Memories

The Best of Both Parshalls

Robert W. Saulmon
B.S. 1961, M.S. 1966, Civil Engineering

As I reflect on my time as a civil engineering student at CSU, perhaps my most unforgettable memory is attending meetings of the student chapter of ASCE. Many times, Mr. Ralph Parshall would join us at those meetings and tell us a few stories about his research in developing the Parshall flume. One story in particular was interesting. He described how he would shoot a hole through a clay tile with a .45 caliber pistol to make the perfect hole to which to attach the piezometer tube. I always assumed that story to be true. Then to have had Ralph Parshall's son, Dr. Max Parshall, as a professor in water quality and surveying and as a boss at the Campus Weather Station was equally memorable. Max spent some of his time completely cleaning the old surveying transits with gasoline in the weather station office. He would strongly caution us not to smoke in that room when he was doing that. So, between the two Parshalls, I had a connection with the previous 40-50 years of civil engineering at CSU.

My look into the future was while taking a computer class in 1961, in which we would program by wiring large circuit boards; then punch our batch of data on punch cards; then send the stake of punch cards to UCLA to be processed; and then find out 2 weeks later that the program needed some adjustment. What advancements have been made from the circuit board days to today's PC's, where we get instantaneous results! So, I feel very fortunate to have been at CSU during those years when the transition between the old and the new is remembered as being very pronounced.

My advisor, Dr. Ruff

Dickie Fernández Dahlerus
B.S. 1995, M.S. 1998, Civil Engineering

"When I was a student, I vividly remember riding my mountain bike home in the dark under big fat falling snowflakes, looong nights in the civil engineering computer lab, awesome football games at Hughes Stadium, working as a dishwasher at Ingersoll Hall, having to take civil engineering classes in the far south end of campus for no good reason, enjoying lunch on the lawn outside the Student Center, skiing in over 75% of the Colorado ski resorts and the great summers in Fort Collins."

"The professor I remember most is no question, Dr. Ruff. He was my advisor during my masters. The classes I took from Dr. Ruff were fun, captivated my attention in the subject at hand, and he made his students think beyond the obvious. He was reasonably demanding, yet so understanding. I will never forget how he offered his home phone number for us to call if we had questions at unusual hours of the day or night. On one occasion, I called him at a later hour of the night on a Sunday as a complex engineering problem was due the next morning. Dr. Ruff had a great sense of humor and it just happens that the subjects he taught were the ones I had was interested in the most."

'20 foot' and the Canons of Ethics

John McLain
B.S. 1991, Civil Engineering

"When I was a student, I vividly remember the hydraulics lab. That, along with the wind tunnels, is one of the biggest assets to the engineering college. Being able to visualize the sub and supercritical flow helped me and my fellow students understand the formulas and theory we were being taught. Morris Skinner was great explaining cavitation, water hammer, and other fundamental hydraulic properties and equations. Hydraulics was my most practical class. It translated easily into real world engineering."

"The professor I remember the most is Tom G. Sanders, because he was a tough and demanding teacher who wasn't afraid to put you on the spot. We could always count on him to offer a few 'Sanderisms' such as saying '20 foot' instead of '20 feet.' Wastewater (nowadays called Environmental) was one of my worst grades in college due to the rigorous homework assignments. No one will forget the Canons of Ethics, or at least that we had to learn them word for word, in a wastewater class. Even though my grade did not reflect it, his style must have worked. Not only did I work an activated sludge problem and a BOD5 mixing problem on the PE Exam, my company, Baseline Engineering, is today a leader in wastewater treatment design and implementation in Colorado."

"A close second is Dr. Gutkowski only because he was so upset over all the 'errata' in his structures book. He was even more upset that with one week left in the class, most of his students refused to buy his book. That was unforgettable."

Byron Winn challenged and inspired me

Susan Hock
B.S. 1978, Engineering Science

"When I was a student, I vividly remember spending late nights in the basement of the Engineering building, working at the card punch machine, walking down the long hall to the computer center to submit my programs, waiting hours for results, and then back to the card punch machine again to fix typos.

"The professor I remember most is Byron Winn because he challenged and inspired me to be the very best I could. He has remained an important influence in my life."

The day we 'blew up' the oval!

