The Alumni Office received word that Walter
Edwards, Class of 1940, passed away on Dec. 15, 2003. No further
information was available.
Gilbert R. Griswold, Brown Medal winner of the
Class of 1933, passed away on May 15, 2004, at the age of 92. He lived
at La Vida Llena Health Care Center in Albuquerque.
Griswold was a respected mining engineer who was regarded worldwide
as an expert on evaluation of uranium deposits and operations. Even
so, he held that placer gold was his favorite ore. From 1968 to 1984,
Griswold was president of Chapman, Wood, and Griswold, a mining and
geological consulting firm. Even after he retired, Griswold was still
active as a consultant, coming into the office frequently until 1995.
Born in Greenport, N.Y. on Oct. 3, 1911, Griswold grew up in nearby
Sag Harbor. His family moved to Raton, N.M. when he was 10, and he
was a New Mexico resident for the rest of his life. At the New Mexico
School of Mines, he earned two bachelor's degrees: one in mining
engineering and one in metallurgy, as well as receiving the top award
in his graduating class, the Brown Medal.
Right out of college, from 1933 to 1937, he was a survey party chief
and topographic engineer with the U. S. Geological Survey, mapping
rivers, dam sites, and reservoirs in New Mexico, Utah, Idaho, and
Montana. From 1937 to 39, he worked for Guy V. Martin Laboratories in
Albuquerque, putting his metallurgical background to use as an assayer
and ore tester. In 1940, having received his master's degree in
metallurgy from the University of Utah, he entered the United States
Army.
As a specialist in ordnance, Griswold served in the Army until 1946,
when he was discharged as a full colonel.
After the war, Griswold was the manager for Potter & Sims' New
Mexico operations, leading the exploration and evaluation of the
58,000-acre Ortiz Mine Grant in Santa Fe county. This historic mining
district marked the first gold discovered west of the Mississippi (in
1829). Griswold's survey in the 1950s proved that it was not economic
to develop it under prevailing circumstances, but by the 1970s, he was
actively trying to interest various mining companies to develop the
property. In the 1980s, Gold Fields Corp. decided to mine and operate
a heap-leach the property.
In 1956, he joined the Albuquerque consulting firm of Chapman and
Wood, where he was made a partner a year later. The firm built a
world-wide business in services in the identification, development,
assessment, and production of mineral commodities.
Griswold was a Registered Professional Engineer and set the mining
engineer's exam for professional registration in New Mexico during the
1960s and 70s. He was a member of the American Institute of Mining,
Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers (SME); and director of the New
Mexico Mining Association. He was also a member of the General
Technical Advisory Committee of the U.S. Office of Coal Research.
"Mining was his life," recalled Doug Irving, currently president of
Chapman, Wood, and Griswold. "He was a congenial man who liked people.
Young people thought he was a fine old gentleman."
Griswold is survived by his daughters, Miriam Schroeder of San
Diego, Calif.; Martha Griswold of Berkley, Calif.; and Annette Griswold
of Greenbush, Wisc.; four grandchildren and one great-grandson. He was
preceded in death by his wife of over 40 years, Laura Fast Griswold.
Donations in the memory of Gilbert Griswold will benefit the Mineral
Engineering Scholarship at New Mexico Tech. Please send donations to:
Advancement Office, New Mexico Tech, 801 Leroy Place, Socorro, NM
87801. Please make checks out to New Mexico Tech and write "Gilbert
Griswold" on the memo line of the check.
Carol Ann (Pucci) McKee passed away on May 9,
2004, at her home in Renton, Wash.
Carol was born on February 20, 1953 in Albany, N.Y. She graduated
from Albany High School and obtained an associate's degree from Hudson
Valley Community College. She graduated from New Mexico Tech with a
bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1977. She was working for Boeing
when she married Robert E. McKee on July 5, 1984. They lived in
Seattle and Renton, Wash. Carol is survived by her husband and several
aunts, uncles and cousins in New York and California. Carol worked many
years as a computer analyst at Boeing and as an independent consultant.
She raised beautiful roses and was a member of the Rainy Rose Society.
Carol's husband said she enjoyed talking about Tech and commented
often on the special bond between Tech alumni.
Fellow alumni are invited to sign the guest book at
http://www.bonneywatson.com/.
