Alumni Past Events
The Alumni Association typically hosts two social events per year—a fall Reunion social gathering and a Spring Fling field trip.
2012 Spring Fling to the Computer History Museum
On May 17, San Francisco Bay Area SRI alumni visited the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. They enjoyed seeing the many artifacts related to the history of computing, especially those donated by SRI.
2011 Spring Fling to the Walt Disney Family Museum
On May 12, a group of SRI alumni and their spouses and friends toured the beautiful Walt Disney Family Museum at the Presidio of San Francisco. They were warmly welcomed by Diane Disney Miller, Walt’s daughter, who created the museum and located it in San Francisco. The visitors then strolled through the 10 galleries containing artifacts and photographs chronicling Walt Disney’s life, from his birth through his industry-building in Hollywood. A particularly interesting aspect was the technical innovation required for the evolution of animated movies. The museum also has a splendid view of the Golden Gate Bridge. When the tour ended, the group enjoyed box lunches on the balcony with a view of the Presidio and the City.
2011 Annual Reunion
The SRI alumni and guests attending the 2011 Annual Reunion enjoyed a beautiful fall day in Menlo Park, as well as each other’s company and a very interesting program.
Tom Furst, SRI's senior vice president and CFO, delivered the report on the status of the institute. With 2011 being SRI’s 65th anniversary, Tom noted that the institute was well established when Silicon Valley began and that SRI helped create it and will continue to contribute. At 65, SRI is growing—and in locations besides Menlo Park, such as Harrisonburg, VA; San Luis Obispo, CA; Ann Arbor, MI; and San Diego, CA; former subsidiary Sarnoff Corporation was merged into SRI on January 1, 2011, and is now referred to as SRI Sarnoff or SRI Princeton. Alumni were astounded to hear that the proposal volume for 2011 is expected to approach $2 billion and were equally impressed with the size of the three projects Tom highlighted as wins this year:
- The DARPA BOLT (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Broad Operational Language Translation) project is funded at $42 million for five years.
- SRI’s management of the Arecibo Observatory for NSF (National Science Foundation) is funded at $50 million for five years (see August 2011 newsletter).
- NIH (National Institutes of Health) awarded SRI Biosciences $100 million for 10 years to continue evaluating new vaccines and disease treatments.
Donald Shockey, Director of the Center for Fracture Physics in the Materials Research Laboratory, Physical Sciences Division, gave a fascinating and entertaining presentation with four examples of his groups research in failure analysis:
- His first example concerned United Airlines Flight 232, which crash landed in Sioux City, IA, in July 1989. An in-flight catastrophic failure of the tail-mounted engine had caused fragments to penetrate the fuselage and sever the hydraulic lines, causing loss of power to all the flight controls.
- On another project, Don and his colleagues, working with Stanford University, produced CT X-ray and MRI images of stented and unstented arteries to provide the information needed by manufacturers to design stents that do not fail in the body.
- When NASA astronauts came back to Earth with holes in their gloves, Don’s center identified the source of the problem as micrometeorite impact damage on the International Space Station’s handrails and developed non-snagable patches for the gloves.
- The armoring required to protect against IEDs (improvised explosive devices) is making military vehicles too heavy. Under a Defense Department contract, Don’s group worked with a glass company to develop the new lighter-weight window materials that are currently replacing vehicle windows in military vehicles.
2010 Spring Fling to the California Academy of Sciences
On May 17, 46 alumni and guests braved a drizzly day to tour the exhibits at the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. The Academy’s impressive facility, which opened in September 2008, houses a natural history museum, planetarium, aquarium, and four-story rainforest. The building itself is a showcase of sustainable design and construction, including the living roof, which is planted with native plants. (The Academy received a Platinum-level LEED [Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design] rating from the U.S. Green Building Council.) Seeing it all in just a day is quite a challenge, so the attendees toured at their own pace.
2010 Annual Reunion
SRI alumni gathered at the International Building on September 21 for the annual chance to catch up on news about each other and about the institute. More than 100 alumni and guests enjoyed hors d’oeuvres and drinks while chatting in the lobby, and they were serenaded into the meeting room by the Institooters before the program began.
SRI CEO Curt Carlson gave a State of the Institute presentation, mentioning that more than $1 billion in proposals were outstanding and that the recent win rate was very good. Eric Pearson, Vice President of the Physical Sciences Division, described the research activities of his division.
All those attending enjoyed the conviviality, interesting speakers, delicious food, and complimentary SRI Alumni baseball caps and visors.
