Robert Couch earned his MS from SES in 1971 and is now Vice President & Technical Advisor and Senior Geologist for the TEST Technology Division, Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico.
Contact: rgcouc@aol.com.
"Academic skills and training are important but are only the beginning and keys to open doors. Fundamentals like proper attitude and enthusiasm are keys to success."
How do you feel your experience, specifically as an SES/geology student at OSU, prepared you for your career or life in general?
Well, I am pretty much amazed by luck or design every course I took as an undergrad at Capital University and as an OSU grad student I have used in some part of my career. My USAF career (1969-1990) path led me to be an analyst, a geologist, microscopist, a scientist, an engineer, a manager, a military leader and a nuclear subject matter expert in the Pentagon. As an environmental scientist at Tetra Tech, Inc (1990-2004), I was a field team leader, Managing field geologist and the operations manager for New Mexico. At Applied Research Associates I have been senior scientist, Group and Division Manager for large test contract as well as a VP corporate dude (2005-present). Along the way a facilitator, mentor, all around jack of many trades. My fun career has been a continuous stream of applied geotechnical endeavors some with national security implications.
My non traditional military career actually started at SES in 1969 when the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) assigned me to OSU as a Phd graduate student. This was well received for it was a full ride grant (with more time in service strings attached) but I was not sure what the USAF was going to do with a geologist? I figured I’d spend my 8 year AF active duty commitment at some boring desk job but at least avoiding the draft. I hedged my long term employment bets on going to the oil patch or maybe a ground water job. So that led to sed pet and hydrology classes. Dr W.A. Pettyjohn had a contract with the Army COE to map the ground water at several Dakota Minuteman Missile silo cluster sites and student labor helped in the mapping effort, me included. This was my first indication that the AF might be interested in geology! After 9 months I got the news from the AFIT that my 4 year grad program was now reduced to 2 years and I needed to finish with a MS in the next 13 months. This was due to Viet Nam driven staffing issues. I quickly had to downsize my Eastern Ohio field research and double up on course work. After 10 months I got orders to go to a operations research position as a geographer in a special studies shop in Alamogordo New Mexico. I would finish writing my thesis at my new assignment. But Wow at least it was “Geo” in the job title!
I quickly found out that besides doing some interesting geography, I was a data dog for 9 former Nazi WWII Senior German Engineers and Scientists brought over after the war during Operation Paperclip to White Sands Missile Range. They were War Department Special Employees with Wernher von Braun missile developers and military science experts. The group did a wide range of studies and analysis on issues pertinent to the USAF and DOD. I flew around the country getting their data and research material.
After two years of that amazing educational and eye-opening first real USAF job I got a call from OSU-SES alum Bob Pinker who was also an AF geologist and Capital U grad for a potential position to lead a very remote geotechnical drilling program. The effort was to better understand the stratigraphy of the historic Atomic bomb testing at Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The megaton yield thermonuclear craters were much larger than current math/physics predictions could replicate on paper and the poor understanding of the reef geology was suspect. I applied and got accepted. Wow free trip to an Pacific island paradise! Field geology with SCUBA and fins. ( My undergrad second field course in marine biology and geology in the FLa. Keys was instrumental in the selection) But I was given a shoestring budget and couldn’t afford commercial or government geologic staff. So I hired 6 recent early1970s geologic grads looking for work experience from Univ. of Arizona, Northwestern, Univ. of Texas and three OSU-SES grads, Dr. Ed Tremba, Joe Fetzer, MS, Vaughn Wendland, BS. We spent the next year drilling and coring the atoll islets, unraveling the complex stratigraphy but the anomalous big crater formation remained elusive. We stressed the future need to drill into the water filled craters. I became very knowledgable of nuclear weapons history, design and tests as well as atoll framework which led to many more future jobs. Guess the USAF does use geologists after all and young officers get lots of responsibility quickly.
My next job was heading up a secret forensic lab with 20 highly trained technicians with an array of first-class microscopy tools that would make any University lab envious. 15 Microscopes of all kinds, Microprobes, Xray diffraction, SE, Transmission-e microscopes, microprobes, a rare ion microprobe, thermal Ionization mass spectrometers all in clean room type settings. We monitored nuclear test ban treaties and international nonproliferation efforts for violations and compliance. I trained and worked with world wide covert sample collection teams and did some basic research. We worked with all the US intelligence agencies, national labs and several NATO countries. Looked at NASA Apollo 14 moon rock zircons too! My OSU-SES optical mineralogy ( Dr, E.G. Ehlers) and micro petrology ( Dr. Cris Kendall my advisor) was put into very applied use beyond anything I could have ever imagined with such an amazing tool kit!