Greg Peters
M.S. 1977, Civil Engineering

"One of my favorite memories is the day we 'blew up' the oval. I was taking Dr. Dan Sunada's ground water course and he wanted to demonstrate how seismic techniques could be used to map subsurface formations. He marched the class out to the oval and we began digging holes and placing geophones in the ground. Dan then placed half a stick of dynamite in each hole and proceeded to blow them up and record the response. Clearly our CE class was the envy of every student on campus that day. I can't even imagine what Homeland Security would think of that experiment!

"Dan, to assure you hat your efforts (and dynamite) weren't wasted, I'm currently a reservoir engineering manager with ExxonMobil and work with seismic imaging every day. Thanks for the preview of a very useful technology!"

Man in the Molehole

Bruce Meaker
B.S. 1973, Civil Engineering

"When I was a student, I vividly remember Dr. Knox Milsaps scaring us with the threat of failure if we did not take thermodynamics seriously during the quarter we were in his class. Because of that I did well in his class.

"The professor I remember most is Dr. Herbert Switzer because he gave the ASCE student section a presentation on 'Man in the Molehole' with the message that it is important for us to broaden our interests (his was mushrooms). I've been broadening mine ever since."

Woodsie Wood Winners

Wade Troxell
B.S. 1980, Engineering Science, M.S. 1982 and Ph.D. 1987, Mechanical Engineering

"I remember all of my classmates who are now doing a wide variety of wonderful things. One fond memory as E-Leg VP when we, as E-Leg officers, had general access to use the Dean's Office and spent an all-nighter there organizing events for E-Days. Also, I recall when the small, but determined, Engineering Science program won our fair share of E-Days events and took home the Woodsie Wood from E-Days."

No photographers were permanently injured

Jason Gentry
B.S. 2000, Electrical Engineering

"The CSU IEEE officers were having a group photo taken for some publication out on the bridge over the lagoon. As the photographer was adjusting his camera, one of our officers, Mike Young, didn't want his overly-large cell phone to be in the picture so he tossed it over near the photographer. However, instead of landing next to the photographer, it hit the photographer directly in the head. All of us were laughing so hard we about fell into the lagoon. No photographers were permanently injured during this event.

P.S. The photo is of me, my wife Michelle Gentry (also a CSU ECE graduate, B.S. 1999), and my dog Ruffyles (not a CSU graduate)."

Listening and yearning

Martin Farber
M.S. 1978, Civil Engineering

"The professors I remember most are Victor Koelzer and Warren Hall. Listening to their experiences on international projects stimulated in me a yearning for the same sort of experience. My international assignments had a profound effect on my life path and my outlook."

A planetary engineering course that lives on

"When I was a student, I vividly remember being given the opportunity to spend a fully funded week at the annual Jet Propulsion Laboratory planetary engineering course in California during my Ph.D. studies (1991, I believe). A major reason behind being able to enjoy this stimulating intellectual experience was the fame and notoriety of CSU's engineering professors. Thank you. I have been an active member of the Planetary Society ever since.

"The professor I remember most is Professor Willy Sadeh because his lectures on turbulence were challenging, stimulating, inspiring, and full of historic personal references. He came to each class with a huge set of notes, and then never used them because it was all in his head. I enjoyed these lectures so much that I chose to audit CE702 a second time to simply absorb more of his historic and technical knowledge. It is very sad that he is not with us anymore – a true loss for CSU."

A cow college become a fine University

Tom Taylor
BCE 1965, Civil Engineering

"When I was a student, I vividly remember the four wings of the engineering building and the construction of the new Student Center nearby. I walked from the Newsom Hall dorm past the livestock and pig pens to classes in the new engineering building. In 1959-65, CSU was a cow college becoming a truly fine University and I was so proud of the new buildings, the education I received, and how the new campus buildings blended with the Oval and other buildings.

