Oral-History:Stanley M. Howard

About Stanley Howard

Stanley Howard

Stan Howard was born on September 5, 1945 to Ross and Edith (Keimig) Howard in Torrington, WY. He received his Bachelor's Degree in 1967 anDoctorate Degree in 1971 as a Metallurgical Engineer. During school he worked for the US Geological Survey, Kennecott Copper Corporation, and Dow Chemical Company.

He was a Research Fellow at Colorado School of Mines from 1967-1971. He moved to Rapid City in 1971 to teach at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, a career which lasted fifty years. He served as the chair of the Department of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering from 1994-2000.

During this time, he was also an NSF Visiting Scientist at Stanford (1976-1977), President of Mintech, Inc. (1977-1982), President (1981-84) and VP (1984-88) of Group V Metals, Inc., and a consultant to Kerr- McGee Corporation (1986-87), the US Navy (1988-1991), Caterpillar Corporation (1992-2001), Oak Ridge National Lab (2003-2004), and the Department of Energy’s Yucca Mountain Project (2004-2007).

His research activities have included chlorination processes for gold extraction, direct applications for geothermal resources, replacement alloys for beryllium alloys, thermochemistry of high-temperature liquid metals, carburization kinetics, and laser and friction-stir welding activities associated with the Advanced Materials Processing facility on the SDSM&T campus. In 1986 he co-founded Group V Metals, Inc that licensed technology used to produce the purest tantalum and niobium compounds commercially available in the world with customers in Japan and Europe. Stan was a member of Alpha Sigma Mu Honorary Society, The Society of Sigma Xi, an honored guest at the Kroll Institute Dedication in Golden, CO. In 2004, he received the Presidential Award and Benard A. Ennenga Faculty Award from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.

Professor Howard was a member of AIME and its Member Society, The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS) since 1966. He held many volunteer leadership positions including Director of Publications, Financial Planning Officer, and Trustee of the TMS Foundation. In 2016 and 2019, he also served as President. In recognition of his volunteer service, he was awarded the Alexander R. Scott Distinguished Service Award in March 2021. He also received AIME’s Mineral Industry Education Award in 2004.

Stan enjoyed reading, flying an airplane, making repairs at home, and playing piano and singing. In response to his written questions in preparation for his oral history capture by AIME in 2019, he stated “I find satisfaction in having learned the answers to all my questions from youth. That is amazing and gratifying.”

Further Reading

Access additional oral histories from members and award recipients of the AIME Member Societies here: AIME Oral Histories

About the Interview

Stanley Howard: An Interview conducted by Tom Battle in 2019 in San Antonio, Texas.

Copyright Statement

All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers and Stanley Howard, dated March 11th, 2019. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers. No part of the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers.

Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers, 12999 East Adam Aircraft Circle, Englewood, CO 80112, and should include identification of the specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the passages, and identification of the user.

It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows:

Stanley Howard, “Stanley Howard: The Human Perpetual Mind,” an oral history conducted by Tom Battle in 2019. AIME Oral History Program Series. American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers, Denver, CO, 2019

Interview Video

PART 1

.

Interview

INTERVIEWEE: Stanley Howard
INTERVIEWER: Tom Battle
DATE: 2019
PLACE: San Antonio, Texas

00:20 INTRODUCTION

Battle:

Good morning. This is Tom Battle at the TMS annual meeting in San Antonio on Monday, March 11th, 2019, and I'm honored to be able to interview Stan Howard for the AIME oral histories series.

Howard:

Well, thank you, Tom. It's an honor to be selected to do this interview. When I first received the invitation, I was surprised I was selected. There are so many people in TMS, and I would like to hear many of those oral histories as well. Many people here have such fantastic careers and so on, and it's just an honor to be here today, and I'm happy to visit with you about whatever you think is significant about my life and career.

00:35 THE POWER OF A PAMPHLET - INTRODUCTION TO THE COLORADO SCHOOL OF MINES

Battle:

Rather than purely chronological order, I’d like to start with what unites you and I - we both studied under John Hager at the Colorado School of Mines [CSM]. And, to start with, we'll go back to your growing up years. Until coming to Colorado, you'd spent your life in Wyoming.

Howard:

I'm a Wyomingite.

Battle:

And so, how did you get to CSM, and how did that evolve?

Howard:

Well, I got to Colorado School of Mines almost accidentally or serendipitously, perhaps, you might say. It all happened in high school physics class. One afternoon, we met at two o'clock in the afternoon. Doc Rogers threw a pamphlet, or handed a pamphlet, to a good friend of mine, Steve Thomas--whom I'm going to see next week, in fact, we're still friends--and he said to Steve, who was an outstanding student, that he should go to Colorado School of Mines. Steve didn't show much interest, threw the pamphlet down on the table, and I thought, “Maybe I should look at that?” So, I grabbed the pamphlet, and I thought, “Well, that looks good.” So, I applied to the Colorado School of Mines. I had thought about Carnegie Mellon and other places. The University of Wyoming had cobwebs on their metallurgy lab door when I was over there visiting, and so--subtle tip that I was not going to the University of Wyoming for metallurgy. And, it was metallurgy, for sure.

02:38 THE HIGHEST DEGREE YOU CAN GET - THE PASSION FOR LEARNING

Battle:

Yes, and we'll talk about that. So, you got to CSM. Did your undergrad evolve the way you expected it to?

Howard:

Well, I was never particularly worried about how college would go. I expected it would go fine, and I was so excited about being in a place like that, where people knew things that I had wanted to know for a long time, well, for four years--a long time when you're a high school student--and it was a quite exciting time. Although the first two years were not anything to do with metallurgy, it was still interesting, and I enjoyed it and made some good friends and really benefited from being down there. It was a wonderful opportunity, and I still think that way about it. It's tremendous education.

Battle:

Now, were you planning to go to graduate school from day one?

Howard:

Yes, I decided to become a PhD when I was in about third grade, and, apparently, my older brother did as well. We never talked about it, but we both have our PhDs in engineering, and it was because my father spent many evenings with my mother in conversation, just sort of anguished conversation about whether he should go back to school or not. And so, one day I asked him, what's the highest degree you can get? And he said, PhD. And so, at that moment, it was settled in my mind. That's what I would do because I never wanted to have that anguished discussion with my wife about going back to school when I was in my thirties.

04:20 GETTING LAB EXPOSURE - THE OPPORTUNITY TO WORK UNDER JOHN HAGER

Battle:

Then, how did you end up with John?

Howard:

Well, I ended up working under John Hager quite by accident. Vincent Campos was working for John Hager, at the time, and John was pretty demanding to say, you know, euphemistically. I was working up at Rocky Flats, and he called me in August and asked me if I would be willing to work for him in the fall because there was this opening— Vincent Campos, who was going to change advisors and go work for Paul Harold, he did these ternary phase diagrams on the computer, as I recall--and I said, sure, that'd be great. It turned out to be just a wonderful opportunity for me, and I always enjoyed working for John Hager, although it was demanding. There were a few times I wanted to tell him if he knew how it was to be done, do it himself, but I never said that.

Battle:

And, you worked on mass spec [Mass Spectrometry]?

Howard:

I worked on mass spec with a Knudsen inlet system, and it was a very wonderful piece of equipment. It was brand new at the time, and I ended up maintaining that and operating it for four years. So, it took me some time— The first time I had to fix it, it took me two weeks. But, after that, I could fix it in about a day or so.

Battle:

And, that equipment was there for years, wasn't it?

Howard:

It was there for years, and I still have it, in fact, up at South Dakota now.

Battle:

Well, in my time, one of my colleagues worked with it and spent more time fixing leaks and repairing it than, I think, taking data, but it was a pioneer instrument for a university.

Howard:

It was, and I built a similar unit, with more features, myself, when I became a professor up at South Dakota School of Mines.

06:27 ROTC INVOLVEMENT – LEARNING LOTS OF VERY USEFUL THINGS

Battle:

And then, as you got toward the end, where you were talking about ROTC [Reserve Officer Training Corps] and going to the Army and all that, was that after bachelors or after PhD?

Howard:

Well, at Colorado School of Mines, we had two years of undergraduate ROTC. And then, in my second year of grad school, you know, if I wanted to continue, I had to join, I needed to join the ROTC program because there was a demand in the draft. I got one of the low numbers, like 140 or something, so I was going. And, when I called the draft board one day and asked them about it, they said I might go to ROTC. I was told I should do it that afternoon, which told me that they were about ready to call me. And, I would've been glad to serve, but I wanted to finish my degree.

Battle:

And, that's how it worked out.

Howard:

It worked out because that was February of my so-called second year of grad school, and so I couldn't start until that fall. It was two more years after that. So, I finished the PhD in four years, did not do a masters. That was waived, one of the few students for whom that was waived.

Battle:

That helps.

Howard:

But, I could have done a masters. I had several publications and met trans by then. So, would not have been that big a demand on me.

Battle:

And, you ended up not going in the Army or in the service?

Howard:

Well, on April 22nd, 1971, I was discharged. I had serious back trouble: I couldn't move for a week at a time; I just lay flat on my back. It turned out to be a muscle spasm, but extremely painful, and nothing the Army wanted anything to do with. So, I was out on the 22nd of April, but I learned lots of very useful things in ROTC.

Battle:

Such as?

Howard:

Well, CPM programming. You know, critical path method, and how to develop lesson plans, and how to blow-up bridges, and how to fell trees, how to build a runway, and build a road, and so on. It was all very interesting, I thought.

