Zoe Ann Holmes Oral History Interview, February 11, 2011

  JF: Good morning. This is Jennifer Faith and I am conducting a life history interview with Dr. ZoeAnn Holmes. And we have Keri Hevner and Lisa Prendergast here and we're at the Valley Library and it's February 11th, 2011. Ok, well thanks for being here. We just wanted to start with some background personal history type questions. So, if you could tell us a little bit about your hometown, and what that was like and what made you move away from this place?

ZH: Well it's a small college town in southeast Kansas which is inundated right now with ice and snow -- thank God I'm in Oregon! (laughs) it's in a small college town we have three high schools and I went to a high school that was considered to be a laboratory school there. We lived -- my family that I was 00:01:00part of -- lived on 40 acres. Part of it was in city limits and part of it was, well we farmed it pretty much. Most of my early life, my folks raised most of their food and we kids worked to help them raise the food. I think you want to know a little more about my family? I'm the middle of five children. My older sister is -- well, is or was, whichever way you want to put it -- really brilliant. She graduated honors in chemistry and as she says, she set all the rules the rest of us got to break. She currently now is retired -- she retired 00:02:00as, she was teaching special higher ed. I guess you'd say the smart kids, because she had such a large science background. Unfortunately right now she has Alzheimer's and it's getting worse. I had an older brother, and he's passed away. He was a musician. He could hear a song and he could sit down and play it on a piano. He could tell when something was off pitch. He became music director at St. Matthew's, St. Timothy's in New York City. Also was manager for Ned Roland who writes symphonies and musical scores and such.

Then I have a little brother that essentially is running his own company now. He golden parachuted out as CFO of one of the fortune 500 companies in Kansas City. 00:03:00He has his own company now which essentially is the boating equipment and such. He was always able to make money, and he certainly does now. We four kids are three years apart. Then we have the surprise little brother. He's 10 years younger than I am. And of course, we all spoiled him rotten (laughs). So that's the family. My parents have passed away, both of them of Alzheimer's. I took care of my mother -- I brought her out to visit for about 3 and a half years. I took care of her for a year. Then when she forgot how to walk and I couldn't lift her and such. So she was at Heart of the Valley, which you may not know, but that was on Harrison and at one time it was an Assisted living nursing home.

I got 19 great or great-great nieces and nephews. And I'm very careful -- I've got my valentine cards sent off to them and I do that. Growing up, you know, it was fine. My dad was a geological chemist and he was the first -- well the only one -- in his family that went off to college. There's 5 or 6, not sure how many. My mother's family, were at that time educated and considered as such and so she was pretty much a housewife, but she also loved children and after the 00:05:00four of us had left home they started keeping foster kids. They had something like before they quit, 70-some foster kids run through that home. And some of them from the time 6 until they were 18. And children are just attracted to her. She was just good at that. I asked my sister once -- cause all of us kids are really quite different, our interests are different and everything, and so she was into the education philosophy type stuff and working with honors students. So I asked her once, why do you think we're all so different yet all relatively successful with our lives? She said it's because mother let us do whatever we wanted pretty much as long as we didn't interfere too bad! And we were allowed to; I remember I got to run around with strip kids -- southeast Kansas is a coal 00:06:00mining area -- and there are a lot of hiking and running around with my little brother who is close to my age, and found arrowheads and things like that. So that's kind of how I grew up I guess. Worked my way pretty much through college for undergraduate and graduate degrees, though I had a fellowship when I was working on my doctorate.

JF: I guess that kind of leads into the next question. Just about your interests growing up -- you know -- what were your interests, and how did these lead to what you decided to study in undergrad and in grad school? And then how you went about choosing your programs?

ZH: Well I was always interested in science. And that was partly dad and my 00:07:00older sister because she was six years older so she was the first to go through science projects & things like that. So I was interested in science but I'm not brilliant (laughs) let's face it I'm ok. I manage but I do a lot of that through hard work. So my dad just told me because he worked out in industry -- and this was in the 60s -- he said you're going to end up washing glassware, and you don't want to do that. So look for a place where you can use your science and somewhere you can be successful. And foods and home economics was the place. So that's why I chose to be a food scientist and it's been great. It's been interesting and I pretty much got to do what I wanted to do. And of course, in order to get the science and not the cooking, I had to go to Kansas State. So I 00:08:00went to the small college at home for several years, and then I went up to K State. I did my undergraduate degree and fortunately my advisor thought I could be successful and she encouraged me to go on for my master's. So I was fortunate she had a big pork project and it was at the time where everyone was cooking pork to death, and the contention by the National Livestock and Meat Board was that you could use lower meat temperatures as long as you destroyed the Trichionisis. So I was the part of that project, to see if you could boil pork. So that's why I chose that. Lot of good memories.

I had a chance to do -- because we were in a big lab with lots of different types of projects -- and I really relished my degree there at K State. I was one of the first graduates with a minor in baking technology. It was just starting there and they had one of the few academic programs in the country in baking technology and that was really a great learning experience and also good for graduate students. As one of my roommates back from college would write and would say "Do you remember when?" we would have pork chops with holes in them because we'd take out little holes for testing, and lots of bread (laughs). One week we made 13 loaves of bread -- so French toast (laughs). Stuffed pork chops. Lots of different things. Solves a lot of the money problems. So then I got my 00:10:00master's degree, I was looking for a job. I had several offers at Southeast Missouri state in Marysville, but I really wanted eventually to go and get my doctorate and do research, and I didn't see that happening at a small college where Home Ec was teaching Home Ec teachers and teaching people who, their whole plan in life was to go out and get married. So I went to a job interview on Menomonie, and they kept wanting me to sign the apartment lease before they'd offered me the job. So that didn't happen (laughs). That was '65. That was a 00:11:00time where if you had a recommendation you could be hired, pretty much, you didn't go through the committies and everyone would scrutinize your resume. They'd call your major professor and ask -- Is this person any good, and yeah or no? Then you kind of got the job. I didn't realize that at the time, so OSU needed someone to teach foods, Helen Charlie, the professor, was going on sabbatical. So I had my job interview in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They were there, Dr. Margaret Fincke. I don't know if you've ever run across Dr. Fincke's name when you talk about prominent women at Oregon State. Well, I certainly don't consider myself in her category. She -- outstanding person. She was on the first national research council that did the first RDAs in the country. So I 00:12:00drive all the way to Minneapolis from southeast Kansas, which at that time was a long drive for me. It was the first time I had made that long drive. I go in, and sit down in the hotel lobby, people all around, and I see across the top of the paper -- "Make it short". (laughs) So about 10 minutes later we were done (laughs).

So that's why I came out to Oregon State. It was a land grant university and had a research program and primarily did teaching, well entirely teaching that first 4 years I was here. Then I decided that if I was going to get my doctorate I'd better do it pretty soon. If you stay longer and longer you get more commitments, and money becomes more critical, because you want to buy things! 00:13:00You're no longer a graduate student. (laughs). So the summer before I decided to leave I went to the University of Wisconsin to do their program and see how I liked it and if it was worth the investment. And all they were interested in, it seemed to me, was numbers. You know -- how many numbers they graduated, how many graduate students they had. And I didn't really care at all about numbers, I wanted to know what your program was and what you did for graduate students. And so I decided not to go there. But I got my canoe paddling license there, so I ended up ok. (laughs). That's where my first formal computer courses were. I learned to program the computer to play chess.

