Dear Diane,

Recently I have been in touch with Worth Nolan at TAMU regarding donating my collection of books on oceanography to the University. We were fellow graduate students in physical oceanography back in the early sixties. In my correspondence with Nolan I inquired as to how your father, Bob Reid, and Said El Sayed were doing. In response he sent me a copy of the e-mail you sent him on January 8, 2004. I was distressed to hear about Dale's medical condition.

Your father had a great and positive impact on my life, as I am sure he has had on many others. I am writing you so you can tell him and his wife how much he has helped me at two crucial points in my life.

I first met Dale back in 1958-59. I was on the staff of the Committee on Undersea Warfare at the National Academy of Science/National Research Council. He was the Chairman of the Environmental Oceanography Panel with me as the Secretary. I would meet him at Panel meetings in Washington. In February 1959 I made a trip to Texas; first to San Antonio and Southwest Research Institute; and then to College Station as his guest. A little while after this visit Dr. Leipper challenged me to stop reporting on what scientists were doing and come to A&M and do what scientists were doing. In the Fall of 1960 I took him up on his offer. This was the first crucial point. It got me into a wonderful career in oceanography that took me to the World's oceans and to the privilege of working with many great scientist, engineers, and mariners.

I must blame Dr. Leipper, however, for one serious addiction that I got into in Aggieland: a love and craving for TexMex food! This is probably why I ended up for good in Texas in 1975.

In May 1961 I was walking across the campus, when someone came out of Bizzell Hall to tell me Dr. Leipper wanted to see me. Two weeks later I got out of a small Cessna airplane 160 miles north of Point Barrow, Alaska and on to drifting ice-island ARLIS II. After six fantastic months floating across the Arctic Ocean, a sequence of events then led me to the Woods Hole Ocenographic Institution for nine years. For the second time, your father started me down a trail to further adventures. Thanks Dale!

Following WHOI, I ended up back in Texas in 1975 and spent the last twenty years of my career at Southwest Research Institute. For the first three years I was Manager of the Ocean Science and Engineering Laboratory in Corpus Christi. The peak of my oceanographic career was when I was Chief Scientist on four cruises as part of the Bureau of Land Management's Louisiana Platform Study. Later we (I, my wife Dorothy, and sons Ronald and Russell) moved to San Antonio. For the next dozen years I put the thermodynamics and fluid dynamics I learned at Bob Reid's knee to good use in the SwRI Department of Geoscience. For my last five years, until I retired in '94, I was in the Department of Communications reporting on the technical accomplishments of the Institute and coordinating with our agent in Japan, Mitsui & Co. This led to a one month trip to Japan. I had previously visited Japan in 1965 aboard WHOI's Atlantis II, and even earlier in 1934 & 37 as a kid when my father was out there in the Navy.

As I recall, I saw Dale in 1988 or so. My niece Nancy Cooper was a naval officer at the PG School in Monterey. I recollect briefly visiting him when Nancy was showing us around the PG School's beautiful campus.

Dorothy and I spent Christmas in San Francisco with our sons. One day, Russell and I went over to Alameda and went aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Hornet. The visit brought back memories of when your father and I went out to sea on the Hornet's sister ship the Valley Forge. They even had on the flight deck a Grumman aircraft similar to the one that we were aboard when we were catapulted off the ship to fly back to Norfolk. Great memories!

Again, please give my best to your father.

John W. Cooper

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