"ROTC was a distraction for me, but I needed the money and it cost me an extra quarter to get the credits I needed to get a 5-year BSCE degree, but with what I learned, I built projects all over the world that had never been built before. After 14 years as a heavy construction Civil Engineer in the Army, building roads, bridges, and Green Beret camps in the jungles of Thailand, and as a professional civil engineer in six states building hard rock tunnels, subways in San Francisco and Washington DC, plus four years on the North Slope of Alaska, I always seemed to find each new project more exciting and challenging for me than the last. I began to set goals further out in areas that challenged me, and I changed careers to aerospace and evolved into an entrepreneur currently creating a commercial transportation system to and from the moon to permit the mining and development of the Lunar resources. Students including me have a difficult time projecting forward in time and imagining what their life will contain. I tried to view my future and set goals for me to achieve. I, for example, being 'so smart' as a student, was sure I would never have anything to do with a railroad or the metric system, so I shut my mind to these subjects. Of course, my first job as a young 2nd Lieutenant in the jungle was building roads designed by British engineers using the metric system and my second job included tunnels and subways, which were railroads underground.

"The professor I remember most is Max Parshall, the creator of the Parshall Flume in open channel flow. He was a truly interesting person and instructor from his complete derivation on the black board of every formula we ever used in hydraulics and other labs. In 1959 thru 1965 he was already famous for his work in the irrigation and open channel flow of liquids. He was really something to see in his vest and well-tailored suit fighting to keep the caulk off his very fine clothes."

Thanks to F.W. Smith

Samir Abdel-Rahman
M.S. 1991, Mechanical Engineering

"I remember the best days staying in Fort Collins especially at campus from August 1989 to August 1991. I got my M.S. from the mechanical dept in Fall 1991 and I came back to Egypt. I remember my advisors J. H. Davidson and F.W. Smith who helped me much. I got my Ph.D. in Egypt in 1998 in the field of fault detection and diagnosis of rotating machinery. I have published more than 35 papers in this field and supervised 10 graduate students in Egyptian universities. I learned much and got lots of experience from my study at CSU and I am indebted to my professor F.W. Smith. I wish him good luck and a pleasant life."

The different Drs. Parshall, Switzer, and Fead

Bob Riffenburgh
B.S. 1963, Civil Engineering

"The professors I remember most are threefold rather than just one. Those three are Drs. Parshall, Switzer, and Fead. My recollection of each of them is different for each. I attended CSU from 1960 to 1963 when I earned my BSCE.

"Dr. Max Parshall was nearing the end of his teaching career and seemed quite old to me at the time. His delivery in the classroom is what sticks with me the most. It was as if there was a teleprompter located at the line of the back wall and the ceiling of the classroom. His eyes focused on that point, hardly ever veering away to look at us, and he spieled off his lecture as though he was reading it. I had him for Hydrology and didn't realize the amount of information that he was imparting until I had to use it in practice designing storm drains at Long Beach, CA some years later. Dr. Max Parshall was the son of the inventor of the Parshall Flume and an extremely intelligent man.

"Dr. Herbert Switzer was my Static's teacher. I didn't before nor after have a professor that came across so clearly with his subject matter. He still had a bit of a German accent at the time but it wasn't his speech that was so clear but the subject. I believe that clearness assisted me throughout my engineering education. He taught me a great deal about the connectivity of the various engineering disciplines.

"Dr. William Fead was my favorite teacher. I think I had him for every structures class that I had from Timber Design to Steel Design to Concrete Design, and including Indeterminate Structures. He seemed somewhat aloof, yet he was always willing to help and answer your questions. He gave tests which were not unlike the registration test questions. They too were not direct and always made you think. His most outstanding quality was his ability to take complex matters and make them very practical.

"These professors each in their own unique way taught basic problem solving and provided me with an assortment of tools and an understanding of their use. With these tools and knowledge of their use I was set for a very satisfying career in Civil Engineering. I retired from the Port of Long Beach in November 2000 after 38 years of professional civil engineering, nearly all in design. I've been lucky enough to participate in the most exciting of work with the Port of Long Beach to the mundane of maintenance engineering with a Standard Oil Refinery; from the very high cost of elaborate marina developments to a low cost drainage repair. Each project bringing new challenges and new rewards, thanks in great detail to groundwork provided with the likes of Drs. Parshall, Switzer, and Fead.

A watery grave for the canoe

Rick Dorris
B.S. 1982, Civil Engineering

"I vividly remember sinking the concrete canoe in 'Ice Lake' at the Air Force Academy in March. Brrrrr! It was a cold swim back. Good thing we had plenty of anti-freeze on the inside. We had no place to store the canoe so the bottom of the lake seemed like a good place. Of course, it was green and yellow.