08:41 WORKING FOR MAURIE FUERSTENAU AT THE SOUTH DAKOTA SCHOOL OF MINES

Battle:

And then, Dr. Fuerstenau caught up with you.

Howard:

Well, Maurie Fuerstenau was my professor at Colorado School of Mines as an undergraduate and a little bit, perhaps, the first year or so of grad school. I know I took every course he taught. I think it was around 30 hours of hydromet and flotation. And, he had an interesting style of teaching, and I appreciated him and did very well under that style of learning.

Battle:

And then, he wouldn't say "no" when he moved to South Dakota?

Howard:

He went to Utah, first, and then was there a few years and then decided to take the position of Department Head at South Dakota School of Mines, which was his hometown. As a matter of fact, his parents just lived on the other side of the Hill from campus. And, Maurie had Bruce Palmer as a student at the time, a grad student, and Bruce was going to join him and was, in fact, in Rapid City when I went up to interview. But, Bruce was still finishing his PhD, so I was actually the first hire Maurie made at South Dakota. When I went up to interview in August, because I was sort of scrambling for a position with the departure from ROTC, thinking I would be in the Army for two years--Maury met me basically with a contract and didn't bother with the interview because he knew me so well, and I had done well under him.

10:22 LIVING ON THE FAMILY RANCH IN EASTERN WYOMING

Battle:

So now, before talking about your academic career, let’s step back and talk about your childhood a bit and what led you into being an engineer and being a metallurgist. So, you grew up on a relative's farm, right? I'm sorry, the ranch, because your uncle was at the war.

Howard:

Yes, well, the history of the ranch, my grandfather, my mother's father, homesteaded that in 1916. I was born in '45 and, just before that, of course, was the war. My mother's brother, my uncle Jack, was at the ranch, and my father and mother were down in Denver at Buckley. My father was serving as a carpenter then in the military effort, although he was a civilian. When my uncle was called up to go up to Alaska to defend the coastline up there, my parents went to the ranch to take over that. My grandfather lived in Torrington, so the ranch was open for occupancy when my uncle left. My mother loved the ranch: she was five years old when it was homesteaded and very much wanted to be there. And so, my first home was the ranch and in the Prairie in Wyoming, Eastern Wyoming.

Battle:

So, growing up, I assume you had your share of chores, because there were cattle and so on?

Howard:

We were free-ranging kids, but we had no chores. I don't know how my parents, what their philosophy was, but we didn't. I don't ever recall having any. My parents didn't use demands, you know, they used incentive, like compliment or praise, and it seemed to work because I always wanted to just do things that seemed to be my initiative. And so, that's kind of my temperament today as well. I don't want to be told; I'd like to be asked. And, you know, I mean it's an interesting way of raising children. I certainly wish I could have done better at it myself, with my children.

Battle:

So, you were there when your uncle came back from the war and went back to the farm?

Howard:

No, he ended up at Casper doing oil refinery work and so on. So, we were at the ranch. See, that's before my time, I think they went there in about '43. I was born in '45 and my sister in '48, and then we moved into town in 1950. The big town of Lingle, Wyoming, 307 people.

Battle:

And, it's all ranching country all around it?

Howard:

Well, when you go from the ranch, which is North of Lingle by 15 miles, you come across the interstate canal built partly by my great uncle, earlier--that's kind of a family history--and you cross that canal, which takes water from Guernsey Whalen Diversion and the Guernsey dam, there are several irrigation projects. That valley, that North Platte Valley, is a very rich valley and very rich farmland, mostly sugar beets, corn, beans, those sorts of things. So, that's very valuable land. Our land was ranch land, it's about $200 an acre a few decades back, and now I think it's around $500 an acre: farmland's thousands per acre.

Howard:

Irrigation makes all the difference in the world. So, we had six sections, so that's six square miles, a little over 3000 acres--we had a little addendum to that--ran about 200 cow-calf pairs, had 25 horses, no pigs or anything like that or sheep.

Battle:

It’s amazing your parents didn't see you as a workforce just to keep up all those animals.

Howard:

My grandfather would come out twice a week from Torrington--that's 30, about 25 miles--and my father and mother lived there, of course, and so they took care of the cattle. We had two milk cows, Red and Bossy. They would come in every afternoon to be milked-- I have a lot of memories-- and we had chickens. I had a special way of collecting eggs: I'd go into the chicken coop and close the door quietly and then just jump up and down and scream and yell. And, all the chickens would go fly, and there'd be feathers, you couldn't see through them. But, I got the chickens off the nest, and then I could grab the eggs.

Battle:

That likely shortened their lifetime a little bit.

Howard:

Right. I don't think it did anything for egg production, but it certainly made my life easier as a three-year-old collecting eggs.

15:19 FROM LINGLE TO CHEYENNE - MOVING ON FROM THE RANCH

Battle:

So, then you moved into the big city?

Howard:

Moved into Lingle, Wyoming.

Battle:

And, that's where you started schooling?

Howard:

That's where I started school. Moved in 1950. I was a September baby, September 5th, so I started school a year early. I could have waited a year, or my parents could have put me a year later, I think. My mother was, you know, she had five children, so I don't think they were interested in waiting a year and having me around at home if I could go to school. And, my brother was the same, he was September 21st, and he was the same sequence four years apart from me. And so, we started early, and we finished early.

Battle:

And then, so you were there for how many years?

Howard:

Through fifth grade, 1956, a decision had to be made. It was kind of tough for my parents to make a living in Lingle. I think the deciding factor for my father leaving and going down to Cheyenne to work during the week at the airbase was an election. He ran for superintendent of schools. Before the war and before Berkeley, he was a superintendent of schools, taught math, and so on, east of Cheyenne, Carpenter, and Egbert, Wyoming. And so, he ran for superintendent of schools. And, it was a very close election: he lost by three votes; it was finally decided after three days, to Velma Linford. And, when that happened, I think my father realized he had to take employment down in Cheyenne and commuted for several years. And finally, we moved to Cheyenne.

Battle:

That must've been a fun commute. That was a ways, I mean.

Howard:

It's about 93 miles, 93 miles, and in those days, cars were not as reliable and roads as good, but they were okay.

Battle:

Yes, no interstates, or they were just being built at that time.

Howard:

It's Highway 80, I never can remember if it's ‘85 or ‘87, but I think it's ‘85. Yes. You go East to Torrington, 10 miles, and then South 83 miles to Cheyenne.

Battle:

And then, what did you think about moving to Cheyenne? Were you ready for it or —

Howard:

No, I did not want to go to Cheyenne. I had a very nice life in Lingle as a boy. I had good friends. I had one friend who was particularly dear to me, Bob Bahmer. Of course, at that time, it was Bobby Bahmer. And, his parents ran the dairy out east of town, and I would walk out there four miles. Can you imagine that today? A grade school kid walking down the highway for four miles to go to his friend's house. I always tried to time it early enough in the morning so that I'd intercept the milk truck, the delivery truck, that his brother or father would drive, and I could thumb a ride out. But, there were many days I walked. There was a dirt road as well as a little farther I could walk, but I would walk out there and spend a lot of summer days with Bob. He had an old horse that we would clomp around on. It was idyllic. So many wonderful things we did.

18:44 A SPACE NUT AT HEART: BECOMING A MAD ROCKET SCIENTIST AT A YOUNG AGE

Battle:

And then Sputnik happened?

Howard:

Sputnik happened well after I moved to Cheyenne--that would have been 1957, I think it was February, if I'm not mistaken--but I don't like thinking about it because it was so disturbing to me. I read a lot about astronomy, and, by the time I was in Cheyenne, I was reading about the space wheel and--I think that was von Braun wrote about that--and I guess they thought they needed gravity or something to live in space. So, I was very interested in the satellite program, and I would watch those Vanguard missiles rise off the launchpad at Cape Canaveral and go about three feet and then fall over and blow up. And, it was so aggravating to me because I was such a space nut.

Battle:

Well you must've watched "The Right Stuff."

Howard:

Oh yes.

Battle:

They'd have those early scenes where they show the Russians succeeding and ours just dismally failing.

Howard:

Oh, and the Cold War was vivid in our minds, I mean, I was in Cheyenne, that was the ICBM base.

Battle:

You were a target.

Howard:

Yes, we were a target. And, the Cuban Missile Crisis.

So, in 1960, that was real. We were packing up, headed for the ranch that day. But, at any rate, it was very aggravating to me. You know, some people say, in that era, everyone remembers where you were when Kennedy was assassinated. I don't remember that for sure, but I know exactly where I was and what I felt and what I thought when I heard that the Russians, the Soviets, had launched their satellite: I was on the third step coming out of the basement; my father was at the top of the stairs and said it down the stairs to me, and I was so angry, I think I said some words I shouldn't have said and went right out the back door outside to sulk. I was very upset.

Battle:

And then, you decided that single-handedly you'd rescue the US rocket program?

Howard:

Yes, well, youth needs a goal, right? So, Bobby was down from Lingle in the summer after that, just a few months, and we were a little bored and, incidentally, I think boredom is a wonderful thing for children because that creates a demand to do something—

Battle:

Be creative?

Howard:

Yes, to be creative. We decided that we should build rockets. And, he went home, and I continued to build rockets. And, I found another friend at junior high school-- by that time that was '57-- Russell Houser. Russell is still a friend today and is still living there in Cheyenne. And, he had all kinds of formulas for rocket fuel and so on. And, we built rockets, lots of rockets, and we found out they blew up just like the Vanguard. And so, we made a lot of bombs, I mean, we'd go so far as to model a rocket that we knew would blow up. Kids are kids.

