Mildred Memitt

I came to work in the Department of Geological Sciences July 1979 as a bookkeeper. My duties as bookkeeper were to keep up with funding for the DOE-sponsored Geothermal Program under the direction of Drs. John Costain, Lynn Glover, III, Cahit Coruh and A. K. Sinha. I stayed in this position until September 30, 1979. At this time a VAX 11/780 computer was installed for the processing of reflection seismic data (Tech was the first university in the country to install the DISCO --Digicon Interactive Seismic COmputer --processing software) that was being acquired by the Virginia Tech Vibroseis Group for the Geothermal Program.

I started as an operator for the VAX computer on October 1, 1979 under the direction of Drs. John Costain and Cahit Coruh. The VAX was used for research and teaching. My job was the operation of the computer and maintaining supplies, maintain the files related to the seismic lines, input data from surveying and run programs for the surveying,verifying survey data to 7.5' topo maps, preliminary processing of field data, manage tape library and manage database. The VAX was later upgraded to a VAX 11/785 as additional equipment was added to the program. Sun Sparc workstations have now replaced most of the processing that was done on the VAX.

The data from the VAX were recorded on 9-track magnetic tapes and have now been copied to 8mm tapes or to optical disk to be used on Sun workstations. This work has been completed and the VAX was phased out and discarded in August, 1998, while John Costain was away in Park City, UT, and was therefore not around to keep anything, which he is inclined to do.

In 1994 John suggested to the U.S. Department of Energy that the basic data related to the geothermal program be archived for future investigators. This included well logs from the drilling program and reflection seismic data from the field acquisition by the Virginia Tech seismic crew and others seismic crews that were subcontracted later. At this time Cahit Çoruh suggested that the data be archived as a World Wide Web site, the request was approved by the Department of Energy, and the data can now be accessed from anywhere in the world by accessing the Virginia Tech Geothermal Web Site. I have helped to recover the data from storage, put it in a format for the web site, and build the web site.

Before coming to the Department of Geological Sciences at Virginia Tech I had worked at Electro Tec in Blacksburg, Virginia, from June 1955 to August 1967 in the manufacture of electromechanical components. In August 1967 I transferred to the accounting department at Electro Tec in data processing and stayed in this position until July 1970. From July 1970 through November 1975 I was a consultant at Electro Tec for the programming and operation of the data processing. In November 1975 I came to work at Virginia Tech in the computing center as an operator, and left this job in July, 1977.

Additions to Mildred's writeup (above) made by John Costain. There have been countless graduate students who Mildred has helped with their data. On the occasion of her retirement, it is fitting to quote some expressions of appreciation taken directly from the acknowledgement pages of their Theses and Dissertations. Some of these students are referenced below, in chronological order of graduation, and include Mike Bahorich (1981), Eileen Bielanski (1981), Paul Dysart (1981), Tom Pratt (1982), Andy Marangakis (1983), Steven Belcher (1984), Berkan Ecevitoglu (1984), Rob Bryan (1985), Rick D'Angelo (1985), Steven Miller (1985), Tom Pratt (1986), Greg Schorr (1986), Ron Luongo (1987), Dan Needham (1987), Stephen Scott (1987), Ken Laughlin (1988), Emin Demirbag (1990), Susan Hubbard (1990), Ashok Sen (1991), Laura Lampshire (1992), Phil Pappano, Jr. (1992), Mu Guo (1994), Debbie Hopkins (1995), Sara Minnich (1996), Jennifer Cyrnak (1997), Leslie Moore (1997), and Sam Peavy (1997).

Epilogue. A geophysicist's life can be a lonely one, with countless days spent in the field collecting seismic data that can only be evaluated after leaving the field. You don't get a second chance to collect reflection seismology data in or even near the same area. It's too expensive. Mildred's readiness to offer assistance when we returned from the field assured us that, if we did our job in the field, then our data and our students would be secure and cared for during and after the extensive computer processing that follows data collection.