netrashetty
Netra Shetty
Beckman Coulter Inc., is a company that makes biomedical laboratory instruments. Founded by Caltech professor Arnold O. Beckman in 1935 as National Technical Laboratories to commercialize a pH meter that he had invented, the company eventually grew to employ over 10,000 people, with $2.4 billion in annual sales by 2004. Its current headquarters are in Brea, California.
In the 1940s, Beckman changed the name to Arnold O. Beckman, Inc. to sell oxygen analyzers, the Helipot precision potentiometer, and spectrophotometers. In the 1950s, the company name changed to Beckman Instruments, Inc..
In 1955, Beckman established the seminal Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory as a division of Beckman Instruments to begin commercializing the semiconductor transistor technology invented by Caltech alumnus William Shockley. Because Shockley's aging mother lived in Palo Alto, California, the Shockley Laboratory was established in nearby Mountain View, California, and thus, "Silicon Valley" was born.
In 1982, the company merged into SmithKline to form SmithKline Beckman, with Arnold Beckman as vice chairman, but regained its independence in 1989 after SmithKline merged with Beecham Group to form SmithKline Beecham (now part of GlaxoSmithKline).
In 1995, the company acquired Hybritech, Inc. from Eli Lilly
In 1996, the company acquired the Sanofi portion of Sanofi Pasteur Diagnostics
n April 7–8, 2000 the California Institute of Technology commemorated the 10th anniversary of the Beckman Institute on the Pasadena campus with a two-day, four-session symposium dubbed the “Beckmanfest,” featuring a dozen speakers, including a Nobel chemistry laureate (Thomas R. Cech), discussing cutting-edge research and developments at the point where chemistry and biology interact. Each session featured two well-known researchers, whose presentations were separated by that of a Beckman Young Investigator (Since its founding in 1991, the Beckman Young Investigator program has supported the work of 150 fledgling scientists). Also, a gala dinner was held on April 10 to celebrate the 100th birthday of the chemist–inventor–entrepreneur–philanthropist whose gifts to Caltech have shaped the campus in profound ways. Beckman’s centennial birthday was also commemorated by the publication of a profusely illustrated, luxurious, oversized volume that documents the life and achievements of a man who has literally become a legend in his own time.
Arnold Orville Beckman was born on April 10, 1900 in the small farming community of Cullom, Illinois, the son of blacksmith George W. Beckman and Elizabeth Ellen Beckman (née Jewkes). His mother inculcated in him the importance of disciplined effort in achieving success, a trait that became a characteristic of his life and career, and chores were a regular part of home life. At the age of nine Arnold, nicknamed “Hoot” by his friends, found a copy of Joel Dorman Steele’s Fourteen Weeks in Chemistry, and he became hooked on “the central science.” For his tenth birthday, his father built him a small “shop” behind the house for his chemistry experiments. At the age of twelve, Arnold became a grocery clerk and “resident chemist” in a general store, where he was the “official cream tester.” In 1912 Arnold’s mother died, and in 1914 his father moved the family to Normal, Illinois so that the children (Arnold, his older half-brother Fred, and younger sister Wilma) could acquire a better education. A year later they moved to nearby Bloomington, Illinois. While attending University High School in Normal, where he took a number of college-level chemistry courses, Arnold earned money as a consulting analytical chemist at Bloomington’s Union Gas & Electric Company (he had business cards printed, and his home laboratory became “Bloomington Research Laboratories,” of which he was “Chief Scientist”). He also had a regular job as movie-house pianist for silent films, and he had his own dance band. In 1918 he graduated as valedictorian with the highest average ever attained by a University High student.
The fourth strategy followed by Beckman Instruments was suggested by their experience with MIT’s
Radiation Laboratory and the Helipots. They pursued a policy of aggressive development of their
component business, first within the Helipot Corporation, and then within the Helipot Division of
Beckman Instruments. Military use of Beckman’s devices helped to spur their development, especially
that of high-performance ceramic/metal blend materials. The division also moved beyond
potentiometers to the productions of other electronic components. In 1958, Beckman Instruments
opened a Helipot factory in Scotland, signaling its global ambition.