Battle:

You didn't quite tell your parents you were going to do that, though?

Howard:

Well, my parents were concerned, but they thought allowing me to pursue my scientific interests was in my general interest.

Battle:

So, we do have to ask about your biggest disaster with your rockets?

Howard:

Well, you know, when you make rockets—

Battle:

It was a learning opportunity.

Howard:

One day, for some reason I thought I was going to make an aerial display. I was kind of impressed with the 4th of July aerial bombs, you know, and the big shells that blow up. I was making one of those and, of course, to expedite things, I just used steel pipe, instead of cardboard and all of that, because I knew that would blow apart. So, I had a fuse break, and I was disassembling it; and I was trying to be careful because I knew the risks from static electricity and so on. But, it went off in my hand. I had the steel pipe. Fortunately, it didn't rip apart, but I still have never found the coupling on the end of that. I think it went through this lath ceiling, but it blew a big hole in the sink top, counter top, I had and did some very strange things like melting the wire. The hanger I had, was using to assemble it, and it melted on a plastic sheet in the form of the plastic without melting the plastic. I don't know how that happened yet. But, at any rate, it was quite an explosion. I remember walking up the stairs, I was unwilling to look at my hand because I figured it was gone. But, when my dad ran past me looking for Russell, I thought, well, maybe it's not, or he would have stopped with me. So then, up those stairs, the same stairs that I heard about the Sputnik thing a few years earlier, I was willing to look at my hand, and it was a little bloodied, but it was okay. And, that's why I don't hear very well out of my right ear. But, it blew my shirt off, you know, the front of the shirt off.

Battle:

Did you save the shirt?

Howard:

No. It was a nice shirt. I liked it. I wish I had it. It would be kind of an interesting display item, I guess. If anyone were interested.

24:11 EXCELLENT ROLE MODELS - “I JUST CAN’T EXPRESS ENOUGH GRATITUDE”

Battle:

So, obviously, the rocket stories tell us you had to become a metallurgist--and a chemist and, yes, a demolition expert--just to make these devices and power them, and so on. And, another of your formative phases was your interest, as you mentioned, in astronomy but also Greek mythology, or mythology, in general, through your mother. We haven't talked about your mother, but she sounds like she was very educated.

Howard:

Yes, I was blessed by having two wonderful parents, and I just can't express enough appreciation for my parents. Neither one is living at this point, but my mother was a graduate of Cornell University, and she studied Greek mythology and Latin. And, my father was a mathematician and bound to be a minister and a philosopher but switched mostly to teaching mathematics and superintendent of schools and that sort of thing. And, carpentry, and he was an electrician, and he was a Renaissance man and a very humble man. Very polite. I never heard either of my parents ever rail or seethe. They were very constructive. My mother was the director of social services in Cheyenne, and they were just wonderful parents. My mother, having a background in Greek mythology--when we were at the ranch, of course, there are no lights to blind you from looking at the sky, and we would lay out in the summertime on blankets or have time outside--my mother would tell stories about the constellations and point out all the stars and tell us the stories from the Iliad and the Odyssey. So, Homer's characters were our heroes, you know, Achilles and Agamemnon. And, you know, when we played as kids, we always wanted to be Achilles or Hector. I want to be Hector, or I want to be Agamemnon. Can't say it. I did pretty well the first time I tried it. But, those were our heroes, and that's all because of my mother. So, they were tremendous parents, made a tremendous difference to me. I just can't express enough gratitude.

26:53 FINDING AN EARLY PASSION FOR METALLURGY- DECIDING A FUTURE IN THE EIGHTH GRADE

Battle:

Now, is it too far to go from metallurgy and Greek mythology to bladesmithing?

Howard:

Well, see, I always wanted to know how things worked. Science and--I don't know where that comes from. One thing I did want to make sure I said during this interview was that I was a slow student. I could not read. I could not use the English language until I was about four. My brothers--I had two older brothers, four and five years older--and we lived at the ranch. I did not speak English until, you know, recognizable English until age three or four. And, I had words, but I just had my kind of own language, and my brothers interpreted for me, I guess. My mother kind of understood that. And, when I went to grade school, the first-grade teacher did not teach me to read or my class. There were two classes. One learned; one didn't. So, it was the start of fourth grade, third or fourth grade, we had remedial reading. And, I remember my mother actually volunteered to come in and teach us. I learned to read in about third grade. But, I was always interested in how things worked. And, one of the wonderful things that happened to me was my brother, when I was in junior high school, brought home to me a book that the high school had thrown away on chemistry lab experiments. I still have it, and it had all these wonderful experiments that you could do and a whole list of all the equipment you needed for chemistry experiments. And, I just poured through that. I just desperately wanted to have that chem lab, and when I added up the price of all the equipment, it was like 60 bucks. Or maybe it was $200; I don't know. Anyway, it was just an unattainable number, and so, I thought I'd make my own glassware. So, on a snow day, I cranked up the wood range down in the basement, got the vacuum cleaner and threw some coal in and some pop bottles, and started melting glass. And, before long, I was down in the library, state library and Carnegie library--bless Carnegie for providing that library in Cheyenne and the state library--and I read prolifically. I lived in those libraries. I was sorry when they closed at five o'clock at the state library. And then, I found out all this metallurgy information about metallurgical furnaces. And so, by eighth grade, it was definite in my mind that I was going to be a metallurgist, and I loved high temperatures. I'd always liked fire and heat, you know, what youth doesn't?

Battle:

So, you decided on a PhD at that time?

Howard:

Yes, PhD was decided in fourth grade, and metallurgy was decided in eighth grade. And so, the first time I ever melted a large quantity of glass in a separate room I had where I could do such things in this wonderful home that my parents bought, I put in the steel rod, or iron rod, rolled a ball of glass and blew a perfect sphere. But, I never was able to do it as easily again -- first-time beginner's luck.

30:22 HOW READING AND SELF-TEACHING GAVE HOWARD A HEAD START FOR COLLEGE

Battle:

And so, you did obviously well enough in high school to get into CSM, which has pretty high standards. It sounds like you learned--your first couple of years at CSM may have been boring cause you already knew the math and chemistry and physics, I suspect. You said, on your own, as well.

Howard:

Yes. I learned a lot of things on my own and with my father's help. My father being a mathematician, and I was in advanced math, I was always blessed with being very good at math. I think I could do all the times tables before I could read, probably, but it wasn't an unusual schedule. It's just that my reading was delayed. But, I knew calculus and all of that when I went, and I taught myself chemistry. My good friend Russell, and Steve Johnson, we sat out in the apple tree, we got a high school chemistry book, and we read that. That's what we did.

Battle:

So, your recreational reading.

Howard:

We sat out in the apple tree and read that chemistry book one page at a time, you know, and poured over it and discussed it and thought about it. So, we were conversing in chemistry by eighth grade. And, I also read a lot. One of my favorite books was Alison Butts, Metallurgical Problems. And, I just found a copy of that on eBay, and I bought it. And, when I opened up that book and looked in there, I just thought, holy smokes, I remember this page.

Battle:

It took you back.

Howard:

The thing that I was most interested in it was flame temperature. They did not call it; he did not call it, adiabatic flame temperature but flame temperature. And, my father and I sat at the dining room table pouring over that book many nights. So, when I went to Colorado School of Mines, I had these questions like, “Where does the heat transfer coefficient come from?” And, I didn't learn that until grad school. John Hager covered it one day in a lecture, and I'm like, “Oh, that's where the number, how you get the number.” I knew how to use the number. I didn't know where it came from.

Battle:

Right. So, now we've talked about the CSM years. So, now you show up in Rapid City. You'd never been there before except to interview.

Howard:

Oh, no, Rapid City was a vacation spot for my family. The ranch, North Lingle there, it's probably 180 miles to the Black Hills, and that was one of our favorite vacation spots. So, we'd go to Hot Springs (SD) quite often and stay there and swim in Evans Plunge, and so I was quite familiar with the Black Hills. It always seemed like a vacation spot. So, when I went up to interview and thought I might live there, it was sort of surrealistic in a way. I never intended to stay close to home, but, you know, I have. I've stayed between Denver and Rapid City my career, and I always thought I'd go to Pittsburgh, make steel. That's what I thought I'd do.

33:30 WORK HARD: PLAY HARD - FLAMETHROWERS AND ICICLES

Battle:

So, going back again to your CSM years, when I was there, I didn't realize there was a class in flame throwers. Apparently, you invented that.

Howard:

Well, that's actually in my Cheyenne time before that. Jim Robinson had asked me to mention that. He had heard this story before, and, last night at dinner, he'd asked me to be sure to include that in this interview. Being interested in all things scientific, one of the things I wanted to do, as a youth and junior high and those years transitioning to high school, was build a turbine jet engine. But, of course, it's far beyond my mechanical abilities as a youth or even an adult at this point. I could not build a turbine engine, but they were fascinating to me. I was just fascinated. But, I thought, well, maybe I could make a ramjet. So, I got a steel tube and conduit, actually, and necked it down and put a spark plug in it and got an IV bottle from the hospital trash--can you imagine going to a hospital and getting an old IV bottle?--filled it with kerosene, which you should never do, but I did, and then ran a hose down to the steel pipe. And, I bolted it to the floor because I figured it would take off. And then, I got the vacuum cleaner and blew?? through there. It turned out it just was a wonderful flame thrower. I put it in the garage, bolted to the garage floor and opened up the garage doors, adjacent the sidewalk, and we'd fill it up with kerosene and then fire it. And, what it would do is it make a ball of flame about eight feet in diameter. And, the wind was always just right that it would just slowly roll down the sidewalk and extinguish itself over about a hundred feet. Fortunately, no pedestrians.