"I liked Jay Puckett for concrete design the best because he had written the class notes down on paper and copied them so we could buy them. This technique made sure we had accurate notes, enabled us to better follow the lecture, and we had time to ask better questions."

Dr. Paul Wilbur encouraged me in many ways

Donny Newsom
B.S. 2002, Mechanical Engineering

"The professor I remember most is Dr. Paul Wilbur. He encouraged me to take part in a leadership position with the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. As well as getting me involved in his Ion Thruster research and the Colorado Space Grant Consortium, he played a key role in getting myself and a team of five others together to participate in an unforgettable research experience on board NASA’s KC-135 'The Weightless Wonder.' Following that, Dr. Wilbur helped me in a decision to serve in the U.S. Navy as an engineering officer. This just names a few things he did outside the classroom!"

Every corner in the civil engineering department

Prof. Mohammed Y.Al-Ani
M.S. 1980, Civil Engineering

"When I was a student, I vividly remember every corner in the civil engineering department, and most the class I had in other departments like Microbiology, zoology, chemistry. And the most memorable – the ERC room or the lab where I built my model pilot plant.

"The professors I remember most are Dave Hendricks and Tom Sanders because my Dave was my adviser and Tom was active, willing to teach and gives many quizzes, and he informed you ahead of time. I follow the same procedure of teaching and quizzes as Tom. I like it."

Challenges, Rewards and Lessons Learned

Kathy (Rusin) East
B. S. 1979, Engineering Science

The challenges: being a clueless female student learning how to use the equipment in the machine shop, trying not to ask too many "stupid" questions.

The rewards: learned how to use industrial amounts of epoxy on cow bones (gee...haven't applied that skill for a while), learned how to arc weld, passed the class!

And the lessons learned: Never drop a drill bit near the floor drain. The drain acts like a black hole and the guy in charge of the machine shop asks you to not come back.

I Remember Those Days

Raul Pettai
B. S. 1953, Electrical Engineering

During my days at CSU, 1951 to 1953 (it was Colorado A & M then), the EE department was housed in the present-day Gibbons Building. There were few electronics courses and the EE curriculum emphasized power engineering. Hence, we had an elaborate electrical machinery lab on the ground floor, with all kinds of motors and generators. Sometime during the 1951/52 school year a dam burst somewhere west of the campus (sounds familiar?). The resulting deluge hit the lowest areas of the campus pretty hard. The water backed up behind the railroad embankment and the EE building as well as the (then) Student Union were under 3 1/2 feet of muddy water, including all our dynamos and other EE gear. There is a photo in the 1952 "Silver Spruce" showing guys playing pool in the Student Union, hip-deep in the water, the water level being even with the pool table, i.e. they played pool in the pool. When the flood receded, it took a lot of hosing to flush the mud out of the many machines. Still, much equipment was lost for keeps. I still remember the sorry display laid out on tables for the insurance to inspect.

A real big event in those days was the College Days (mid-May) with its colorful parade of floats. Among other things, everybody had to wear western garb. No exceptions! The "inspectors" combed even the Administration building. A big tub of water was set up on the oval and a "court" convened nearby. Those caught not properly dressed had three choices: (a) buy a piece of yellow rag for 25 cents; (b) buy a rodeo ticket for $1.25; or (c) get thrown into the tub!

Computers were unknown in my days. All calculating was done on the slide rule. A typical engineering slide rule was 12" long and cost somewhere around $25 - not cheap! Today's engineering students, armed with powerful computers, look down on that device, but there are calculations (taking ratios, for example) that can be performed much faster on the slide rule. Furthermore, its accuracy was well within the engineering requirements. The slide rule, in its leather case, was typically worn hanging from one’s belt. Well, one day one of my EE friends was late to class. As he raced through the building and rounded a corner, the dangling slide rule got caught between the ribs of the radiator. It broke cleanly in half.

Most Likely to Wear a Cowboy Hat

Loren L. Krueger
B.S. 1948, Civil Engineering

Max Parshall was probably my favorite professor. His domain was the hydraulics lab. One of the people who submitted memories of him stated that during his lectures he seemed to be reading a telemeter with his eyes on the wall near the ceiling. I do not remember him that way at all. He always interacted with us students in a very personal manner and was always open at any time to questions or arguments we might have. Of course, the fact that our classes in those days were only composed of 6 or 8 people might have had something to do with it.

