Bob Kard (1972, updated 2006)(add yours here)
John McDonald (1971-73)
Dave Volper (1973)
Kim Baker and Greg Hansard (1975)
Mike Bennett (1976)
Richie Cook (1976)
Roger McRae (1976-78)
David Parker
(1977)
Anthony (Tony) Raymond (1976-78)
Alan Zulch (1983)
Donald Dean (1983-84)
Collean Bellows (1994)
Ada Mau (1994)
Kale Ostrowski (1994)
Rick
Waterman (2001)
I am presently in Pacific Palisades, for a quick summertime break at my mom's house. Three of my kids and I took the Amtrak from Oakland to Los Angeles on the Coast Starlight. The trip took on another dimension after your very informative and enlightening class. I noticed the salt harvesting operations that we passed with the mounds of salt and the pools filled with brine shrimp. I took note of the different rock formations as we passed the "train" cuts and the sedimentary layers. The section between San Luis Obispo and Oxnard was beautiful. Now from my elevated vantage point I could see and name the various components of the shoreline, the sea stacks, the eroded cliffs, the sand suspended in the longshore drift, the wave refraction as the waves came into the headland, etc. etc. We even saw dolphins in the shorebreak and tons of pelicans, obviously recovering from the DDT that threatened them in the past.
It was wonderful and thanks to your oceanography class, I will view things from a different perspective, curiosity and respect that was not discovered before.
As I said earlier, I felt a degree of frustration because the information was too immense, too challenging to be adequately assimilated in a short summer semester. I wished I had taken the class over an entire semester to really benefit from the vast information. But, I learned alot and you are a great instructor. Very concise in your presentation, and your love for the subject is very evident.I would love to take another one of your classes,t but I am relegated to evening classes due to the committments to my 5 kids and husband. Maybe in the future.
We are headed to enjoy Santa Barbara and the spanish festival the next few days, so Adios and Muchas Gracias. El Profesor.
I'm pretty sure I 'aced' your class (es?) (and ignored my interest in science) to go on to Cal and graduate with a B.A. in Political Science. I work for the Federal Government at the Federal Election Commission (the agency that monitors where Fed candidates receive and spend their campaign funds) as a Windows Software Engineer (I saw the error of my ways about 5 years ago and went back to school at night to learn this tech stuff...). So, in fact, I'm one of the rare individuals with a degree in Political Science doing something I really like to do (i.e., write software - go figure).
If I had to do it over again, I'd have paid more attention to the hard sciences...and I have to say that pillow lava, igneous rock and plate tectonics have stayed with me over the years. Do you remember having us passing around asbestos? It wasn't bad stuff back then. Is the lab still near the parking lot? (J.L. NOTE: it is even closer now and the Sci. Center is nearly completely surrounded with asphalt..it now looks a little like the USS Monitor floating in an asphalt sea.)
email=dparker@exis.net
course=General marine and historical
year=77
current degree: PHD
college=BS SDSU PhD UCSB
discip= Organic Chem
work= Tidewater Community College, Virginia Beach, VA
I attended CoM 77-79 and took a lot of stuff with you. I went to SDSU
to major in marine geology and chemistry and ended up at UCSB in
Chemistry.
Then back to SD to post-doc at Scripps Clinic NOT the Institute doing
rational
drug design for a total jerk biologist. I bailed on science after
seeing
how cloistered and money grubbing it really was. Chasing girls lead me
to Virginia where I have made a career out of starting up new chem
departments
in schools where none exist. It makes me tired out and now I am looking
for a regular teaching job. However, my girlfriend will finish medical
school in summer 98! and we will move to who knows where. Still a
drifter
after all these years. I still tell my students how shelite is the
natural
form of tungsten and I could still lead a geological field class around
Marin and the Berkeley hills even after all these years. Lawsonite,
Schlickenside,
I can never forget. How goes Marin? Why doesn't Onig Bezerjian have a
WWW
presence?
course: Everything
year: 74-79
AA, AS
COM, Life and Earth Sciences
Laboratory Director of RGH Geotechnical and Materials Lab
comment: Yes! Still looking at rocks, but now i'm squishing, stretching, running water through, and analyzing them.
Greetings From An Old Student
Hi Jim, This is a name from your past...Alan Zulch. Do you recall your oceanography class from 1983? Or taking a dinghy out to Red Rock Island with my friend in Tiburon? Or driving down to Coalinga for a geology conference. Or my nervous speech in front of the school board at Indian Valley College? Well, I'm sure it comes back now. So! I'm just messaging you to say hi, give you an update FYI, and tell you I just ran into your homepage on the internet and was duly impressed! Also, I just got e-mail at work and am still marveling at the interconnectivity of it all...
I'll give you a brief synopsis on my activities since 1983: After being very inspired by your oceanography class, I began majoring in geology. After COM, I went on Semester at Sea, sailing around the world in 1984. I took an environmental geology course on that trip with a professor from Santa Cruz, Gary...(can't think of his name). One of the things we did was visit the seismology dept at Kobe University, and among other things, examined the Median Tectonic Line in that city. Amazing that eleven years later it broke. Anyhow, I transferred to Berkeley in Geophysics, but couldn't succeed in calculus, so after a year I changed majors to Conservation and Resource Studies (I liked descriptive geology better than quantitative geology anyway). In CRS I focused on 3rd World development and went to India as a research assistant looking at rural energy technologies, such as smokeless cookstoves and biogas plants. After Berkeley, I switched gears totally. Following a brief stint selling Macintosh computers in SF, I got my masters in psychology at JFK University in Orinda. Now, I'm married, have a nine month old daughter, and work in San Rafael (of all places, a mental health insurance company...who would have guessed...). I still love oceanography, and have decided that in my next life I will pursue it further. Which brings me to tell you once again how inspiring your class and your enthusiasm was for me as a student. Everyone has a handful of teachers in their school years who they consider as favorites, and you most definately qualify as one of mine. A belated thank you! So, keep up the good work in the class room and on the net. From what I'm learning about the net, and about your expertise therein, you are surfing a BIG wave! Thanks again Jim
Course = Physical Geography
Year = 1983-84
Degree Achieved = MA/MS
College = CSU Fullerton
Discipline = Environmental Studies
Current Work = Asst. Environmental Planner/Part-time at a consulting
firm in Santa Monica.
comment: I was looking for the COM homepage to look for job opps.
for
my wife. She teaches college English and we'd love to move up to Marin.