Battle:

I was thinking you were doing that in your basement.

Howard:

No, that was outside, summer days, but I don't think it ever developed much power. I could see that that wasn't going to amount to much of anything, but it was an interesting kind of flame thrower, it turned out. We enjoyed all that. In CSM, there was another story that people found, Jim had found, interesting, and that was, it was so cold down there in the wintertime as it is in Wyoming and South Dakota. One cold spell we decided we'd capitalize on. I lived in a third-floor apartment. We had a veranda three floors up. And, I thought, “You know; we should just grow an icicle.” So, I got a big trashcan, plastic trashcan, about 30-gallon, 40-gallon, and put a drip on it over the edge. And, we grew an icicle about six feet in diameter and three floors high, and we started putting food coloring in it. We grew the whole thing. It was just huge. And so, then, as it does in Colorado, shortly after it was 70 degrees out, we're down to underneath it taking a picture, and I heard a crack, and I said, “Everybody step back under the concrete overhang,” and that whole thing came down, chunks of ice about the size of Volkswagens coming down. But, that was a fun experiment.

Battle:

Yes. Obviously, you had too much time on your hands.

Howard:

Well, yes, we didn't have much time at Colorado School of Mines. You know, we took 168 credit hours.

Battle:

You work hard, and you play hard.

Howard:

Yes, yes. That's what they said. Yes. Work hard; play hard. That was the goal.

37:06 A NATURAL BORN TEACHER - BECOMING A PROFESSOR AT THE SOUTH DAKOTA SCHOOL OF MINES

Battle:

So, then let's move into the South Dakota years. So, you show up, you'd done student teaching, you'd been a TA [teaching assistant] or something?

Howard:

No, I never was a TA. I always had research. I was an RA [research assistant] at Colorado School of Mines and the St. Joe Fellow. I appreciate that. Yes. And, I had a National Education Defense Act as a result of Sputnik, so it paid off later. A benefit. $1,450, I think, I got. And, my first stipend was $222.22 a month, and I was never better off. My wife worked, and we had married student housing. I spent a lot of my time down at the First National Bank in Denver doing loans and stock transactions and hanging out at Bache Incorporated (stock brokerage). So, I was able to invest. I started investing when I was in seventh grade. Always liked investments, interest.

Battle:

And, that's valuable for an engineer to know, at least something about the real world. So, when you came to Rapid City, you developed, well, they assigned you, classes to teach.

Howard:

They surely did. I taught 14 credit hours the second semester I was there.

Battle:

Were there, at least, previous notes from professors, or did you have to start from scratch?

Howard:

Well, when I started teaching, I thought I was going to teach just like the best professors I had at Colorado School of Mines.

Battle:

A bit from each of them?

Howard:

Yes. Or I would model after one or another, and I would just correct what I thought they did wrong. But, after about a week of that, you realize you can't be somebody else. You have to be yourself. And so, I quickly adapted to that thinking and started teaching my own style.

Battle:

And, you pretty much created all your notes, your lecture notes, from scratch, or did you have some?

Howard:

I did, well, I have all my notes from Colorado School of Mines to this day, I have every one. After I became a serious student--I wasn't that organized as a freshman or sophomore. But, as a junior and senior, I was fastidious. I had to be, and, you know, I started getting all A's as opposed to just learning the material. I was destined to be; I was determined to be, you know, know everything. Well, because I was in metallurgy then, I wasn't just doing all this preparatory work. It's not as interesting. But, I still have all those notes. And, I tried to pattern after those. But, after a short time, you realize, first of all, I couldn't use Denbigh as a thermo book because the Colorado School of Mines and metallurgical thermo, that's third thermo course stuff, not the first, and I was teaching students the first thermo course. So, I used Mackowiak for a while; and then, Gaskell later came out with his book, and I used it. But, I wrote all my notes, and then I'd redo my notes, and after about the third year, you realize you don't need notes. So, I haven't used notes for any of my classes after about third year. I just go in, and I can lecture, start to finish, any one of 10 classes. It's just natural.

Battle:

Yup. It's ingrained in your memory.

Howard:

Yes, it's, I mean, who needs notes to teach heat transfer? I mean, my goodness. You know, I can derive all the equations. I can tell you what page number they're on and where Gibbs–Helmholtz equation is in Gaskell.

Battle:

And, they're still using Bird, Stewart, and Lightfoot. Well, I don’t know about right now.

Howard:

Well, I used Geiger's book, [crosstalk] Gordon Geiger and Poirier. Geiger & Poirier.

Battle:

And then, Gaskell's Thermodynamics.

Howard:

Yes, and I've written my own thermo book, too. It's online, or at least the first half of it is.

Battle:

So, your record was teaching 14 credit hours in a single semester?

Howard:

Yes. I even taught physical metallurgy once, and I'm not a physical metallurgist. But, we were in transition, faculty transition period, and I was asked to jump in that class a week or two into the semester. And, you know, I mean, I'm not totally ignorant of physical metallurgy, I have some, and so I taught that in the lab. But, it's not my forte, and it's not my particular interest.

Battle:

But, you realized quickly that you're probably more knowledgeable than the students. So, they don't realize you’re not an expert in the subject if you're confident?

Howard:

Right.

But, that's an old story about, saying about, how you don't learn, really learn, something until you have to teach it.

Howard:

Oh, there is no doubt I benefitted greatly in knowing thermo and heat transfer by teaching. No doubt. That's a great satisfaction to me. I just always wanted to know how things work and how the world worked. And, to this day, when I go to sleep at night, I think about, “Isn't it wonderful that I have been able to acquire that knowledge from other people, other giants, you know; I'm not the giant but Denbigh and Gibbs and those people.” I mean, it's just fantastic to think that I've been afforded the opportunity to just learn this stuff. It's just wonderful. It's just thrilling to me.

Battle:

Well then, as I think you've said, to see the students catch it. Thermodynamics is a subject that either you get it or you don't, and there are different ways to get it. A lot of subjects, I think, are like that: one approach may work great with one student, but another student is still totally out to sea.

Howard:

Well, I am an educator, and I've certainly come to recognize students learn differently. They do, but it's a great satisfaction to teach students and help them learn this material. I just went back into teaching after being retired for a couple of years because I wanted to have that interaction with the students. It's thrilling. It's exciting to me. I enjoy it greatly.

44:05 BEYOND RESEARCH – WRITING AND PUBLISHING

Battle:

Now, what was the focus at South Dakota? Was it you do research X percent of your time or your teaching?

Howard:

Well, it's evolved over the years. When I first went up there, I remember telling the president in the interview that I had with him that we needed to get more research. So, we were all excited about research and doing more of it. In the last few years, I mean, it's, particularly now, very demanding.

Battle:


[Crosstalk] The publish or perish kind of thing?

Howard:

Yes, very demanding standards. But, we contract for a certain percentage, each semester, each year, how much research, how much teaching, and so on. I'm out of that now. I'm just teaching part-time, but I'm there 50 hours a week, writing and publishing.

Battle:

Only 50.

Howard:

Yes. I always like to say the nice thing about teaching is you could do your 80 hours whenever you wanted. Very flexible. And, that's what we did. We did every day, every day we were down at school.

Battle:

And so, talk about a little, your research. It sounds like you were fortunate enough to be able to continue your PhD work or with similar equipment to your masters thesis research?.

Howard:

Yes.

Battle:

And, not everyone gets that opportunity. Some of them never want to see it again, whatever they worked on.

Howard:

Right. Well, I built my own equipment.

Battle:

You knew it backwards and forwards.

Howard:

Yes, yes. So, I built a Knudsen inlet system, a valved Knudsen inlet system, where I could actually change the composition inside the crucible in the Knudsen cell as I monitored the ion currents or the effusate, with mass spec. So, you could start with a pure metal, like pure gold, and start dropping alloy additions and--pre-weighed, so you'd know the composition--then you could track the ion current of gold and measure activities directly. Very nice for multi-component systems.

Battle:

I remember they did a lot of chlorides at CSM, or was that a little after you? Did you get into Chlorides or—

Howard:

Well, Bob Hill worked in the gold chloride system on that 30/12 mass spec, as I recall the number was, and I never had much to do with that.

Battle:

Well, what were the major things you were measuring?

Howard:

I was doing thermodynamic activities of liquid metallic solutions.

Battle:

There was little or no data on most of those systems before [Crosstalk]

Howard:

That's true, that's true.

Battle:

Or were you narrowing down the error bars on—

Howard:

Well, a little of both.

46:58 THE BIRTH OF GROUP V METALS, INC.

Battle:

And then, what other new research did you get into as you, kind of, built that part of your career?

Howard:

Well, we were doing multi-component solutions, germanium, gold. I mean, those are easy to do with the mass spec. The vapor pressures are all about right. So, copper, germanium, gold, silver are nice selections, nice systems to work in. It's been interesting to me over the years that, of late, people are looking at those things for solders. So, I see that my work's kind of cited in some of those articles. It's gratifying. But, I never stood still; I did a lot of different things. I guess one might say I'm bored easily or, once I learned how something works, I want to move on and do something different. And, I've done a lot of different things over the years, so we can talk about that as you would like.