Despite Beckman’s busy business schedule, he still found time to be involved in the Los Angeles
Chamber of Commerce. Southern California was growing exponentially at this time, and in 1943 smog
entered the regional consciousness as a problem. Since Beckman was a member of the scientific
advisory group, he quickly attacked the problem. He motivated the research that identified the probable
cause of smog, ozone, and chaired the Special Committee on Air Pollution that released its findings in
the "Beckman Bible" in 1953. This study set Los Angeles and statewide pollution control measures for
years to come. In November 1953 Beckman was also active in founding the Air Pollution Foundation, a
not-for-profit founded to support research into the smog problem. Beckman’s leadership on the smog
issue won him an invitation to join the board of directors of the Chamber of Commerce in 1954. He was
named vice president in 1955 and president in 1956. Beckman became a strong spokesman for his
adopted Los Angeles, and emphasized two issues during his tenure: fighting smog and fostering the
scientific-technical-industrial-educational nexus that was growing in the area. His concern for smog won
him a place on the Federal Air Quality Board in 1970. He received a further opportunity to address these
concerns when he assumed the leadership of the California Chamber of Commerce in 1967.
As president of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, Beckman became the region’s representative to
the world. The American economy was undergoing much change that could be classified under the
heading of "globalization" in the 1950s, and the technology-fueled Los Angeles area was no exception.
This new international focus in Beckman’s civic life was reflected in his professional life, as well.
Ted Brown was chosen as the first Director of the Beckman Institute before the building was completed and officially opened in 1989. As Vice-Chancellor for Research at Illinois in the 1980s, he had taken part in discussions about creating an interdisciplinary research center on campus and it was his memo in the spring of 1983 to key faculty members called “Development of Program Statement for a Major Center” that helped to get the proposal rolling. Subsequently he played an integral role in the process that resulted in Arnold and Mabel Beckman donating $40M toward building of a premier research facility on campus. Brown is writing a book about the history of the Beckman Institute called “Crossing Divides: The Origins of the Beckman Institute”. In November of 2007 Brown sat down with Beckman writer Steve McGaughey for an interview about the past, present, and future direction of the Institute and the role he played in helping make it one of the top facilities for interdisciplinary research in the world.
Q: When you left in 1993 you wrote about a strategic vision for the Beckman Institute. How have developments since then fit or differed with what you visualized back then?
A: I was thinking about that very recently. If somebody had asked me to write down what I thought the major subjects of interest would be at the Beckman Institute 14 years from the day I stepped down, I would’ve probably gotten it pretty wrong. So much has happened in the meantime that could not have been foretold. What you can say about the Beckman Institute is about the dynamics of the place: the kind of social activities and the structure of it, the interdisciplinary character. That has, I think, flowered very nicely because of people like Jiri Jonas, who I think did a fantastic job of organizing the Beckman Institute’s overall programmatic efforts into these major research thrusts. I could see the need for it but hadn’t gotten it done by the time I left. Jiri put into place an order and a structure. He said ‘people, if you want to be in the Beckman Institute, you’ve got to be part of these groups. You can’t just go off in the corner by yourself; that’s not what this place is about.’ I was saying that all along, and getting people to move that way was not happening the way I wanted. I think Jiri really brought that home to people. In terms of the management style, administrative style, the way in which the focus is on interdisciplinary research, I couldn’t be happier with the way the Beckman Institute is going. And you can see it. It’s a big, big success.
Q: You’ve had a lot of achievements in your life, including being named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Where does your role in birthing the Beckman Institute rank as far as your accomplishments?
A: I really am proud of it. It could’ve gone wrong in some ways. It could’ve gone off and failed. The fact is it still draws really good people in and it has an attraction. I think some of that, and a not inconsiderable part of that, is this building. That is one of the things I’m very proud of, although I didn’t have very much to do with it. But I did work right from day one with the architects on the building, all through its construction phases and had my hard hat in my office all the time (laughs). It was just great fun to see this place come alive and become a building. We tried a lot of different things. There are some things that people were not very sure of at the outset: the office arrangements, that modular arrangement. They said ‘oh you can’t put students and postdocs in spaces like that, that just isn’t going to work; there’s too much noise around, they don’t have enough privacy.’ Well, the whole point was to diminish privacy to a certain extent and force people to talk to one another. I think the building has been really successful. I think it’s been a success mechanically; look this place is 17 years old and it still looks good. It’s held up extremely well. As a piece of construction and style, I think it’s been very good. The ideas that motivated things like the bridges, these little gathering areas, the cafeteria, those things seem to me like they have worked. People say it could’ve been better or there could be more people and that’s true. But we’ve had success with it. It seems to serve a real function of bringing people together, and making the building seem more than just some cold place to do science. I always thought about interdisciplinary interactions in terms of a concept of reach. How much of an intellectual reach you have to have. If two guys are working on electrical engineering, signal processing and transistor circuitry and one guy is using one algorithm and another is using another, that’s not much of a reach. If you’ve got a guy who’s using signal processing and a biologist is working on frogs and signal processing, then data begins to get interesting. I think that happens here. For example, (Psychology Professor) George McConkie’s work; he got involved with people in electrical engineering. That happened because of the Beckman Institute; it would never have happened otherwise.