E. Randolph Smith passed away in December
2003. He was a 1942 graduate of the School of Mines with a degree in
petroleum engineering.
Robert Stueber, age 89, passed away on May
9, 2004. He was born on Dec. 25, 1914, in Passaic, N.J. He was a
mining and metallurgy student at the New Mexico School of Mines, having
left in 1940 to work in the copper industry.
He spent four years working for Kennecott Copper Company in Chile,
and then spent 15 years working for Mobil Oil. Co. in Venezuela and
Columbia. On his return to the U.S., he established a new career as a
materials engineer with the New Jersey Department of Transportation,
retiring in 1983. He is survived by his wife of 56 years, Ruth; two
daughters, Janet and Sharon; a son, Richard; and four grandchildren and
two great-grandchildren.
Stueber's son Richard recalled that his father loved the West and at
age 72 was the oldest member of a month-long rafting trip on the Snake
River and Grand Canyon. In his late 70s, with the aid of a tutor, he
taught himself the computer and managed to do all his banking,
correspondence, and web surfing on it up to the day of his death. He
also enjoyed fishing and working in stained glass.
Stueber's longtime friend, Hart C. Gleason (39, BS, petroleum
engr.), wrote, "Bob and I worked together two summers at the Black Hawk
Consolidated mines in Mogollon, N.M. In 1937, we made 38.5 cents per
hour. We slept in a tent and worked in 110 degree temperatures
underground. We drilled in quartz gangue without water hooked up to
the drill, and both of us ended up with silicosis. That was the reason
I switched my college degree from mining to petroleum."
Linda Jane Weiss, a 1995 graduate with a
bachelor's degree in biology, was killed in a kayaking accident on
April 10, 2004. Linda had a lifelong interest in athletics, including
gymnastics, volleyball, and kayaking. She was active in both
volleyball and kayaking at Tech, and after graduation, she went to
graduate school at the University of Vermont in Burlington, where she
earned a master's degree in molecular biology in 1999. While in
Vermont, she qualified as a kayaking instructor, and she made a solo
trip to Costa Rica for kayaking there. She returned to Burlington to
work on clinical projects, but soon switched to areas where she could
work more with people. In 2003, she entered the Massachusetts College
of Pharmacology in the Physician's Assistant Program, where she had
finished her course work and was doing rotational internships
at the time of her death.
Linda's love for kayaking and adventure took her to Ecuador and
Peru. She was one of the first women to run the Taureau Rapids in
Quebec. On her last run, on the Mettawee River near Glens Falls, N.Y.,
her boat became pinned in the rocks of a 15-foot fall, and friends and
emergency personnel were not able to save her.
Linda is survived by her parents, Bill and Nancy Weiss of Socorro;
sister Wendy Weiss and Robert Mace of Austin, Tex.; brother Jason Weiss
of Socorro; boyfriend, John Guerriere of Shelburne, Vermont; and many
other relatives and friends. In the acknowledgements of her thesis,
she wrote, "My awe and respect to rivers moving fast, gracefully, with
power and excitement, offering challenges and beauty, providing the
path that takes me to the place I want to be."
Paul A. Weyler, Sr., age 78 of Las Cruces,
passed away Wednesday, March 17, 2004, in Las Cruces. He was the Brown
Medal recipient for 1953, when he graduated from the New Mexico School
of Mines with a bachelor's degree in mining engineering.
Weyler was born on Dec. 14, 1925 in Ridgewood, N.J. and served in
the U.S. Navy during World War II. After attending the New Mexico
School of Mines, he earned his master's degree in metallurgy at the
University of Nevada in Reno. His professional career as a mining
metallurgist began with AMAX in Golden, Colo., and continued with
Kennecott in New Mexico, Utah, and Papua New Guinea.
He retired to Tucson, Ariz., where he was an active member of the
Knights of Columbus and Lions Club and an English tutor. Paul's wife,
Frances, preceded him in death on March 20, 1995. Paul had been a
resident of Las Cruces since 1995 and a parishioner of Immaculate Heart
of Mary Cathedral. Survivors include Paul Anthony, Jr., and wife
Monika of Las Cruces; Wayne Stephen and wife Liz of Grand Junction,
Colo.; daughter Rita Louise of Asheville, N.C.; and three
grandchildren.