Battle:

At length, and some of that is what the funding agencies are looking for at a given time to certain extent, right? If you had to rely, I don't know if you relied, much on NSF [National Science Foundation] money or Bureau of Mines or things like that, where they're looking for certain things, whether it's what you really wanted to do or not.

Howard:

Well, sometimes it's difficult to get funding at a school that doesn't have that history. And, I used to cast about for different types of different areas, for funding, and I've done a lot of different things. But, one of the more interesting things I find some satisfaction in having done was-- I developed it with colleagues, Wendell Dunn in particular-- a chlorination process for processing tantalum and making tantalum products and niobium. It's called Group Five Metals. We ran it in Rapid City.

Battle:

Wendell Dunn used to work for DuPont.

Howard:

Yes. He worked up in Gore.

Battle:

So, titanium tetrachloride.

Howard:

Right. Yes, I met Wendell in--and Wendell was one of the people I really wanted to mention in this interview--I met him in 1980, as I recall, in Chicago at the TMS meeting. And, it was very odd: I didn't believe he was for real at first because we're doing a social gathering there at TMS, and I came across him, and I saw his badge, and it said Spearfish, South Dakota, which is 50 miles from me. And, I asked him about that, and I said, “What kind of metallurgy do you do?” And he said, “I do chlorination metallurgy,” which I was interested in, and I'd written proposals on and done some work in. And, I couldn't believe that somebody would be in Spearfish, South Dakota, doing chlorination metallurgy. Well, it turned out Wendell and I and a friend of mine, Dan Carda, and Glen Stone started this company, Group Five Metals, shortly after that because people were bringing in tantalum compounds to have us evaluate them from the Black Hills. So, we decided we'd just start a company. Well, Dan Carda and I decided to do that. Then Wendell joined us. Good thing because Wendell knew what he was doing.

Battle:

He had more enthusiasm than you had.

Howard:

And, he had a lot of experience.

Battle:

Was he retired then?

Howard:

Yes. Wendell and Gore were friends at DuPont. Gore-Tex. Wendell brought into my office one day a stack of Gore-Tex stock issues, big sheets, probably an inch and a half thick. He just said, “I was taking these to the bank; I thought you might want to look at them.” I don't know what that was worth, but it was a considerable sum.

Battle:

Yes. So, I mean, I remember the stories of Gore-Tex, developed at DuPont. They really didn't seem to see a future in it, and they let Gore take the patents with him if I recall.

Howard:

Yes. And then, he tried to, as Wendell tells the story, he tried to get someone to buy the technology. And, they said, we'll just loan you the money, you should do it, the banker told him. So, that's how Gore-Tex started. But, Wendell was a great partner. I enjoyed working with Wendell. And, we were quite successful in producing ultra-high or very-high purity niobium oxides. That was the business; it turned out a year later. And, we originally thought we'd make tantalum metal, which we did, but the market was to take niobium oxide from Colombia and tin slags from Malaysia and turn it into niobium oxide, high purity, for lenses and lithium-niobate switches.

Battle:

How long did that company last or your involvement with them?

Howard:

Well, it ran for three, four years, and then it was sold off. We were a licensing company, and the operating company sold it. So, it disappeared from Rapid City.

Battle:

And, how much of your extra--your second hundred percent of your time--did you spend with that?

Howard:

I spent a lot of time as a consultant working on that project.

Battle:

Did you get into the financial stuff with your interest in—

Howard:

It was very much worth our time, and we were very much involved. Actually, Wendell's son was a member of our corporation, and he was a graduate of the Wharton School of Business, and he advised us in some very important ways to succeed. Very grateful to him.

Battle:

So, you sold that because of the kind of the market conditions?

Howard:

Well, it was the operating company's choice. They sold it, and we were just the licensing company. And so, we sold, at that point, we sold the licensing information with it. So, we were out of the business. We're not really operators; we develop technology, basically.

Battle:

Tried to have fun.

Howard:

[Affirmation.]

00:20 BUILDING FROM THE BOTTOM UP- STANLEY HOWARD’S INVOLVEMENT IN ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING

Battle:

So, what was next after that?

Howard:

Well, that was in the '90s— that was in the '80s— that period. I think after that, I got involved with the friction stir welding and additive manufacturing facility at South Dakota. We met with the senators. Tom Daschle was from South Dakota, the majority leader. And, those are back in the days of earmarks. And so, we capitalized on that. And, Maury and I and Tom Daschle used to have breakfast together down at the Alex Johnson Hotel in Rapid City when Tom was a junior senator. And so, we had that connection. And, Maury was gone by the '90s. He had moved on to Utah, again, or Nevada, I guess it was. But, we met with Tom and the senators from Minnesota. And, MTS put this together. Larson, I think it's Gary Larson. And, we got a $7 million grant to get a friction stir welder and a laser additive manufacturing system, which they built there at Arden Hills. That was MTS's interest. And, then we got into the five-axis friction stir welding with Bill Arbogast as the director. And, I worked with that for about ten years. I said I'd helped support the work over there and advise students. So, I put out a lot of theses, students and their theses, doing friction stir welding and additive manufacturing. Jim Sears was there, a TMS name that you know well, and he was a real benefit to have. I enjoyed working with him.

Battle:

They didn't call it additive manufacturing then, did they?

Howard:

We used that term fairly early on, but direct laser deposition was the more likely term, early on.

Battle:

I heard about it when it was presented at TMS for the first time. It's just this weird idea. I think it was more called 3D printing.

Howard:

3D printing is the term in the last few years. I don't particularly care for the term because it just seems not to have much to do with metallurgy, but of course, it does. But, we spun off a company there in Rapid City. I can't take, I don't want to take any particular credit for it. But, we met with Rob Mudge, an alumnus of the school, who runs RPM, which stands for Robert P Mudge. And, Robert did hard facing of mining and power equipment there in Rapid City as a very successful firm and a very useful and a generous member of the community, I might add, and has hired quite a few of our graduates from AIME and metallurgy and built a really very nice direct laser deposition or 3D printing facility there and has substantial contracts, or has had, over the years with the military. But, I don't have anything to do with that because it's all secret contracts, you know, confidential contracts. But, he's been very successful at it.

03:57 GOING THE EXTRA YARD: BALANCING TEACHING, RESEARCH, AND BEING DEPARTMENT CHAIR

Battle:

And then, you also did your share of service to the university?

Howard:

Well, yes.

Battle:

Did your term as Department Chair?

Howard:

I did. See, we had a rotating chair system after Maurie left and, well, the whole university went to that system. Ken Han was chair, and then, after Ken, I was chair for six years, and then Jon Keller, and now Michael West, all TMS members.

Battle:

Right. Now, did you enjoy being Department Chair, or was it a drag?

Howard:

Well, it was a challenge. I like challenges. And, after a few years of it, I had all the files I needed to run the thing pretty efficiently and got thinking that I could do this. So, to the extent that when we went to a Dean system, I nearly became the Dean, but it was two candidates at the end. But, Jan Pusynski became the Dean, and about a day after he was appointed, we both agreed “what was he thinking” and” what was I thinking”? And, I won. Because that's a pretty difficult job, it was a 40% dean position. But, he did a good job as Dean.

Battle:

Well, and I was thinking of it, as Department Chair, you don't have the time. Do they reduce your teaching load? Is that an automatic thing, so you can fit everything into your time and research—

Howard:

I maintained my teaching load and research. Yes, friction stir welding, friction stir welding, and that came in near the end of that period.

Battle:

So, your 80 hours is edging toward a hundred hours.

Howard:

Well, I don't mind work. I still do go in every day.

05:50 EVOLVING WITH TIME- A LOOK INTO HOW TECHNOLOGY HAS CHANGED AND HOWARD’S NEW APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT INTEREST

Battle:

Well, and you, obviously, some of that came from your upbringing, some of it came from John Hager's influence.

Howard:

Well, yes. But, really the reason I go into work every day— Saturday, Sunday included— Sunday, it's always afternoon; I'd go in at noon and come home at 6:30— I like what I do. I enjoy what I do.

Battle:

Ultimately, that's your hope.

Howard:

I can't imagine not doing it, you know. People ask me what my hobby is: my hobby is my job, really, too. I mean, I just enjoy what I'm doing. I'm writing apps now. Metallurgical engineering apps for iPhone smartphones.

Battle:

So, you went through the whole period with card punch readers?

Howard:

I was before card punch readers. I was on the LPG 30 system in the basement of the metallurgy building at the Colorado School of Mines as a freshman, and we had punch tape. And, when we were done, we rolled up the tape, put a paper clip on it, put it in our shirt pocket.

Battle:

And, you learned slide rules?

Howard:

Oh, I love slide rules.

Battle:

I was just after that.

Howard:

I love slide rules. I still use my slide rule. I'll use my slide rule before I walk downstairs to get a calculator. But mostly, I just calculate stuff in my head. I don't need a calculator.

Battle:

But, you saw through that whole revolution when I'm thinking of, of apps as a culmination of 40 years or 50 years of—

Howard:

Oh, it's amazing what the transition has been. You know, as I describe it to my students, we've gone from numbers are expensive to numbers are cheap.

Battle:

Big data. If you want to use it that way, but then what do you do with it?

Howard:

Yes, well, you need graphics. I started writing graphic programs with the Apple system, Fortran toolbox, the graphics system in the '90s, late '90s, for a big heat transfer codes, and so on; I wrote those kinds of things. And, it turned out— I thought that was going to be a lot of work. It turns out the graphics makes the program possible because you can see an error right away when you graph it, whereas, if you don't, you're looking through reams of numbers. You can't see anything. So, you need the graphics now to analyze your work, to diagnose it.

