Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences

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Chapter 2. 1972-1980
Youth: The Years of Early Growth

At the Spring National Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in 1971, Chris Harrison tracked down Carl Kisslinger, professor of geophysics and chair of the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Saint Louis University, to ask if he would be willing to meet with Chris and Bill Hess to talk about a visit to Boulder to explore the possibility of becoming the director of the recently formed research institute. Kisslinger had learned through the grapevine that the opening existed and that there had been some failed efforts to recruit a director. He had also been encouraged by some good friends among geophysicists to view this as a remarkable opportunity to build something excellent. The three sat on a bench in the hallway of the meeting site and agreed to a visit to Boulder.

C. Kisslinger
C. Kisslinger
Kisslinger visited the campus in the summer of 1971, was interviewed by the fellows, Lawson Crowe, and several department chairs (especially William Bradley, chair of Geological Sciences, where his academic appointment and tenure would reside), and gave a talk on his recent research. After further discussions with Harrison and Hess, Kisslinger decided to accept an appointment if it were offered. With the help of Harrison, he framed a letter to Crowe specifying the support he wanted for the immediate development of CIRES as a condition of acceptance. In his letter to Crowe, in which he expressed his enthusiasm at taking up this new challenge, he wrote that if they wanted him, they would have to wait until the summer of 1972 for him to take up the post. He made it clear that he would not walk away from the department in St. Louis, where he had been on the faculty for 22 years and chair for nine years, with a notice of only one month before the fall semester began. He did agree to come to Boulder once a month in the interim to begin the necessary learning process and to participate in discussions of policy matters.

In the letter of offer, the University made a commitment to CIRES of eight new faculty positions, to be filled by joint recruitment and appointment in one of the cooperating departments. In July 1972, there were among the fellows and other lead scientists three solid-earth geophysicists, Harrison, Ed Larson, professor of geological sciences who specialized in paleomagnetic research, and William Farrell, an expert in earth tides, crustal deformation, and very long-period seismology who had come to CIRES as a visiting fellow in 1970. The atmospheric sciences were represented entirely by NOAA-supported personnel, Franco Einaudi and George Chimonas, who had come as visiting fellows in 1969 and 1970, respectively, and who eventually became employees of ERL and fellows, Bill Hooke of the ERL Wave Propagation Laboraory, and George Reid. James Wait of NOAA was a one-person theory group in electromagnetic wave propagation in the atmosphere and the solid Earth; James Warwick, who had played a key role in creating CIRES, was a radio astronomer, with particular interest in radio emissions from the sun and from Jupiter. The decision to retain the three former visiting fellows in a quasi-permanent status was an attempt to jumpstart the science programs within the CIRES framework, pending the recruitment of new permanent individuals.