Alumni - Where are they now?

I am a retired (end of '01) Ford engineering manager and was in the Gettysburg class of 1963.

When I started at Gettysburg I was in the class of '62, and in the 3-2 Engineering Program.

There were about two dozen in the initial (3-2 program) classes. The mechanical drawing class weeded out a bunch and by the time I was a junior we were three. Only two of us transferred to Penn State, which was one of the schools available in the "2" part of the program.

Dr. Richard Mara was one of the key faculty members in my (our) completion of the program. He taught physics, and made it compelling stuff. Dr. Arms was the math professor who caused me a lot of hard work - some of the math was tough to get through. Both were good people and dedicated to us, the students, in the 3-2 program or otherwise.

After two years at Penn State I graduated from Gettysburg and PSU (simultaneously)in the class(es) of 1963. From Penn State I interviewed several companies, including Ford Motor Company. I took a job in Dearborn, MI at the Ford Engineering and Research Center, and in the Light Truck engineering activity.

For most of my time with Ford I was working with both the light truck products and with many lawyers in the defense of product lawsuits filed against Ford. As it worked out, this was a career that allowed me to utilize my (PSU) engineering education and my (Gettysburg) liberal arts education. One of the key functions in my work was testifying on behalf of Ford, as an engineering employee, for the purpose of explaining the design, function, and history of whatever (light truck) vehicle was at issue. In many of those situations I had worked on the vehicle in the product development process. Overall, the 3-2 program was the perfect preparation for the career I never anticipated when I started at Gettysburg, or even when I graduated from Gettysburg (and Penn State.)

During my senior year, or a bit before that, I was wondering if I was in the right field, but it was a bit late to make changes as I had a military obligation awaiting, being also in AFROTC. I was active in a group called the Gettysburg Baroque Workshop in my senior year, and through it I knew that I had to study music formally down the road.

I graduated in 1963 and went immediately into the Air Force, studying meteorology at the University of Utah, before going on to practice the subject first at Okinawa, then in northern Michigan near Sault Ste. Marie. I began my studies of music history/musicology at the University of Michigan in 1967 upon my release from active duty. I transferred to the Ready Reserve of the Air Force, practicing meteorology part time at Selfridge AFB(now ANGB), a base northeast of Detroit. I earned my Ph.D. in musicology at Michigan in 1982; the subject of my dissertation was “The Odes for St. Cecilia’s Day, 1683-1703”.

It was a good thing that I remained in the ready reserves because teaching positions in musicology took a dive in the mid 1970's.At the same time, however, a position opened up at Selfridge for a civilian forecaster.With the blessings of my doctoral committee, I applied for and got the job. So I began doing meteorology on a regular basis again. In early 1980, I transferred to the National Weather Service (NWS) and remained there for the rest of my career. Assignments to me were to Lansing, MI, Des Moines, IA, and finally Billings, MT. I retired from the NWS in late 2004 as a senior forecaster. My wife and I still live in Billings and like the area very much. I retired in 1985 from the Air Force Reserve as a Lt. Col.

Retirement life has been busy. I began studying the Viola da Gamba in early 2005 with a teacher who lives in Denver, CO. Lessons with her are worth the 550 mile one-way trip. While with the Gettysburg Baroque Workshop, I was introduced to the gamba, and then re-introduced to it at Michigan. My principal instrument at both Gettysburg and Michigan was the cello.I also have been doing some music editing. Some of my editions (notably pieces by Telemann and De Lalande) have been performed by the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado. More recently, I have gotten back to editing some Cecilian odes by Michael C. Festing and Maurice Greene.

I graduated in 1963 from Dr. Mara's Department. After receiving a PhD at the University of Virginia, I taught Physics and then moved into higher education administration at various universities. Finally, I spent 14 years as President of the University of Evansville in Indiana.

Now I serve on the Alumni Board of Directors and often visit the Physics Department when I return to campus. In fact, I recently donated many of the books in the Physics lounge. We had such a lounge when I was there and I think it's a very important facility for the students. When I became Chairman of a Physics Department years ago, one of the first things I did was create a Physics lounge. The Physics Department was excellent when I was there and continues to be one of the best in the country.

