The following continues the excerpting of Chapter 2 from SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity. The previous episode provided the backdrop of something I called The M Curse.
Origins of the Curse
There is, of course, no such thing as a curse. However, in attempting to pull together the threads forming the fabric representing one of the greatest achievements attained by the University of Hawaii, one can’t help but notice the significance and preponderance of “M’s,” that is, people whose last names started with an M. I call it a curse because many M’s died for the cause.
There was, of course, U.S. Senator Spark Matsunaga, whose authorship of bills ranging from peace to hydrogen to ocean thermal energy conversion, set the stage for the NSF MarBEC (National Science Foundation Marine Bioproducts Engineering Center). His administrative assistant in Washington, D.C., Cherry Matano, ran the office with a velvet hammer, and, in ways she did not realize, contributed to the foundation of the curse, or opportunity. Both Matsunaga and Matano have now passed away, but not in any way related to this subject matter.
Professor Akira Mitsui was a University of Tokyo graduate who married a citizen of the United States, and thus, eventually ended up teaching at the University of Miami. He became director of the International Research Center for Marine Bioscience and Technology on that campus. We met at various technical gatherings and formed a good relationship. “Pat, Pat, he screamed late one night (it was early in the morning his East Coast time) to me on a call, Nejat is trying to steal my money.” By the 1990’s I had chaired the Secretary of Energy’s Hydrogen Technical Panel and the 1990 World Hydrogen Energy Conference, and had gained a reputation as one who could help people in need, especially in hydrogen related matters.
There is, of course, no such thing as a curse. However, in attempting to pull together the threads forming the fabric representing one of the greatest achievements attained by the University of Hawaii, one can’t help but notice the significance and preponderance of “M’s,” that is, people whose last names started with an M. I call it a curse because many M’s died for the cause.
There was, of course, U.S. Senator Spark Matsunaga, whose authorship of bills ranging from peace to hydrogen to ocean thermal energy conversion, set the stage for the NSF MarBEC (National Science Foundation Marine Bioproducts Engineering Center). His administrative assistant in Washington, D.C., Cherry Matano, ran the office with a velvet hammer, and, in ways she did not realize, contributed to the foundation of the curse, or opportunity. Both Matsunaga and Matano have now passed away, but not in any way related to this subject matter.
Professor Akira Mitsui was a University of Tokyo graduate who married a citizen of the United States, and thus, eventually ended up teaching at the University of Miami. He became director of the International Research Center for Marine Bioscience and Technology on that campus. We met at various technical gatherings and formed a good relationship. “Pat, Pat, he screamed late one night (it was early in the morning his East Coast time) to me on a call, Nejat is trying to steal my money.” By the 1990’s I had chaired the Secretary of Energy’s Hydrogen Technical Panel and the 1990 World Hydrogen Energy Conference, and had gained a reputation as one who could help people in need, especially in hydrogen related matters.
At any university, the leader of a national grant is faced with a myriad of shortfalls, and virtually his only option is to tax the people doing the research. Generally, this director was instrumental in securing the funds, so he had a rightful imperative. I, of course, tried to help by reaching Professor Nejat Veziroglu, Director of the Clean Energy Research Institute, and usually ended up commiserating with him on the agony of research administration, but the wonderful promise of hydrogen. But Professor Mitsui felt I did the best I could, for the all the funds were not, in fact, stolen. It never is. I get so much credit for doing nothing.
Professor Mitsui collected, and fiercely protected, a large number of marine microorganisms, mostly from the Caribbean. An influential post-doctoral (a one to two year period that many technical researchers devote after obtaining a doctorate to better prepare them for the real world) student of Mitsui’s in the early 1980’s was Tadashi Matsunaga, who went on to become editor of the Journal of Marine Biotechnology, dean of the College of Engineering at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology and might well be now headed towards the presidency. I spent a sabbatical period on Matsunaga’s Koganei campus during a crucial period just after we were notified of the NSF MarBEC award. Professional Matsunaga also, earlier, spent some time in Hawaii, and was the first International Professor for the Blue Revolution.
Professor Shigetoh Miyachi, a fellow student with Matsui at Todai (Tokyo University), after a fruitful University of Tokyo career, left academia in the late 1980’s to become the director of the Japan Marine Biotechnology Institute (MBI). Professor Miyachi, then, was the foremost world authority in marine biotechnology, and, as will later be described, was an important partner in the formation of MarBEC. He came to the first PICHTR biohydrogen workshop earlier mentioned. Both Matsunaga and Miyachi served as the first two editors of the Journal of Marine Biotechnology.
Dr. Jun Miyake was a prominent biotechnologist in the Japan Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) at Tsukuba. I met him in the early 80’s at a Beijing gathering chaired by Professor Veziroglu. I’m tempted to acronymize “the early 80’s” into TE80’s because this term will be used a lot—for pieces of the MarBEC puzzle all formed in that period—but won’t.