KH: What year was that?

ZH: 1968. I've done some workshops here before, but not a real course. You know, workshops you can sit there like a lump and not do anything (laughs). I didn't sit there like a lump, but I didn't always understand what was going on. So I called my major professor, and she had moved. You don't want to get all your degrees, they say, from the same institution. At least they did at that time. She had moved to the department at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. And so I was very fortunate -- yes, yes, she'd like me to come -- and also she helped me apply for an NSF fellowship which turned out to be more money than I was making teaching here at Oregon State. And your tuition was all paid; it was a really nice deal. You know, you never have enough money, but it was enough. I 00:15:00was very, very fortunate. So I quit my job here, I didn't go on leave or anything, I just quit my job. I didn't think it was fair to Oregon State to wait three years. And also, who knows what would happen in the meantime. I did my dissertation research on thermal properties of ground turkey muscle. At that time this was in the early 70s, '69-'70 was when I started. And you know, the energy crisis was on. Food, most of the food heating is dependent upon trial and error. Someone cooked it this way, and it worked, so this is the temperature we'll use. At that time the idea was that we may not need to heat it that 00:16:00temperature. And if we could use a lower temperature because the heat doesn't conduct into the food fast enough, then we might as well use a lower temperature and consume less energy. It turned out to be one of those projects that you'll never find a solution to. But I did it, and I got answers. It really was difficult. The mechanical engineers that the project had two sides to it. The mechanical engineers allow for 50% error. Well, I come from where 1-5, maybe 10% at the most error is all you accept. It was interesting. There's stuff that I didn't understand that they rolled their eyes at, and vice versa.

I remember the curves, the heating curves, and they'd see these little plateaus and they'd be so amazed at them. And I'd think, that's just where proteins denatured! (laughs) it takes energy to do that. But it was a good project because it really helped with working with other people in a totally different discipline to accomplish a goal. And it turns out that you still don't see hardly any research on thermal properties of foods. That the problem is mechanical engineers are used to dealing with something that behaves nicely. Even if it changes, it changes steadily. Food is all over the place. It's very, what they call, a non-steady state condition. So it doesn't behave the same way even if you keep doing it the same way. Maybe the turkey froze a little 00:18:00different so it's going to behave a little different. But it was a good project. You regret that you never solved the problem!

JF: That kind of goes into the research question with the dissertation. Do you have any other memorable research moments or achievements in your research career?

ZH: Well, see, I was kind of the in-between generation as far as academics are concerned. Because after World War 2, the field changed. All the dietitians came back from the war and entered academia. And then they took up those slots for a lot of years. They came back in '44, '46, '48. At that time I was 6 years old! 00:19:00(laughs). So I was kind of in between and I don't -- you know, I have a lot of research that I did but I was a generalist. I said my specialty is texture and color of foods. And that means I do anything (laughs). And I realized once when I wondered why I was so busy, and you know I feel like I'm going crazy. I realized I was doing a project in broccoli, I was doing a project in ham, the processing of ham. I was doing a turkey project, and I think I was starting to work on an ethics paper that I was concerned about. And doing all of those at once. And more or less I was here enough as a generalist and early enough, and 00:20:00it wasn't until the latter part of my career that they really got upset that I wasn't a specialist. And now there isn't any academic person that isn't a specialist in something, where they know everything there is to know about one little thing. You know, I loved my mutant lamb project. There are mutant lambs. And I love this when you go out and you find out there's a whole group of people that are famous people within that group that are interested in something. And that's the way with lambs. Evidently, lambs are taken around, they are graded, and they have this mutant lamb start appearing that looked like a bodybuilder, I mean muscles galore. And you know, musculature was important in lamb grading. Well, they didn't know what to do with this, because obviously those lambs are 00:21:00going to get higher scores, and that means money, somewhere down the line that meant money. So they were interested in the quality -- you know, is this really a good thing that the muscles are there? So I did that project.

Almost all of my projects were done with other people. I am not talking technicians, but other professors who are trying to do things but don't have enough money. I was on the experiment station, so as long as I came up with publications they let me do whatever I wanted. But that was done with the people in animal sciences. A lot of my projects were done with Tom Savage in poultry science. We did a lot of work with turkey. That was really interesting, a lot of different nuances. One time we were doing a project and I said, we don't really know what is causing the differences. Let's do blood samples. Your wife works at 00:22:00the hospital, maybe she can take in some turkey samples of blood that we're doing and run it because they had that automatic run. And so it was really cheap to run if someone could do it for you. We found out that yes, you can look at the calcium -- the more calcium in the blood, the more juicy the turkey is, and things like that. Because one of my broad interests is trying to be able to predict the quality of food from the initial project. They're just really getting into that. The problem is, the simplest things to do with newer technology is to take something like an apple that's fairly uniform, then try to find the marker for quality. Is it the color? Is it the actual puncture? They 00:23:00have little punchers where you can punch and measure the force to punch an apple skin. Well the problem is that every apple skin is different. Even the same variety of apple. It may grow a little different, so the marker suddenly becomes really difficult to use. And that again, that's why food is so fascinating. The interrelationships and all that. Another thing I was always interested in was how the variety influenced the quality of food. Things like, I became aware of this with the Russet Burbank potato. That's used for most of our fries. And actually, that is not the best potato for French fries. There are better quality French fries with different varieties of potatoes. But all the machinery out there has been made to use that nice long potato and pull out the French fries, and so that's why we still are using Russet Burbank after these many, many years 00:24:00instead of using a variety that will hold up better, that will look better, that will taste better, and that's because of the processing. I did a project with broccoli that was interesting that Jim Baggett who many people know because he developed the bush bean here on campus. He was raising different varieties of broccoli. I did blanching and then froze them, and some varieties were just appalling. My thing is, if you're in a large institution and purchasing food you need to know what variety you're getting and how it should behave. And that project showed it.

I was so fortunate, Oregon State at that time, people were willing to work with you if you come through and do what you say you're going to do. I worked with a 00:25:00lot of different people: plant, animal science, poultry science at that time, even some in mechanical engineering that were trying to get some things going. I would do the food quality part, and they would get their research and it would make both of our research more publishable by putting them together and showing growing conditions make a difference. Probably the two projects I found most interesting from the standpoint of foods would be, one I did on pre-rigor pressurization of meat. That was done with the people down at the meat science lab. At that time we spent millions of dollars on cold storage of meat. And 00:26:00hanging them for processing, or hanging them to go through rigor and ripen, or whatever you want to call it. Then processing them. The contention was that they were doing some work in Australia with lamb, because lamb doesn't have any fat, so if you cool it too fast it gets tough. So what we did, we started off with just a little pressure chamber, and we added some muscle, hot out of the animal just after slaughter. We were able to apply a lot of pressure and what you do is you jam all the different parts of the muscle together -- the actin and myosin, if you like -- the Z lines are crushed together. Anyway, we did that with muscle and we did quality work where I looked at tenderness mainly, I didn't do much sensory with that, and it worked. And so they kept trying a larger and larger 00:27:00piece until we had a primal cut, that is, a large cut that we'd take out of the animal while the carcass was still warm before it went into rigor. Of course, energy costs, then, you'd cut off almost a week of just hanging there in cold storage that you could package it and go directly to marketing. That research was done, a lot of it was done here, and you still see sometimes a little bit of work with it. One of the graduate students in animal sciences, it was his whole life. Then what was nice about that was we carried it through. We started off with just the one muscle, then I ended up taking samples in of roasts to stone soup, and they served it and they did what was called the smiley face, you know, the frown if it's too tough or whatever. They did the sensory for me, and we 00:28:00also did that at one of the sororities. So that's all over the place, the different kinds of research. I liked my potato project because Oregon and Washington and Idaho were losing millions of dollars with what they called the sugar end problem. What happens is, if potatoes don't develop right, they sometimes develop sugar end. What happens is the stem end gets high in sugar content, it doesn't change to starch, and Simplot and Ore-Ida will not accept potatoes, at least at one time, more than around 10% that have that problem because the consumer does not like French fries that are not evenly browned. (laughs). But they were losing millions of dollars, so we spent about 3 years.