Q: Do you have any thoughts on where future research might be headed, or what topics Beckman researchers might be working on 20 years from now?
A: I think science is going to have to get more serious about working on and solving societal problems. We’ve got plenty of them coming in the area of energy. It isn’t just that it will make the Beckman Institute a vital place. We’re not talking about just technological solutions like ‘we’ll just make windmills or we’ll figure out more efficient batteries.’ All of that is very important but every one of those technological advances, if they are implemented in a large-scale way, raises all kinds of social issues. Take windmills. Do people want those things in their neighborhoods? There’s got to be more attention paid to the social structures that will support technological change. I think the Beckman Institute is an ideal place to bring people together from the social sciences and from the science and engineering fields to talk about ‘OK, these are technologies that have been implemented, so what are the processes by which society adapts these things or fails to adapt them?’
Q: So would that mean bringing in faculty members like sociologists?
A: Absolutely. And people interested in psychology, people who are interested in public policy; people who think about public policy and technology. They have to talk to one another. You could say they are in different fields but I think that somehow right now people see that there’s a need for those groups to talk to one another. But I think that it’s important for scientists who are working on solutions to the energy problem, for example, to understand what the boundary conditions are in the social sphere. What are people willing to give up in order to do this? People are going to have to make a lot of sacrifices and some technologies will demand more than others. Can they be implemented just because of that factor? You can talk about fuel-efficient cars but what are people not willing to give up? What kind of economic and social pressures need to be brought to bear in order to make these changes in society? It’s going to be hard to get people interested in the other side. But it happened here in the Beckman Institute with the cognitive scientists and the linguists, for example. They tended to cluster. And somewhere along the line you get them to talk to an engineer about signal processing and then face recognition, and all sorts of other things develop from that.
Q: At the time that the idea of an interdisciplinary research center first started being floated in the early 1980s, you were serving as Vice-Chancellor for Research at Illinois. How did you end up becoming the Beckman Institute’s first director?
A: I was involved in putting together the proposal to Arnold Beckman and he gave us the money in October of 1985. I had already told the Chancellor and (Vice-Chancellor) Ned Goldwasser that I wanted to return to Chemistry at the end of that upcoming academic year. So my plan at the end of September 1986 was I was going to go back to being a chemistry professor. I had been doing this vice chancellor thing for six years and enjoyed it tremendously and felt I made a contribution. But I wanted to get back to doing research. Then this money came in and I became the acting director of this project. All of a sudden we had to find an architect and do this and do that. We rented space over at the Johnstown Center on Johns and I spent half my time there and half my time in the Vice-Chancellor’s office. Then they started a search for a director of the Beckman Institute and they did a major search. You could see that this was going to be a difficult thing to do because a couple of them came in and saw themselves moving their laboratories in here. One wanted to use five thousand feet of lab space. That was in September of 1986 and I was going to go on sabbatical but I put that off and stayed on as interim director. I kept getting more and more deeply involved and finally I got to the point where I said, ‘you know, I’ve got so much invested in this and I love this idea so much that I would like to be a candidate to be the director.’ So I put my name in and after a while – it took longer than I hoped – they finally offered the job to me. In March of ’87 I became the director and of course we had just barely started construction of the building. I just decided OK, I’m going to do this and it is probably going to be one of the most interesting things I ever do in my life. I don’t regret it for a moment. It certainly was the best thing I’ve done in my life as far as my work goes. I had a good career as a scientist and I might have had more scientific accomplishments if I had gone back to being a chemist. But, although I kept my research going, you can’t do science and something like this at the same time (he said with a laugh).
Q: With funding growing and new research discoveries every year, the initial success seems to be going strong.
A: It’s the result of good leadership and tremendous support from the campus. A lot of things had to work. But you have to say that it got pushed in the right direction to start with. It’s like anything else; if you push yourself into the wind you are not going to get very far. I was only one among many people, but I felt that I could play a central role and a guiding role. So from that point of view I feel very, very satisfied that I did the right thing. I feel that what came out of it was pretty wonderful.”
