Comings & Goings

Laurent Levy and Sara Burr were married on October 6 in Cambridge. He is pursuing a PhD in geotechnical/geoenvironmental engineering with hopes of graduating in June 2002, and she works for Cambridge Energy Research Associate in Harvard Square.

Jonathan Rockwell and Cathy Castenson '00 (SM) were married on August 25th, 2001 in Coventry, RI. She writes, "I've enjoyed reading the updates in the newsletter...so I figured I should respond too."

Deaths

Trond Kaalstad '57 & '59 died on Nov. 23, 2001 at age 68. An integral and much beloved personality in the CEE Dept. for many years, he was the administrative officer from 1977 until he retired in 1996. He had also served as an administrator under the late Charlie Miller. In 1994, Mr. Kaalstad received the James N. Murphy Award, given to "employees whose contributions to the Institute family have won a place in the hearts of students."

Survivors include his wife Aud, three daughters, six grandchildren, and three brothers. Donations in his memory may be made to the CEE Dept. Trond Kaalstad Scholarship Fund, MIT Room 1-290, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139.

Hundreds of people packed into the MIT chapel for Trond's memorial service on Dec. 1, filling all the extra seats and spilling into the entryway. Accompanied by a steady background of gentle sniffling from the audience, family members and friends told stories and reminisced about some of Trond's outstanding traits-generosity, fairness, modesty, willingness to listen, ability to get things done, and great sense of empathy. He could procure parking passes and computers without overhead when MIT said it could not be done. Everyone remembered him greeting us in person or by phone as "The most honorable..."

Several eulogists brought up the contradiction of Trond's long struggle with heart disease since he was best described by great-hearted. No matter how busy he was, even with budget crunches or committee visits underway, he always had time to soothe students or deal with upset employees. "Nobody ever walked out of his office feeling that there was no time for them," reported one speaker. In a tribute to Charlie Miller in the Autumn 2000 CEE newsletter, Trond wrote, "Charlie was a fair and wonderful administrator of the Department. He was very protective of people who worked with him." That describes Trond as well.

Like many quiet, modest and very competent people, Trond branched out in surprising directions. Coworkers who knew him only when he was in frail health learned with surprise during the memorial service that he had been an accomplished ski jumper. He produced intricate needlework samplers in tiny neat stitches. Although not particularly partial to dogs, he kept a supply of dog biscuits at his house and greeted a steady set of canine visitors who seemed more interested in the social contact than merely acquiring food.

Government money and defense projects might seem completely integral to MIT, but before World War II, the federal contribution was actually much smaller. The MIT News Office describes the change in an obituary of retired Prof. F. Leroy Foster, a mining engineer who died on Dec. 31, 2001 at age 99.

Dr. Foster became the assistant director of the MIT Division of Industrial Cooperation (DIC) in 1939 when it was a four-person operation and managed 25 contracts worth $200,000. By 1944-45, it was administering 150 projects with a value of $40 million. The DIC budget that year was 13 times the operating income of the entire Institute in 1939, according to Professor John Burchard, MIT's wartime historian.

As director of DIC in 1955, Dr. Foster also took over the new Division of Sponsored Research (DSR) the next year. DIC was absorbed by DSR in 1956.

Dr. Foster is survived by a son, Alden '62, '64. '69 in CE, four grandsons, seven great-grandchildren, and a sister. His oldest son, Richard '54 (Electrical Engineering), died in 1995.

Back on campus for the Charles Ladd geotechnical symposium on Oct. 5, 2001, Samuel Paikowsky '89 (ScD) reported the death of Joseph Zeitlin '39 over a year ago in Israel. He said that Mr. Zeitlin had ended up at MIT thanks to a scholarship, and fell into civil engineering somewhat by default, given a lack of opportunities in business. During World War II, he carried out geotechnical work, and remained in the Army Corps of Engineers as head of the Geotechnical Lab. While other people decorated their offices with ornate college diplomas, Mr. Zeitlin hung up his draftsman's certificate above his desk, and watched to see how people treated him if they thought that was his highest academic achievement. After taking an assignment in Israel, he decided to remain in the country, and taught at the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology) in Tel Aviv almost until his death.

Celebrities

While their partners or spouses attended the Charles Ladd geotechnical symposium on Oct. 5, other family members toured Boston under the expert leadership of administrator and professional tour guide Cynthia Stewart. As they viewed the beautiful 125-year-old Trinity Church at Copley Square, Cynthia reports, "I had just made a reference to the former Trinity Church being on Summer St. near Filene's Basement when a man tapped me on the shoulder. It was Boston Mayor Tom Menino with a big TV camera looking over his shoulder. He smiled and told the group that he had bought his entire outfit in the Basement. As if that wasn't exciting enough, when I moved to the other end of Copley Square, all four blue men in costume from the Blue Man Group walked by. [All their exposed skin is painted a startling blue.] We said hello and they gave us that confused stare. It turned out Menino was giving a press conference-I think it is about encouraging tourism in Boston."

Across the street at the Boston Public Library, Cynthia led them to the Sargent Gallery on the third floor. "Prof. Bob Whitman's wife, Betsy, perked up when she saw a sign for the Charlotte S. Cushman Room. She said that Cushman was a relative of hers. We all agreed that Betsy was our final celebrity on the tour. I think I should hang up my walking shoes and retire. No other tour can ever complete with this one."

Publications

Nothing is simple once vast sums of money and politics become involved. Following the publication of his picture history of how Boston's Central Artery ripped up the city, Yanni Tsipis '01 has compiled a related history, Building the Mass Pike. This book is in a similar format to the Central Artery book, and chronicles the construction of the Massachusetts Turnpike from 1954-1965.

In the course of his research Yanni learned, "There are a number of relationships between the Turnpike project and CEE faculty past and present. The turnpike project took the home of Fred Salvucci's grandmother and uncle in Brighton in 1963, and he often cites that as a very influential event in his early career. [Eventually Salvucci '61 & '62 served as Mass. Secretary for Transportation and forcefully advocated the Big Dig project, which did not evict anyone.] Profs. A. Scheffer Lang and Martin Wohl published a report in the Wall Street Journal refuting the Turnpike Authority's traffic and revenue predictions just days before they tried to sell their bonds for the project in April of 1961. Nobody bought the bonds as a result, and the Turnpike began investigating and threatening Lang and Wohl, as well as the Department's state funding. It was a very nasty incident, and Prof. Lang recounted it to me at length."

The Turnpike was built in two sections, each costing around $230 million despite the huge disparity in length. From 1954-57, a segment of 123 miles was laid out from Rt. 128 in Weston (suburban Boston) to the NY border. Five years of planning, financing, protesting and negotiating passed before the final segment was constructed in 1962-65 from Weston to South Station in downtown Boston. This last stretch involved flattening hundreds of houses, stores, streets, and neighborhoods ranging from classic Back Bay row houses to turreted Victorian mansions and close-knit urban ethnic enclaves.

Yanni describes how Boston's mayor John Collins opposed the wholescale destruction and the governor, John Volpe, preferred that the road stop in Allston, on the edge of the city. However, the powerful Bill Callahan, chairman of Mass Turnpike Authority, and former head of public works during the construction of the Central Artery, favored the full length.

The decisive factor was the construction of the Prudential Tower, the first (and desperately needed) major development in decades in a genteelly decaying city. As a condition for locating on a wasteland of railroad yards, the Prudential developers insisted on an offramp to provide access for suburban commuters. Since the development was considered vital for the city's renewal, the Prudential's needs outweighed the protests by everyone about to be displaced, and the bulldozers were dispatched.