"My introduction to geology was from Jean Metzler and Dick Uthe at the ֱ State Stark campus in the fall quarter of 1970. Soon I was on the ֱ campus taking Mineralogy with X-Ray Ernie, aka Professor Carlson. The professors that influenced me the most were Dr Manus and Dr Heimlich. I had a work study job with Dr. Manus and was his field assistant on a consulting job. Dr. Heimlich took us on field trips; the salt mines below Lake Erie, North Carolina, coal fields near Cadiz, and of course Bancroft, Ontario. These were the formative years that shaped my career. Geology at KSU was extremely rigorous and I am thankful for that. Later, getting my Masters at Rice University, I found myself competing with students who came from MIT, Stanford, Franklin and Marshall, Columbia, Kansas, Texas A&M and so forth. Thanks to the geology department at ֱ State, I could hold my own. After getting my MS, I returned to Ohio to get my PhD at Ohio State in the area of geo-chronology.
"My first and only “real” job was at the University of Maine. Throughout my career I taught courses in petrology and isotope geochemistry and many introductory classes. My research career blossomed. I published over 70 referred papers in prestigious journals including Science and Nature, served as an associate editor of the Geological Society of America Bulletin, reviewed many papers and NSF grant proposals, and received grants from NSF.
In 2015, after 34 years at the University of Maine, I retired and moved back to Ohio, settling in Wooster. Daniel Holm asked me to teach an En-vironmental Geology section at ֱ Stark in fall 2015. My career had come full circle. I taught for three more semesters, some at Stark and some in ֱ. What a thrill it was to teach in McGilvery Hall in the same rooms where I had been a student. The last course I taught was Petrology in the spring of 2017, 45 years after I had had that same course from Dr Heimlich. It was a group of 25 bright and motivated students, a great way to finish my career. I’m honored to receive the Department of Earth Sciences 2024 Distinguished Alumni Award. But more importantly I’d like to thank all of the great professors at the Department of Geology in the early 1970s who got me off to a strong start in my career in geology."