I'd go over, we'd try different irrigation methods, and of course I wasn't the one responsible for that, there was a grad student that was responsible working with Dr. Shock over in Ontario at the Malheur experiment station working with different irrigation methods. I'd go over and get samples and freeze them in liquid nitrogen and bring them back to campus. And we'd do sugar analysis of the potato at different stages of development. And we found out that it was an irrigation problem. That spray irrigation would work better and decrease the sugar end process. That had one interesting -- I took over a graduate student, she did do some of the analytical work, and she was from mainland China. And you 00:30:00know, you forget how different we are. And some students never get out -- they stay on campus and probably hang out and live with their friends of similar ethnic background, and anyway, she had never been at a gas station to use the restroom. (laughs). It sensitized me a little more, to try to get my graduate students to experience more than just coming to campus to do education. I never wanted to be nosy, you know, where the line was. Dr. Shock over there in Ontario he was really good with students. He did a lot of work improving wild potato varieties. He was good with people, and he was talking with her, and I remember 00:31:00her finally saying, well you know, in China professors do not go out and dig potatoes (laughs). Cause I'd go over, I'd get there about six. I'd leave about 11 at night and drive over, and I'd help dig the potatoes and sort them and go in and cut what we needed and get them in the nitrogen. I got so I wouldn't stay over there. I'd just go over, work all day, then drive back. But that means it was almost 24 hours with no sleep. So that's how my research happened -- through hard work. I am fairly good at seeing what needs to be done. I don't always have the competencies, and I'd have to get someone else to do, you know, I wasn't 00:32:00great on analytical chemical type analysis, so hire a technician for that. The department had a really good one, that they were always glad to have part of his salary paid for. I'd do it by working hard. Most of my turkey work I'd go in at 11:00 at night and start cooking because it takes a while to cook a turkey, but it takes longer for it to cool. And I found that for doing sensory work the best time was at 8:00 in the morning to catch the faculty and grad students before they really got busy with their day. So I'd have things ready to taste at 8:00. If they had to fund me per hour, they couldn't afford me (laughs). But that's my research primarily.

I did do a paper on ethics because I was interested in ethics. And actually, I 00:33:00was on the first research committee that dealt with that on campus because I've had some things happen to me. You know, when you work with other people you don't always come from the same viewpoint. And I'd be told things like, "well, no, it's not right, but there's no law against it." (laughs). It always infuriated me. You know, if it's not right, then it's not right! And you're the administrator, do something about it! But I did a paper on ethics in authorship. I sent it to one of the journals for food science, which I am a food scientist, I consider myself a food scientist. And to all the authors, I sent a survey -- what was your part? And what was interesting was that most of the major 00:34:00professors came back "no, it's not ethical what we do, we put our grad students the first author and according to the guidelines they really shouldn't be because I advised the project. They may have done some tweaking but mainly I devised it." And that's what should be, whether it's right or wrong, that's what you're here for as a professor. But that was an interesting project to find that a lot of professors recognized that they weren't doing what should be done, but they were doing what should be done for the student.

JF: We were just curious how being a woman, how you feel like that influenced your career path, and if you feel like that's kind of changed over the years, people's perceptions, or how they treated you?

ZH: Well, I was fortunate if want to look at it from that point, that I was on 00:35:00campus when there were no women other than one over in the computer science department that were interested in computers. There were not really many women scientists. The ones that were there were in Home Ec, and lots of committees needed a woman on them to look good (laughs), and I would get on committees I was interested in, I'd fill out the form every year and usually got what I asked for. At that time they would send out to all faculty, do you want to be on faculty or administrative committees, and so I would check one or two of them and that's and probably my research interests is why a lot of people know me. Not that I'm necessarily prominent, but they know who I was, and I think that was--I really wasn't interested in being on an administrator and the reason a 00:36:00lot of people do committee work or do project work is so they can become better and become administrators (laughs). That's the goal, I mean I have been in and heard a lot of people say 'oh well you know, he wants to be an administrator' or you know that's why and I wasn't interested in that. I just wanted to be able to do what I wanted to do. And so that is why I was on committees. So, yes I think one of your other questions was about mentors, and I had a mentor when I came out with my master's degree. In fact, I had people that became really good friends, if they hadn't--you know, this was my first time really away from home because even when I was going to K State, I knew I could go home on the weekend if I wanted to, and you know this is first time away from home, first time never 00:37:00going home for Thanksgiving, and stuff like that.

And also, as a new teacher they don't at least at that time, don't teach you to teach and she was very good, Dorothy East. She was in the department, different than I was but still very nice, and she and her housemate became very good to me and I was very fortunate. And so she as a mentor, you know really was for teaching, you know, she did things I never could do. Students would lick their fingers in the food lab, and she could slap their hands (laughs), I mean I wouldn't dare! (laughs). That was a time and she could get away with that--.she has passed away long since, but she was quite a bit older than I was. She was there in her 30s and 40s, and we traveled some and they came to see me when I 00:38:00was in Tennessee which was nice and we traveled through the Blue Ridge Mountains then and you know, I guess you know when I think back--. See, I was fortunate, I feel sorry for the younger grad students and others. I was very fortunate in that I met a lot of the people that were really well known in my field. I got to know them. You know, Pauline Paul, fantastic in meat research and you do a search on her and you'll find hundreds of articles on meat research. You know I met her actually in the 60s at Institute of Food Technology meeting in Portland, and then got to know her but a little. She actually retired out here, and of course she's passed away. Grayce Goertz, my major professor, was very well known in turkey work, and you know, I met several times Ava Milam Clark who Milam Hall 00:39:00is named after. And you know she traveled in China before China was closed during the 30s, and you know there are really some fantastic people in Home Economics where most women were.