In the 1940s, Beckman changed the name to Arnold O. Beckman, Inc. to sell oxygen analyzers, the Helipot precision potentiometer, and spectrophotometers. In the 1950s, the company name changed to Beckman Instruments, Inc..
In 1955, Beckman established the seminal Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory as a division of Beckman Instruments to begin commercializing the semiconductor transistor technology invented by Caltech alumnus William Shockley. Because Shockley's aging mother lived in Palo Alto, California, the Shockley Laboratory was established in nearby Mountain View, California, and thus, "Silicon Valley" was born.
In 1982, the company merged into SmithKline to form SmithKline Beckman, with Arnold Beckman as vice chairman, but regained its independence in 1989 after SmithKline merged with Beecham Group to form SmithKline Beecham (now part of GlaxoSmithKline).
In 1995, the company acquired Hybritech, Inc. from Eli Lilly
In 1996, the company acquired the Sanofi portion of Sanofi Pasteur Diagnostics
n April 7–8, 2000 the California Institute of Technology commemorated the 10th anniversary of the Beckman Institute on the Pasadena campus with a two-day, four-session symposium dubbed the “Beckmanfest,” featuring a dozen speakers, including a Nobel chemistry laureate (Thomas R. Cech), discussing cutting-edge research and developments at the point where chemistry and biology interact. Each session featured two well-known researchers, whose presentations were separated by that of a Beckman Young Investigator (Since its founding in 1991, the Beckman Young Investigator program has supported the work of 150 fledgling scientists). Also, a gala dinner was held on April 10 to celebrate the 100th birthday of the chemist–inventor–entrepreneur–philanthropist whose gifts to Caltech have shaped the campus in profound ways. Beckman’s centennial birthday was also commemorated by the publication of a profusely illustrated, luxurious, oversized volume that documents the life and achievements of a man who has literally become a legend in his own time.
Arnold Orville Beckman was born on April 10, 1900 in the small farming community of Cullom, Illinois, the son of blacksmith George W. Beckman and Elizabeth Ellen Beckman (née Jewkes). His mother inculcated in him the importance of disciplined effort in achieving success, a trait that became a characteristic of his life and career, and chores were a regular part of home life. At the age of nine Arnold, nicknamed “Hoot” by his friends, found a copy of Joel Dorman Steele’s Fourteen Weeks in Chemistry, and he became hooked on “the central science.” For his tenth birthday, his father built him a small “shop” behind the house for his chemistry experiments. At the age of twelve, Arnold became a grocery clerk and “resident chemist” in a general store, where he was the “official cream tester.” In 1912 Arnold’s mother died, and in 1914 his father moved the family to Normal, Illinois so that the children (Arnold, his older half-brother Fred, and younger sister Wilma) could acquire a better education. A year later they moved to nearby Bloomington, Illinois. While attending University High School in Normal, where he took a number of college-level chemistry courses, Arnold earned money as a consulting analytical chemist at Bloomington’s Union Gas & Electric Company (he had business cards printed, and his home laboratory became “Bloomington Research Laboratories,” of which he was “Chief Scientist”). He also had a regular job as movie-house pianist for silent films, and he had his own dance band. In 1918 he graduated as valedictorian with the highest average ever attained by a University High student.
The fourth strategy followed by Beckman Instruments was suggested by their experience with MIT’s
Radiation Laboratory and the Helipots. They pursued a policy of aggressive development of their
component business, first within the Helipot Corporation, and then within the Helipot Division of
Beckman Instruments. Military use of Beckman’s devices helped to spur their development, especially
that of high-performance ceramic/metal blend materials. The division also moved beyond
potentiometers to the productions of other electronic components. In 1958, Beckman Instruments
opened a Helipot factory in Scotland, signaling its global ambition.
