| Number 30 | John L. Burmeister, Editor | August 2003 |
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Although Prof. Arnold Rheingold's professional career is alive and well at the University of California, San Diego, where he moved at the beginning of 2003, he will not formally retire from the University of Delaware until the end of August. During the 22 years that he spent in Newark, he created an unprecedented record of achievement, and his departure has created a void that cannot be comparably filled.
Arnie received both an A.B. in chemistry and an M.S. in inorganic chemistry from Case Western Reserve University in, respectively, 1962 and 1963. He spent the next two years as a project manager for the Glidden Co., in Cleveland, studying paint and polymer flame retardancy. In that brief time, perhaps as a portent of things to come, he received four patents. He then decided to return to graduate school at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he received his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1969, having been mentored by Prof. J. Michael Bellama. That was followed by a post-doctoral year working in Prof. Raymond Dessy's organometallic electrochemistry group at VPI.
Arnie's first professorial appointment was at the State University of New York, Plattsburgh, where he quickly rose through the ranks to full professor. In January of 1980, he began what proved to be a life-changing experience - a 1.5 year stay, as a Visiting Scholar, in the x-ray crystallography laboratory of Prof. Mel Churchill, at the State University of New York, Buffalo. Arnie and single crystal x-ray structure determination proved to be a match made in heaven and the rest, as they say, is history.
Initially, Arnie intended to continue to use the Buffalo x-ray facility on weekends by commuting via his private plane (he has had his private pilot's license for more than four decades). That proved to be unsatisfactory and, consequently, he did something in 9/81 that is rarely seen in academic circles - he resigned his tenured full professorship at Plattsburgh to start up our fledgling x-ray crystallography facility as a visiting professor and senior scientist. Looking back, I very much doubt that either he or we had any real inkling of what was about to transpire. His extraordinary productivity became quickly apparent, and we wisely made him a tenured associate professor in 1984. He became a full professor — again — in 1987.
It can be safely be claimed that the long list of world-wide collaborators with whom Arnie has engaged in single crystal x-ray structure determinations is unmatched in chemical history. At the same time, he also mounted a significant research program in main-group and transition metal organometallic synthetic chemistry. A number of his important milestones have been described in the seven editions of the Blue Hen Chemist that I have edited:
On a more personal note, I first met Arnie during a symposium on the emerging sub-field of bioinorganic chemistry, held at VPI in 1970. He treated me to the coldest day of my life (1/22/76, air temperature of -29ºF, chill factor of -80 ºF), when he invited me to give a seminar at Plattsburgh in the dead of winter.
His first visit to our Department, in 1981, produced a Keystone Kops routine. After landing his plane, Arnie called to tell us that he was "at the airport off Route 896". Al Landers (MS79, PhD82) was duly dispatched to pick Arnie up at the New London, PA airport, north of Newark — no Arnie. Prof. Tom Brill and I then sent Al to the Summit Airport, south of Newark — still no Arnie! We finally found him at the Toughkenamon, PA airport which is, indeed, "off Route 896" — 15 miles off!
Arnie was cut from the "tell it like it is" mold of Emeritus Profs. Henry Blount, Ed Schweizer, (the late) Jim Moore, and (the late) Harold Kwart. While his graduate and CHEM-457 inorganic classes took this in stride and, actually, thrived on it, I could count on at least one tearful visit per term from one of his relatively sensitive CHEM-104 General Chemistry students. A classic confrontation was produced by one such bemused non-major, who claimed that Prof. Rheingold had told her that her poor exam performance was due to the fact that her "finger nail polish (which was, indeed, unusual) had fried her brain"! Lest this become the stuff of urban legend, I must hasten to point out that she later recanted her story, after escalating her complaint to the Dean's level.
Six years ago, having gotten a new Bontrager mountain bike for Christmas, I decided to sell my Trek 800. Arnie made me an offer that I couldn't refuse, and we went outside to the Mall — sorry, to the Green — for him to take it on a trial run. Those of you who know both of us will recall that Arnie, at 6'3", is an inch taller than I. I naturally decided that the seat height would suit him just fine. Imagine my (and his) chagrin when he failed to get his leg over the seat and crashed to the pavement on his hip. Fortunately, neither he nor the bike suffered serious injury, and he declined to sue me. It turns out that most of Arnie's height is from his waist up — his inseam is fully 2" shorter than mine.
Finally, after reading six months' worth of his E-mails in unrelenting praise of the Southern California weather and attractions, I must admit to a sense of perverse pleasure upon learning that the annual "June Gloom" marine layer had descended on LaJolla and Carlsbad (where Arnie and Jan now live). < arheingold@ucsd.edu >
As should be obvious: Arnie — we miss ye! Thanks for the memories, and Godspeed!
- John L. Burmeister -