Battle:

So, how does the app language compare to, you know, programming in Fortran?

Howard:

Well, the app language I'm using is MATLAB.

Battle:

The same MATLAB that's been around for years in the field?

Howard:

Yes, it's the same MATLAB I resisted for a long time. I liked MathCAD, which is a GUI interface, but then I had to teach MATLAB. And, I taught numerical methods for the math department for the metallurgists and mechanical engineers for quite a few years because I liked numerical methods. I'm a computer guy. So, in the last couple of years, ME just wanted MATLAB used, and so, I got immersed in that. And, it turns out I'm writing love letters to MathWorks telling them how much I love MATLAB. Anything you want to do; you can just do. It is fantastic.

Battle:

No more infinite “DO” loops.

Howard:

There are still programming errors.

09:36 WORK LIFE BEFORE TEACHING: THE UNITED STATES GEOLOGIC SURVEY, DOW, STANFORD RESEARCH AND MINTECH AMONG OTHERS

Battle:

So, one other part of your formative career, besides school itself, is you did have several internships, right, both before and while you were at school?

Howard:

Yes. I should mention, my first job associated with engineering was with the United States Geologic Survey, Water Resources Division, Surface Water Branch, if I still have the name correct. And, a fellow by the name of Leon Wiard— W-I-A-R-D— his daughter was in my French class. And, she asked me one day in junior year of high school, do you know anyone who would like a job? I guess it was sophomore year, in fact. And, I said, what kind of job? And, she described it: her father was this engineer and worked for the government. I'm like, I'll take care of that for you. Don't ask for anybody else. I'll go talk to him this afternoon. Well, I got this wonderful job, hydrologic field assistant. I was a GS-1, GS-2, -3, -4. I worked for them for five years after school and on summers and went out on field trips. We measured surface water from streams and correlated to the gauges and checked all the records in the office. It was a wonderful, wonderful job, and I am so grateful to Mr. Leon Wiard for that. And, he took me to civil engineering, a professional meeting, one time there at the Frontier Hotel in Wyoming in Cheyenne. And so, he was doing what so many of us should do as mentoring young people, and I'm so grateful to him in that position.

My junior year in college, junior-senior transition, I worked for Kennecott. Rush Spedden was the director of the research center there at 1515 Mineral Square on the University of Utah campus. And, I spent a fair amount of my time out of the Garfield smelter on the Moly capture, or Moly roaster, where we were working to capture rhenium using a Cottrell unit. And, I used to monitor that, spent some of my time down on copper row, converter row. It was quite exciting. I enjoyed that greatly.

And then, my first job after I graduated, after my senior year, I was at Rocky Flats for Dow, the Atomic Weapons Division. There were about 30 of us who had summer positions. Mine was one of three that had required a Q clearance. So, we had top-secret clearance and worked in, I worked in building 76 and 77. My office was in 76, and that was the building that caught fire a few years later, the disastrous incident there that caused the closure of Rocky Flats. And, I worked for a fellow named Jim McClair. He was, I believe, a graduate of Colorado School of Mines. And, it was a very thrilling position. Of course, we couldn't talk about a thing we did. And so, I don't, except in the generalist of terms, most general. But, that was quite, quite exciting work.

And then, I had several interns as a Professor. I never took a sabbatical. It never arose. I just never planned for it. I guess I never thought I was going to stay that long, so I didn't want the two-year obligation.

And so, in '76, I worked at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park with Dan Cubicciotti and Robin Jones on Zircaloy, stress corrosion cracking— basically, it was the effect of iodine daughter product on a Zircaloy. And then, in '86, I went down to Edmond, Oklahoma, an Oklahoma City suburb, and worked at the Technical Center, Kerr-McGee's technical center, with Bruce Palmer and modeled their titanium burner to see if they would benefit from using plasma heating torches for heating. And, my model was quite an extensive model. I wrote 10,000 lines of code that summer. That's all I did. And, it was kind of fun, generalized, basically, a big Runge-Kutta integrator to keep track of products, heat transfer, and composition. And then, I've acted as a bit of a consultant for large, heavy equipment manufacturer and carburization, an auditor at Yucca mountain for the containment vessel Alloy 22 and titanium drip shields and that sort of thing.

So, there have probably been some others. Did some patent work on developing high-conductivity alloys, turns out to be a magnesium property.

Battle:

A pretty wide variety.

Howard:

Yes, Glen Stone and I did that. I would like to mention Glen's name. Glen was my right-hand buddy. He was a phys-metter [physical metallurgy], and I was an extractive, and, between the two of us, we did some interesting things.

Battle:

Covered the bases?

Howard:

Yes, we covered the bases. He was the real x-ray guy. And, Glen and I still associate. He's about seven years older than I am, so he's long retired.

Battle:

And, what about Mintech?

Howard:

Mintech was a company I started with Dan Carda to do corrosion testing with geothermal work. We had written and managed, I managed a number of geothermal projects in South Dakota for direct applications of geothermal water. We have water that's about 168 degrees Fahrenheit out in the center part of the state. We were involved, I was the PI (principal investigator), on a multi-million-dollar project at the Diamond Ring Ranch, east of Pierre (South Dakota capitol) about 50 miles or east of Pierre. And then, the St. Mary's project and Phillip and Midland schools, we were corrosion consultants and things at Edgemont. So, we did a lot of corrosion work, and we'd fly around the US and the state and do corrosion management systems. We were out in Nevada and so on. We were part of a DOD (project).

Battle:

You were the co-pilot?

Howard:

I was a co-pilot. I was a navigator. Dan had his Cherokee VI, and we did a lot of flying. We flew to Baltimore, we flew to San Diego, we flew to Phoenix, and we landed out in the prairie many, many times. I have a saying about the Diamond Ring Ranch airport, if you will: it's two ruts in the ground over a fence post that you'd line up on. You land once, and, if you're lucky, you take-off once. We were plowing weeds with an overhead wing one day when we landed out there, and that's the day I flew the photographer from the Rapid City Journal out there. I about squeezed his leg off when we were landing because we were plowing, we were cutting the weeds off with the overhead wing. So, we were young. We did lots of interesting things.

Battle:

Going back one last time to your career as a Professor, you have a lot of students you're proud of?

Howard:

I have so many students I'm proud of. As a matter of fact, I never really thought I'd be an educator. I always thought I'd just go make steel or something. I love hot liquid metal. But, it turns out after all these years, I am pretty much an educator and a professor. And, I've tried to count how many students I've taught, but it's hard because, you know, the same student takes the same course, then you have all the ME [mechanical engineering] students, and then you taught the geological engineers, thermo, and so on. So, it's difficult. I know I've taught thermodynamics 49 times, and it kind of bothers me. I'd like it to be 50, so I'm hoping I get one more chance to teach thermo to make it 50.

Battle:

Get it right.

Howard:

Yes. I'll get it right, probably my 50th time [crosstalk]. And so, I've had so many students succeed, not because of me, but I've been a part of their lives, a little bit of their lives. And, two TMS presidents were my students: Rusty Gray and Ray Peterson. And, the faculty at the school of mines: Grant Crawford was one of my students, Jon Keller, Bill Cross. And, I told Bharat Jasthi— who headed up the Bladesmithing recently, Chairman, he was my PhD student. I told him not to apply at our university because we wouldn't hire our own graduates. And then, two weeks later, he said, everybody in the department is asking me to apply. So, I said, well, go ahead. Well, he'd worked at the AMP (Applied Material Processing) Center a couple of years before that, so he’s certainly one of my students. We’ve had lots of wonderful students over the years, professors all over the country that took some of my courses. That’s just been a wonderful engagement, and we have students all over the world.

19:29 MORE THAN A PROFESSION - BEING PROUD OF FORMER STUDENT’S SUCCESS

Battle:

Professors but also people in industry.

Howard:

Sure. Oh yes. Yes, absolutely. Very successful people, and now they're coming back wanting to make major donations. You know, we always tried to instill a culture of giving among our students. We try to treat them well and support them as much as we possibly could. And, they are very generous to us, as a department and school.

Battle:

They realized that they needed help to get through, often financially. Hopefully, a few years later, they'll have the money, too.

Howard:

Right. South Dakota's not a rich state. A lot of the youth that come into our university, about half of them, are from South Dakota. And, they come from farms and small towns, and they're hard workers, and they know what work is, and they're just delightful to work with.

20:40 THE END YEARS OF BEING A PROFESSOR - TEACHING STUDENTS ZONE REFINING

Battle:

So, you also did some work with students on Zone refining?

Howard:

Right. Well, that's part of the Deep Underground Lab work that we had done. The Deep Underground Lab was established by the US Government and was selected as the Old Homestake Mine. And, they have carved out a space there at the forty-eight fifty level, 4,850 feet below the surface, for low background purposes, so they can do high-energy physics experiments, and their detectors work better, right. And so, that's quite a going concern. It used to be called the Deep Underground Lab. Now it's called the SURF— the Sanford Underground Research Facility. And, Denny Sanford is a very successful banker, Citibank, as I recall, who has made major donations to the cause and for healthcare in South Dakota and throughout the region. So, we're very appreciative of his contributions. I think he's donated, you know, something over 50 or more million to just get that facility up and running and maintained.

