pilgrimage, and I eventually returned to the Christian faith in which I had been raised.The change brought needed healing,both within and without.We began to function again as a family and as members of society. In short, we were happy! We spent a year in Mexico sharing with the warm and friendly farm folk of rural Durango. That led to a couple of years of Bible college in upstate New York, osten- sibly to train for ministry. However, as it turned out these were but pre- liminary steps toward a fuller res- toration. In 1975, we returned to California to settle down and find out what was next in our new life. Jimmy Carter’s Af firmative Action Program was the key to a resumption of my professional ca- Mendocino, Calif., 1968. reer. In the fall of ’75 I took a fed- erally funded position at Lawrence Lab in Berkeley assisting Dr. Albert Ghiorso in his pioneering efforts to synthesize new elements. He was in the process of discovering Element 107 in the year I helped him, as well as arguing with the Russians about the naming of Element 104. They wanted to name it Dubnium (after their research center) but Al, who won the argument, wanted to name it Rutherfordium, after the famed physicist who first studied the struc- ture of the atom. Sadly, Dr. Ghiorso, a protégé of Nobel Laureate Glenn Seaborg, never got the Nobel Prize though (in my opinion) he certainly deserved it. His method for isolat- ing new elements was solid science and I believe he isolated as many as half a dozen in his basement lab at Berkeley’s Heavy Ion Linear Accelerator facility. It was an honor to work for him, albeit briefly. After a couple years at Lawrence I took a position at Bechtel Corporation in San Francisco where I got involved in the development of advanced energy storage systems for the electric utility industry.This was a career-defining period in my life and one that established me pro- fessionally. Our son Daniel was born during this period, symbolizing in a sense the rebirth of my career. While at Bechtel I designed what was then the world’s largest battery energy storage facility. At 40 MW it had enough energy to power a small community for several hours, avoid- ing the use of more expensive and greenhouse gas producing genera- tion assets. We also used it to con- trol unwanted oscillations on the Southern California power grid. I have designed a number of other similar projects over the years and spent much of my career evaluating and promoting energy storage.After about 12 years at Bechtel we moved to Rolla,Mo., so I could pursue grad- uate studies in electrical engineer- ing at the University of Missouri. I Lawrence Laboratory, Berkeley, 1975.