Two Physics Grads: University President {\&} Research Lab Chief

My friendship with Donald Paul Merrifield, SJ developed when were taking MIT quantum mechanics courses. Before classes started, I would tell him about the theology courses I was taking at Harvard U. He would smile understandingly. Don completed his PhD in theoretical physics. We lost contact in 1961, when I left MIT to serve as a Lieutenant at the Redstone Arsenal AL. In 1962, I worked on microwave acoustics at the AF Research Lab, MA towards my PhD thesis at Brandeis U. My later research on surface acoustic waves(SAW) resulted in much smaller, lower-cost, signal processing filters used in radar and in today's cell phones. This contributed to my promotion to a GS-15 Branch Chief. In 1993, I learned that Don had been the President of Loyola Marymount University. I was amazed that he invited me to have breakfast at his Jesuit residence there. He told me in his same friendly manner that he, after being ordained as a priest and teaching university physics, was selected as President during the student unrest of the Viet Nam War, ``because no one else wanted the job.'' As President, Don increased minority enrollment through scholarships and recruitment drives. Don would of have resonated with Pope Francis ``On care for our common home'' (2015) had Don not died in 2010, age 81.