Despite Beckman’s busy business schedule, he still found time to be involved in the Los Angeles
Chamber of Commerce. Southern California was growing exponentially at this time, and in 1943 smog
entered the regional consciousness as a problem. Since Beckman was a member of the scientific
advisory group, he quickly attacked the problem. He motivated the research that identified the probable
cause of smog, ozone, and chaired the Special Committee on Air Pollution that released its findings in
the "Beckman Bible" in 1953. This study set Los Angeles and statewide pollution control measures for
years to come. In November 1953 Beckman was also active in founding the Air Pollution Foundation, a
not-for-profit founded to support research into the smog problem. Beckman’s leadership on the smog
issue won him an invitation to join the board of directors of the Chamber of Commerce in 1954. He was
named vice president in 1955 and president in 1956. Beckman became a strong spokesman for his
adopted Los Angeles, and emphasized two issues during his tenure: fighting smog and fostering the
scientific-technical-industrial-educational nexus that was growing in the area. His concern for smog won
him a place on the Federal Air Quality Board in 1970. He received a further opportunity to address these
concerns when he assumed the leadership of the California Chamber of Commerce in 1967.
As president of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, Beckman became the region’s representative to
the world. The American economy was undergoing much change that could be classified under the
heading of "globalization" in the 1950s, and the technology-fueled Los Angeles area was no exception.
This new international focus in Beckman’s civic life was reflected in his professional life, as well.
Ted Brown was chosen as the first Director of the Beckman Institute before the building was completed and officially opened in 1989. As Vice-Chancellor for Research at Illinois in the 1980s, he had taken part in discussions about creating an interdisciplinary research center on campus and it was his memo in the spring of 1983 to key faculty members called “Development of Program Statement for a Major Center” that helped to get the proposal rolling. Subsequently he played an integral role in the process that resulted in Arnold and Mabel Beckman donating $40M toward building of a premier research facility on campus. Brown is writing a book about the history of the Beckman Institute called “Crossing Divides: The Origins of the Beckman Institute”. In November of 2007 Brown sat down with Beckman writer Steve McGaughey for an interview about the past, present, and future direction of the Institute and the role he played in helping make it one of the top facilities for interdisciplinary research in the world.
Q: When you left in 1993 you wrote about a strategic vision for the Beckman Institute. How have developments since then fit or differed with what you visualized back then?
A: I was thinking about that very recently. If somebody had asked me to write down what I thought the major subjects of interest would be at the Beckman Institute 14 years from the day I stepped down, I would’ve probably gotten it pretty wrong. So much has happened in the meantime that could not have been foretold. What you can say about the Beckman Institute is about the dynamics of the place: the kind of social activities and the structure of it, the interdisciplinary character. That has, I think, flowered very nicely because of people like Jiri Jonas, who I think did a fantastic job of organizing the Beckman Institute’s overall programmatic efforts into these major research thrusts. I could see the need for it but hadn’t gotten it done by the time I left. Jiri put into place an order and a structure. He said ‘people, if you want to be in the Beckman Institute, you’ve got to be part of these groups. You can’t just go off in the corner by yourself; that’s not what this place is about.’ I was saying that all along, and getting people to move that way was not happening the way I wanted. I think Jiri really brought that home to people. In terms of the management style, administrative style, the way in which the focus is on interdisciplinary research, I couldn’t be happier with the way the Beckman Institute is going. And you can see it. It’s a big, big success.
Q: You’ve had a lot of achievements in your life, including being named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Where does your role in birthing the Beckman Institute rank as far as your accomplishments?
A: I really am proud of it. It could’ve gone wrong in some ways. It could’ve gone off and failed. The fact is it still draws really good people in and it has an attraction. I think some of that, and a not inconsiderable part of that, is this building. That is one of the things I’m very proud of, although I didn’t have very much to do with it. But I did work right from day one with the architects on the building, all through its construction phases and had my hard hat in my office all the time (laughs). It was just great fun to see this place come alive and become a building. We tried a lot of different things. There are some things that people were not very sure of at the outset: the office arrangements, that modular arrangement. They said ‘oh you can’t put students and postdocs in spaces like that, that just isn’t going to work; there’s too much noise around, they don’t have enough privacy.’ Well, the whole point was to diminish privacy to a certain extent and force people to talk to one another. I think the building has been really successful. I think it’s been a success mechanically; look this place is 17 years old and it still looks good. It’s held up extremely well. As a piece of construction and style, I think it’s been very good. The ideas that motivated things like the bridges, these little gathering areas, the cafeteria, those things seem to me like they have worked. People say it could’ve been better or there could be more people and that’s true. But we’ve had success with it. It seems to serve a real function of bringing people together, and making the building seem more than just some cold place to do science. I always thought about interdisciplinary interactions in terms of a concept of reach. How much of an intellectual reach you have to have. If two guys are working on electrical engineering, signal processing and transistor circuitry and one guy is using one algorithm and another is using another, that’s not much of a reach. If you’ve got a guy who’s using signal processing and a biologist is working on frogs and signal processing, then data begins to get interesting. I think that happens here. For example, (Psychology Professor) George McConkie’s work; he got involved with people in electrical engineering. That happened because of the Beckman Institute; it would never have happened otherwise.
