Larry Cathles
Dear Linda (and Charlie),
I am so very sad to hear of Charlie's passing, and all my heartfelt condolences to you and the family.
I met Charlie in 1978 on one of my first days at Kennecott when he poked his head around the door of my new office and said "Cathles, I presume". We were good friends ever after, and I will miss him a great deal.
Charlie and I both went to Princeton and worked together at both Kennecott and Chevron, so we had a lot in common over the years. The days at Kennecott were the best, perhaps because we were both young and Charlie was tremendous fun. I particularly remember the skiing at Alta, and how Charlie announced one afternoon that there would be good snow and we had to get to the slopes first thing to get the first run on the fresh powder. Work could wait. Skiing down a slope with about 2" of powder cover with Charlie in the lead was like floating on a cloud. Lift tickets were $5.50 a day! Maybe this is what Charlie is doing now.
Charlie and I organized several internal conferences at Exploration Services, and he taught me a great deal. He was a great judge of people (in the most positive sense) and knew to let the explorationists speak first to tell us what was really needed. Plate tectonics was brand new, and its many implications provided material those not so expert in exploration could contribute. Fortunately one did not have to have Charlies exceptional skills in geophysical techniques.
Charlie was not just an expert in matters scientific. He was an expert on hiking, for example. We had some wonderful hikes in the mountains around Salt Lake and I often remember his pointing out, as I lagged behind on a decent, that there was a greater variation in the speed of hikers decending than ascending. I think this is even more true with age.
Charlie's tragic accident in Australia changed things a lot, and also not so much. I will, as will many, always be grateful to Chevron for how they helped. When people criticize corporations I often wish they should be aware that Chevron dedicated one of their employees to managing matters related to Charlie for a full year, and allowed Linda to spend all the time needed for Charlie's recovery. All, especially Linda/Diz, deserve tremendous credit for Charlie's recovery. None could have done better.
The amazing thing to me after Charlies tragic accident, was that his personality remained so intact. He no longer could do his magneto telluric calculations. But he was still great fun to be around and retained his interpersonal abilities. His great good humor turned to jokes of the knock-knock, why the chicken crossed the road, and word twists like when is a door not a door (when it a jar of course-- I only remember the bad ones) genre. He could have been a comedian at this stage. His reservoir of these jokes was so large that I seriously suggested to him on a couple of occasions that he write a book of them. It would be a best seller that every grandparent would buy.
I wish you were still around, Charlie! We will all remember you with great fondness for a very very long time.
Larry Cathles