Saying goodbye to Don

A bittersweet post today, as it will be about the passing of the last of my bosses, Don, from my Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center days. I think about those years from time to time and reflect upon how lucky I was to have worked there and to have had the bosses that I had. They are all deceased now. It was a different world then, and while I wouldn't return to it, I know too that the work world now is very different than when I was starting my career in the early 1980s. 

My first encounter (and memory) of Don was when I interviewed for a flow cytometry position at Memorial Sloan-Kettering in the laboratory for investigative cytology. Don was a tall man and one who loved to eat, but he was slim, not at all overweight. While he was interviewing me, he was eating a hamburger and fries. That might have put some people off, but not me. I found it charming. He explained that this was his afternoon snack before dinner. He also told me that he got to work early each day and went to the cantina for a good breakfast. It wasn't clear to me whether he had eaten breakfast at home first, but it didn't matter. His folksy manner put me right at ease, and I knew that we would work well together. That was in 1982. In 1983, he and his family moved back to Brookings South Dakota where the Evenson family farm was located. He became Professor of Biochemistry at South Dakota State University and worked there for many years. In 1991, he and his wife Carol came to Oslo on sabbatical for a year. Don was friendly with Ole Petter, my boss in Oslo at that time, and we ended up sharing an office for a year and working together on his sperm chromatin structure assay projects. That year went by too fast, but it is filled with good memories of work and social activities. We and our colleagues often went out to eat in the evenings, or out dancing. Sometimes there were get-togethers at different homes. Carol ended up leaving for home in September of that year, but Don stayed until the end of the year. We celebrated Thanksgiving with another American scientist living in Oslo; there must have been at least twenty of us. Don promised he would bring the turkey and cranberries to make cranberry sauce. And he did, after visiting the US and smuggling a turkey in his luggage on his return trip to Oslo. How he managed that, no one knows, as it was a big turkey. Just one of many fun memories I have of him. He was never ruffled about such things; he just assumed they would work out, and they did. 

He was a true scientist, interested in new technologies and techniques and how to apply them to his work with sperm chromatin structure. He was interested in helping infertile couples with his sperm chromatin structure assay (SCSA) technique, and he later founded a company to do this assay on human sperm from men who wanted to ensure that they could father children. He kept on doing research at the same time as he ran his company, and he traveled to many different conferences to present his work. I am proud to have been a co-author on several of his publications. 

He and Carol loved to travel and had probably seen most of the world. One trip stands out in my mind; they attended a voodoo ceremony in Haiti, somewhere out in the forest. I remember asking him if he had been nervous about doing that. He said no. That was his attitude to most things, as I pointed out previously. If he had any fears, he hid them well. He trusted that life would treat him well, and for the most part it did. And he made the most of the life that was given him. He was a kind man, not given to anger, negativity, or cynicism. I believe that his faith in God kept him grateful and happy. He and Carol were married for sixty-two years at his passing at 84 in March of this year. I will remember him, Frank, Zbigniew and Myron for always. Smart men and nice men who treated women well. May they all rest in peace. 

Remembering Frank

I found out yesterday that one of my former bosses at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where I worked in the 1980s, passed away this past August. Frank was one of the cytometry triumvirate at the Laboratory for Investigative Cytology together with Zbigniew and Myron. Myron passed away in 2013 after battling pancreatic cancer for six years. I remember when I interviewed for the job of daily manager of the flow cytometry core facility, I ended up interviewing with Myron and Frank, as well as with Don, who was another senior scientist in the lab. I had experience in biophysical techniques from my first job, and I guess that contributed to my getting the job. 

Myron, Zbigniew and Frank were wonderful men to work for, and I treasure my time in their lab. I've written about this lab several times before in this blog. I had most to do with Frank on a daily basis. He was my immediate boss and he taught me everything I know about flow cytometry. There was almost no scientific question he couldn't answer, and he was generous with his time and help. He was also very protective of his employees and stood firmly on our side whenever conflicts arose with external labs. He seemed to be unflappable, but when he did get mad, which happened once or twice in the seven years I worked with him, it was best not to be on the receiving end of his anger. I pitied the scientists who ended up having any sorts of conflicts with him. They knew that without his help, their projects would become stranded. If he thought something was stupid, he said so, complete with sarcastic comments and a roll of his eyes. And he was usually right. He didn't waste his own time or others' time, and he didn't allow anyone else to waste his employees' time. He put his foot down firmly and simply stopped the nonsense in its tracks. I learned a lot from him about how to protect my own employees through the years. I could wish that some of my other leaders in recent times were as good a leader as he was.  

I have fond memories of my time in the lab--we worked hard together and traveled together to conferences. In August 1987, our lab went to a Society for Analytical Cytology meeting that was held in Cambridge, England. It was my first trip abroad, and I was so looking forward to having a proper British tea experience. I am quite sure that I never shut up about it, and probably drove most people around me crazy. But when we got to Cambridge, I wandered around the city together with Frank and Jola, a postdoc in the lab, trying to find just the right tea shop. It had to be just the right one. Frank was very patient while I hunted around and settled on just the right one. And then we enjoyed great tea, good scones, raspberry jam and clotted cream. I was in heaven. I'm sure Frank humored me, but that was the kind of man he was--he had infinite patience with people he liked, and I was one of them. 

I also remember that all of us (there must have been at least six or seven of us from the lab who traveled to Cambridge) decided to go punting on the river Cam. Frank and another senior scientist Jan took turns trying to punt, which turned out to be not at all easy. Steering a large boat without banging into the other boats and without losing your balance were quite challenging. Frank managed it, but just barely, and I remember thinking that it would be terrible if he fell into the river. There were a couple of times when he and Jan very nearly fell into the water. The fact that Frank was the consummate New Yorker--well-dressed, with nice shoes and leather jacket--would have made falling in even worse as it would have ruined his clothing and shoes. But that was Frank; I don't think he considered the possibility that he could fall into the water or that he couldn't learn to punt. They didn't fall in, and they did learn to punt. Other things I remember about him--he smoked too much, and we were always trying to get him to quit cigarette smoking. One of his technicians would bring him a big bowl of sliced carrots, celery and cucumbers so that he wouldn't smoke on Great American Smokeout Day in November of each year. But he never quit as far as I know. I also remember that at one of our lab parties at his Manhattan apartment, he played Roxy Music's Avalon album for us. To this day, I cannot hear the song More than This without thinking of him. 

As fate would have it, I met my husband Trond at the same conference in Cambridge when he came to sit with our lab group one evening at one of the local pubs. That was the kind of lab group we were--welcoming to others from all countries. You could sit down with us and just start chatting. Our lab in New York was multinational, with scientists from many different countries--among them Poland, Italy, Sweden, and Germany. Scientists visited the lab while traveling through on their way to other meetings in the USA. My husband did just that; he said that he remembers seeing me in the lab when he came to visit Frank and the others. I don't remember that. But we did end up meeting again in Cambridge. Even though I moved to Norway, I stayed in touch with the Memorial lab. Working there was one of the best experiences of my life.