The thing that impressed Max indelibly on my memory was his dress code. Most times he dressed informally with a large cowboy hat. Other times his wife sent him to school in a neat, clean, and unwrinkled suit (but always with the cowboy hat). When this happened, invariably by 11:00 AM the suit would be wrinkled and covered with cement dust and other debris from his hydraulic activities.

I am attaching two pictures; one of Max and the other of three of my friends in front of the Civil Engineering building. Note how proud we were of our slide rules in those days before electronic calculators.

Other Civil Engineering professors that I have fond memories of were Bob Lewis and Maury Albertson. I believe that my classes with Dr. Albertson were during his very early teaching career. Jack Cermac was a graduate student at the time.

Some of my student friends at the time were Gil Cory, Oliver Stoddard (he played football), Moe Bishard, Frank Myzwinski, George Fushigami, Ernesto Pierson (from Nicaragua), and Ernie Bowman (a Navajo Indian). George and Ernesto are in the picture in front of the CE building.

I retired from the State of California in 1987 after working for 39 years and supervising about two billion dollars worth of highway bridge construction. I continued to work for another 15 years as a consultant. Thank you for this opportunity to reminisce my very fond memories of Colorado A&M.

Outdated, but still useful!

Paul Worley
B. S. 1981, Electrical Engineering

Your request for memories of senior projects prompted me to open the reports I wrote for the EE 496 and EE 497 courses in the fall of 1980 and spring of 1981. It may come as a surprise to some of you that I still have these reports on my bookshelf but I've always saved them as a reminder of CSU and my experiences in the Department of Electrical Engineering.

My project, titled Color Graphics Display of Interactive Fourier Transform, would sound to most students today to be a 5 minute homework assignment using MATLAB on a personal computer; however, in 1980 the only color display available to a CSU EE student was attached to the computers used to study atmospheric (cloud) data in research being conducted for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In addition, my project preceded by a few years the wide availability of Personal Computers and was done at a time when the accepted language for engineering programs was Fortran.

Dr. Thomas Brubaker, my advisor, wanted a teaching tool that he could use to illustrate how the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) transformed digitally sampled signals into a frequency spectrum. In addition, he wanted a tool to illustrate the frequency spectrums of common signals like square waves and triangle waves in an interactive environment for his students.

In order to document the project, I spent one late night in the computer lab with a camera and slide film in order to capture images of the displays for my final presentation. Today, the captured images would be imported to PowerPoint; capabilities and applications that didn't exist at the time.

As I said earlier, the program and subroutines I wrote for this project seem simple today in a world of MATLAB and personal computers; however, the insight I received from this project served me well in a career performing acoustic signal processing and analysis for the US Navy.

A change of perspective...

Larry Ellis
B.S. 1981, Electrical Engineering

My senior year in 1981 as an EE student, I had a Design Project to implement a Kalman Filter on an 8086 processor. It was very rewarding, and I still remember with fondness not so much the actual project, but the relationship I had with my sponsoring professor, Dr. Dan Muldavan. I worked hard and spent many hours in the lab working with a clunky development system and progress was slow. When I got stuck though, Dr. Moldavan came in to the lab with me and worked side by side. On one particular Saturday, he came in early and left late with me, and I remember leaving thatnight with a different view of my professor. He had treated me as a peer and it left me wondering if I would experience the same thing in my professional career.

I am now in the position of the mentor with the experience and confidence, and still remember to this day how much it meant to me to be treated not as a student, but as a colleague working on a problem together.

Thanks for letting me share.

Dr. Rakow starting my sushi habit

Hugh Graham
M.S. 1992, Ph.D. 1998, Chemical Engineering

"I vividly and fondly remember the Colorado Bioprocessing Center and the staff, students, and academics that made it a fun, interesting and challenging place to work and in which to do my graduate research. Many people who worked there are spread throughout the small world of biotechnology, several of us in the San Francisco bay area. And, I often think of Professor Allen Rakow who was a great source of advice and encouragement, and who is greatly missed on this planet. I also credit him for starting my sushi habit!"