But, I have had a chance to know--.and see you know, well like Dr. Fincke, from my former teaching academic years, was very I don't want to say firm, but anyway she was a forceful person. You know, so I have been very fortunate. None of them really do what they call mentoring now; I don't think you'd call that. And other than Dorothy East, I don't think in my academic career I ever had a mentor. And 00:40:00maybe that's why I've just been here (laughs). But, I have been very fortunate and even growing up you know I think--well, my grandmother was really a strong influence in my life. And my folks too, and you know I remember things like we used to pack boxes for Zimbabwe and I still send Christmas cards to one of the black sons of the black minister we wrote for years. I had some of the letters, and well I got them when my folks closed the house up. It ended up somehow, well, I didn't want to throw them away and no one else was up to taking them. And he now he came from Zimbabwe, became a doctor, went to a small college in 00:41:00Pittsburg. The church supported him and went back and worked for a while and his wife didn't like it so he came back and he's in Detroit now and I send him Christmas cards. And I sent him all his father's letters. My grandmother wrote for I don't know the minister's wife. The minister's wife was--she could move two fingers and she could hear. She was blind and totally paralyzed. Fantastic memory though, and she wrote all these missionary letters, and after she passed away we kept it up and I had a lot of the letters and stuff so I sent them to him. But, you know those kind of people that persevere I guess is the best way because my grandmother persevered under very difficult situations--.and all or 00:42:00what--.you know just gotta work hard and hang in there. Unfortunately, I am not sure that is entirely true now. You can work hard and still not be successful.

KH: And the opposite too.

ZH: Yeah (laughs)

KH: Can I ask a quick follow-up question? Was your grandmother, I mean, that is obviously Kansas in the pioneer days and that kind of thing, the 1800s and stuff, was she the first on that land that you guys lived at in Kansas? How did you guys arrive in Kansas as a family?

ZH: Well, Nebraska, more the Nebraska area. In fact, the Eastwood cemetery is in Mission Creek, Nebraska. And I think her parents are buried in Winchester, but my grandfather-her husband- is buried in Mission Creek. And yeah he traveled 00:43:00down to Kansas and became educated. And I'm not sure, Grandmother went to Kansas University Medical School and was a nurse. And this was back gee 20s and 30s, and she had--my aunt has it now, her daughter--her last surviving daughter--had a little wooden box and a little square and inside was a needle and little vials you know of medicine. So she was a nurse. Now my dad's family actually lived on the homestead--"the homestead" (laughs). Anyway, that is where my parents are buried and we have the family cemetery there. And my aunt and I, which is one of 00:44:00my dad's brother's wife, are concerned about the family cemetery. But we can't do anything about it until Uncle John, or Cousin John, passes away cause it's his baby. But, it's a very nice cemetery. Actually if you hunt for my dad's records you'll see it come up and it'll come the Prescott Cemetery. And it's on the original homestead and it's out in the boonies (laughs). It really is, when he passed away I was the only kid that knew where it was and the funeral home they said they wouldn't take him up to be buried until someone went up with them. And as we went up you know I said 'this is really kind of strange, I could have given you directions.' He says ' no we go to them first because we've gone 00:45:00to too many family cemeteries and they're atrocious. You know, never been mowed, the blackberries are everywhere, and you know and that sort of thing.

So anyway, and all but two people buried there are Holmes' one way or the other. I mean some have different last names, and those two people were railroad people and they got killed on the railroad and it's too expensive and no one knew--didn't have the money to bury them anywhere so my grandfather says well they can be buried with us (laughs). I have a nephew now that's finally become interested in the family history, and so I've sent him as much cause well one reason you see the letters on and is I really got worried, I had--I mean the 00:46:00first year I retired I scanned 18,000 images. They had photos and photos--.tin types even, and I didn't want to be the only one with them available. And so I went through them, I scanned them all, and my mother had done a very good job--all but a stack about that high were labeled and anyway, so he's become interested which I'm glad because you know I'm out here fairly much alone and I do have three trunks in the garage that say 'this is family stuff, don't throw away,' so--.

LP: How old is your nephew?

ZH: He must be 30 or 35. He's back in Kansas. Yeah, he's younger. I do have a nephew out here. Works for HP and still works for HP (laughs). He came out about 00:47:0015 years ago I suppose. He pretty much works from home now because his wife's mother is out in Stonybrook so he got permission and they want to keep him--he's a sharp kid. Yeah--.

KH: So you have some family here, that's nice

ZH: Yeah. If I get really in trouble. And I've got good friends too. You know, single women you either do that or you're going to have a pretty lonely life (laughs). And so I've got friends that--like when I had my knee surgery they would bring my Diet Coke by (laughs). Gotta have that!

LP: We stick together!

ZH: Yeah

JF: Wow, that is really exciting, I wish I had that many records about my family.

KH: I know, it is very inspiring to hear about it, especially the labeling, we don't label anything and I already know that will be an issue.

LP: It's very special

ZH: Well you know, and the letters, and you can't scan letters--early letters--because most of them are written on thin paper and they wrote on both sides, well a scanner would pick that up

KH: So the ones that are the computer though as PDFs, how did those get put in the system then--did you really scan all those?!

JF: Yeah, we took a look at them and there's a ton

ZH: Oh yeah, see my mother's family really were close and they were all the time. One of the things I started to do was go through there and add why didn't see any letters during the 40s? Well, Mother was fairly ill with my little brother when she was pregnant and I was up there so they would often come and so 00:49:00there was no need to write a letter. Or during the late 40s when my grandfather passed away with cancer and the family was there for a lot of the time so you don't write letters when you're sitting right there (laughs). You know, those kind of things I think would be interesting. You aren't going to get my letters; Mother saved all my letters I wrote (laughs). She wrote every weekend, she wrote what we kids called the company letter. And then once I started doctoral work, was not easy for me and I had to do it at night because electricity in the Home Ec building was so old that the voltage would drop anytime someone turned on a light or stuff, so I had to work at night because the whole premise of my research was the voltage along, it had to be steady along a thin wire and so 00:50:00anyway, so she started writing me on Wednesdays as well, my own personal letter (laughs). Yeah, she kept a lot of them and (laughs) I mainly griped to her (laughs). I really, when I look back, I really enjoy what I do and still am doing.

You know, I come in and I scan at archives one morning a week and I'm still teaching with another faculty member that's retired, online course, and still working, well right now I'm working with a large file of references I had before the 1970. Food related references to collapse them into one file, and see if anyone wants them because they are not computerized you know, they started with computerized bibliographies you know--that didn't start until about the 1970s. 00:51:00And being a generalist, one time I--well, this kind of goes into one of your other things, let's see--your electronic--.

JF: Yeah, that's a good topic

ZH: (laughs) You know, when I was doing all those different types of projects, I kept going back to the old literature because the old foods literature is not so much what kind of antioxidants do we have in cranberries and blueberries, but rather why are blueberries blue or what happens if you put them in a muffin and it turns green around the blueberries, what's going on? So there's more what happens if, then what is. And so I went--this would have been '72--one of the things I found is that with the technology here on campus the "tekkies," the 00:52:00people in the computer center and the "tekkies," there used to be a lot of people that would do things. You know, wanted to do things and that was how they made their livelihoods. Love to try new things, love to do new things. And so they were always willing to try something different, and so I wanted to do have a bibliography on the computer. And the only people on campus at that time that had any of that kind of software were the people over in forestry, with all of their forestry references. So that was Famulus and so Famulus was only one of those old cyber CDCs, you know punch cards to put stuff in. So I would go in as soon as the computer center opened at six o'clock in the morning and I'd punch cards of the index references that referenced the author, the title, and everything, and then put them in my punch cards for their own literature. And so 00:53:00anyway I did that for quite a while now, I have literally thousands of references for most of the major food journals back then, and then when the cyber CDC went down, they went and made--at that time they were just starting to have microcomputers and the guys went over there and they downloaded all those text files and so I have all those and I've kept it up so it works on my Apple there. And I'm getting that ready and trying to slowly get rid of stuff like that and no longer; well anything from 1970 doesn't change a whole lot (laughs). So once I get it done you know I'll first see if the subject people want it, and if not I'll check if the people over in food science want it.

