[Histonet] OT-Retirement

Sat Jan 11 14:03:13 CST 2014

Hello all out there, 

This is regarding: Ray Koelling; currently from just north of the Seattle, WA area.  If you and I have connected in some way over the last 47 years, the following is a message concerning my (semi)-retirement that I hope you will enjoy and anyone with little or no interest in such writing or that knows me not, can easily use the delete button right now to save themselves a few minutes of OT reading. 

It is time in life to shift a bit of focus after this long and amazing anatomic pathology journey.  There was the high school summer job in the mid 60's at a St. Louis histopath lab changing a Lipshaw linear, open air tissue processor (we used dioxane both miscible with aqueous solutions and paraffin and NOT the dioxin of Agent Orange infamy) along with folding A LOT of paper boats for embedding and making 10% formalin from 55 gallon drums of 37% formaldehyde solution.  Somehow my brain has survived relatively unscathed.  Some may dispute that last sentence.  Working at Jackson Memorial Hospital in South Florida with the great Dr. Azorides Morales and Dr. Mehred Nadji (actually Nadji was a resident when I was there and I have a treasured picture of him kicked back at a BBQ at my house wearing his famous sandals).  To learning more advanced immunology, histology and a lot more of cellular/molecular techniques along with the ability to critically think during the 5 years (of both unbelievably positive heaven and unrelenting, unforgiving hell) of graduate school.  To the biotechnology world and working on such drugs as etanercept, panitumumab, denosumab and (still in testing) TSLP, a compound that I had actually worked on in graduate school but when it was the newly discovered murine form TSLP and then also 50 other discovery molecules that all saw their shelving at various stages of development as failed candidates to progress in a particular pathway.  To then being able to work with Dr. Allen Gown in his fantastic lab in the Seattle area.  So if we have run into one another, in person, on-line, at a meeting or anywhere in the last nearly half century, hope you are doing well and are keeping safe and I wish you the best. 

A part of my time now is going to be spent on some K-12 education projects.  Organizing and helping at 2 different school districts for district-wide science fairs and STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) career festivals.  I am helping at the annual biotechnology fair in the Puget Sound Region for 300-400 high schoolers.  And am on Board of the Washington State Science and Engineering Fair that is the entrance point for this state into the big International Intel Science Fair.  Why?  It is no new, great news flash at all that the US is sinking further behind many countries of the world in math and science education.  And that is to the severe, possibly life-long detriment of kids now who will be less able to compete, as adults, with a global economy, jobs and society of the 21st century and which will frankly revolve a lot around STEM issues whether you like it or not.  The world is simply not now, nor will ever be again, as it was with me holding a 4-year degree in biology/chemistry in 1973 and at that time having virtually unlimited access to whatever I wanted to do. 

Then for those kids K-12 who don't like math and science at all and don't want to be in STEM or any kind of STEM career I have offered up this message to them.  Not liking STEM as a career is perfectly fine.  You need to do in your life what your talents and dreams allow you to do.  Yet remember this.  No matter what non-STEM thing you do in life, you as a voting, tax-paying, living, breathing adult will be surrounded by STEM issues all throughout life.  You will be voting for/against issues or policies and for/against politicians and some, even many of those issues are STEM issues.  Radioactive storage waste in salt domes in Nevada?  Fracking in the upper Midwest?  Coal vs. nuclear vs. "green energy" anywhere?  5 cent plastic bags to cure global warming?  Healthcare?  Genetically modified foods?  Embryonic vs. other stem cell research?  Aging populations?  Disease?  Mars yes or Mars no?  End-of-life issues?  Steroids and other drugs in the environment and food stuffs?  Sonar testing in oceans? 100 other politically driven STEM-related issues.  How do adults now, and then you eventually when older, get your "science" information?  Journalists (on both sides of the political divide) see themselves as having a higher-level moral obligation to now fine-tune and manipulate the news, including science news, instead of just reporting it.  Politicians (on both sides of the political divide) spew out any so-called "science" if it gets them more votes than they loose.  Talk show hosts (on both sides of the political divide) spew out "science" if it gets them more ratings than they loose.  Self-promoting, mainly amateurish-science bloggers or tweeters (on both sides of the political divide) spew out "science" news to appease their own narcissistic proclivities. 

So no matter what you do in life, you will be in a world of STEM and do you want to think and act rationally and knowledgeably about such issues for the positive benefit of a human society or do you want to advocate for/against or vote for/against something related to STEM issues based upon purely emotional, knee-jerk, thoughtless ideology (from both sides of the political divide)?  You can see what a horribly, messy state of affairs that later path has brought us to in this society.  So that is my message to the K-12 to use your brain, the most powerful computer ever invented, to THINK.  And why I'm  trying to do some of the things now and that I think I'll have fun with using my career acquired  knowledge with and in addition hopefully do a little good along the way for the next generation.  No one will ever convince me that learning, or at least being exposed to, fundamental scientific principles and fundamental scientific thought processes, won't actually help anyone in almost all facets of their life and in decision making. 

Of course there are also yard-chores, making dinner, golf, hurling, the accordion, re-learning my German, writing 2 books, genealogy research in Southern Germany and the Alsace-Lorraine region during a future trip, weight-training, Senior Olympics, doing the top of Mt. Fuji hike before too long, trip to New Zealand to see where the Hobbit/LOTR trilogy was made, etc. and even a few other various things I'm sure I'll find to keep me busy. 

Best of luck to all, even if you deleted this message long ago to gain a bit of time.  I'll be still monitoring the HistoNet and maybe even throwing in my 2-cents about technical/scientific issues only, if I think I have something useful and appropriate to share.  Keep in touch. 

Ray (Koelling) 
Lake Forest Park, WA 