And, so now it's in full-fledge operation. Part of that, the state and the regions support what they call research center work, and I was co-PI on a proposal that was funded for 5 million that the School of Mines eventually became a subcontractor from the University of South Dakota on that from the PI down there at Vermillion (SD). We had a couple elements to that: mostly our part, my part, was involving germanium, germanium zone refining, and single crystal growth. And, there was another element not, well somewhat, associated with it. There was, also, Eric Hoppe at Idaho National Labs, who worked with one of my students to develop ultra-high purity copper by electrodeposition for the fixture of the experiments, the higher achieve physics experiments. And, the reason that it has to be ultra-pure is for low background, very pure copper, and we produced it from electrodeposition. Purest copper in the world, it's called. If you search that on the web, you'll find Anne-Marie Suriano’s name and Eric Hoppe, and she was my student; she was my last PhD student, in fact. She's in Germany now, and she usually attends this meeting. I hope she's here. So, TMS people. We zone refined and developed technology for that, well, tried to replicate technology. That was done by another TMS member out at Berkeley. We went out and visited him. He's a TMS fellow. I should certainly remember him.

Battle:

Jim Evans?

Howard:

No, no.

Battle:

Think who else at Berkeley is a fellow.

Howard:

It escapes me.

Howard:

But, at any rate, we visited him. He was the first one, about 30 years ago, developed ultra-high purity germanium. You know, it's very complex. We're looking at purities of 10 to the 11th or so defect difference between donors and acceptors per cubic centimeter. And, then growing single crystals and so on. So, that occupied the last five years of my time as a full-time professor.

Battle:

So, we've been nudging around your involvement with TMS.

Howard:

Oh, I remember the name. Haller. I think it's H-A-L-L-E-R. [Eugene Haller - Professor Emeritus, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, UC Berkeley - founder of the Electronic Materials Program]

Battle:

Okay, we say it goes back 30 years, right?

24:52 A FORK IN THE ROAD- GETTING INVOLVED WITH TMS

Battle:

Reading about your involvement with TMS, it sounds like your first real recognition to the society came about a little unusual way with your casting project. Your aluminum casting of the emblem?

Howard:

Well, when we were juniors in Colorado School of Mines, we cast a plaque for ASM [American Society for Metals], and we would shine that up as part of the initiation. And, there was a contest whose was the shiniest. I really learned how to shine aluminum by that. We were really competitive students at Colorado School of Mines; and so, in those days, as I recall, it was a joint AIME-ASM membership, and I think it was $5.

Battle:

For the student chapter.

Howard:

Student chapter, yes. And so, TMS was years later. I think by the time I was at South Dakota School of Mines, we had to make a selection between TMS and ISS and so on. And I, of course, picked TMS and never, never regretted that. I love TMS.

Battle:

So, your dreams of going to Pittsburgh and making steel, you went in another direction.

Howard:

Well, by the time I graduated PhD, mini-mills were coming online, and the steel industry was not as expansive; it was not expanding, to say the least. As a matter of fact, you know, I tell my students that, right now, our production is about a third of what it was in the sixties in terms of raw production. Used to be something like 300 million tons, as I recall. Now, it's around a hundred million.

Battle:

Yes. And the total focus of change, mini-mills didn't exist then.

Howard:

Right.

Battle:

And, now Nucor is the biggest steel company, and that's all they do in the US.

Howard:

That's right.

Battle:

So, quite a lot of changes. So, you joined TMS originally when you were at CSM?

Howard:

Well, I was AIME-ASM joint chapter.

Battle:

Okay. Oh, so the student chapter then, but what was the first meeting you went to?

Howard:

The first meeting, well, the first conference was when I was in graduate school. I think that was 1960— First time I left Denver to go to a conference was 1970 because my baby girl was just a few months old, and that was so sad to have to leave my baby girl and go to New York City, I believe it was. But, there was a conference in Denver the year before, and so, I presented papers there, and that was exciting. I gave a couple of papers. I had a brand-new suit from May D&F (May-Daniels & Fisher Department Store), or some such place, and I still have the suit, but I can't fit into it.

Battle:

It's shrunk over the years.

Howard:

It shrunk. Right!

Battle:

Yes, that's what happens. Now, was it a TMS meeting? Or a TMS-SME? Were they doing it jointly at that time?

Howard:

I never paid too much attention to that. John Hager just always said, you're going here, you're going there. And, you know, we practiced the papers forever, but I think '72 was when TMS came on. So that would have been after that. That would've been before TMS broke out, but I think— [TMS was separately founded in 1984]

Battle:

That's true. If it was AIME then, then they might've all been, well, the petroleum engineers were often there—

Howard:

Right, when we met, our whole building cleared out. Even in the early seventies, geologists and the mining and the met people were all at the same conferences, like in Las Vegas and so on for several years in the early seventies.

Battle:

Yup. In some ways, you miss those days. But, we're so big, and the fields are fragmented into their own. Now, did John encourage you to get involved? I mean other than presenting but getting onto committees and that kind of thing?

Howard:

John Hager, very instrumental in my involvement in TMS, on the physical chemistry committee. He was chair, as I recall, and he invited me to move up through the physical chemistry committee. I was the chair of that in the mid-seventies, and that was a huge committee then. You know, it was a hundred people or so. And so, I mean, when I look back on that, I can hardly believe that I was doing that early in my career. But I was, and it was because of him.

Battle:

Well, that's one of the advantages of TMS. The wonderful things as you go into a committee meeting, and you're a junior engineer, and you're sitting next to, you know, the technical director for Alcoa or whatever. And, you're communicating as colleagues, not as a superior to—

Howard:

It's a very egalitarian society. It just affords such wonderful opportunities to young people and mid-career people alike.

30:38 IF YOU DON’T LEARN HOW TO SAY “NO,” YOU’LL PROBABLY END UP AS PRESIDENT

Battle:

And then, you progressed after you finished committee work. So, you were chair of physical chemistry, right? Was there a rank up there? Because I think that was before technical divisions, wasn't it?

Howard:

I never paid much attention to the organization. I could never quite figure it out to tell you the truth. It was always a little confusing to me, and that's why when I became a little involved at higher levels. I was always concerned about how well we communicate organization to the younger members.

Battle:

Yes. You don't want to get them so confused that you lose them.

Howard:

It could be confusing. So, all I would ever hear about those things was somebody would refer to such and such committee up above us, it was going to rule on our suggestion [Battle: your proposal], that sort of thing. Or, you know that I paid attention to that, but I was a little uncertain as to how it worked. I never saw a flow diagram, for example, or an organizational diagram. I suppose they existed, but I'm pretty keen on that.

Battle:

Yes, but then somehow you ended up in the presidential rotation.

Howard:

Well, I never aspired to be in the presidential rotation, or I never particularly aspire to anything except serving. And, I guess the best way to summarize it is, whenever I was asked to do something, I was glad to do it. I had some ideas; I didn’t hesitate expressing my ideas. But, I have to tell you that I've been far more impressed with my colleagues' service than my own, and yours in particular.

Battle:

Well, I tell the younger ones; it's easy because you just say "yes."

Howard:

Yes, that's true.

Battle:

If you don't learn how to say "no," you'll probably end up as President.

Howard:

That's true.

Battle:

Well, you have to be somewhat competent, I guess that helps, you know, rather than just enthusiastic.

Howard:

Well, we look for certain qualities, I mean, but it is an open process. Nobody's wiring the positions, you know. But, when we look for people to encourage, we look for people with qualities, and I would say the qualities, and I know you want to probably talk about qualities and advice to young people, and that's the same advice I give my students and, that is, be constructive. If there's one thing you could say, just be constructive.

Battle:

Not negative.

Howard:

Yes. I mean, we need analysis, but we don't need, you know, critical hacking of ideas and arrogance and those kinds of things. Those are just so destructive to progress. So, real hard analysis, and engineers love to analyze and talk, and we all appreciate correct analysis and good numbers and good figures. So, we're not talking about a fear of looking at the truth, but we're talking about being constructive and polite and engaging with our colleagues. And, that's an environment in which - it's called teamwork, and it's an environment in which we can thrive and make some progress.

Battle:

Right. Right, rather than being divisive and my way or the highway.

Howard:

Well, on that score, I always told the board, when I chaired the meetings with the board, is you are not here to impose your opinion on the society. We're here and interested in your opinions, but there's going to be a collective decision made here. And, if it's not your opinion and it doesn't match your opinion, please realize that it's the best decision made in a deliberate process to arrive at the best decision for TMS. You're not here to impose your will. You're here to do the best you can for this society and your colleagues. And, if you disagree with the opinion of the board, say, well it wasn't my choice, but I at least understood that it was done deliberately so people can support the board's decisions. For heaven's sakes, we don't want backbiting after, and I have to say the board has been very good at that as a very cohesive board. And, the organization is running very smoothly. And, I think people appreciate those concepts of doing the best they can for the society.

Battle:

And, you also have the issue that each board member represents a certain constituency in the society, and it is your job to advocate for them.

Howard:

That's right.

Battle:

But, the good of the society may mean you have to subsume that.

Howard:

That's right. That's exactly right. It's a give and take. It's a compromise, and it's a decision to support the mission of TMS, and the mission of the TMS is to serve the profession and the professionals in the society.

