Dear Class,

My name is Reuben Collins. I was born in the small town of Mason City, IA. Iowa, as it turns out, is a nice place to be from. I am the seventh of nine children, the only sibling who doesn't live within 3 hours of home, and the only sibling with a degree in science. I still visit my family whenever I get a chance, and dutifully call my mother for all the family gossip each weekend.

I did my undergraduate work in Physics and Mathematics at the University of Northern Iowa. When it came time to apply to graduate school, I submitted an application to Cal Tech, not because of the school's reputation, or because I felt I would get in, but because there was no application fee. As you can see, a great deal of planning has gone into my chosen career path!

After completing my degree in Applied Physics at Cal Tech, I joined IBM Research in Yorktown Heights, NY. It was a great experience. I worked on research all day and had plenty of funds to purchase the tools (or toys) that scientists need to do their work. Some where in there I even got married to Nancy. She is presently working at NCAR in Boulder and frequently helps me solve the computer science problems that come up so often these days in my work.

Near my sixth year at IBM the computer industry changed. The economy then was a lot like the economy is now, and companies like IBM came under serious financial pressure. At that time, the Japanese were taking over the market and PCs and workstations were replacing large mainframe computers. We had meetings about total quality management, and market driven quality, and how to emulate the Japanese. These are hard concepts to apply to research since you really can't "manage" the discovery process. The value of basic research also became less important to IBM and researchers were "encouraged" to shift into development projects which emphasized shorter term solutions that could be marketed to IBM customers. Don't get me wrong, it's really good to know who your customers are and to focus on their needs, but many of the scientists at IBM were disillusioned by the shift in priorities.

The morale of the research division dropped, but, by most standards, I was being treated pretty well. I became the manager of a materials growth group and then held a staff position in computer science which is normally a stepping stone to higher management. But I discovered something. I didn't like management. I liked being a bench scientist and working with people instead of being their boss. So I started looking for a new job. It's maybe important to note that the economy did eventually improve, and the Japanese started having their own economic problems and maybe even began giving their employees classes in how to be more like the United States. IBM's stock shot up, that is until the most recent economic downturn. If I were to draw one key conclusion about business in the US from all of these experiences, its that companies don't really learn from their experiences. If they did they would realize that economic cycles are a part of doing business, and they would take them into account in their business planning. The same is probably true of governments, universities and most large organizations.

But I digress. When I was given a chance to join CSM I was very excited. Several of my colleagues had gotten degrees at CSM and they always seemed much more prepared than I did. I recognized that the curriculum can be hard, but I also noticed that the school places a premium on teaching which isn't true of many of the best schools anymore. I was also able to shift to a "customer" that I could really believe in and enjoy working with, the students at our school.

Universities offer many unique opportunities and Colorado is an amazing place to live. Since joining CSM I have taught at the graduate and undergraduate level, started projects in research areas that were completely new to me, collaborated with industry and government labs, and involved quite a few graduate students and undergraduates in my research projects. I have even spent some time living abroad including two months this last summer when I was a visiting scientist at the CNRS facility in Grenoble, France. So far, I have also managed to enjoy the outdoor opportunities in the west without falling too hard off my bike, getting caught on a peak in a major storm, or getting lost while skiing in a winter blizzard.