Professor Kazuhisa Miyamoto of Osaka University post-doc’d at the University of California in the early 80’s, joining a team supervised by another young researcher, John Benemann, who as of this writing, is completing our overview draft on biohydrogen. Miyamoto in the nineties served as the lead scientist in a visiting review group sent by MITI to evaluate the potential of a joint Japan-U.S. venture in marine biotechnology. You will note that all these individuals have names starting with M. The eerie thing is that I'm not leaving any Japanese colleagues out. These were the individual who played the key roles for MarBEC
Unknown to me during this formative early ‘80s period was a threesome at the Engineering Directorate of the National Science Foundation: Oskar Zaborsky, Harvey Blanch and Lynn Preston. No M’s here, but, what is a curse without a conspiracy. All three were keys to the MarBEC success story: Zaborsky, at the University of Hawaii, was the principle investigator; Blanch became chairman of the University of California at Berkeley Chemical Engineering Department and deputy director of MarBEC; and Lynn Preston served as the NSF coordinator for the Engineering Research Center, from which MarBEC was funded. A cold case can be made that these three, with their Japanese connections, planned and orchestrated a future Pacific engineering research center in marine biotechnology engineering to feature international cooperation. Is this legal? Call it incredible vision and careful planning.
Professor Mitsui collected, and fiercely protected, a large number of marine microorganisms, mostly from the Caribbean. An influential post-doctoral (a one to two year period that many technical researchers devote after obtaining a doctorate to better prepare them for the real world) student of Mitsui’s in the early 1980’s was Tadashi Matsunaga, who went on to become editor of the Journal of Marine Biotechnology, dean of the College of Engineering at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology and might well be now headed towards the presidency. I spent a sabbatical period on Matsunaga’s Koganei campus during a crucial period just after we were notified of the NSF MarBEC award. Professional Matsunaga also, earlier, spent some time in Hawaii, and was the first International Professor for the Blue Revolution.
Professor Shigetoh Miyachi, a fellow student with Matsui at Todai (Tokyo University), after a fruitful University of Tokyo career, left academia in the late 1980’s to become the director of the Japan Marine Biotechnology Institute (MBI). Professor Miyachi, then, was the foremost world authority in marine biotechnology, and, as will later be described, was an important partner in the formation of MarBEC. He came to the first PICHTR biohydrogen workshop earlier mentioned. Both Matsunaga and Miyachi served as the first two editors of the Journal of Marine Biotechnology.
Dr. Jun Miyake was a prominent biotechnologist in the Japan Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) at Tsukuba. I met him in the early 80’s at a Beijing gathering chaired by Professor Veziroglu. I’m tempted to acronymize “the early 80’s” into TE80’s because this term will be used a lot—for pieces of the MarBEC puzzle all formed in that period—but won’t.
Professor Kazuhisa Miyamoto of Osaka University post-doc’d at the University of California in the early 80’s, joining a team supervised by another young researcher, John Benemann, who as of this writing, is completing our overview draft on biohydrogen. Miyamoto in the nineties served as the lead scientist in a visiting review group sent by MITI to evaluate the potential of a joint Japan-U.S. venture in marine biotechnology. You will note that all these individuals have names starting with M. The eerie thing is that I'm not leaving any Japanese colleagues out. These were the individual who played the key roles for MarBEC
Unknown to me during this formative early ‘80s period was a threesome at the Engineering Directorate of the National Science Foundation: Oskar Zaborsky, Harvey Blanch and Lynn Preston. No M’s here, but, what is a curse without a conspiracy. All three were keys to the MarBEC success story: Zaborsky, at the University of Hawaii, was the principle investigator; Blanch became chairman of the University of California at Berkeley Chemical Engineering Department and deputy director of MarBEC; and Lynn Preston served as the NSF coordinator for the Engineering Research Center, from which MarBEC was funded. A cold case can be made that these three, with their Japanese connections, planned and orchestrated a future Pacific engineering research center in marine biotechnology engineering to feature international cooperation. Is this legal? Call it incredible vision and careful planning.
On the other hand, perhaps MarBEC was all purely coincidental. This just goes to show that irrefutable evidence is not necessarily germane to cause and effect, just like there is no such thing as a curse. As I'm innocent in all this, I really don't know, but my sense is that this was just one of those circumstances when pieces of some earlier thought came together later by pure accident.
But back to that hypothetical Curse, the American side suffered. The original director of MarBEC, the very young Oskar Zaborsky then, had escaped with his family from East Germany around the time when the follow-on director, Alexander Malahoff, and his family left Russia at the end of World War II for New Zealand. Let’s see now, the Soviet Union and East Germany now had an inside track to American biotech secrets. No, that’s not the conspiracy or genesis for the curse, but, one can’t help but wonder if this similar experience affected their psychology, as we shall see. Lorenz Magaard also emigrated from Europe (West Germany), and his first connection to MarBEC was when, as acting dean of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, he signed the approval letter to hire Zaborsky, and, later, went on to serve as director of the MarBEC educational program under Malahoff, who had replaced Zaborsky.