From Dr. Corrin to gas shortages

Don Janssen
M.S. 1975, Atmospheric Science

When I was a student, I vividly remember:

• Colorful, loyal, energetic, and supportive friends in graduate school
Group/team learning; we were successful if we all succeeded; the point was learning, not competition for GPA
• College Days and Mud Football
• Laughing hilariously while listening to Firesign Theater records
• Professor Lewis Grant who reminded me of my father—Lew was a farmer too, only he happened to be an Atmospheric Scientist as well.
• Awful football team, but we still had fun at the games
• Summer research project on Chalk Mountain near Leadville
• Dr. Bob Knoellenberg making electronics and instrumentation understandable and fun (well almost fun)
• Gas shortages; Kelvin abandoning his car in Denver because he couldn't get any gas
• A comfortable community – CSU and Ft Collins
• Meeting my wife and getting married

The professor I remember most is Dr. Myron Corrin, Atmospheric Chemistry, Atmospheric Science Department, during my time there from 1972-1974 because of many reasons:

• Great teacher. Could make the complex principles of Physical Chemistry understandable. Great teaching methods. Would walk you through a problem step by step letting you figure it out with gentle hints if you were off the path. "Mr. Janssen, to the chalk board," was not a request to be feared.
• Interesting grading philosophy. To paraphrase from his introduction to Atmospheric Chemistry 720 or some such level course, "I'm teaching this course, I'll give you the grade I think you deserve."
  Drove the grade freaks crazy.
  Great sense of humor with a touch of sarcasm (similar to me I suspect):
  Dr Corrin: "What statistics courses are you taking Don?"
  Don: "Statistics 101 and Statistics 401."
  Dr Corrin: "Why are you taking Stat 101? That's statistics for biological idiots!"
  Dr Corrin's secretary: "Dr Corrin! That's an awful thing to say."
  Dr Corrin: "You're right. Stat 101 is for biologically inclined idiots."
  (OK, he was a little arrogant, and certainly not PC – but I suppose I'm not either.)
• And who could forget his lectures where he would constantly forget which hand held the chalk and which hand held the cigarette – chalk covered lips were his trademark. Sadly, the cigarette was probably one factor is his relatively early passing.

Pulling all nighters

Humberto Gallegos
M.S. 2001, Civil Engineering

"When I was a student, I vividly remember pulling all nighters in the engineering computer room working on my assignments.

"The professor I remember most is Dr. Pierre Julien because of his challenging homework assignments and his friendly attitude."

Dinner with Dr. Churchill was an A+

James Hause
B.S. 1979, Electrical Engineering

"When I was a student, I vividly remember College Days my freshman year, and the greased pole climbing contest.

"The professor I remember most is Dr. Churchill because he knew I was having trouble learning in his class, he invited me to his home, his wife cooked dinner, and then he worked with me to understand. I went from failing the class to getting a B+. He had unique what to get me to understand."

48+ hours straight on the FSAE car

Canaan M. Manley
B.S. 1999. Mechanical Engineering

"When I was a student, I vividly remember staying up late to study for exams in Heat & Mass Transfer and working 48+ hours straight on the FSAE car to prepare it for the student competition in Detroit in 1999. Late nights we had to work through the night to sand the body of the composite body and then later in the year we had to work through the night to build the engines for the race car.

"The professor I remember most is Dr. Don Radford because he taught me how to see the whole picture of a project. I was leader over Engine Development as a senior for the FSAE project in 98-99 and Dr. Radford was able to help me see the whole car as a project and be able to lead my group and help the team fit the car together within the time and budget we had available. This project development helped me later after graduation as an engineer working for automotive suppliers and then starting with Nissan North America. I now work day to day on vehicle production and future model development which I learned the insight to manage from the FSAE program."

Rumors of broken bones

Oliver E. Watts
B.S. 1962, Civil Engineering

"When I was a student I vividly remember the Physics experiments conducted by Dr. Weber and Dr. Hadley in the engineering auditorium, which was then brand new, in the fall of 1957. They had several fascinating experiments – spinning students on a piano stool, hitting the end of a line of students and watching momentum affect the one on the other end, matching the fall of a plate with the trajectory of a projectile from a blowgun, and similar others. We heard rumors of broken bones and other injuries. I also came very close to getting shot in the head with a 0.22 caliber bullet when we measured the velocity in the student lab class. A block of wood was placed over the muzzle of the rifle, which was then shot vertically. A student would stand alongside and read the height the block reached on a survey rod on the other side of the gun. We would measure the block without and with the bullet and compute the velocity of the bullet. In my case, the block tipped just as the gun discharged, and the bullet went out of the side of the block and into the ceiling. The path was just above the level of my head as we later judged it.