Well, it was obvious now that the Air Force did need geologic experience. From this point on it was one interesting, challenging and fun job after another. Next assignment I headed up an overwater seismic survey of the big Pacific Nuclear craters and made dives into them with Univ. of Hawaii Makalii Submersible. Oversaw the geologic investigations of 23 Basin and Range valleys for the proposed new MX missile deployment. Because of my knowledge of nuclear systems gained at the test sites I was put in charge of overseeing and deploying a new nuclear system to 5 NATO countries in 1982. Not much geology except European roadside tours but a challenge and new understanding of the world order. Then back to Enewetak to head up our previously recommended but expensive overwater seismic and drilling effort into selected megaton event created craters. Our 4 government agency and USGS teams finally solved the crater size issue with 6 months of 24/7 north sea class shipboard core recovery operations, more submersible dives and biostratigraphy analysis. The results led to among other things, basic changes in our strategic missile posture with the Soviets, world wide sea level history, better understanding of planetary cratering and expanded ostracod evolution of the Pacific. We also re-confirmed Darwin’s atoll development theories.
From there I moved to the Pentagon to head up the Nuclear Subject Matter Expert team supporting the Secretary of the Air Force and Joint Chiefs of Staff, Even there I did some geology as a focal point and local expert for advocating to Congress a nuclear earth penetrating weapon which was eventually deployed. I was about to get promoted again but wanted to do more geology not be a senior bureaucrat, spend more time with my wife and live where I wanted to live so I retired from the service.
The next Chapter for 14 years was in the environmental restoration and water resource arena. I hired on with a major firm as managing geologist, program manager and eventually state wide operations manager. Because of my background I focused on restoration of military and DOE test sites. Helped bring the first DOE Laboratory to full compliance and cleanup. Worked on over 400 military test sites at 10 western test ranges, led a contractor effort to successfully restore a ship damaged National Marine Sanctuary Looe Key coral reef in the Florida Keys. Supported EPA in numerous restoration projects nationwide.
When 9/11 unfolded I had network contacts that called me back to my military roots to be a Program Manager for a large testing and technology development contract, So for the last 18 years Ive been helping test new weapons systems against hardened and hard to get at military targets. So besides being the senior manager and now Tech advisor, I was also the senior geologist. The Hard to get at means all types of world wide geologies to study. Generally our goal is understanding weapons effects in rock and concrete structures thus providing basis, validation and input to predictive engineering computational and physics based models.
What is your favorite memory as a student?
Not my favorite memory per se but the one that is indelibly etched in my memory; the campus turmoil of April and May 1970! Violent student protests, police and National Guard riots that engulfed OSU and the nation over the war in Vietnam were climaxing. On April 30 several of Chris Kendall’s grad students were in the basement of Mendenhall taking our final practical Sedimentary Petrology Exam as thousands of students clashed with the Cops and Guard on the Oval. Tear gas became a fog outside and started to seep into our lab room as we struggled to look at micro-thin sections while Chris blew his didgeridoo (he had recently had a postdoc in the Australian outback) as the signal to move to the next microscope station. Finally we were all crying and retreated to the inner 3rd floor to complete our written exam. After the test we all split and wondering what was going on outside. It had been one of the largest protests in the nation but we did not know that. Those who went out the front door were arrested as marshal law had been declared. The three of us who went out back and across south oval escaped but I needed to pull rank (I was an active duty 2nd Lieutenant on an Air Force grant) on a National Guard squad who accosted me off High Street to let me go. What a time!! The geology department held a campus wide referendum to help diffuse tempers but the Kent State shootings brought the OSU campus closure. Many of us continued our course work in professor’s homes off campus as we wanted an education not a rap sheet. In the fall of 1970 I was recalled to active service to be an USAF geographer and junior scientist in an analyst shop. If you think we now live in a divisive country those of us who saw this troubled Vietnam era know what divisive really is!!
What advice do you have for current and future students?
I have made several observations in my nearly 50 year career as an on and off geologist that may be of some use. Academic skills and training are important but are only the beginning and keys to open doors. Fundamentals like proper attitude and enthusiasm are keys to success. Applied Experience and demonstrated competence are a big part of the equation. Try your best to be multidisciplinary and most of all be adaptable. Almost everything we do is part of a team, so work on teamwork skills but recognize if you need to ask who is in charge, then you are! Get to know the “right” people! Network! As geologists you are equipped with thought skills to work with ambiguity, deal with three dimensions of space as well as adding a fourth, time. ( see Sarah Andrews review of the mind of a Geologist) Our Capital University Field Geology Professor, R.H. Bond (OSU-SES 1931) taught his summer capstone field course in northwestern New Mexico as a military style expeditionary remote camp. However the lectures (& quizzes) started with Illinoian glacial geomorphology in our 5+ day trip out west from Bexley, Ohio. The Camp site was located in the midst of the Mesozoic Hogbacks with exciting geology all around. We built the tent camp from scratch in two days. Each of us had responsibilities for the next 7 weeks. I was chief cook and medic. ( Eagle Scout experience ) The two biology majors dug the Privy and maintained it. We were not only graded on our frequent Geo quizzes and field notebooks but also our camp duty performance ! He drilled us in the 80%/20% rule. As he emphasized, almost everything we do requires 80% of dealing with human nature challenges, sustenance, politics, finances, logistics, administration/bureaucracy, weather, bad/good luck, and unknowns that must be overcome, endured or managed before we get to the 20% of what we want to do; the product, the contribution of the science or engineering. He noted that If you can make it to 50%/50% then you are winning the career game!
Remember, you see what you are prepared to see, so prepare well, but never! Never forget to wonder for wondering is the portal that allows you to see.