Alumni Comunications

Les Morris, 1968

Oct. 4, 1996

I am presently a geophyscist at the National Geophysical Data Center in Boulder, CO. I work with processing geomagnetic data and making it available on the WWW via the NGDC site. The address is www.ngdc.noaa.gov. I have done graduate work in geophysics at the University of Colorado. I was back at Muskingum for my classes 25th reunion but there was not much activity at the Geology Dept. in the summer of 1993. I have been in Colorado since 1971 so pretty much like a native enjoying golf and downhill skiing.

Susan and Robert Johnson, 1971 and 1969

March 9, 1999

e-mail: edgeh2o@ix.netcom.com

My husband and I were geology majors at Muskingum: Robert as a member of the class of '69 and me as a member of the class of '71. We were curious if you happened to have an e-mail address for Charlie Frye? Any e-mail address for Sam Tuthill? If you have either one, thank you! I know that our paths didn't cross yours while we were at Muskingum but we certainly knew Jack Kovach. Please give him our regards. Also, he might like to know that our two kids are both tending Bucknell University. Our daughter, Adrienne, is a junior this year and is (believe it or not) earning her B.S. in geology! Guess all those family vacations and rock collecting expeditions rubbed off on her! Such deja vu! She is a structural geologist and is going to be visiting Yucca Mountain with the Bucknell civil engineers in a few weeks -- she is thrilled! She also has to decide in the next few days between attending summer field camp with Indiana U or U Penn. I believe Indiana is going
to win out. Our son, Brian, is a freshman studying mechanical engineering and is toying with the idea of a biomedical focus in grad school. Geology didn't captivate him like it did Adrienne but he is excited about his course of study. Hope all is going well for geology at Muskingum. As Adrienne shares thoughts and comments about her courses with us, we are always reminded of our years at MC!

Meanwhile, our daughter, Adrienne, has decided to attend Indiana's summer field camp -- guess their reputation is topnotch and they are also noted to be tough. Should be an interesting experience for her in so many different ways. THanks for taking the time to write back -- we may stop in this summer when we bring ADrienne home from field camp (it's en route on interstate 70).

Matt Eaton, 1982

April 22, 2000

Greetings from Southern California. I hope all is well at Muskingum and in the Geology Department. I've recently been charged with the task of finding a proper home for an interesting mineral collection that was accumulated by a local geologist, mostly during the 1940's and 1950's. After my review, I have concluded this is no ordinary collection and it would be best suited in an academic and/or display type setting. Remembering my Muskingum College Geology Department roots, I thought I would first contact you to see if you have an interest in acquiring this interesting collection.

The Collection: Consists of a 100 - 200 hand specimens of a variety of plutonic and metamorphic rock types (many are cut and some are cut and polished) including many geodes and petrified wood. The mineralogy is diverse, mostly silicate minerals (but some non-silicates). The specimens were originally meticulously cataloged and identified, but the listing has since been lost (see below).

The Story (briefly): The specimens were collected throughout the western US from the 1940s through the 1960s by a gentleman named William Mills of Riverside, CA. Mr. Mills passed away in the 1970s and the mineral collection was passed on to his granddaughter (Mrs. Beverly Pusatera). Mrs. Pusatera has kept the "boxes of rocks" since then. Knowing I am a geologist and that I would appreciate the "rocks" she has given them to me in hopes I could find an appropriate home.

So, if the MC Geology Department is interested, I would be happy to donate them to the Department. Please let me know via email when you
get a chance. I can be reached during the day at (949) 727-7395.

Regards,

Matt Eaton (email: meaton@trcesi.com)

Rex McLain, 1984

Eric,

Do you have any e-mail address for any Geology graduates from classes '81 through '86. I was an '84 grad and having moved to Texas 11 years ago I've lost touch with alot of old friends. Any help would be appreciated!

Tell Dr. Kovach I said "Hello".

Regards,

Rex McLain III
Enterprise New Product Planner - Compaq GSO
First Mate Team Afishinado
Phone: 281-514-3834
Fax: 713-927-2568
E-mail: rex.mclain@compaq.com

William Adams, Class of 1987

May, 1998

... I received an AWARD today from the entire Ohio Retail District of Shell Oil Products Company. It's called the "1997 Ohio District Pace Setter Award". It recognizes outstanding achievement in setting the pace in all aspects of gasoline marketing excellence. This award is being presented to me for my contribution to the success of the district. How about that? It could not have been received at a better time. My annual review date is 25 March. I'm crossing my fingers but not holding my breath.

