Alumni Notes

photos by David Karl

1949

The Oceanography Research Program at Florida State University began with the formation of an oceanographic institute directed by Duke University biologist, Professor Harold Humm. The institute brought together research faculty from the Departments of Biological Science, Chemistry, Geology, Meteorology, and Physics.

Three institute field stations were established at Alligator Point, Mayport, and Mullet Key.

1962

The institute was revitalized under the direction of Professor Albert Collier who proposed major changes that were implemented during the following years.

1966

Under the direction of Professor Carl Oppenheimer, the institute became a department. Professor Ya Hsueh was hired in 1967. Professors Ruby Krishnamurti and Paul LaRock were hired in 1968.

By 1970, three of Collier's proposals were achieved: a Ph.D. program, an oceanography department within the College of Arts & Sciences, and a new research facility at Turkey Point. The faculty had grown from the seven original members to eighteen.

Dr. Robert R. Stickney studied under Dr. Winston Menzel at the department, receiving his Ph.D. in 1971 He writes: Within a few days of my arrival in Tallahassee with my family, Winston took me to the old Marine Lab (the present lab was still under construction at that time - September, 1968). Upon our arrival, we walked down to the dock, and the good professor took a knife from his pocket and pried an oyster off a pile. He promptly opened and handed it to me. This mid-westerner, though in his late twenties, had never before seen an oyster - raw or clothed. I dutifully slurped it down and became an immediate fan.

Winston was an extraordinary individual. His James River down home accent left the initial impression that he was a back-country hick, but that impression was quickly replaced by awe and respect for the immense knowledge that Winston had at his fingertips. He spent a great deal of time one-on-one with his graduate students and was a virtual fountain of knowledge. Ask him a question and he could not only provide a detailed answer, he would also often hand you a reprint from his extensive collection.

In conjunction with my biological oceanography class, I wrote a term paper on catfish culture (not oceanography, admittedly, but a topic in which I was interested). After reading my paper, Winston called me into my office and informed me that I had missed some important literature that should have been cited. I told him that I had been exhaustive in my literature search for the paper. He then proceeded to hand me two reprints of papers he had written about catfish many years before. Redfaced, I retreated determined to cite those papers as often as I could in subsequent years.

Dr. James C. Schornick was a student from 1965 - 1971, and held a post-doctoral position at the department during 1972. His major professor was Dr. Ken Osmond in the Department of Geological Sciences. Dr. Schornick's dissertation subject was Uranium series disequilibrium in Antarctic ferromanganese concretions. Memorable experiences from his time at the department include participation in the Antarctic Research Program, including two cruises to the Antarctic aboard the USNS Eltanin, and cave diving to collect water samples for use in uranium disequilibrium studies of the Florida Aquifer.

He tells his story since FSU: I am a member of a group of FSU Oceanography graduates who did not follow the oceanography path following graduation. Instead, some of us joined the U.S. Geological Survey to pursue research and data collection activities dealing with the hydrology of the country's water resources. While a student at FSU, I worked with the Survey in Florida and Texas to locate suitable sampling sites for ground water samples for our uranium studies. It was through this connection that I was subsequently offered a position as a hydrologist. I spent 26 years with the Survey working in the New Jersey District Office in Trenton and the National Headquarters in Reston, VA. During my career, I conducted research projects, produced several Survey publications, managed district and national programs and participated in the Water Resources Division's efforts to redesign its hydrologic database system. I also designed and developed a graphics software system and user manual for use in the presentation of water-quality data. I retired from the Survey in 1999, and I am now working as a software engineer for a computer services firm.

As a side note, my son Jeff is now a summa cum laude graduate of FSU in computer science.

Dr. Herb Austin began his studies at FSU in 1968 under Dr. James I. Jones. He writes: the Department of Oceanography was new and most of the members still held allegiance to former departments. I was there when we got the R/V Tursiops underway for the first oceanographic cruises ever. We sailed fall 1968 into 1969. In 1969 and 1970, we got involved with other groups (TAMU, UM, NOAA. -newly spawned in 1970-, WFla, and UFla). Most was under SUSIO (State University System Institute of Oceanography.

Dr. Oppenheimer was chair during the time when Austin was a student. The department secretary was Dot Paul. "We were in little grungy WW-II huts for offices. The new building, where I think you are now, was occupied by the Department of Physics. The SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) demonstrated against the construction of the new building (now OSB) because the Department of Physics had some Air Force grant money (this was during the Viet Nam War). I think they had $10,000 or some such. They used our parking lot to demonstrate. If they had only known that Dr. Jones had over $250,000 from ONR!"

Austin was among the first Ph.D. students to graduate from the department. "Although Bob Stickney graduated a semester ahead of me, the first oceanography Ph.D. at FSU, his dissertation was on catfish farming. Mine was blue water oceanography, so I razzed him about his pseudo-oceanography degree."

