Warren Franklin Goodell Jr.

Warren Franklin Goodell Jr. grew up in Loda, and lived with his grandfather Arthur while attending University High School and the University of Illinois. At the University he studied engineering physics, "which was brand new then," graduating from an "accelerated program" in 1944. "I got some advance credits from Uni High, so everything worked very well:' he says.

Warren then worked on radar for two years at the M1T Radiation Lab. In 1946, he began master's and doctoral studies in physics at Columbia; his doctorate was awarded in 1951.

"I then went directly into administration -- first of a large physics laboratory at Columbia, and then general research administration, in charge of contracts and grants to the university." For five years (1967-72) he was vice-president for administration "during all the student riots .... It was a wild time ... first in '68, then in '69. That's why I finally left Columbia. Too many sirens. You could hear sirens of all sorts."

He became vice-president and dean at Pace University in Westchester County, just outside New York City, for five years, and then director of planning and institutional research at Mercy College, also in Westchester County. He retired in 1988.

"I got interested in computers, particularly administrative computing," he says. Now he finds the computer useful, "helping with records at our local church and the lakes and streams association." Warren and his wife have a small cottage on a lake near Traverse City, Mich. "About a thousand people own property on the lakes, and keeping the upstate and downstate addresses up-to-date and getting newsletters out" would be quite a chore without a computer database, he says.

Warren married Sue Vassamillet, the daughter of a New Hampshire school teacher who, at the time of Sue's birth, was a missionary in the Belgian Congo. Her father, Emile Vassamillet, was a Belgian statistician with a large mining company in the Congo. "I met her while I was at MIT. After raising a couple of boys she went to work as an electronics wireman and an electronics draftsman, sort of taking after her father." Her main hobby to this day is lace-making - - bobbin lace, tatting, and other types -- she has workshops and goes to international conferences. "She's very interested in it."

The Goodells maintain two homes a summer one in Williamsburg, Mich., and a winter one in Thonotosassa, Fla.

Warren and Sue have two sons: Warren Emile Goodell, who graduated from Columbia and has worked in university development and alumni affairs, presently at Lawrence Technological University (Southfield, Mich.); and Kenneth Franklin Goodell, who graduated from the University of Michigan and is a purchasing agent for Hofley Corp., in Warren, Mich. Kenneth and his wife Nancy Kelly Goodell have one son, John James "Jack" Goodell.