The Early Days of CAMP
Recollections on the 20th anniversary of the founding of
the Center for Advanced Materials Processing at Clarkson University
These are my memories, and as with most memories they are incomplete
and will not always agree with the memories of others.
When I came to Clarkson in 1975, I had a dream to someday found a
materials center here. I was busy doing
other things for 10 years, but in the mid 1980s IBM announced a competition for
funding to initiate a materials center at a university. We decided to compete. Jerrier (Jerry) Haddad,
a senior vice president at IBM and Clarkson trustee, advised me to prominently
mention our colloid chemistry activities, particularly those of Egon Matijevic,
because these were widely known. The
Institute of Colloid and Surface Science was Clarkson’s principle claim to fame
in those days, with an annual report that was widely circulated around the
world. In spite of being advised that “this was a waste of time because
Clarkson wasn’t big enough to compete,” in 1985 we received a grant of $12,000
from IBM for “Materials Processing Preparation.” We were off and running. In 1986 I resigned as chair of chemical
engineering and was allowed to work full time on developing a materials center,
with the encouragement and assistance of the Clarkson administration. (One of the happiest times of my
career.) Dick Johnson and Mary Lynne
Pfeifer in our Development Office arranged trips to various NY-based companies
to solicit their support. Behind the
scenes, the trustees were doing a lot to help.
At a Colloid Institute meeting in the tiered “UN room” in Clarkson Hall,
I described this effort to the assembled faculty members. Milt Kerker said that “You know, don’t you,
that the administration is using you.” I
replied that “Gee, I thought I was using the administration.”
Clarkson Vice President Tom Williamson led a
lobbying effort to add Clarkson to the New York State universities receiving
$1million per year from the State for Centers for Advanced Technology (CATs),
which aimed to use science and technology for economic development. (I still don’t know if this was Tom’s idea or
that of President Alan Clark.) It was my
privilege to accompany Tom on some of his frequent trips to Albany, meeting
with people in Governor Mario Cuomo’s administration, with legislators, and
with their staff. It was amazing to hear
Tom describe the great contributions that could be made by the state-of-the-art
cutting-edge technology available at Clarkson.
Amazing because Tom had a law degree and had been hired by Clarkson
primarily for public relations. I knew
he didn’t really understand the technology, but he was quite convincing
nonetheless. He succeeded, and was named
“Rookie of the Year” by the Albany lobbyist organization. (He later hired Rob Wood to continue lobbying
in Albany.)
Tom’s efforts led to enabling legislation
aimed at a CAT for “materials -- colloid and surface science,” knowing that
this would practically guarantee Clarkson would win any competition. (At the same time, Alfred was included via
another CAT that would be aimed at ceramics, their historic strength.) The first concrete manifestation of Tom’s
success was a grant of $400,000 in early 1987 through the New
York State Science and Technology Foundation for “Planning and
Program Development of a Center for Advanced Technology.” We used this to purchase some key equipment,
work on a proposal for a CAT, and meet with key New York based companies, such
as Corning, Kodak, Xerox, IBM, GE. I
vividly recall sitting on the couch in Tom’s office in old Snell Hall with
Graham Jones, the head of the NY Science and Technology Foundation, who said we
needed a catchy name, preferably with an easy-to-remember acronym. At some point, I said “This would be funny;
the Center for Advanced Materials Processing -- CAMP.” We never managed to come up with anything
better.
At the same time all of this was going on, Fred Carlson and I also began participating in an
effort to gain a Center for the Commercial Development of Space (CCDS) for New
York from NASA, in a second round of competitions. Grumman Aerospace in Bethpage was encouraging
this effort, which would be led by Brookhaven National Laboratory, also on Long
Island. The emphasis would be on
crystal growth, which was my long-time specialty and something Fred had been
working on in recent years. RPI, WPI and
Clarkson were asked to participate, with Grumman, Westinghouse, Boeing, and
Rockwell interested in supporting such a CCDS.
However, at a meeting on Long Island attended by Fred, it was announced
that NASA would not allow national laboratories to head CCDS’s. Since this was to be a New York State
program, development of a proposal and any resulting center would instead have
to be led either by RPI or by Clarkson.