"The professor I remember most is Max Parshall, who taught us surveying and a water testing laboratory. He filled the blackboards in the room with the derivations of the celestial observation formulas. He also assisted me and one of classmates in determining the alcohol content of some of our home brew, and invited us into his home to sample several of his homemade wines. He would drink perhaps one glass a year with Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. We never came close to matching his talents and eventually destroyed our efforts, as our containers begin to explode. We did not do an adequate job of decanting them. The taste also fell fall short of expectations."

Remembering folk dancers

Mirkhalegh Z. Ahmadi
M.S. 1976, Agricultural Engineering

"I was at CSU 1974-1976, and I remember Bill Graham as a foreign advisor. Several girls and boys were folk dancing. I miss all those girls.

"My major professor was Arthur T. Corey, and I liked him like my father."

Barefoot everywhere

David Ng
M.S. 1993, Mechanical Engineering

"When I was a student, I remember going barefoot everywhere on campus – library, student center, classrooms, fields, etc. during summertime and it was just relaxing and fun."

A great team

Sabyasachi Patnaik
M.S. 1988, Chemical Engineering

"When I was a student, doing my M.S. at the Dept of Ag and ChemE from 1985-1988, I vividly remember what a great team the batch was made of – studious, fun loving, sincere, excellent camaraderie amongst the group. And now when I look back, I really want to compliment the batch mates who belonged to the US of A - they always made us feel at home and with genuine love and respect for each other - a rarity in today's world. The office staff were wonderful and their warmth made the world a cozy place. The faculty were fantastic, erudite, and were always there to guide and help us grow. People, that's what makes my memories so beautiful.

"The Professor I remember most, obviously was my guide, Professor Terry G. Lenz. He was such a gracious person and right from day one, he took me under his wing and really was a source of inspiration. His understanding of thermodynamics, one of the most difficult subjects, was simply amazing.

"The couple of years I spent at CSU, is probably one of my best phases of my life and I am glad, God gave me that experience."

A model teacher

Tara M. Ruttley
B.S. 1998, Biological Science, M.S. 2000, Mechanical Engineering

"The professor I remember most is Mark Frasier because of his love for teaching human anatomy to students. He made the entire experience an awesome and respectful learning experience of the human body. Because of him, I have had aspirations to be a teacher. To be able to transfer that amount of energy to students year after year is a great attribute. You could tell he loved his job."

The One Question

Victor Miguel Ponce
M.S. 1970, Ph.D. 1976, Civil Engineering

"During my college days at Colorado State University in the mid-seventies, the Hydraulics graduate students at the Engineering Research Center were well aware of what it took to conquer the hurdles. Professor Daryl Simons had a reputation for toughness; however, he always asked the same question on the preliminary exam:

"If you drop a spherical particle in a flask full of water, what is the velocity distribution in the space between the particle and the inner wall of the flask?"

"Everybody knew the answer, and Professor Simons invariably started every prelim exam with the famous question. One day, a student worked up some courage, and asked him: "Professor Simons, you always ask the same question on the prelim. Everybody knows the answer. Why?"

Simons responded with a smile, "It's simple. Whoever does not know the answer, I flunk him."

Hanging out in the ME lounge

Connie S. Dinning
B.S. 1980, Mechanical Engineering

"When I was a student, I vividly remember hanging out in the ME lounge. As a freshman, I was terrified of the place, I loved to go to the ME shop where Bob would help me with welding and using the circular saw, etc. But the lounge was a scary place where the upper classmen hung out. The next year, I gathered enough courage to go in the ME lounge. It didn't take long to get to know everyone, to find study partners, and friends. Eventually I got involved in ASME and became president of the student chapter because of the people I met hanging out in the lounge. These days, I'd call it networking, but back then, it was just hangin' out.

