American Meteorological Society University Corporation for Atmospheric Research T a p e R e c o r d e d I n t e r v ie w P r o je c t Interview with Robert H. Simpson September 6 & 9, 1989 Edward Zipser, Interviewer [Diane Rabson, NCAR Archivist, was also present at the interview.] Rabson: W e are doing an interview today, Septem ber 6, 1989, w ith Robert Sim pson. Ed Zipser is conducting the interview at N CA R. Zipser: Bob, I know that you w ere born in Corpus Christi, I think, in 1912. Sim pson: That’s correct. Zipser: I don’t know anything about your fam ily. Can you say a few w ords about your parents, w hat they w ere doing in your early years, their education, etc.? Sim pson: The Sim pson fam ily is a pioneering Texas fam ily. They m igrated from Scotland, arriving in Texas, in the early 19th century. W hile m y paternal grandm other w as the British descendant of Sir Thom as Beaucham p, a 16th century baronet, m y paternal grandfather, a Scot turned W esleyan, w as a M ethodist m inister, a circuit rider traveling by horseback betw een A ustin, M arble Falls, B urnet and Liberty H ill, Texas, a circuit w hich at tim es involved interesting encounters not only w ith his parishioners, but also the Com anche Indians w ho resented the presence of the w hite m an in their territories. B ut m y father, w ho in his early career w as a schoolteacher, m oved to Corpus Christi in 1920, w here he m et and m arried m y m other, w ho had recently arrived from her earlier hom e in w estern Tennessee. In Corpus Christi, m y father established an agricultural hardw are business, m uch of his trade consisting of heavy farm and ranching equipm ent sold to the K ing R anch in South Texas. I rem em ber w ell the early days w hen I helped him deliver big steam tractors to the ranch’s Santa G ertrudis headquarters near K ingsville. A lw ays w e w ere invited to the ranch hom e for refreshm ents, if not a w ild gam e dinner. I recall how im pressed I w as, and how approachable, friendly, w arm ­ hearted and concerned the K leberg fam ily w ere in w elcom ing us, even though they w ere the busy proprietors of that three m illion acre ranch (largest in the w orld at that tim e). I graduated from Corpus Christi H igh School w ith an undistinguished record. In fact, by today’s standards, I probably w ould have had a hard tim e getting accepted at a good university. I w as introverted, spending m ost of m y tim e as a loner in m usic. But, w ith a 1 trum pet and a good teacher, m y m usic activities proved to be the m eans by w hich I got to college. A fter w inning first place in the state trum pet solo contest tw o years in a row, I w as eventually invited to attend Southw estern U niversity of G eorgetow n, Texas, to be first chair trum pet in the orchestra and band w ith prom ise of enough w ork to earn m y w ay through college. B ut I am now a little ahead of m yself, chronologically. There w as another interest during high school w hich grew out of m y exposure to three fascinating courses in architectural and engineering draw ing. These led m e to decide that I w ould pursue a career in architecture. A first step in that direction cam e after I graduated from high school w hen I got a job in San A ntonio, w orking as an apprentice architect. H ow ever, after I had designed thirty substantial fam ily dw ellings and observed their construction, the econom ic crash of late 1929 put an end of this w ork and w ith it, m y am bitions to go further in architecture. It w as then, alm ost by default, that m y m usic experience provided the opportunity to enroll at Southw estern w here I ended up m ajoring in physics and m athem atics, rather than m usic w hich had brought m e there to begin with. Zipser: D id you have brothers and sisters? Sim pson: Y es, both considerably younger, m y brother eight years, and m y sister eleven years younger than I. M y brother, after a w artim e career in the N avy, becam e a Baptist m issionary, first in the W est Indies (w here incidentally he w as also a cooperative observer for the W eather Bureau) and later in Papua, N ew G uinea. M y sister, until her untim ely death at age 57, w as a very successful m usic teacher in C orpus Christi public s c h o o l s . Zipser: H ow early did you have any inkling that you m ight turn out to be in science? Sim pson: I w as very m uch interested, particularly in w eather, from the tim e I entered elem entary school in 1919. I w as attending the D avid H irsh School on N orth Beach in Corpus Christi w hen the great 1919 hurricane struck— the w orst Corpus Christi has ever experienced. A s luck w ould have it, the hurricane arrived on a Sunday m orning. If it had been on a school day, I w ould probably have been am ong the several hundred casualties, because the school building, w hich w as sought out by residents as a shelter, w as destroyed. In this hurricane w e w ere all less im pressed w ith the w ind than w ith the spectacular rise of w ater. The storm surge, as view ed from our near-shoreline residence, arrived in tw o sudden rises. The first put w ater about tw o feet over dow ntow n street levels and occurred in a m atter of ten to fifteen m inutes at m ost. The second cam e one to tw o hours later w hen, in a m atter of m inutes, flood levels rose 6-8 feet over street level. This began to flood the interior of our house w hich w as built quite high. The fam ily had to sw im — w ith m e on m y father’s back— three blocks in near hurricane force w inds to safe shelter in the courthouse— the only high building in the dow ntow n area. A lot of w hat I saw frightened m e, but also supplied a fascination that left m e w ith a lifelong interest in hurricanes. N ot until years later after I com pleted m y initial graduate studies at Em ory U niversity, how ever, did a career interest in atm ospheric science develop. 2 Zipser: Y our interest in hurricanes is easy to understand. W hat about science in general? D id you m ake the connection betw een the interest in hurricanes and a career in science? Zipser: M y general interest in science, initially stim ulated by m y exposure to the field of architecture, w as brought into focus in m y physics studies at Southw estern and extended by the graduate w ork in physics at Em ory U niversity. U nfortunately, w hen I finished m y M S degree in 1935, I found job opportunities for physics graduates w ere in very short supply. I had done m y w ork in piezo-electricity and w anted to pursue further research in the prom ising new field of sonar. B ut I couldn’t get a scholarship nor a research position. So once again I had to fall back on m usic as a livelihood. It had paid m y w ay through all m y undergraduate and graduate education up to that point. A nd the job I finally got w as as band director at Crockett, Texas, the first of three such jobs I held during the five years before I got back into science. I ended up in charge of the instrum ental m usic program s in Corpus Christi school system , w here m y total incom e w as $4400 a year— not bad for schoolteachers in Texas at that tim e. B ut it w as not w hat I w anted nor w hat by education I w as prepared to do. So in 1939, I started taking Civil Service exam s to qualify for positions in the W eather Bureau, Bureau of Standards, and G eological Survey. The W eather Bureau w as the first to offer m e a job— in fact, the choice of tw o jobs: at B row nsville or at A bilene. I accepted B row nsville, despite the fact tht I w as to be em ployed at the SP-3 level w hich paid only $1440 per year, a stunning reduction in salary. Surprisingly this reduction didn’t seem to change our quality of life notably, in part, I am sure, because m y fascination w ith m eteorology proved so all-consum ing.