Page 6 - CEMS News Winter 2021

CEMS NEWS
Fond farewell to retiring faculty and staff
With many decades of UMN service, these dedicated CEMS colleagues will be truly missed in Amundson Hall.
With approximately 140 years of combined service at the University of Minnesota among them, it seems impossible to imagine Amundson Hall without Professor William Smyrl and staff members Teresa Bredahl, Mary Kosowski, Bob Lewis, and Wieslaw Suszynski. Yet, by the time you read this feature, they will have retired from CEMS to pursue new adventures and hobbies. With immense gratitude and admiration for all they have done in CEMS and at the University of Minnesota, we share a few of their memories below.
in the main office included
a sea of typewriters, WWII
desks, and only one computer
in the department. The main
office was buzzing, literally,
from the sound of typewriter
keys in motion as each staff
member typed class notes,
letters, manuscripts, and
proposals for numerous faculty
members with a fury that only
staff members can muster.
The “bullpen” layout fostered
collaboration though, since it
was easy to share information
and help each other. In the 1980s, accounting, finance, and payroll were located on the second floor, along with a storeroom where supplies could be purchased for all of the labs and offices. The machine shop was located on the third floor.
Office locations in Amundson Hall may have changed a bit since the 1980s, but the maze that is Amundson Hall confounded Mary Kosowski when she started her position as a finance professional in 2012, recalling, “The layout of Amundson was so labyrinthine I feared I would encounter the Minotaur at any turn. Just kidding. But after all these years there are still rooms in Amundson I’ve not seen.”
Wieslaw Suszynski, laboratory manager in coatings research, who began his CEMS career in 1986, also recalled some growing pains during construction of two building additions (the Piercy Wing completed in 1999 and Gore Annex completed in 2014), remarking, “Time during the construction of two additions to our building was challenging. I had to move the coatings lab from its location on the ground floor to the fourth floor when the Piercy Wing was built. Again, during the construction of the Gore Annex, I moved part of the lab equipment to a temporary location on the same floor, and later, to rooms 50 and 54. Working on the computer in room 41 filled with construction dust and one-foot-wide opening in the
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William Smyrl
Professor William “Bill” Smyrl started his faculty career in CEMS in 1984, later serving
as Director of the Corrosion Research Center from 1987- 1995. “Teaching and research has been great fun. I had an early opportunity to teach with Professor John Dahler, which was seminal to my department experience,” said Bill.
He continued, “I conducted collaborative research with CEMS faculty Richard Oriani, Dave Shores, Ed Cussler,
Teresa Bredahl
and Boone Owens, and Kent Mann and Andreas Stein from Chemistry. My collaboration with Civil Engineering faculty Cathy French, Carol Shield and Lauren Linderman explored corrosion sensing in bridges and roadways. I enjoyed working with research associates, post-docs,
and students, some of whom were from South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Mexico, and Italy. These talented individuals were great contributors to successful research, and they enriched my life by exposure to their cultures. I was honored to join the department and have spent my career here.”
First Impressions and Expansions
Teresa Bredahl, main office supervisor, also started in CEMS in 1984, when the “bullpen” of administrative staff
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