Kenneth Mortimer was selected president of the University of Hawaii in 1992 during a period of declining budgets, because of poor economic conditions in the State. He was an “expert” at reducing expenditures, and became by the nature of the times and task a very unpopular president. However, he believed that marine biotechnology offered a promising hope for a future new industry in Hawaii, and his key contribution was that he overrode his staff by providing significant cost-matching. Had he not made this command decision, the school would not even have submitted the MarBEC proposal to NSF. While his mission was to cut the budget, he had the good sense to invest as necessary.
Kelton McKinley grew up in Ohio and found his way to Hawaii after he obtained a PhD in ecology from Michigan State University, and taught for a period at a small college in Maryland. At a low point of his career, while on the Porsche sales staff in Honolulu (yes, in desperation, he was trying to sell cars, and I don't think sold even one), I hired him to become the coordinator of the biohydrogen research effort at the University of Hawaii. He had a very high intelligence with the courage to try new things.
But back to that hypothetical Curse, the American side suffered. The original director of MarBEC, the very young Oskar Zaborsky then, had escaped with his family from East Germany around the time when the follow-on director, Alexander Malahoff, and his family left Russia at the end of World War II for New Zealand. Let’s see now, the Soviet Union and East Germany now had an inside track to American biotech secrets. No, that’s not the conspiracy or genesis for the curse, but, one can’t help but wonder if this similar experience affected their psychology, as we shall see. Lorenz Magaard also emigrated from Europe (West Germany), and his first connection to MarBEC was when, as acting dean of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, he signed the approval letter to hire Zaborsky, and, later, went on to serve as director of the MarBEC educational program under Malahoff, who had replaced Zaborsky.
Kenneth Mortimer was selected president of the University of Hawaii in 1992 during a period of declining budgets, because of poor economic conditions in the State. He was an “expert” at reducing expenditures, and became by the nature of the times and task a very unpopular president. However, he believed that marine biotechnology offered a promising hope for a future new industry in Hawaii, and his key contribution was that he overrode his staff by providing significant cost-matching. Had he not made this command decision, the school would not even have submitted the MarBEC proposal to NSF. While his mission was to cut the budget, he had the good sense to invest as necessary.
Kelton McKinley grew up in Ohio and found his way to Hawaii after he obtained a PhD in ecology from Michigan State University, and taught for a period at a small college in Maryland. At a low point of his career, while on the Porsche sales staff in Honolulu (yes, in desperation, he was trying to sell cars, and I don't think sold even one), I hired him to become the coordinator of the biohydrogen research effort at the University of Hawaii. He had a very high intelligence with the courage to try new things.
In academia, one cannot just hire anyone off the street. If any position opens up, or funds are secured to add staff, a selection committee is formed, and there is a range of Equal Employment Opportunity, gender equity and other factors that rightfully affect the process. The reality, though, is that the preferred person will be selected, with, maybe, some excessive paperwork made all that much more necessary. The process to hire professors, deans, directors, and especially presidents, is similar, and leaves much to be desired at public universities. What is the simple solution? I have none to offer.
Even if you have been dozing off, you should have noticed that virtually everyone thus far has had a last name starting with the letter M. The ingredients for the curse are being positioned, and all these M’s were influential in helping develop pre-MarBEC resources. To take some of the mystery away, as of this writing, as long as these Japanese citizens kept their primary household in their country, they not only survived, but flourished. The curse applied only to M’s in the United States. These seeds of “M” were thus germinating for at least a dozen years. (The next episode, double this length, entitled, "The M Curse Begins," will continue tomorrow as ETERNAL LIFE (Part 8). Akira Mitsui passes away early in this real life story, and Kelton McKinley not long thereafter.)
Even if you have been dozing off, you should have noticed that virtually everyone thus far has had a last name starting with the letter M. The ingredients for the curse are being positioned, and all these M’s were influential in helping develop pre-MarBEC resources. To take some of the mystery away, as of this writing, as long as these Japanese citizens kept their primary household in their country, they not only survived, but flourished. The curse applied only to M’s in the United States. These seeds of “M” were thus germinating for at least a dozen years. (The next episode, double this length, entitled, "The M Curse Begins," will continue tomorrow as ETERNAL LIFE (Part 8). Akira Mitsui passes away early in this real life story, and Kelton McKinley not long thereafter.)
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The Dow Jones Industrials rose 58 to 8556, while world markets were mixed. Gold dropped $8/toz to $933, but crude oil remained above $70/barrel (see right).
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Tropical Storm Linfa at 45 MPH has formed a little more than 400 miles southwest of Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and is expected to pass between Taiwan and the Philippines this weekend. That tropical depression south-southwest of Mazatlan, Mexico could become Tropical Storm Andres in a day or two and move north to strike Mexico in a few days. Another disturbance seems to be organizing behind (south and east) it.
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Anyway, I'm still unsure how I entered this territory, but I guess it was the unfolding of a solution for crime that just developed as I wrote Chapter 1 of 