On a cruise south of the border, "The Mexican custom authorities in Cozumel thought we were CIA, and since I spoke Spanish, they took me out drinking to find out why we were really there. It was the cruise I broke a gallon glass jar of formalin into the bilge, and we had to stay in Cozumel an extra 5 days!"

Austin also reminisced about the department softball team.

1970-1976

Professor John Winchester became the second departmental chair. Professors hired during his tenure were Dr. Wilton Sturges, Dr. Georges Weatherly, and Dr. Richard Iverson. The developing department was moved to its current location on West Call Street

Dr. David M. Karl sent the following story: I arrived in Tallahassee in August 1972 from Buffalo, N.Y. to begin my lifelong dream of becoming an "oceanographer." I rented a room in a large house on West Pensacola, purchased a bicycle for transportation, and reported for "work." In my application for graduate work in the Department of Oceanography, I had indicated a desire to study the population genetics of coral reef fishes. I was, instead, offered a departmental teaching assistantship and was assigned to Dr. Paul LaRock, the resident marine microbiologist. Although I couldn't even see the organisms he studied, Paul convinced me of the importance of bacteria in the sea and this was without a doubt the most important turning point of my career to date. LaRock had an active lab at the time, state-of-the-art equipment, and research support from several federal and state agencies and a great deal of enthusiasm for science and for life.

My first year was a truly memorable experience. The oceanography core courses were taught by Ken Warsh (Physical), John Calder (Chemical), George Knauer (Biological) and Jack Winchester (Geological). Winchester also served as department chair and was an international leader in his discipline of atmospheric chemistry. He was a kind and multi-talented individual, a great role model, especially compared to some of the other "unnamed" faculty. He also had the uncanny ability to ride his bicycle to the lab, wearing a coat and tie, during the hot and humid Tallahassee summer without breaking a sweat. We still wonder how he did this!

During my first year as a graduate student, I had an opportunity to participate in a research expedition to the Cariaco Trench, a permanently anoxic basin off Venezuela. Except for weekend trips to Canada, I had never even been out of the U.S. so you can imagine the excitement of joining Duke University's R/V Eastward on the Curacao, Netherlands Antilles to Kingston, Jamaica leg. Dick Barber was the expedition's chief scientist, and it was during this cruise that I established a lifelong friendship with a person who was to become the intellectual leader of my subdiscipline some 25 years later. Among other things, we compared tattoos and exchanged sea stories. I even got some interesting science done and later published a paper based on this research expedition (Karl et al. 1977, Deep-Sea Research 24: 105-113) I was living my dream! This work on low-oxygen, sulfide-rich oceanic habitats led to an invitation, in 1975, to join the final voyage of the R/V Chain (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) on the Alexandria, Egypt to Istanbul, Turkey Black Sea leg and later, in 1977, to an invitation to join Holger Jannasch, Fred Grassle, Bob Hessler and others on the first biology expedition to the deep-sea hydrothermal vents.

Also, aboard the R/V Eastward Cariaco Trench expedition was Allan Z. Paul, a graduate student of the department's most famous scientist at that time, Bob Menzies. Menzies was just completing his important monograph on deep-sea biology, which was published in 1973 (Abyssal Environment and Ecology of the World Oceans, R. J. Menzies, R. Y. George and G. T. Rowe). Among other discoveries, Menzies is known for his recovery from the abyssal regions of the Peru-Chile trench, of the "living fossil" mollusc Neopilina.

During my second year at FSU, I participated in several short cruises in the Gulf of Mexico and one longer cruise to the mid-Atlantic Ridge aboard the NOAA ship Researcher. John Morse, a new geochemistry faculty hire from Yale University had arranged my involvement in what became a very important expedition in search of hydrothermal deposits. The TAG program's discoveries paved the way for subsequent submersible expeditions to the mid-Atlantic. John Morse was a bright, fun-loving but demanding scientist who at times clashed with some of the existing faculty. For a start, he had long hair and beard (like many of the students) wore a fringed leather vest (like a resident of Woodstock) and drove a Triumph TR4 sports car, enough said. John had an interest in sediments, so logically tried to develop links with Menzies and the other deep-sea biologists. I remember fondly a most unusual seminar course that came from this collaboration entitled "Animal Sediment Relationships." The unusual part of it was that we met weekly at the local pub, a place called the Pastime, chalkboard and all.