Yeah, that was kind of funny, my first--well okay, I'll keep this in order kind of (laughs)--that was my original project and then I had, they were trying a new software, I was on the Instructional Computer committee for quite few years, and well I remember the director there, we had money to pass out for people could use, you know the teletype computers and we were to allocate it to different people. Well, we got a request for a microcomputer, to buy one, so we wouldn't have to use more of these instructional funds every quarter. Well, I remember the head of the computer center saying 'those microcomputers are never going to work, they aren't going to last--don't spend your money that way.' (laughs). Well, there was enough of us around the table that we ignored him and we spent 00:55:00our money that way. And so, we did that. And that allowed for a program, well it was still in the mainframe called Expersim. and Expersim came out of Michigan State. Joanne Baughman was one of the people in the computer center who was very interested in having it here on campus and having it be successful. And essentially, it let you do simulations. You had to put in you know the data, and then you would give a student a question and they'd go to the computer and answer it and type it out. And I was interested so I did a small project and then I got an NSF grant to do a large project of simulated laboratory experiments in foods. And, did a big literature search and devised a lot of different problems that a faculty member could give to a student that would be workable--they could go put in the treatments and the factors that they wanted 00:56:00to test for and it'd come out pretty much like it should and I used that for quite a number of years, not only in my advanced foods class to try and get the students beyond just regurgitating facts, but to actually use the facts and see inter-relationships and of course in experimental foods I used it a lot as a start-off point that they could do.

And so that went away and so, as it often does (laughs) and I've had students come in my office cause eventually to use that because we downloaded it and we had the whole all the documentation and my little nephew took my Radio Shack level one and he did a program, the nephew that's out here actually, but he did 00:57:00it from home, and so I could do simulations on it when it went away from the big mainframe. And I still have all the documentation, it was extensive you know the values that we got were related to a literature search, and I had two grad students working on that as well. I use that in the classroom and you know students come to my office and run it, and you know try to help them. And at that time as I recall, this may be out of sequence a little bit, but at that time you know they were just starting talking about, you didn't need to do it by hand, you could do nutrient analysis by computer and that looked like to me where everything might be going. It'd be a start to maybe get some, none of the other faculty were interested in this computer stuff and so I joined the National Nutritional Database people and we'd meet back east of course cause no 00:58:00one else on the West Coast would be interested anyway (laughs). No, not really. But the USDA were part of the main thrust of that and they supported a lot of it so that's why we met back east in different places. I learned a lot about--.

LP: I'm sorry, where in the east?

ZH: Just lots of different places, DC, you know Indianapolis, yeah anything east of the Mississippi is east of me (laughs). That was one of my major employment requirements, was that I was never going to teach in the east (laughs). Had to be west. But, so came back and there was a kid in our department that was kind of a, I get along with people that are weird and he was different--I'd never call him weird to his face of course (laughs)--but he was different. Phil 00:59:00Callicrate, and he wanted to be a dietician and well he also was interested in games on computers and stuff like that, and he programmed the first nutrient analysis program and I got this Dorothy East to use it in her class and it worked. And so then the researchers were, well they didn't think it had good data, now I know it's not complete and it doesn't have every food item so we had to use the hard copy so it took them awhile and finally they were born again computer for nutrient analysis people. But, you know, it was a big--I couldn't remember it last night and should have looked it up in one of the journals--there was a big computing company up in Salem that developed the program that's used by a lot of dieticians even now--ESHA or something like that. Anyway, but she came down cause I was the only one doing this stuff around 01:00:00at that time and she came down and she developed a really nice program, and started--finally our researchers started working with her because I'm not a nutritionist, I am a food scientist and one of the things I've done is always remember I'm a content specialist. That's what I am; I'm not a computer "tekkie." I only do the stuff for that to do what I want to do.

JF: Right

ZH: And anyway, so I remember the programmer coming down. She had this fantastic program file and she says 'maybe your students, since they do this, would be willing to work with my program.' And I said 'Well, you know they're going to find a lot of flaws in it.' 'Oh no no, I've got it working fine.' Anyway, I said well you know, come on down, we'll go out to lunch afterwards and well she came 01:01:00down and had these students working on it, and of course they found everything wrong with the program (laughs). I mean, they found every glitch, everything, and oh she was so upset and she wouldn't come to lunch, she had to run home and fix these things (laughs). You know, if anything can go wrong students will find that with the program.

JF: Right

ZH: (laughs) But anyway, I've been using the simulations in the classroom and then Mosaic came out--I doubt if any of you know Mosaic but that was the first kind of Internet. It wasn't really Internet, but it was the first computer-Internet type program. If you had Mosaic on your server here on campus, then students anywhere could go and use it if they had a computer.

KH: Sorry, what year was that?

ZH: I have no idea (laughs)

KH: 80s? 90s?

ZH: Late 70s probably! 70s or 80s. I got my first, I think the Radio Shack, well 01:02:00I had a level one and that was the fist computer I actually bought. And, it was after that. Maybe the early 80s. And so, I'd put all my test questions out and some information if I had good answers or not. You know, I 'd put them out cause I believe no use reinventing the wheel. Why should every student go look up the same answer? Anyway, and I put test questions and information out and also the daily stuff. And this I did for a number of years, and then you know, it didn't allow for discussion. It was just here's the server with the information, and I wanted to have some discussion so you could ask questions and back. So Mark 01:03:00Dinsmore-this would have been, I guess I could find it or you might be able to find a date in my vitae--this was after the simulated labs and that was '78. So, this is probably around 80-85-90 that I was using that, and it's probably in the 1990s. And anyway, you know I went to Mark Dinsmore because he had already done a multimedia project for me that I had a USDA grant to do a multimedia project. And they hadn't done any multimedia projects and they wanted to show that they could do it. We used to have a communications/media center where they did that kind of stuff, but they've been doing like slides and films and stuff like that but they hadn't done any multimedia. And I got this project, and it wasn't a 01:04:00whole lot of--well it was $50,000--and so we decided to do a multimedia project on food systems and actually I had that project up on the web. I hadn't thought about that because I converted it to the web after it was on a CD and you know used on of these direct and sophisticated program.

And anyway, so we did the project through communication media, and we even had an instructional designer so that we would do it right and anyway it got done. We figured we had some people there that had actually worked out in the industry that probably it was done if we had to pay for the hours for everybody would've been a $2.5 million project. It was really a nice multimedia project, really nice--.ran on QuickTime, you know, and so students got a copy and it covered an area that no one ever could get support for, just basics like what is a colloid? 01:05:00What is a true solution? How does that relate to candy making? You know, that kind of thing. And anyway, so Mark and I you know got along really well cause he was the head project director and yeah they found out that not everyone, well anyway, I got stuff done. I mean you know, it was like writing your lecture in detail and then getting graphics. Fortunately, I had already been using slides, I've always been interested in the visual for the student because I'm a visual person, I'm not a very audio person (laughs). Show me a picture.