"The professor I remember most is Dr. Haberstroh because he was terrifying at first. He would talk so fast, and I couldn't understand what he was saying. He would erase almost as fast as he wrote on the board, but after a class or two, I got to know him and he was fascinating and concerned and completely fired up about his subjects. But, the sweetest and most helpful and wonderful professor was Dr. Wilbur."

Volunteering to build a circuit

Gordon Miller
B.S. 1982, Electrical Engineering

"The professor I remember most is Dr. Aram Budak. I first met him when I was sent to get his approval to change my major to Electrical Engineering. He asked me why I was interested in changing majors, accepted my answer, and approved the transfer. He was far more intimidating as an instructor. He knew his stuff and didn't tolerate sloppiness or laziness. His amazing magic marker board was capable of solving most tough homework problems.

"I vividly remember impulsively volunteering to build a circuit that Dr. Budak proposed in lecture but had not built. It was an oscillator based on a bandstop filter. His theory worked, it oscillated at the bandstop frequency but also every harmonic. I wasted an enormous amount of lab time trying to use it for a lab project. Only through his kindness was I able to repair the lab project and achieve a passing score."

Is there a rod up there?

R. D. (Bob) von Bernuth
B.S. 1968, Agricultural Engineering

"When I was a student, I vividly remember Professor Max Parshall looking over his octagonal glasses while leaning over my shoulder as I sighted through a level pointed to the roof of the Theta house and saying, "Son, is there a rod up there?" It was spring quarter 1966 in Civil Engineering Surveying."

Wonderful, Isn't It?

Bill McCarty
B.S. 1954, Electrical Engineering

"My vivid memory is the freshman class of Engineering Physics with Dr. Webber, 'It's Really Wonderful, Isn't It?'"

Playing a few rounds in Thailand

Joe Motheral
B.S. 1958, Civil Engineering

"The professor I remember most was Colonel Collins who taught steel and concrete structural design. His practical knowledge and way of presenting it made an indelible imprint. I also remember Milt Bender who later became head of the C.E. Department. Even more memorable was encountering him in Bangkok, Thailand, when we went on a two-year engineering assignment in 1962 to build the Bangkok-Saraburi Highway. He had been made president of SEATO Graduate School in Bangkok. He started playing golf then. And we played some rounds together."

Necktie drawn circles

Gordon Johnson
B.S. 1948, Mechanical Engineering

"In 1946, many students were returning veterans that were more mature, and more anxious and demanding of instruction. Our professors were surprised and happy to accept the challenge.

"Mechanical Engineering Professor Scofield was formal at first, but showed a sense of humor by using his necktie to draw circles on the blackboard in machine design – without taking it off. He even attended our picnics at City Park. We all enjoyed him for his hidden wit.

"It was a peaceful and tranquil time after the war, especially walking across the Oval on an early morning in June. The grass was velvet green, the trees all leafed out, the campus was quiet – true serenity."

Throwing the Mud Bowl

Steve Nikkel
B.S. 1974, Civil Engineering

"When I was a student, I vividly remember playing in the mud bowl during the spring college days. It was fun for the first 30 minutes, but it was cold enough that we intentionally fumbled the football to the other team so we wouldn't have to play another game.

"Also, I remember climbing to the top of Longs Peak with a group of civil engineering students and professors to measure the distance from the top of the mountain to the student center using a newly acquired electronic measuring device. As I remember, it was about 34.2 miles."

Flood waters ripping through my bedroom

Matthew Mpitapita
M.S. 2001, Agricultural Engineering

"We were three African students arriving from Malawi for the first time in the United States. It snowed heavily, we felt very cold and I remember staying indoors and missing orientation as we could not stand the weather. Later it rained heavily and there was the flood of Fort Collins (1998 if I am not mistaken) and I remember flood waters ripping through my bedroom. I had to get out of the apartment through the window.

"The professor I remember most is Dr. Terry Podmore. He was everything to us and treated us a father and mentor. Through his patience and guidance, I am now an aid worker assisting internal displaced persons in Darfur, Sudan."

Stuffing that basketball

Kevin Lehigh
B.S. 1975, Engineering Science

"I vividly remember Bob Leach and I trying to convince Bill Kitamura about Dr. Sadeh's ability to stuff a basketball when we were juniors sitting in our CE201 class."