2009 Spring Fling to the Computer History Museum
In Spring 2009, the SRI Alumni Association organized a visit to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. It had been five years since we last visited the Museum. Since then, new exhibits have been added, so it was time for a re-visit. About 35 people attended and the visit began with a talk during lunch by Judy Estrin, CEO of JLABS, LLC (formerly known as Packet Design Management Company). On Fortune Magazine’s list of the most powerful women in American business three times. She is the author of Closing the Innovation Gap; Reigniting the Spark of Creativity in a Global Economy, published in September 2008. Following Judy’s presentation, visitors were free to tour the museum.
The Museum’s collection of artifacts contains more than 13,000 objects, 25,000 still and moving images, 4,000 linear feet of documentation, 5,000 software items and several hundred gigabytes of historic software.
2008 Annual Reunion
2008 Spring Fling to NASA Ames Research Center
On April 24, the SRI Alumni visited NASA’s Future Flight Central simulation facility, the only one of its kind in the United States and toured one of NASA’s wind tunnels.
NASA Ames Research Center, located at Moffett Field, California was founded on December 20, 1939 as an aircraft research laboratory by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). In 1958, it became part of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). With more than $3 billion in capital equipment, 2,300 research personnel, and an annual budget of $600 million, Ames plays a critical role in virtually all NASA missions.
Ames is a national leader in information technology research, supercomputing, nanotechnology, networking and intelligent systems, fundamental space biology, biotechnology, aerospace and thermal protection systems and human factors research. In addition, Ames works collaboratively with the FAA conducting research in air traffic management and simulation.
2007 Annual Reunion
2007 Spring Fling to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
On Wednesday morning, May 16, a group of about 35 SRI Alumni met in front of SRI's Building A to board the bus for Livermore, California. The big event was the Alumni Spring Fling -- a trip to Lawrence Livermore National Lab arranged by our very own Tom Anyos, who had the credentials with the Department of Energy to get us inside the security barrier to see what's going on.
Following a very fine lunch in Livermore at the Crooked Vine Winery, we went to the lab and passed through their security checkpoint. We then proceeded to the National Ignition Facility for a close look at this impressive $3.5 Billion facility, whose purpose is to study the behavior of materials at temperatures and pressures many times greater than those at the center of the sun. The NIF will permit a giant step in the understanding of such environments.
2006 Spring Fling to SLAC in Menlo Park
The SRI Alumni Spring Fling was held on May 23, 2006 at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, CA. For many of the 80-plus Alumni attending, this was their first opportunity to tour the SLAC facility. Established in 1962, SLAC is one of the world’s leading research laboratories. Its mission is to design, construct, and operate state-of-the-art electron accelerators and related experimental facilities for use in high-energy physics and synchrotron radiation research. The Alumni were surprised to learn that more than 3,000 visiting scientists from universities, laboratories, and industrial firms from the U.S. and many foreign countries can routinely be found working at SLAC. SLAC also boasts of three Nobel Prize winners and numerous prestigious awards received over the years.
SLAC occupies 426 acres of oak grassland. Among the diverse native flora found here are four of California’s 18 species of oak trees. A wide variety of animal life can be seen here as well, including mule deer, red-tailed hawks, gopher snakes, and an occasional mountain lion. After a picnic lunch under the trees, many of the Alumni boarded buses and enjoyed a tour of the key attractions of the facility.
2005 Spring Fling to Hiller Aviation Museum
In Spring 2005, the SRI Alumni Association organized a visit to the Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos, CA. Approximately 75 Alumni, family, and friends shared box lunches prior to the tour. The walking tour was self-guided; visitors could take as much time as they desired examining the full-size aircraft that chronicle aviation history since 1869.
The museum contains a 27,600 square foot main gallery with more than 40 aircraft, exhibits, and many interactive displays. The museum is truly a unique experience with a cohesive theme devoted to telling the story of early historical and future aviation developments in California. The aircraft on display included a 1-hp unmanned heavier-than-air aeroplane from 1869; numerous early helicopters; the Condor, a super-secret robotic spy plane that flew in the 1980s; and a full-size mock-up of the Boeing SST that never went into production.
2004 Spring Fling to the Computer History Museum
In Spring 2004, the Alumni Association organized a visit to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. The museum had recently been moved from Boston, MA. While the displays were still in the process of being set up in their permanent locations, hundreds of mechanical and electronic calculators and computers, slide rules of all shapes and sizes, and early core memories were on display. Approximately 70 alumni enjoyed renewed acquaintances and shared good times over box lunches prior to the docent-led tour.
The Museum's collection of artifacts contains more than 13,000 objects, 25,000 still and moving images, 4,000 linear feet of documentation, 5,000 software items and several hundred gigabytes of historic software.