JF: Right

ZH: My favorite picture of the whole thing of course was the one I have of Yellowstone. My little brother came out in 1968, and we took climbing seminar at Mt. Rainier. And then we went up to Canada and came down Yellowstone on July 4th. We were in Yellowstone camping and they had had a blizzard and next morning 01:06:00we went out and I got a picture, there's steam coming off the water and there's snow and of course steam, snow, and water. And of course the three states of matter (laughs). And so, yeah, anyway so let's see, sometime in there and I don't know when but you probably can find out but I don't think it's too important. Yeah, I was in the college of what you call the "have-nots" as far as technology is concerned (laughs), and sometimes it was called the "care nots." But anyway, and liberal arts was in the same position. The only people really had computers that might let borrow them would be statistics were best. Computer science didn't really want you to touch their computers. And business was pretty 01:07:00tight with theirs. And this meant you had you know a good third, half of the campus that just didn't have access to technology. And you know every time it would come up, let's make a computer lab everybody you know the powers, well you know 'we don't want to take care of it' or ' we don't want to do this' ' that's talking money away from our computers,' and also I got together, I was chair of a committee and got together, there was George Beekman from computer science and people from liberal arts and some people from science, which were kind of in the in-between area because statistics was in science. So, we had the committee put together a proposal. And to have computers and God forbid we were going to ask for Apples (laughs). You know, I mean everyone else on campus had PCs, and..

LP: Yes! (laughs)

ZH: And so, what we did with the proposal is we put it with the computer science lab down in crop science, and not everyone really approved of the proposal, you know, there were people that, there were all sorts of reasons why it would never work and all. But we approached it from the standpoint, can you live with it? You know, it's either this or nothing, and that's half the campus' students that aren't having access and this is the future. And you know, you can't leave half the campus out of the future. And fortunately there were enough good people on the committee that they could live with it, they may not like it but they could live with it. And so the Apple lab was put down there in computer science. The Provost, and I think probably from OUS themselves, the state system put up a quarter million dollars to put in that lab down there. And part of the criteria 01:09:00was that Tim Brammer who was in music and he's left--he's back in I think back in Indianapolis at one of the good universities back there, but he was a musician early on that was interested in technology and music using the computer. And that he and I had to put on a multimedia workshop for a week for people throughout the state system and so we did that with Apple's help. And Apple of course was thrilled because they couldn't make an in-road into campus and here we were doing that. And I still have, one of the few people that aren't managers or whatever for Apple, white tee shirt (laughs) with Apple logo.

But, that was a real step forward and I'm not good with dates obviously but along that time too you know, I wanted to be networked in Milam Hall. And really 01:10:00did not get much support there for that, and then they hired a faculty member for department head and human development you know upstairs, and being in kind of in push too that she ought to get networked so that administrators up the line could talk with her and send email cause people were finding out at about that time how nice it was to have email. And so, I literally went to every office, measured, and did everything like that and I ran the network for a year. And I ran the server and got it done. Of course, the computer center laid the wire and stuff. But, so we were networked. I've done that for a year. It was ok 01:11:00with just two people if something were to go worry I could go help them and then some other extension would be added. So they were added and suddenly other people were finally finding out that, well we aren't on email, and we didn't always want to go to the main office the universities set up. It became too much. I kept saying, "I'm not a professional. This is not my life". I'd go in and punch in the buttons to restart the server when it goes down. And of course about that time too, they were getting a little more concerned about privacy and being careful about security. And so that was a whole different ball game. I went to the workshops but I knew I didn't want to. I'd become that instead of a 01:12:00content specialist that I wanted to be and use the technology, but not be the person for the technology. Let's see. Ok, my next biggy which you all probably have contact with. So I was using Mosaic and you had computers networked. And there were always a fair number of computers available for the students. You could always go down to Crop Science and use the computers. So I went to Mark Densmore and said, "Mark, I want to do a discussion with these students and what's out there that we can use?" So we sat down on what OSU was using and spent three hours with me and handed me a stock of books that high (laughs). And I said, "Mark, no, no, no. If you can't read it off the screen it's not useful. 01:13:00Is there anything else?" And he said, "well, there's something new coming up. It's called the web, and there are a few things on the web, but not a lot." And he gave me Web CT, Blackboard, and one other thing. I forget the name. So I went out and tried Web CT. tried Blackboard. I could get my lecture for the next day up on Blackboard. So I chose Blackboard. The Provost paid for half of it, my department paid for half of it, and I paid for the other half. And that's how Blackboard came to campus. (laughs) That was the course package only.

But since then, e-campus bought the whole package. And now the campus has the whole package. But the first thing and in the course since he brought it up, they were using. Frank Kessel is still in charge of Blackboard and he was at the 01:14:00very beginning. We have very little support for Blackboard if you get right down to it. There's one person hat updates and does all that. And that's ridiculous. The only other person doing a course online, now that was my goal eventually; to allow students take it "any time, anywhere," which is ridiculous that we were using that term early on. That's a ridiculous term for any online course: "any time, anywhere". You'd have students procrastinate forever (laughs). I'd say anytime within the next five days. Anyway, so I did a couple workshops and some 01:15:00people are really slow taking technology on. So what I do, and what I said, if I'd bother and I did, I do maybe two to three weeks. I say "any faculty want to do Blackboard and use Blackboard come on in, or I'll come over to your office." I liked going to their office because then it was done on their computer and I was using my own Apple. So I did that for quite a while. The only other person doing anything online like that, this was probably a step ahead. Although he wasn't using Blackboard. He devised his own program. Jon Dorbolo in Philosophy's course was quite different, and he did his own programming to develop software 01:16:00to manage the course because it was getting to the point you head to be able to manage the course and that required software. Then I went out and showed a lot of faculty how to use Blackboard before they stared doing these big seminars and e-campus started to finally deciding not to do that and take over. That was fine with me.

JF: Cool.

ZH: Well, see that was about the same time that the web started taking off and at that time, well, I went through journals to fine you'd see sometimes a small well address because search engines were very crude; if there were any. And so I developed a website where I'd find food related references/websites and I'd go 01:17:00to them and then I'd write a little bit and put those links on for students. So I developed a website called "The Food Resource" and at one time it got more hits that OSU would site. It was up to one million and a half. Big time. Of course now you really don't need that. You don't need such a website. But at that time it was one of the few food related websites out there. Because my department didn't really understand the technology stuff, well she still doesn't. She never could (laughs). How could you live at home and not have a computer? (Laughs). She doesn't. She doesn't have an email or anything and you 01:18:00know lots of stuff takes place that's not necessarily garbage over email.

KH: I can't imagine not having a computer.

ZH: My neighbor just retired and I just said, "Does this mean you'll finally get a computer?" And she has actually.

JF: Good.

ZH: Yeah, probably all over so it's going to be really hard to write.

JF: So ok, I know you did want to talk about your time with the Faculty Senate.

ZH: Oh yeah, well first of all they're always desperate for someone to run and so I finally said I would. I've been asked to several times. And so I was the third woman that was Faculty Senator, President. But I was the second woman 01:19:00conducted into the Triad, which used to be the men's faculty club and now it's not. Then first person was Lois Sather. And Lois Sather, you talk about a predominant person. She was an outstanding person in sensory evaluation down in Food Science and Technology. But anyway, so I ran and I guess because so many people knew who I was, I won. And that was the year of Measure 5. And oh I hated it. I mean such depressing meetings. The executive committee, the Provost would bring the budget cuts and he thought we'd talk about it and everyone wasn't supposed to talk about it outside of the meeting. I understand in a way, because 01:20:00I grew up in the Vietnam War period, but still if you agree you'd talk about something you don't. Well, we had a couple of faculty that we'd go to the different departments saying, "They're talking about cutting you" to their friends. And I just found that very hard to understand how people can do that. Anyway, that was my senate experience and I wanted to avoid governance ever since. That was when Graham Spanier was here. I don't know if you've ever heard of him. He was a Provost.