I graduated in June, 1963 with a B.A. in Physics and immediately began graduate studies in Solid State (now Condensed Matter) physics at the University of Delaware. In 1964 I married Janet Dreves (Class of 1964), a math major/physics minor. She and I each were awarded MS degrees (in physics and math, respectively) in 1966. After my master’s degree, I worked two years at the General Electric R&D Center in Schenectady, NY on materials for LEDs. At that time the brass ring was finding a blue light LED material. We did not find one (the ring was subsequently grabbed by others two decades later) so I decided to return to graduate school for more schooling. My game plan was to complete the next degree, return to corporate R&D for several years, and then eventually move on to a to teach science and coach in secondary school (the twenties dream). The Ph.D. degree in Physics was subsequently completed at a time (1971) when there were no jobs available in corporate research, but I did land a job teaching physics at Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. I found that I loved teaching...and still do. In 1974 I followed an opportunity to work at the Institute of Energy Conversion at the University of Delaware. My timing was impeccable (OK, I was lucky) as this was the period when R&D on renewable was just beginning to blossom. The rest is history, I spent nine years at the Institute, and then in 1983 left to become a founding member of a start-up company formed to develop (and eventually manufacture) solar cells for solar electric energy panels. I spent 18 years there before “retiring” in 2001. I was fortunate to have landed in this field of endeavor (solar energy), and am still playing on that field, now as a cagey, long-in-the-tooth veteran.

I graduated from Gettysburg College with a double major in Math and Physics in 1965 while Professor Richard Mara, my advisor, was still there. He advised me to go to the University of Virginia for graduate studies, where I completed studies with a Ph.D. in 1970. My Ph.D. dissertation related to the mobility of electrons in heat flushed superfluid helium. From there, I spent about 6 months at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, MD before being employed as a civil servant by the Army at Fort Belvoir, VA below Washington, DC. As a research scientist at Fort Belvoir, my responsibility was to develop techniques to detect vapors released by explosives at the ultra-trace level. I sponsored a technology review at a research institute in Raleigh/Durham, NC and conducted experiments of my own in the Army laboratory.

Because of my work, I became widely known in the Government as an expert on trace vapor detection that a leading candidate for detecting buried landmines, counter-terrorism, protection of major strategic US resources (such as nuclear facilities), and security of the airline and postal systems. I consulted widely and the technology is now used widely in airports for this purpose. But the technology is also useful for detecting chemical warfare agents of interest to the military.

Because of my expertise and publications, a contractor came to me to see if I was interested in working with them on their project under contract with the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. I accepted their offer, and spent nearly twenty years as the principal scientist in an engineering department (now Smith Detection) to realize a fielded capability. While my secondary function was to advise the engineering and production efforts, my primary function was to become an expert on ion mobility spectrometry. This I did by interfacing with the academic community, and establishing an ion mobility/mass spectrometry capability in my laboratory. I was allowed to hire a Ph.D. chemist to help me with this effort. After the twenty years were completed, we had miniaturized the ion mobility spectrometer technology from a large office desk size to a lunch box size fully integrated detector. After it was mass-produced for the Army, my job was done.

Having received an additional degree in Chemistry, I decided to start a small consulting company of my own to address outstanding issues for the technology. After receiving several contracts to further the application of the technology, I decided to not compete further for contracts, but to semi-retire so that I could spend more time on the theory of operation for ion mobility spectrometry. That is what I am doing today. I am deeply involved in classical mechanics, statistical mechanics, and quantum mechanics as I am tackling the dependence of the collision cross section on effective ion temperature. This relationship not only applies to the more traditional linear ion mobility spectrometer technique that I help to develop and field, but also to the newer differential ion mobility spectrometer and travelling wave ion mobility spectrometer techniques recently developed to study large complex biological compounds. I am still very active in scientific conferences trying to help chemists and biologists understand the mathematics and physics of ion mobility spectrometry in combination with mass spectrometry. A day does not go by during which I learn something new. Also my workstation computer has capabilities way beyond the scientific calculators that I was not allowed to use while taking exams at Gettysburg College. HA! Technispan LLC (my small consulting company!)