I actually left school for many years after my two years at COM before
going back to get my BA in communications and MS in Environmental
Studies
within the last few years. Great to see you are still there. COM is a
great
place to be.
Course=Oceanography
Year=1972
Degree Achieved = BA, BS
College=San Diego State University
Discipline = Physical Science/ Geology / biology emphasis
Current work=Director of Compliance San Joaquin Valley Unified Air
Pollution Control District (update below)
comment= Jim, I just wanted to say hello after all these years. The oceanography course I took from you in the Spring of '71 was quite memorable and has proven to be useful over the years. After leaving COM, I ended up at SDSU, majoring in geology and changing to Physical Science in my senior year) and then getting a secondary teaching credential. I also completed course work for a master's at the University of San Francisco(alas, I didn't write the thesis) in that vein, I studied mercury contamination in Walker Creek oysters, near Tomales Bay. I spent three years teaching (which I really love) and the left he field for monetary reasons (disgusting, but the truth). I now work in the field of air pollution control and head up the Compliance Division of the San Joaquin Valley Unified Air Pollution Control District (we cover 8 counties, 25,000 square miles, and regulate 7,000 businesses). Also, we offer training classes, publications, and consultations for businesses, so there are few reasons to violate the law (my teaching background has paid off).
I also want to tell you that College of Marin was the reason I became a teacher in the first place. There were three primary influences: You, Dave Baver, and Ken Miller. To answer another one of your questions, I, my wife, and my three girls (ages 6, 10,and 13) are avid rock hounds. We use our vacations to hunt for rocks, min erals, and fossils (last summer we hit Carson Pass and found petrified wood and leaves at 9,000 ft.) I'm doing my best to instill my love of science in them and they learn a bit of natural history as well.
Well, now that I've written a minor dissertation, it's time to sign off. If you choose to respond, I would appreciate knowing a little more about what happened to Dave Baver (I only recently heard of his passing several years a go (is there any sort of a scholarship fund in his name) <note: we do have a fund in biology and geology that the outstanding student in geology is honored with the Stephen Bruff Award and the outstanding student in Biology is honored with the Dave Baver Award>
(P.S. - Another good thing about what I do now is that allows me to
get back into the schools to give talks on air pollution issues)
I really meant what I said about your Oceanography course being
memorable.
One of the folks working for me teaches a graduate air pollution class
at
Fresno State and I recently had to explain the Coriolis effect to him.
This was taught to me in your class.
2006 update
Courses: several
Degree Achieved: AA, AS
We currently run a guiding
business in Alaska, after 20 years with public broadcasting, for
the
last 6 years my wife Beverly and I are taking people rafting, camping,
and dog mushing.We still go fossil hunting here in Alaska, and once a
year
or so in Calif.
Mackay School of Mines, UNR
Geology
Staff Geologist, WZI Inc.
California Professional Geologist license #7993.
Rick
Waterman (2001)
course: GIS
year: 2001
discip: Geographic techniques and analysis
work: Full time student SFSU
comment: Hey Jim...I am finishing up at SFSU taking many advanced GIS
courses and having a great time. I am presently in my senior year
graduating this May. I am presently doing an internship as a GIS
assistant to the data base manager out at the Pacific coast learning
and science center out near dogtown (part of the Point Reyes
NPS). Yes, I am still clamering about old mines and looking at
rocks. I live in San Francisco out in the sunset dist. I
have been learning a lot in GIS!
My last position was as the Office Manager (& Project Assistant)
for an Environmental and Geotechnical Engineering Consulting Firm in
San Rafael. (1996-2002) I found that the classes I took with you were
of value to me, all those years later. I enjoyed many fine,
interesting conversations with the Hydrogeologist in the office. We
talked rocks. :) The Geotechnical Engineer also found it easier to
discuss and describe things to me, as I had some understanding beyond
that of the usual Project Assistant or Office
Manager. I understood what an alluvial plain was!
I still "love rocks." And although much of the technical stuff
you taught me is trapped way deep in the pockets of my brain, there are
some things that amazingly remain on the surface.... like smacking the
top of beer or soda cans to equalize the pressure! <g>
Radiolarian oozes. And I find that wherever I travel, I look to
the geologic formations. I seem to pick up rocks from most everywhere I
go. Little ones.
I lived in New England from the time I left COM in 1973, until I
returned to Marin in 1975. I got to see first hand the difference
in our continental shelves and the effect they have on waves.... can
you imagine surfers yelling "surf's up!" over 1' waves? They
would die to experience Maverick!
I must say that you were a great teacher. Had I been more focused
on my education and less on my love life, I think I would have gone on
to Woods Hole or ? Ces la Vie. However, you are one of
those teachers that left an impression. And for all you taught
me, I must say THANK YOU.
I am now a grandmother. My daughter and son-in-law have given me
a wonderful little grandson that will be two on New Years Eve.