April 7, 2015

Dear Fellow Stuyvesant Graduates of the Class of 1957,

My name is Robert (Bob) Majeski. I am 74 years old, have been married 47 years, have two grown children, two grandchildren, and another expected in four months.

Stuyvesant H.S. taught me how to learn, to like to learn, and to love science. I am most appreciative of my many fine teachers.

My chemistry teacher, Mr. Schindelheim taught us qualitative analysis. It was mostly hands on lab work. This course was better than the general chemistry course I had as a freshman at Columbia University. Mr. Bender was my electronics teacher. He taught us how to look for inventions-in-reverse: e.g., radar detectors for radar. My history teacher (an older woman, I’m sorry, I don’t remember her name) was kind to me after my mother died. And, Mr. Wellman was my Geometry teacher… a earned 100 in this reagents exam.

The IRT Jerome/ Woodlawn line was my school bus. My lunchroom was the last car of the train. Before boarding the train, we would buy our sandwiches at a deli on 14th Street. My schoolmate chum from the East Bronx was Al Cancellieri. We ran cross-country and track together. He was really good, I was not.

After graduation at age 16, I attended Columbia University with a NY State Science Scholarship and was majoring in chemical engineering. I admired the Navy, perhaps from watching Victory at Sea and the Silent service on TV, so I joined their NROTC Unit. After one year, the officers of the Unit nominated me as candidate for the US Naval Academy. I had to take a competitive exam, and was selected to attend along with five other men from NROTC Units across the country. The Secretary of the Navy was our sponsor.

I was on summer cruise off Algeria when I was informed of my appointment. I had never flown before. To return to the USA, I was airlifted off the fantail of a destroyer by a helicopter, literally dangling in the air over the ocean, and taken to an aircraft carrier. Then, was catapulted off the aircraft carrier in a mail plane, and flown to a naval air station in North Africa. Then, we flew a Navy DC-4 to Newfoundland, via the Azores; then, a DC-3 back to the US. The DC -3 got caught in a thunder storm and we were tossed all around. It was quite an adventure for a city boy.

I graduated from the Naval Academy in 1962. I worked hard there and was third in my class of about 800, was a midshipman company commander, and was known in our year book for doing push ups at 5AM in the morning. I also wrestled, but again, was not so good. I was strong, but not fast. At Annapolis, I learned that I should focus on academics, rather than sports, and that hard work and self-discipline will allow you to accomplish more than you think you can.

As an experiment after graduation, I was allowed to go straight into the submarine service without first attending submarine school in New London. I had to learn the trade, on-the-job, so to speak. I was successful and received my submariner’s ‘dolphins’ (like a pilot’s ‘wings’) on the USS Hardhead (SS 365) the following June, 1963.

I next went to Admiral Rickover’s nuclear power school (1/2 year of book learning on nuclear engineering, and 1/2 year operating a land bound submarine nuclear power plant).

My second submarine was quiet and lethal, the USS Pollack (SSN 603). It was a fast attack submarine (a submarine hunter), and I was Weapon’s Office. Pollack was a Thresher class sub. Its progenitor had sunk off New Hampshire during sea trials after a stay in the shipyard. We did special operations around the North Atlantic. Life was very exciting, and sometimes very dangerous. Our sub received two Navy Unit Citations while I was on board.

My next and last submarine was the USS Sea Devil (SSN 664). When I joined, it was finishing construction at Newport News Shipbuilding. I was the chief engineer and had to be vetted by Admiral Rickover to do this job. Our engineering crew (all nuclear power school graduates) and I were responsible for testing the nuclear power plant dockside before going to sea. It was exciting to start the reactor (go critical) for the first time and watch the neutron level increase exponentially until you actually started heating water (steady state power). By the way, going to test depth for the first time was also an exciting event.

During the test program, I met my wife trick-or-treating on Halloween. We were married (1968) and had our first child (a girl) before Pollack first went to sea. I left the Navy (1970) shortly after Pollack was commissioned and sea worthy because I felt more responsible to my family than the Navy.

We then moved to Durham and Duke University. We lived in a small home on a dirt road with horses behind us…another adventure for a city boy. I received a PhD in Physical Chemistry in 1974. My dissertation (funded by the NIH) was the mathematics of active transport of ions across a cell wall, using my own mathematics and computer program (on punch cards) to simulate the motion. I actually constructed small membrane pumps, fueled by vectorial chemical reactions across a membrane wall and used my computer program to predict the flow and pressure. Local entropy decreases during this process. Now, imagine the irony of going from huge submarines to small membranes.

After graduation, I worked 26 years for Hoechst Celanese (1974 -2000). When Hoechst Celanese was at its peak, it was the largest chemical company in the world. I was a research manager for my division which had operations in US, Canada, Mexico, and Germany. I traveled around the world visiting our plants and foreign affiliates. Our division invented or developed specialty chemicals and/or their formulations, polymers and polymer engineering equipment. For example, we invented an adhesive that effectively bonded polyester fibers to tire rubber that was not carcinogenic; workers were exposed to these adhesives. Would you buy a plastic coke bottle that had black degraded polymer specs in it? Probably not. So, we designed a continuous polymerizer that cleaned itself while operating at 300 C in a vacuum, and was full of molten, flowing, viscous polymer . It was 50 ft. long and 20 ft in diameter, with only 1 mm clearance between rotor and outer cylinder; touching of surfaces would mean destruction. These polymerizers were installed in polymer plants around the world. Everything we invented or designed was patented. Lastly, I used statistical design of experiments and 3D contour mapping of variables and responses to optimize our chemical processes.

After retiring in 2000 with a pension, I became a high school teacher at Independence High School in Charlotte (Mint Hill), NC. This school had many under-privileged teenagers in it. I would estimate that 60% of the kids didn’t want to be there. You had to deal with the 60% before you could teach the 40%. The school was the anti-Stuyvesant. I was a walk-on teacher with no teaching experience. I taught school because I wanted to payback society for all the good education and teachers I had in Stuyvesant.

As an experiment, I was to teach Algebra 1 to gang kids, trouble makers with a history, kids who didn’t speak English well, and even some handicapped kids. Now, these kids weren’t close to being ready for algebra. Moreover, I had no classroom or textbooks. I taught in lunch rooms, hall ways, and conference rooms. Other teachers called my class ‘prison math’. I was a disaster….worst teacher in the school that year. But, I saved some which will be another story. By the way, it was thought that I could handle these kids because of my military experience. I was more like a grandfather.

The principal eventually found out I had a PhD in chemistry. The head of our PTA had worked for me at Celanese and told the principal about my background without me asking him or knowing about it. So, the next year I taught IB Chemistry to kids who wanted to learn, and I that year I became the Time Warner Teacher of the Year…worst to best because the ‘clients’ changed.

I later had a chance to talk to the HS Accreditation Committee…they were interested only in test scores. I told them about Stuyvesant HS in which hands on learning and liking school came first, and testing second…and that Stuyvesant had more Noble Prize winners than any other school in the US. Some had already heard about Stuyvesant.

I later taught AP Environmental Science (I protected the environment at Celanese), some Physics, and Earth and Environmental (a course for children who were thought not to able to pass biology). It took me about 4 years to get a teaching certificate working nights and summers. Teaching was the hardest job I ever had…I worked 7 days a week on school for the whole time I taught…no vacations.

I retired from teaching at age 68, and actually got a small pension. I am reasonably healthy and am looking forward to our 60th reunion. My wife is already making plans.

Best regards to all,

Bob Majeski