(Note by Eric Law: message to Bill can be directed to padams@muskingum.edu)

Eric Caldwell, 1992

Hello Dr. Law! By now I'm sure you are well into the semester but I could not remember whether you or Dr. Kovach would be on sabatical in the fall. Things are going great here in sunny CA. I'm still working at the USGS, getting lots of publications out. Right now I am co-editing a text book on Isotope Hydrology with another colleague. It should be ready to go to the publisher next month. I decided not to return to Berkeley this semester for my Ph.D. due to conflicts with my advisor (plus my bank account was getting dangerously low). So how is the situation at Muskingum? Is Dr. Kovach going to retire soon? Did you find someone to teach his (and your) classes while being gone? I am still interested in coming back to Muskingum to teach. But how critical is it to have my Ph.D. first? I would only come back if it was a full-time (tenure-track) position. I would also probably try to finish my Ph.D. while back in Ohio as well (if required by Muskingum to teach). I will be flying back to Ohio on October 8-13. If you are around during that time, I would like to stop in and visit. I just got back from vacation with John Pearch. We drove from San Francisco up to Mount St. Helens, WA for 5 days. We stopped at all the National Parks and Volcanic Monuments between here and there, and then camped along the Columbia River Gorge in OR/WA. We bought you a postcard, but we never had time to send it. John just started his Master's at Oregon State University. Talk to you soon... Eric A. Caldwell Isotope Hydrologist U.S. Geological Survey 345 Middlefield Rd. MS 434 Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 329-4523 FAX: (415) 329-5590

Daniel Grime, 1994

E-mail: dl_grime@noacsc.ohio.gov

Feb 27, 1999

Here is some more information. I still teach and coach in Delphos Ohio at Jefferson Senior high. I teach Physics, Chemistry, and Physical Science I coach Football, Basketball, and Baseball I advise the Soph class and the Science Club. We recently took 4th at a local JETS TEAMS contest, engineering contest. This mostly keeps me busy. I wish that I had more time to travel and teach geology, but this is how it is.

Feb. 1, 1996

JUST WANTED TO SEND YOU A MESSAGE AND SAY HELLO.

I NOW HAVE AN EMAIL ACCOUNT AT THE SCHOOL AT WHICH I AM TEACHING. THINGS ARE GOING VERY WELL FOR ME AT DELPHOS JEFFERSON HIGH SCHOOL. ABOUT THE ONLY BAD THING IS THAT I HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO TEACH ANY GEOLOGY OR EARTH SCIENCE, BUT WE ARE CHANGING THE CURRICULUM AND HOPEFULLY WE CAN INCORPORATE SOME OF THE GEO-SCIENCES

John Pearch, Class of 1995

August 31, 2000

Just thought I would let everyone know that I just got a job with the Washington State Dept. of Transportation in Olympia, WA. I'll be working on Sediment and Erosion Control at construction sites all over Washington. I will be moving to Olympia sometime before Sept. 18 but will let you know what my new address is then.

July 6, 2000

"Relationships between landscape stability, clay mineralogy and stream turbidity in the South Santiam Watershed, Western Cascades, Oregon". Just thought I would let you all know, I passed my Masters thesis defense last week. I will be working out at Newport with the EPA this summer but will probably be still living here in Corvallis. Got some good runs and climbs planned for the summer as well.

For those of you outside of the immediated area of the Willamette Valley, please let me know if your in the area.

Jan. 16, 1997

How is everything going there at Muskingum. I have been extended another 9 months as a Hydrology Associate with the Bureau of Land Management in Roseburg, Oregon. I am currently doing road decommissioning and culvert surveys which both have some application to the recent flooding that occured the last two months. I will also be doing riparian and stream surveys this summer which is a contiunation of the surveys I did last summer. I am also volunteering up at Crater Lake National Park on the ski patrol once a month.