LP: What was his name again?

ZH: Gram Spanier. He's now at the University of Pittsburg, or Pittsburg State. One of those universities back in Pennsylvania.

LP: Yea, I'm from Pennsylvania and the name sounds very familiar.

ZH: Yeah, he's president at one of those universities. I remember walking across campus and taking about filling committees. And I said, "Well you know Gram, the reason we have to fill these committees is because administrators don't do what they're supposed to do. If everyone would do what they said they were going to do and then everything would be done right. And we wouldn't need them (laughs). He didn't like that answer, but it's true. If you start thinking about committees, it's because people just aren't doing their job. So the committee has to be a check and back or to do their job. But it was a good experience. That's when I took my "How to deal with the media" and it was done very well. It was done in Salem for a lot of department heads and things like that. But yeah, 01:22:00it was a good experience. There are some people. I don't know where this project is going, but they're talking about "problem people" and there are a lot of them that have been Senate president here. I think of Bob Becker. Bob was the President of the Senate several years before I was. I was in '91 and all. But he was a well known researcher and he was one of the people in the submarines off the coast that did some research in biochemistry. He and Thurston Doler were in AOF, the Association of Oregon Faculties, which is a lobbying group for faculty. That was the first time they ever had it. That was before I was faculty President. They were kind of struggling with it a little bit. What I've usually 01:23:00done is ended up doing the "nitty gritty". I mean I don't mind working hard if an outcome will come.

So I took over keeping track of membership and put it on the computer. I did that for three to four years before they finally got enough money that the actual guy they had for lobbying took over that for the state system. I just did it for OSU campus. I didn't do it for everybody. But AOF, I don't know where it's at right now; at at one time it was really really important. We wouldn't have a lot of what we have now if it wasn't for that group; and the guy that first did the lobbying for us worked well beyond what we paid him. I mean, he really believed in education and faculty, that sort of thing.

JF: That's great.

ZH: But faculty is important. I think it's getting more important. I'm not sure what's happening but you have changes happening around campus. When I came to campus, it was easy to get people to cooperate if you're willing to do a project and weren't asking for part of their project money. That was the other thing. It was easy to get a king with a kit if people, do a lot of projects, but I don't think its easy now because everyone has to say how their money is being used and account for it. It's really taken a lot of cooperation away. I don't like how a lot of faculty, including myself, on e-campus is being treated. I mean, I'm not 01:25:00vulnerable. I could care less (laughs). I'm teaching e-campus with another faculty member because we really enjoy teaching. We miss that. And also feel like we give students that don't always have a chance to complete a degree. My last graduate student was a distance Education student out of the Master's Degree program and she would have never otherwise gotten her M.A. There's another student that I helped writing her thesis and she's up in Portland now. She got her master's degree and she keeps telling me she wouldn't be doing it if it weren't for the degree itself. Not necessarily the content, but the degree itself. She's interested in customer servicing in nursing homes, and she's done 01:26:00research on it and finally her company is starting to fill. It's not just working, working, working. She's actually having clients and that sort of thing, which she's really pleased with. And those are some of the reasons of what you can do for others, which is really great.

But I like to play around in the lab. I was thinking about this and I said, "Of all the things I didn't solve, like I did a trial project like chicken soup is suppose to be good if you've got a cold. Why? Well, my contention is that heat stable amylase in chicken broth. And I did freeze dry chicken broth and they did analyze it down at a company that use to be in Eugene. It use to be called "Shanfransico". And there was heat stable amylase there, which would support 01:27:00this contention. But of course, to further do this, you'd have to control more things than I controlled. And it gets to a point where there's money. I did a transmission just to see how it worked and see if it had potential. I did a transmission electron microscopy of a potato and looked at the calcium in it. The hypothesis was that calcium comes into the cell and that's what makes this pathway go from starch to sugar, and sugar to starch. And it just diffuses through the cell walls of the vascular system of the potato. Well, in this transmission microscope, the calcium is all centered at one corner of the cell. So the question becomes, what is the carrier that causes this to happen? This is called the carbogelate. Well, my interest now is maybe the techniques have been 01:28:00so crude before that they just assumed and they'd go ahead. There are a lot of assumptions. Then technology comes along and they find it's not true. And there's a lot of those I had (laughs). If you could change your life-- (laughs).

JF: Right, yeah. So I think we're at about the time you were shooting for. Do you have any last minute questions you wanted to ask (looking at LP and KH) or anything left that you wanted to talk about (looking at ZH)? I think a lot of these are kind of mixed in, especially when you were talking about technology, which is really fascinating.

ZH: Let's see. I spent two years at the University of Texas because that was where there was a job (laughs). And two years is and awful big amount of time.

KH: That was a kind of question I had as a quick follow up. After you were in 01:29:00Tennessee for your PhD how did you get back to Oregon?

ZH: Well I left Texas, got a job. They called to have me come in for an interview. I had one of those seasonal flues and don't remember a things about the phone call (laughs). But I was smart enough to write it down. I knew that I was so out of it, because I was running a fever that I wrote everything down. So I went down there and I still wasn't feeling great, so I didn't particularly care one way or the other (laughs). But I got the job. Money is no object. I mean, they had money hand over fist. But it was like playing a role in a great movie in politics on a university campus. It was so political. Everything was. Plus, I'm not always careful. And when my first paycheck from the University of 01:30:00Texas bounced, I told them I wasn't impressed (laughs). I've been a graduate student you know, and these bills I have!

JF: Of course!

ZH: All over the place I had checks that bounced and it took a while. Someone asked if it was ok if you banked out of stated, and I was still banking out of state. No it wasn't (laughs). They didn't give a check. They gave some kind of, well I don't know what it was, but it wasn't a check (laughs). The second year I was there, that fall or winter, I had to re-do my schedule three times and after the third time I told the students that absolutely I'm not doing another schedule. They have to adjust this time. First L.B.J died, Linden Johnson, and 01:31:00of course Austin, That was a big thing.

JF: Right.

ZH: And then they had gas, oil problems even though there were ships sitting out in the gulf waiting to come in. First off they have to be bought. There's an oil crisis. But money was no object. I had all the equipment I wanted and pretty much all the help. I was kind of in charge of the foods area. It was fine, but research wasn't going to happen there, just because there was too much to do. Foods there were a science, so I flew in to teach 250 students in the classroom, in the auditorium, ranging all the way from chemistry majors to music majors. My food is a science and I want everyone to understand it. I don't care if you're a 01:32:00music major; I think you should understand it. We had lab sixteen, so we taught lots of labs. The person in charge of the labs didn't like people of Spanish persuasion and the grocery store that would take charge from a university was primarily Spanish cashiers, and so it was a problem. So I'd just take the food order down to them and talk with them about it. That would just solve the problem.

JF: Yea.