The representatives from RPI said that if Clarkson wanted it, we could
have it (probably thinking that the time was so short that it was
hopeless). We decided to give it a
try. Grumman turned over their amazing
proposal preparation center to us, including personnel to type, edit, prepare
graphics, print, bind and mail the final document. From Grumman’s center, over the phone I
dictated a support letter from Vincent Tese, Cuomo’s head of economic
development, promising $200,000 per year (which presumably would come from the
$1 million that Clarkson would receive for a CAT, if indeed we got one). Much to our delight and surprise, we
succeeded and received our first $1 million from NASA in 1986 for our
Consortium for Commercial Crystal Growth in Space. Over the years, most of this money was spent
on subcontracts to the other CCDS members.
Meanwhile, we were preparing the enormous
amount of paperwork required by NY for a CAT proposal. Several other well-known NY universities
contacted us to see if we planned to submit a proposal. When they were told we were, they decided not
even to try. Tom’s strategy of wiring
the CAT to “materials -- colloid and surface science,” had succeeded. Each copy of our proposal was about 2-feet
high, consisting mostly of reprints of recent faculty publications but with
huge tabulations of data, goals, objectives, etc. (That’s when I learned the difference between
goals and objectives.) The many copies required
were assembled with lots of help in the old Snell Hall Board room and the
adjacent President’s office. These
filled a van that Helen Chapple and her son drove to Albany the next day to
meet the deadline!
When Science and Tech “decided” to fund our
CAT, we were called to Albany to talk to the officials at the Science and Technology
Foundation about how the CAT would be managed.
That meeting was when I first learned that government bureaucracies are
not thrilled when something is imposed on them by a legislature or by congress. They were even less pleased to learn that $200,000
of the $1million had already been committed to our NASA CCDS. We
promised that this would be spent only for research at Clarkson and that
it would be reduced by $20,000 per year.
While it lasted, several professors benefited from this and other CCDS
funding, including Fred Carlson, Dary Aidun, John Moosbrugger, Dave Morrison, Iqbal
Chaudhry, and Liya Regel.
Our first $1 million for CAMP operations
was received in 1987. Later that year, I
was appointed Dean of Engineering.
Another part of Tom Williamson’s achievement was funding for the CAMP
building; $13.5 million as a grant, and $10 million as a 30-year no-interest
loan, all to be managed by the Urban Development Corporation in NY City. So planning began for the building. An experienced construction engineer, Dick
Parsons, was hired to oversee the planning and construction of both the CAMP
building and the Cheel student center.
These were major efforts, with input from President Richard Gallagher,
the trustees, the faculty, and myself.
With the CAT funding assured, we began
searching for an Associate Director for CAMP.
Preferably someone with industrial experience and the right personality
to build corporate involvement, including a willingness to travel. This was not simple, and we were extremely
fortunate to find Ed McNamara, who was an Alfred ceramic engineer with many
years of experience in the ceramics, refractories and abrasives industry. Ed and I shared three small offices in Old
Main with two secretaries.
In the review of CAMP by the Science and
Technology Foundation in 1990, President Gallagher and I were
told that it was an unacceptable conflict of interest for me to be CAMP
Director while also serving as Dean and head of our NASA CCDS. Dick decided it was time to recruit a new
CAMP Director, and so Ray McKay took over the summer of 1991 as we were moving
into the new CAMP building. (It has
caused no end of confusion for the Center and the building to carry the same
name, but that stemmed from the way it was all sold by Tom and written into the
legislation.)
The belief in manufacturing in space gradually evaporated after the
Challenger explosion in 1986. Finally,
NASA terminated most of the CCDS’s, including ours, in 1995. I resigned as dean the following year. At a party arranged by President Denny Brown,
I commented that “I’m glad I did it, and I’m glad I quit.” A major source of satisfaction in all my
management jobs at Clarkson has been helping other faculty members succeed,
particularly the young professors. But
as my thesis adviser from Berkeley said many years ago, “The best job at a
university is full professor – period.”
October 14, 2007