Thoughts: 29-January-2010

Today, at 11:58 pm, I become 50 years old. I do not feel 50 and wonder about how fast time goes by.

When I went to College (Susquehanna University) in 1977, I fully intended to become a minster in the LCA (Lutheran Church in America, now ELCA, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America). I planned on going to the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, PA, even took four semesters of Ancient Greek to satisfy the seminary requirement and which satisfied the foreign language core requirement.

At that time, the LCA has just approved the ordination of women and so were not really encouraging men to go to seminary but instead were recruiting women. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise as I did not have the faith to be a minister and instead went into Behavioral Psychology with an emphasis on learning and memory. My undergraduate mentor, James Misanin who still is there at dear old SU, really encouraged me and gave me a great training to become a scientist, he was the first of two mentors that I hold dear to my heart.

After I graduated in 1981, I went to Kent State where I earned a MA in Experimental Psychology Animal Learning and Memory. I tried to switch to Cognitive Psychology, thinking it would be easier to get a job in that field, and was the first graduate experimental student to fail his prelim exams for the PhD. Still have a hard time believing that no one else had ever failed before me. This black day in my life turned out to be a blessing in disguise as I went back to my real love, learning and memory, and ended up getting a job at Ayerst in Princeton, NJ. I was on my way to becoming a behavioral psychopharamalogist in the drug industry.

In 1986, I was hired by Pfizer where I have spent the last 24+ years working with my second mentor, Patricia Seymour. She has taught me so much about science, experimental design, pharmacology, more than I ever could have learned in school. She truly is one scientist that I really respect. Of course, over such a long association, we have had our disagreement, but have always been able to resolve them. The scientist that I am today is due to both her and Dr. Misanin, and I am very proud and honored to know the both of them.

My two big achievements at Pfizer was to be on the preclinical in vivo team that discovered and developed Geodon, an anti psychotic. The other big moment was in 1993 at the Society of Neuroscience meeting at Washington, DC where I gave an oral presentation on CRH antagonists in the mouse light/dark test. At that time, none of the PhDs were given oral presentations, we all just did posters. In Pat's lab two of us, had submitted posters and had them bumped into oral presentations. This freaked out the management as they thought we lowly associates could not handle it. Pat with a lot of hard work help us shaped those presentations and both of her associates delivered them perfectly. So well in fact, that we made the other presenters look bad, as I humbly state. This achievement could not have been done with a person like Pat being behind me, and I once again thank her for that.

So, what is there to say? I have been blessed these past 50 years working and knowing some really great people. And I have to say that I am quite happy indeed, though I do not tend to show it.

Oh well.