During this period, the department operated a small research vessel, the R/V Tursiops. She was a converted Navy T-boat and, with the possible exception of the R/V Cayuse, was the poorest riding of the 20-25 research vessels that I have used in my career. In any case, the students looked forward to sailing on her and during the period 1972-74, I made at least five such expeditions. The most memorable was a trip from Alligator Point to Tampa Bay. This was a joint Calder-LaRock class cruise and afterwards they treated us to an afternoon at Busch Gardens (free beer, of course) followed by a great Cuban dinner in Ybor City (with cigars, of course). A fun time was had by all.

I successfully defended my M.S. thesis in August 1974 (P. LaRock, chair, G. Knauer and J. Calder) and packed a U-Haul van with all my worldly possessions and headed west on the newly constructed I-10 for La Jolla, California to continue my education at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. I have many fond memories of the Oceanography Department, faculty and staff, FSU, Tallahassee, St. Marks refuge, Wakulla Springs, etc. As a student, I received a good education and had remarkable research opportunities only a few of which I briefly mentioned here. My two years at FSU stand as a benchmark in what has been an enjoyable career as an oceanographer. I have not been back to Tallahassee since 1974. A visit is, in my opinion, long overdue.

Aloha to all.

Karl is currently professor of oceanography at the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu.

Dr. Christian Byrne studied under Dr. John Calder for his M.S., awarded in 1976, and Dr. William Burnett for his Ph.D., completed in 1980, both in chemical oceanography. He is currently a senior environmental chemist with the United States Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Pesticide Programs, Environmental Chemistry Laboratory at the John C. Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. He serves as the Quality Assurance Officer for the Dioxin Exposure Initiative through the Office of Research and Development, and has been a coauthor on over fifteen publications regarding the concentrations of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and furans and coplanar polychlorinated biphenyls in the environment. His latest publication, entitled " 2,3,7,8-Dibenzo-p-dioxins in Mined Clay Products from the United States: Evidence for Possible Natural Origins." will be published in Environmental Science & Technology. He is a lead chemist in the methods evaluation for the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rotenticide Act (FIFRA), conducting evaluations of pesticide registrants method for the determination of products in the environment. He is also an adjunct professor in the Department of Marine Science at the University of Southern Mississippi and an adjunct professor at Tulane University.

Before holding his current position, Byrne worked as a senior scientist at the NASA Gas and Materials Laboratory and was a senior research associate at the Center for Bio-Organic Studies at the University of New Orleans. Byrne worked together with the Cousteau Society on their investigation of priority pollutants in the Mississippi River.

He and his wife, Louise, live in New Orleans, Louisiana. Their daughter, Gifford, who was born in Tallahassee, is a sophomore at Bryn Mawr College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1975

The department adopted a three-track curriculum of chemical, biological, and physical oceanography.

1976-1982

Professor Wilton Sturges served as chair. The department's physical and chemical oceanography programs were strengthened with substantial support from Florida's Center of Excellence program. A current-meter laboratory was added. Faculty members hired during this time include Dr. Doron Nof, Dr. Meinrat Andreae, Dr. David Thistle, Dr. Phillip Froelich, and Dr. William Burnett.

1982-1985

Professor Ya Hsueh served as chair. Dr. Allan Clarke, Dr. Benoit Cushman-Roisin, Dr. William Dewar, and Dr. William Landing joined the faculty.

1985-1988

Professor Wilton Sturges served a second term as chair. Dr. Melvin Stern, Dr. Nancy Marcus, and Dr. Jeffrey Chanton joined the department faculty.

Samuel Johnston, Jr. received his Master's degree from the department in 1986. He writes: The choice of oceanography rather than marine biology was a good one for me, since the training is multi-disciplinary in nature and this is quite useful in the environmental field where so many disciplines come into play. Our firm in Bradenton, Ed Barber & Associates, Inc. is involved with a number of environmental permitting and legislative issues including coastal work with the Florida Sea Grant program and the West Coast Inland Navigation District. We work with a number of other groups, including environmental attorneys, laboratories, and others who provide both technical and legal input into general permit initiatives, habitat restoration plans, TMDL's, creek management plans, sediment characterization, and requisites for maintenance dredging needs in Southwest Florida. Of course we are involved with a number of other issues around the State of Florida with both public and private interests.

1988-1991

Professor Ya Hsueh served a second term as chair. During this time, Dr. Stephen Meacham joined the faculty.

Paul Heim received his MS in physical oceanography under Dr. James J. O'Brien in 1991. He was part of the research group MASIG (Mesoscale Air-Sea Interaction Group). "I was impressed by the friendliness and generosity of Dr. O'Brien and his staff and the level of knowledge the other people in the research group...it was a wonderful experience. I also remember enjoying playing TETRIS and a couple of other computer games while data crunching processes were running in the background!"