Battle:

Right. And, you know, sometimes you think that we could do just as well if we forget all the papers and presentations and just have networking and the presidential suite and so on because of all the, you know,— You mentioned meeting Wendell Dunn at one of these, and you mentioned that, even though you don't necessarily need to come to TMS anymore as part of your retirement situation, you would miss it because you have all these friends and colleagues that you've known for probably 40 years. Some of the—

Howard:

That's true. My many, many friends here at TMS— and, I certainly have my colleagues at South Dakota, and I enjoy visiting with them— but, I have so many dear friends here at TMS that I just am so glad to see. And, I always see them here, and I am thinking about the days when I am fully retired, if I would, how much I would miss not seeing them. I just think I have to come to the meeting to see my friends.

Battle:

Well, I don't think you're going to be fully retired, from everything we've talked about.

Howard:

No, I hope I have many more years.

37:10 WHAT TO TELL STUDENTS WHEN THEY ARE THINKING ABOUT A CAREER: BEGIN MENTORING WHEN THEY ARE YOUNG

Battle:

But, as we kind of close up, you know, you're probably still, as you talk to students, recommending TMS or professional societies? What are you telling them when they're trying to think of their career?

Howard:

Well, I just promote TMS as the society, and I ask them regularly, are you a member of Materials Advantage, for example, because that's their entry point. We have five students down here now for the Bladesmithing competition. And, they drove all night to come down here. I tried to encourage them to get a room. I told them I'd pay for a room. But, no, they just wanted to drive all night, five of them, and get down here 1200 miles later, and they're here safely, thank goodness. It always concerns me. But, I very much encourage students to be members of Materials Advantage and be involved in TMS. And, whenever I have been at a meeting with students, I make sure that we take them out to dinner while we're down here and shepherd them around a little bit. But, of course, they're interested in their own things too. So, I encourage that.

Battle:

Well, they're still interested in free food.

Howard:

Right.

Battle:

And, often they find the presidential suite or—

Howard:

Yes. Well, I try to ask the presidents if they would mind if I'd bring the students up to the presidential suite to meet people like you and other important people in leadership. And, I think it's an important part of their experience. And then, when we get back home, I always have them report to the other students what their experience was. Feedback.

39:04 HAVING NO REGRETS: OVER 60 YEARS OF PASSION THAT KEEPS HOWARD GOING

Battle:

That's nice. And, feedback to us, hopefully, if they think there are things that we could do better. So, really going overarching, you know, you decided in seventh grade you wanted a PhD in metallurgy—

Howard:

Third grade [PhD]. I'm sorry, fourth grade. Eighth grade, I decided it was metallurgy.

Battle:

Do you regret it?

Howard:

No.

Battle:

If you try to remember yourself 40 years ago or 50 years ago, I know, you thought you'd end up at US Steel or something and making—

Howard:

Yes. My other thoughts in youth about what I might do is— I thought about medicine, psychiatry, physics. I was a good physics student. But, when I look back and think about those choices, I mean certainly medicine and those things, that I would not have enjoyed that. I am not cut out to do that. I could do it for a week. I have been at this for 50 years at South Dakota.

Battle:

And, you can't stop.

Howard:

And, I've been doing it 60 some years from junior high school.

Battle:

There's no end. You know what heat transfer coefficients mean.

Howard:

And, my colleagues are expanding, you know, these areas so fast that there's no way you can keep up with all of it. But, it's a thrilling place, you know. It's just the whole idea, the philosophy of modeling and describing nature, is something we haven't really talked about. But, it's a great fascination to me— why it works? how it works?

Battle:

And, the fact that so many complicated phenomena we kind of understand.

Howard:

Well, what amazes me is somebody like Gibbs could come along and see through this and just describe what he did in his published publications in 1905. And, the quote I like so much about Gibbs— and he's my hero, his picture's on my wall— is that when Maxwell died— Maxwell sort of translated most of Gibb's work to the rest of us, so we can understand it. When Maxwell died, the people at Princeton said there are only two people that understood Gibbs' work, and now Maxwell's dead. But, you know, fortunately, he translated Gibb's work enough for us that we could understand it. Einstein called Gibbs the best mathematician in the Western world, and he doesn't get enough credit. I don't think people know the name as much as I think they should.

42:17 LIFE AFTER RETIREMENT… STILL WORKING

Battle:

So, we've talked about this a little bit, but, you know, you're officially retired, right? You're an Emeritus Professor. I don't get the impression you're lying out at the beach, if there are any beaches around Rapid City.

Howard:

Very ancient ones.

Battle:

That's true. Not a whole lot of water associated with it. So, what is keeping you busy now? You mentioned you're still going in; you still have your office.

Howard:

Yes, I work every day from about noon until 6:30 faithfully. And, I'm primarily writing applications for iPhone smartphones.

Battle:

You're teaching one class.

Howard:

And, I'm teaching. I took up teaching junior design because I missed being with the students and visiting with them and pontificating a little, I must confess.

Battle:

They're a captive audience.

Howard:

Right. They seem to listen. They keep showing up.

Battle:

That's important.

Howard:

I enjoy working with them very much.

Battle:

And, how many papers are you thinking of writing still?

Howard:

Well, I've got a list of publications I need to submit. Many of them are half-written, or fully written in some cases, but, for one reason or another, some little thing has to be fixed. And so, those things accumulate over time. I've got about 20 papers on different subjects, ranging from mercury-chlorine interaction, a kinetic paper, to Gibbs Duhem Ternary Integration Methods, to, you name it, corrosion papers, all kinds of things that I need to put out, should put out. And, I got seven or eight of those published this last year, working on some of them related to some of the apps we're doing, predominance diagrams, 3D predominance diagrams.

Battle:

And, that's the first thing I think of when I think of John Hager's graduate thermo class, is learning predominant theory diagrams, right? Metal sulfur rocks.

Howard:

Right.

Battle:

But, they were always two dimensional.

Howard:

Yes.

Battle:

But, the world is not two dimensional.

Howard:

No. So we're doing three-dimensional, metal, arsenic, sulfur oxygen, although the program code handles anything. I spent four years writing that off and on, what, pretty much on full time. And, it started as a VBA, and now it's a MATLAB, and it puts isobaric surfaces and does 3D rotations. It's a nice program. I'm just weeks from finishing up and getting it packaged.

Battle:

We distracted you by bringing you here.

Howard:

Right. Well, I, just this morning, I got a request for one of my Ellingham diagram apps, if they could use it in publication. I said, of course, more than willing to make those things available. And so, whether you know how those show up in final form, I don't know. I think some portion of them will be free. And, the problem is, of course, with MATLAB, is, if you have any fee whatsoever associated with it, you need another license, and I'm not sure I want to pay for that. So, maybe I'll just make them all free and give them to TMS or something like that.

45:56 ADDITIONAL MENTORS: WALKING DOWN MEMORY LANE WITH FORMER TEACHERS AND PROFESSOR

Battle:

Now, before we finish up, you'd mentioned you've been thinking of your mentors over the years, your teachers, and not always the most obvious. John Hager may be one big one, but there are others.

Howard:

Well, there are other names that should certainly be mentioned. And, I just feel so grateful for my opportunities in life and for the people who have made my education possible. Of course, starting with my parents, but there were a couple of teachers in high school and junior high that were just seminal teachers, and their names should be mentioned. There was Jennings King. Jennings King was a science teacher in junior high, and he was the most ebullient, positive man you could ever expect to, hope to meet. And, every day after school, students walked to his classroom, and he'd stayed until five o'clock grading papers, and the students would stay in the science lab and look at things and be working on things. And, he was such a jolly man. You talk about a constructive man. He lived to be a hundred. He was recognized nationally for his efforts as a junior high teacher. Wonderful man, Jennings King. And then, in high school, my math teacher and chemistry teacher. My math teacher is Paul Zimmerman, and he's still living, he's at nearly a hundred. He comes to our reunions, and he taught us calculus. And then, there was Will Yost, who was our chemistry teacher. He was a wonderful man. And then, in college, of course, John Hager. And, one of my other thermo teachers was a fellow by the name of Rickman, Professor Rickman. He taught basic engineering thermo. And, I never saw anyone who could do a lecture as smoothly as that man. I used to think he must work every night, figuring out how to do these lectures. And then, I, later on, when I lived in married student housing and would go through the student union, I noticed he was always at the bowling alley. So, he had thermo down.

Battle:

It's his secret.

Howard:

Professor Rickman. But, John Hager, I can't say enough positive things about him. He introduced me to TMS. He introduced me to so many things [Battle: being fastidious] and taught me to write.

Battle:

Yes, it was painful at times.

Howard:

It was very painful. I remember once I just about told him if he knew how he wanted it written, do it yourself. But, I didn't. I thought I'd give him one more chance. And, I've thanked him countless times since.

Battle:

Well, you keep saying that I can call him John now, and I say yes, Dr. Hagar.

Howard:

I call him John, at this point.

Battle:

I haven't quite gotten there yet.

Howard:

Right.

49:06 FINAL THANKS- SHOWING APPRECIATION TO TMS AND AIME

Battle:

So, do you have any final words?

Howard:

Well, I just am so pleased with TMS, so grateful for all the opportunities TMS has afforded me. And, you know, it's a society where we volunteer our efforts, but we get more back than we give. I'm certain of that. And, the friendships developed here have been lifelong friendships. And, I am sometimes amazed, I am always amazed, I'm continually amazed that I was honored to serve the society as a president. And, I just have benefited so much, and I'm so grateful to TMS and good friends like you, Tom. Thank you so much for the interview and Michele [AIME Executive Director, Michele Lawrie-Munro] for arranging this. It's been a wonderful ride, and it's not over yet.

Battle:

It's not over yet.

Howard:

Yes, thank you.

Battle:

Thank you very much.

Howard:

My pleasure.