As is (or should be) well known to some in the Physics Dept. (or well, perhaps only to a few remaining at this point!), I've been in the Baltimore-Washington area for 30 years, and on the scientific staff of the (Hubble) Space Telescope Science Institute at the Homewood Campus of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore since 1984. Unfortunately my interactions with Gettysburg during all these years have been minimal, most recently a lecture in the Alumni College at my initiative for my 40th anniversary. Around the same time I offered a Hubble astronomy talk for Gettysburg students and alumni here.

John W. Berthold received the B.A. degree in physics from Gettysburg College and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in optical sciences from the University of Arizona, Tucson. He has forty-five years of experience in optics research, thin film coatings, and sensors, and is internationally recognized for many contributions in the development of fiber optic sensors. Dr. Berthold has worked for Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc., National Security Agency, Babcock & Wilcox Company, and continues to serve as both Chief Technology Officer and Board member of Davidson Instruments, Inc., The Woodlands, TX. Through his independent consulting company j w b c.llc, John has performed work for several small companies and start-ups. He has served as principal investigator on U.S. government contracts with NASA, Department of Defense, and Department of Energy. He has authored or coauthored over 75 journal and conference publications and is an inventor or co-inventor on 51 U.S. patents. Dr. Berthold is a Fellow of SPIE – the international society for optics and photonics and an Emeritus Member of the Optical Society of America.

Robert D. Lake graduated in 1967 with a BA and a dual major in Mathematics and Physics. In 1968, Bob went to work for the Department of the Army at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland. At Aberdeen, Bob was first a physicist and then an operations research analyst. He worked on combat simulations and engineering studies of armored vehicles. During this time, Bob and his wife Carole (’68) received their master’s degrees in Numerical Science from Johns Hopkins University. Bob went on to receive a PhD from Johns Hopkins in Operations Research in 1978. (The department is now the Applied Mathematics department in the JHU’s Whiting School of Engineering). In 1978, Bob left Aberdeen and joined Bell Laboratories in Holmdel, NJ as a Member of the Technical Staff (MTS). Bob eventually became a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff (DMTS). Bob spent 26 years at the Labs (20 as an employee and 6 as a contractor.) While with the Labs Bob worked on many projects including long range planning of Bell System Operations, conducting Business Process Reengineering studies, and on developing Internet Services for both individuals and businesses. Bob describes himself as basically a systems engineer who takes vague needs and problems and turns them into a set of requirements that other engineers can use to build something (that hopefully works and is useful). Bob retired in 2004 but kept busy working part time helping two Children Librarians in a local library and helping Carole sell real estate. Bob also spent 20 years coaching youth travelling soccer teams. Currently Bob keeps busy taking undergraduate courses at Lenoir-Rhyne University, helping out at the Catawba Science Center, helping out at church, and singing in two church choirs. He and Carole also grow prize winning roses.

I graduated from Gettysburg with a degree in Physics in 1967. I was lucky enough to have Dr. Richard Mara as my freshman physics instructor and he was responsible for talking me into remaining Physics major as I struggled through freshman physics. He was a brilliant and wonderful person and instructor.

After graduation I worked for the Department of the Navy, mostly in Dahlgren, VA, from 1967 to 2000. I received an MSEE from Duke University in 1970; chaired a number of NATO Advanced Study Institutes in France, Scotland, and Portugal in the 1980’s; spent a year at the Pentagon (1992-93); and spent 1996-98 in the United Kingdom working for the British MOD’s Defense Evaluation and Research Agency, Portsdown West (near Portsmouth). From 2000 to 2008 I worked for BAE Systems, and from 2008 until my retirement in 2010 I worked for EG&G (now URS).

I’m now retired and living at Wintergreen Resort, just outside Charlottesville, VA, in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Besides attending Gettysburg in the 70s in the Physics program and evennnnnnntually getting my B.S. from Maryland and MS from Hopkins AND playing in the bands at Gettysburg (and fighting myself in deciding what I should major in), I like to write!!! I have about 50 publications from my time working in research at JHUAPL and here at NASA I am now an Instrument Systems Engineer coming up on 10 years...