Heim was a Lieutenant in the US Navy while at FSU. After graduation, he received orders to be the Officer in Charge of the Naval Oceanography Detachment at Moffett Field, California. "I spent 2 years there supervising the production of en route flight forecasts for Orion aircraft and others that flew in and out of Moffett Field. We also produced classified acoustic predictions for submarine hunting aircraft and tactical atmospheric refractive effects forecasts to determine radar coverage and radar counter-detection ranges for ships and aircraft. By the time I left Moffett in 1993, I had been promoted to Lieutenant Commander, and a version of my thesis had been published by JGR Oceans.

From there, I went to the Naval Atlantic Meteorology and Oceanography Center in Norfolk, Virginia. I was the Department Head of the Mobile Environmental Team. Our group provided support to US Navy ships and operational staff in training and real-world operations (Anti-Submarine, Air, Mine, Amphibious, and Special Warfare, etc.). I also participated in the operation in Haiti coordinating meteorology and oceanography support between the military forces. I was then assigned as the Battle Group Meteorologist and Oceanographer (METOC) for Commander, Carrier Group Two, was the one-star admiral staff in charge of the USS John F Kennedy Battle Group. We did an operation in the Baltic Sea in 1997 and deployed to the Mediterranean Sea and Persian Gulf in 1997. All the while producing tactical weather briefs and environmental assessments of weapons, sensors and platforms. Saw lots of interesting places and did a lot of neat operations, like Operation Southern Watch over the skies of southern Iraq and Persian Gulf Maritime Interdiction Operations that enforce the U.N. sanctions on the imports and exports of petroleum products from Iraq.

In March 1998, I was briefly assigned to the Naval Doctrine Command and got some exposure to military war games and future vision planning for the Navy of the 21st Century - neat stuff. In August 1998, I was assigned to Commander in Chief, US Atlantic Fleet (Cinclantflt - 4-star Admiral Staff) in Norfolk, where I am the Assistant METOC Officer. I provide support to Cinclantflt, Commander, Naval Surface Forces US Atlantic Fleet (Comnavsurflant - 3-star Admiral staff), and Commander US Naval Air Force, US Atlantic Fleet (Comnavirlant - 3-star Admiral staff). I provide weather briefs focused on operational impacts on ships and aircraft at sea - primarily focused on safety of personnel and equipment. I also ran the annual Cinclantflt Hurricane Exercise (HURREX), which just concluded, to ensure all military activities are prepared for the upcoming hurricane season. And I'm extremely busy when there is an actual hurricane in the Atlantic, ensuring all the Admiral's know where the storm is headed, its intensity, etc. I also get involved in fleet navigation issues related to electronic navigation systems and digital nautical charts (Geospatial Information and Services). I was promoted to the rank of Commander on 01 Nov 99."

Heim has two sons, Brian (10) and Joseph (8).

1991-1994

Professor William Burnett served as chair. Dr. Lita Proctor joined the faculty.

1995

The Department was ranked as one of the nation's top ten Oceanography graduate study programs.

1994-2000

Professor David Thistle served as chair. During his tenure, an ocean-going equipment warehouse was constructed and several rooms in the Rogers Building were renovated. Dr. Patricia Yager, Dr. Kevin Speer, and Dr. Joel Kostka were hired and Dr. Sophie Wacongne joined the department as an associate scholar/scientist. In 1998, Dr. Melvin Stern was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. In June of 1999, two department faculty, Dr. Bill Dewar and Dr. Jim O'Brien, were among a group of scientists who were given the Florida State University's Department of Research Center of Excellence award to form the FSU Climate Institute.

2000

Dr. Thistle was appointed as chair for a third term. Renovations are in progress throughout the building.

In Memorial

Dr. Allen Paul died on January 4, 2000 after a battle with Parkinson's Disease. Special thanks to Irma Bass, his wife of 38 years, who sent the following information about him.

Allen began his studies at the department in 1968, graduating in 1974 under Dr. R.J. Menzies. His dissertation work was done in the High Arctic on floating Ice Island T-3, with concentration on benthic organisms.

From 1974 to 1979, Allen was Administrator of the Lamont-Doherty Observatory at Columbia University in New York. After that, he was the Director of an Environmental Laboratory on Lake Ontario. It was there that he attended many nuclear and administrative hearings and saw that "the lawyers were making mincemeat of the scientists." Thus was born the idea of returning to law school. Allen loved being a student. In 1979, Irma and Allen returned to Tallahassee and Allen graduated from law school in 1982.

For many years, even when studying law, Allen received national and international requests for reprints of his publications about the Arctic research. At that time, it was the definitive work, which was very gratifying for him. When Allen came home from the high Arctic with the first ever Arctic Ocean rocks, it was at the same time that our astronauts arrived with the first moon rocks, which, needless to say, attracted more publicity at the time.

Allen's work was published in Science and Nature, and was funded by grants from the Office of Naval Research and the National Science Foundation.