Q: Do you have any thoughts on where future research might be headed, or what topics Beckman researchers might be working on 20 years from now?
A: I think science is going to have to get more serious about working on and solving societal problems. We’ve got plenty of them coming in the area of energy. It isn’t just that it will make the Beckman Institute a vital place. We’re not talking about just technological solutions like ‘we’ll just make windmills or we’ll figure out more efficient batteries.’ All of that is very important but every one of those technological advances, if they are implemented in a large-scale way, raises all kinds of social issues. Take windmills. Do people want those things in their neighborhoods? There’s got to be more attention paid to the social structures that will support technological change. I think the Beckman Institute is an ideal place to bring people together from the social sciences and from the science and engineering fields to talk about ‘OK, these are technologies that have been implemented, so what are the processes by which society adapts these things or fails to adapt them?’
Q: So would that mean bringing in faculty members like sociologists?
A: Absolutely. And people interested in psychology, people who are interested in public policy; people who think about public policy and technology. They have to talk to one another. You could say they are in different fields but I think that somehow right now people see that there’s a need for those groups to talk to one another. But I think that it’s important for scientists who are working on solutions to the energy problem, for example, to understand what the boundary conditions are in the social sphere. What are people willing to give up in order to do this? People are going to have to make a lot of sacrifices and some technologies will demand more than others. Can they be implemented just because of that factor? You can talk about fuel-efficient cars but what are people not willing to give up? What kind of economic and social pressures need to be brought to bear in order to make these changes in society? It’s going to be hard to get people interested in the other side. But it happened here in the Beckman Institute with the cognitive scientists and the linguists, for example. They tended to cluster. And somewhere along the line you get them to talk to an engineer about signal processing and then face recognition, and all sorts of other things develop from that.
Q: At the time that the idea of an interdisciplinary research center first started being floated in the early 1980s, you were serving as Vice-Chancellor for Research at Illinois. How did you end up becoming the Beckman Institute’s first director?
A: I was involved in putting together the proposal to Arnold Beckman and he gave us the money in October of 1985. I had already told the Chancellor and (Vice-Chancellor) Ned Goldwasser that I wanted to return to Chemistry at the end of that upcoming academic year. So my plan at the end of September 1986 was I was going to go back to being a chemistry professor. I had been doing this vice chancellor thing for six years and enjoyed it tremendously and felt I made a contribution. But I wanted to get back to doing research. Then this money came in and I became the acting director of this project. All of a sudden we had to find an architect and do this and do that. We rented space over at the Johnstown Center on Johns and I spent half my time there and half my time in the Vice-Chancellor’s office. Then they started a search for a director of the Beckman Institute and they did a major search. You could see that this was going to be a difficult thing to do because a couple of them came in and saw themselves moving their laboratories in here. One wanted to use five thousand feet of lab space. That was in September of 1986 and I was going to go on sabbatical but I put that off and stayed on as interim director. I kept getting more and more deeply involved and finally I got to the point where I said, ‘you know, I’ve got so much invested in this and I love this idea so much that I would like to be a candidate to be the director.’ So I put my name in and after a while – it took longer than I hoped – they finally offered the job to me. In March of ’87 I became the director and of course we had just barely started construction of the building. I just decided OK, I’m going to do this and it is probably going to be one of the most interesting things I ever do in my life. I don’t regret it for a moment. It certainly was the best thing I’ve done in my life as far as my work goes. I had a good career as a scientist and I might have had more scientific accomplishments if I had gone back to being a chemist. But, although I kept my research going, you can’t do science and something like this at the same time (he said with a laugh).
Q: With funding growing and new research discoveries every year, the initial success seems to be going strong.
A: It’s the result of good leadership and tremendous support from the campus. A lot of things had to work. But you have to say that it got pushed in the right direction to start with. It’s like anything else; if you push yourself into the wind you are not going to get very far. I was only one among many people, but I felt that I could play a central role and a guiding role. So from that point of view I feel very, very satisfied that I did the right thing. I feel that what came out of it was pretty wonderful.”