I also played on the baseball team and Dr. Mara used to come out and watch...that alone should qualify me this gig!

I’m a self-taught piano and sax player although I was playing trumpet back in my youth.

I have had my results for a long time: but I do not yet know how I am to arrive at them. ~Karl Friedrich Gauss

I went from Physics (I actually had two majors -Econ as well) to Wall Street. I now work for the firm Lazard Wealth Management.

I believe that I was the first student to participant in the 3-2 cooperative Engineering program with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. I started at Gettysburg in the fall of 1978 and graduated the spring of 1983 with a BSME from RPI and a BA from Gettysburg. I’ve worked as an engineer in the aerospace industry ever since graduation, first as a Mechanical Design Engineer and now as an Engineering Manager. I'm currently the Engineering Program Manager for the E2D Hawkeye Radar Transmitter at Northrop Grumman in Baltimore Maryland.

Sarah Eno, a professor at the University of Maryland, is a member of the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) that recently discovered a new boson that may be the Higgs boson.

Currently I am in education, teaching electronics at a two year tech school and enjoying it very much. I also coach track and field at a local middle school (where I admittedly probably use more physics knowledge than I do in my real job... the discus is the ultimate exploration of rotational dynamics).

I graduated in 1998 and during my summer before senior year I did an internship with a Physicist at NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) and used a programming language called LabVIEW. The reason this is pertinent is because when second semester of senior year came and I started applying to jobs I submitted an application for a Software Engineer simply because this programming language was desired. I did not expect anything to come from this interview because I wasn't a Computer Science minor or anything but when I got to the interview the company told me that they were going to train me to do the work once I got there and having a degree in Physics (and Math) proved that I was capable of the analytical thinking that they were looking for.

After that I continue my career as a Software Engineer, moving up to become a Software Group Manager (managing a group of engineers) and then transitioning to Program Management (managing a program including the contracts and negotiation as well as coordination with engineering group mangers). I have most recently accepted a position as a Project Manager at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, MD.

I graduated in 1999 with a Physics/Math major. From there, I ended up going to graduate school in Computer Science and I've been teaching CS at Swarthmore College since 2006. Despite taking only one intro CS course at Gettysburg, I would definitely be a Physics/Math major again even if I knew ahead of time I would end up where I currently am.

I graduated in 2006. Since then, I spent one year (06-07) as an electrical engineer, then went to get my Masters in physics at the University of Connecticut (originally going for a Ph.D.). During my Master’s program I switched mindset from becoming a college professor to becoming a high school physics teacher. I enrolled in a different Master’s program for teaching, which I completed May 2011. I just finished my first year of teaching high school physics in Connecticut. I absolutely love what I do now.

I am currently pursuing my MBA at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business (graduation exp. May 2013). This summer I am interning at Sabre Holdings in Southlake, TX as a Financial Analyst. Prior to business school, I worked at Wollmuth Maher & Deutsch LLP, a New York City law firm, as their Controller.

My job progression, since graduating in 2009 with a BA in Physics, has been rather untraditional. I started off working for Johns Hopkins University in a Biology lab. This made sense at the time, because the lab featured microscopes that use Physics principles of optics and electron-scattering in order to operate. I also served as the IT specialist at the lab, which helped prepare me for my 2nd job.

In 2011, I moved to a different part of Hopkins, and became a software developer for the Center for Inherited Disease Research(CIDR), a medium-scale genomics lab. At the time, I had very little programming experience. I was hired with the expectation that I could learn on-the-job based mostly on my Physics degree and my "go-getter" attitude. For three years I helped CIDR automated many of their processes, and worked on software that would help them process and analyze genomic data.

In 2014, I started a new job as a software engineer at JHU’s Applied Physics Lab. These days, I spend my time working on software models for defensive naval-combat simulations. I’m also working on a Master’s in Computer Science through JHU’s Graduate Degree Program. I've learned that having a mixed-background in both Physics and Computer-Science has led to a remarkable breadth of job opportunities.

I’m starting my second year of grad school at the University of Chicago for computer science. In this past year I coauthored a paper for PLDI (a conference in programming languages). I'm currently working on a project called Diderot, and doing research.