ZH: But I guess the big thing was frankly they were embezzlers. They embezzled. I mean people would but air conditioners for their home on university funds. And I'm not very good at tolerating dishonesty. The department head was messing 01:33:00around with students and stuff like that. It just wasn't high ethics. I mean there were a lot of good things about it, but there were things that just frustrated me. You had to be friendly with the right people. I feel if you do your work, show what you can do, and that should be enough. I mean not that I'd be nasty to anybody, but it was an interesting place. I went in; I was in charge of the foods area, which included a plantation room with painted plantations scenes on the wall and lots of crystal and other things. Alumni have given them fancy dishes and I was told to be in charge of it. Well first of all, they've 01:34:00never been inventoried, so I took black and white photos of it all and packed it up and gave it to the Dean and said, "You need to put these in the closet". One of the cabinets I cleaned out has this crummy pottery cookie jar. I opened it up and inside was a piece of paper that said, "Brought to Austin Texas by Steven F Austin by Oxcart, from Tennessee". I mean, is that old? (Wow). And then there were these, I thought, gaudy plates that had the state house, or the Alamo I think in Texas painted on it. Well I boxed those up and I found out that they were $600 a piece (laughs).

JF: Wow!

ZH: Anyway, but it was a good experience. Some of the faculty was great to work with. I worked with Robin Taylor and she was in Dietetics, teaching Food 01:35:00Science. We started teaching a course together: What Experimental Foods, the food service where you go out working in the dorms. And that turned out to be really great and really innovative for both of us. It made it great and exciting to do that kind of teaching. And unfortunately for Dr. Woodburg, everybody knew me back at Oregon State. The Dean of the college knew who I was, knew I worked hard, and did what I was supposed to do/what I said. So they wrote me that Helen Charlie was retiring and Dr. Mackey had also retired. Helen went home to the farm in Indiana and Andrea Mackey, she went down to Venezuela to work with food 01:36:00companies' food and veggie works so they could export. She kept her family farm here in Oregon. So, I interviewed and came back and it's been great.

LP: Good choice (laughs).

ZH: I think so! Well think about it, Oregon is one of the few states in the whole country where if you want to do general research like I did, like I had a sea urchin project. I did it with Dennis Washington in Oceanography and we were looking at sea urchins to see if the uni, which is the reproductive parts, could be taken from sea urchins off the Oregon coast. That little project, not funded, 01:37:00gave three students a chance to work out product development and such, and it hired seven divers down in the Coos Bay area. They use it for Japanese sushi. And so they can even use sea food, you can do fruits, veggies, you can do beef, you name it. It's almost every type of food product. And unfortunately, or fortunately, I've done almost all of them (laughs). But that's what makes it exciting.

JF: Oh yea, absolutely.

LP: Very inspiring.

KH: That great.

ZH: Let's see, is there anything else here? Oh my Indonesia trip! I had a graduate student from Indonesia. She had looked at Global Peace and Functional 01:38:00Properties in yellow peas. It was actually a really exciting project. We did something that was new at the time called "Response Service Analysis" where we could predict what the results would be from analyzing and getting prescribed data. And then she went back to Indonesia. A couple years later, that was still when they were just beginning to do nutrient analysis and she knew that I did some of that. We wanted to set up the nutrient analysis program at Bogor, which is the Nutrition Research and Development Center. Bogor is about two and a half hours away from Jakarta, up in the mountains. It's where [?] has a summer palace. So other than Tijuana, this was the first time out of the country (laughs). But I went twenty-four days. I was supposed to go and help them set up 01:39:00the plan to let the computer experts down in Jakarta do the programming and all. I kept saying, "I don't program. I'll tell you what you need to do", for the programmers. The first thing was, "What do you want to do?" Well, they wanted everything but the computer to prepare the food. But I did the flow charts, all the logic and that sort of thing, sent it down to Bogor and down to Jakarta, and they said, "Ok, about five years and $107,000." And so it came back, and this was paid for out of the World Bank, and I said, "This is really way beyond costs 01:40:00isn't it?" "Oh yes" they said. I said, "Well, what did you really want to do?" So back to the nutrient analysis. So I said, "Ok, let's see if we can do that." So I took my old 4-tran-4, which I know how to program, and I programmed a nutrient analysis program. There were people there from Cornell.

JF: Mmm-hmm.

ZH: They were doing, well can you predict when part of the country is going to starve? And yes they can. They can do it a year ahead of time. They can tell if they're going to have starvation problems a year ahead of time, so you can do something about it before it happens, like make work or money available. Anyway, so they got it up. They converted my 4-Tran-4 to a 4-Tran-5 with their computer that did it. So before I left, they were able to, they were typing data. You could see they used a computer. You could see on the screen half of the English 01:41:00and half of the Indonesian because of course their machine language was all in English. I got that done. Dr. Habiesh, who is an internationally renowned Nationalist, just couldn't believe that we got it done (laughing). The key was the graduate student. I was careful about really pushing, pushing. She knew I wasn't a fool-around person. I never spend so much time staring out the window (laughs). I'd go at one o'clock and people were cleaning. No, excuse me. People would go at ten o'clock and then they'd sit around and wait for the people that clean the building to get done. And then they'd work and go home at one or two 01:42:00because that's when the rains would go. Only I would go from Oregon, where it rains a lot, to Bolvar which is the rainiest spot in the world (laughs). But he was surprised I got it done. He said, "That's very unusual."So I was very pleased with myself and the people I worked with. If they haven't converted it, there would have not been a project.

JF: Right.

ZH: But I though the whole project was kind of silly because they don't have data. You have to have data to make you analysis. There is some Asian data, but it's very generalized and old. The people there tried to set up an actual nutrient analysis lab. Dr. Lamb from Australia was doing that and well, my 01:43:00nephew has told me that yes, not all like going to foreign countries and taking their culture to it. You know there were things like the electricity wouldn't be there, they had trouble just keeping their computer lab going because people wanted to save electricity, so they turned it off at night. Well, talk about humid. It was really humid there. I was really really lucky. First of all, I went as a Senior Consultant, which meant that I was picked up in the morning. I didn't have to manage the Indonesian traffic. I was told by the way, never drive there. You are a target. I lived at the Botanical Gardens that were started by the Dutch. Big gardens, many tropical things. I lived with a lot of other consultants, so I was there with other people in the Director's house, because 01:44:00no Indonesians stayed there after dark because there were ghosts. It was like the movies. I mean, there were lizards on the walls, which we were glad for because they ate the mosquitoes (laughs). The fruit bats left in the morning.

LP: Oh wow.

ZH: Of course there was the Muslim prayer in the early morning too. The Botanical Gardens were closed from about 6am till 8-9am in the morning. And it was light at that time, so you'd go out and have this whole beautiful gorgeous garden with rocks and everything. There would be no one around.

KH: Sounds great (laughs).

ZH: It was. It really was. I was a good experience.

JF: Well, ok, good.

KH: We could probably talk all day, but this is great.

ZH: Oh no, no. Anyways, I'm kind of boring (laughs).

All: No!

LP: No, I feel very inspired right now. We really appreciate you taking the time to speak with us.

ZH: So what's your mix (referring to the muffins provided).

JF: I think it's the Fiber One Mix.

LP: Oooo!

JF: So I guess that is the end of the interview. We want to thank you very much.

ZH: You're welcome.