If any students are interested in an internship with a federal agency I can send them information on the Environmental Careers Organization that I am apart of currently. Or they can visit their web site at: http://www.eco.org My homepage address is: http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/9613

I am still waiting to here from Oregon State University. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Dec. 3, 1996

If you or any students have any questions please let me know and I can try to be helpful in there job hunt. My new email address is: jpearch@wanweb.net

Gregory Druschel, Class of 1995

October 1997

... I will probably be at next year's (GSA) as well though, and maybe the next Goldschmidt conference in Tolouse. I have decided to continue my education towards a Ph.D. immediately after finishing here. I am hoping to stay here for another semester to TA and take a class - I need to take Differential Equations again, I did not do nearly well enough the first time, and have found it to be critical to the long-term work I am interested in (emphasize this to current students as you see fit). I have been in touch with professors at a couple different schools who have tentatively offered me research assistantships - at SUNY Stony Brook and Virginia Tech. I am also talking to people at Dartmouth, University of Minnesota, and University of Idaho about projects and funding. I will be looking into work at Penn State, Ohio State, and Yale at GSA - trying to keep my options open and making sure I am in the right place doing something I am interested in. Most of the projects I am considering are in the areas of heavy metal/ radionuclide chemistry - sorption, complexation, partition coefficient work and subsequent transport mechanisms and modeling water/rock interaction. In a more applied setting I have been looking into studying Acid Mine Drainage systems, Yucca Mountain research, and some pyrite, silica sorption, kinetic, partitioning studies. It is all quite interesting, I will let you know when I decide on a school and project.

August 1997

... I am presenting my thesis material at GSA in Salt Lake City this year, it will be in the Tuesday (October 21) moring poster session. The title is: the chemistry of geothermal springs in the Idaho Batholith. Let me know if you plan on attending the meeting this year, perhaps we could get together for lunch or something. In update, the thesis is coming along, albeit slower than I would like, and I am still trying to finish this semester, although I have a bad feeling that will not happen. Learning, using, screwing up, and redoing computer simulation work has taken up a tremendous amount of time with little to show for it with the possible exception that I now know how to use a few programs that are user-hostile. I am TAing again this semester as well as working part time as a lab jockey doing somw work with kinetic experiments on t-DCE degredation with zero-valent iron. I am finished with classwork, so pretty much all I do is thesis and work related - which has been fun, even if frustrating from time to time.

druschel@wsunix.wsu.edu

Phil Vasil (2000)

July 8, 2000

Hi, I was wondering how your summer is going? I started a new job and thought I might let you know. I began working at Envisage Environmental Inc. a couple weeks ago. So far I'm being trained in Industrial hygiene, smoke stack allowable emissions and waste water monitoring. It coincides with EPA and OSHA standards. The company facility is located in Brecksville and is near the Cuyahoga Natl. reserve, Where a lot of testing takes place at the Cuyahoga River, and surrounding inner and outer belt of Cleveland. I'm glad to be working in the environmental field and I'm also stunned at some of the places I have visited. I have lived in
Cleveland all my life but never fully realized the Industrial impact it has had until I have been to the sites in person. I hope to be able to tell you more in the future as I get brought up to speed. I'm still kind of gimpy from the accident but the fellow employees at EEI are understanding and considerate. I being brought up to speed on many methods of testing and standards of regulation, I hope to be able to tell you more in the future. Well, I just wanted to let you know I became a working stiff and everything seems to be picking up. I hope everything is going good at Muskingum, have a good summer.

Nick Jordon (2000)

Septempber 21, 2000

I wanted to write you tell you a little about what I am doing at the current time. I used this past entire summer after graduation to find a job. I wanted to get into the waste management business, and I did... By the way, while interviewing for jobs, I referenced the research page with my senior research on it, and steveryone was impressed, Thank you for setting that up, it did help! I am working for a world-wide scale company in Brecksville, Ohio, just south of Cleveland, Ohio. The
company name is The IT Group Corporation. They have a web page: www.theitgroup.com Anyways, I am working on landfills in the north eastern and north central
parts of Ohio. I work particularly on Landfill Gas Collection and Extraction Systems. I am a Landfill Engineer Technician and I work on the systems that collect/extract the LFG (landfill gas) from the landfill and burn it off at a high temperature flare. Our company also sells the gas to area businesses for use, owever, only on the larger closed landfills, and none of mine, yet. I also do maintenance on the systems and help with other aspects and projects of the landfilling business. Our company also does work in landfill planning, design, engineering, and yes, site planning and investigation. I am hoping that with some hard work and some good career planning, I can get myself into a position like that. Oh, and by the way, almost everyone that I work with or that I would like to work with, is a Geologist!!! I feel like I can fit in a little with my background, thanks to yourself and Dr. Kovach. Oh well, I just wanted to write you. I hope that everything is going well for you, and I wish you the best for this school year. Take care, and I will stay in touch.