Peter LehmanThis is my last director’s column. After 7 years of newsletters and 23 years at the helm of the Schatz lab, I’ll be entering the faculty early retirement program in mid-August and passing the torch on to Arne Jacobson who will become the lab’s director.
We’re fortunate to have Arne stepping in. He was one of the first grad students to work at the lab; his master’s thesis concerned work with the electrolyzer at the Schatz Solar Hydrogen Project. He went on to earn his Ph.D. at the Energy and Resources Group at UC Berkeley and now is my colleague in the Environmental Resources Engineering department. Arne’s long time connection with the lab, his service as co-director for five years, and his strong leadership skills will serve us well for many years to come. And starting next issue, you’ll get to read his thoughts in this space.
Meanwhile, I’m not going away. Working here is way too interesting and fun to stop now. During the five years of my early retirement program, I’ll be known as the Founding Director and share leadership duties with Arne. I look forward to being busy and involved; maybe I’ll even have a chance to get back into the lab and turn a wrench or two.
In this issue of our newsletter, Peter Alstone and Meg Harper keep us up to date on summer activities in Kenya as part of the Lighting Africa project and Richard Engel writes a tribute to our benefactor Mr. Schatz on the 100th anniversary of his birth. Jim Zoellick describes a project with local partners to plan for an electric vehicle infrastructure in Humboldt County, Allison Oakland describes our continuing effort to bring fuel cell topics into science education with a teacher workshop, and Greg Chapman describes progress in upgrading our hydrogen fueling station to 700 bar operation.
I’m writing this on the summer solstice as the sun shines its warmth and light on our hemisphere. I want to thank all you faithful readers and send a fond farewell. It’s been a joy and a privilege to communicate with you through this column; let’s all keep working to improve the health of our beautiful planet. Goodbye, thank you, and best wishes.
—Peter—
