Herbert Talbot Gilkey

Herbert Talbot Gilkey, Mildred and Herbert James Gilkey's first child, grew up in Ames, Iowa, and was beginning his undergraduate studies in mechanical engineering at Iowa State when World War II broke out. Herb then served in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. After basic training and a number of different assignments, he was sent to Engineer Officer Candidate School at Fort Belvoir, Va. He was then assigned to an Engineer unit at Fort Riley, Kan., where he met Lt. Romona Marie Olsen, an Army nurse. Within a few weeks, Herb's unit was transferred to Oklahoma and shortly after that Romona ("Mona") was in a group of nurses sent to the Pacific. '1 was released from the Army in the fall of 1945. By that time Mona was in the Philippine Islands. After a short stay there, her hospital unit was transferred to Fukuoka, Japan. She arrived home in May of 1946 and we were married in June.

"While Mona was in the Pacific, I returned to college and completed my undergraduate work in 1947, after we were married," Herb continues. "Typical of college towns in those days, student housing in Ames was scarce, so for a time we had one room, then a small apartment and finally a unit in the veterans' housing project. We lived there for a year and one half while I completed my master's program in mechanical engineering and, until the birth of our first child, Mona took courses in home economics."

Mona Olsen was born and raised in Cedar Falls, Iowa. She took her nurse's training at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. After graduation she and three classmates worked for a few months at the Crile Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, and early in 1945 the four of them joined the Army Nurse Corps. Their initial Army training was in Colorado, and they were then sent to the station hospital at Fort Riley where she and Herb met.

In 1949, Mona, Herb and their daughter Virginia moved to Urbana where Herb enrolled in the University to work on his doctorate in mechanical engineering. He also became a full-time research assistant, working on an industry-sponsored heating and air-conditioning project in the Mechanical Engineering Department. (The project, which was initiated in 1919 by Prof. Arthur Cutts Willard -- later head of the department, dean of engineering, and president of the University -- was the oldest industry-sponsored cooperative research project at the University, or anywhere else, for that matter.)

"We moved to Urbana so that I could continue my postgraduate studies at the University," Herb reports. "I accepted an appointment as research assistant primarily to support my family, but also with the thought that the research experience would be useful in completing my doctorate. Within a couple of years, however, I found myself to be in charge of the project, including studies in two research residences and the ME laboratory, plus interaction with the project sponsors that required travel, talks and committee meetings. With these changes in responsibility plus the needs of a growing family, the graduate work dropped by the wayside. I have regretted that, but the research and associated industry contacts set the path that my career has followed."

He adds, '"Throughout my career, I have been fortunate in knowing and working with outstanding people in the field of heating, ventilating and air conditioning. First among these were several at the University of Illinois, such as Professors Seichi "Bud" Konzo and Maurice K. Fahnestock, both pioneers in the field and engineers of outstanding ability."

In 1955 Herb, Romona and their four children moved to Cleveland. "I pined the staff of the National Warm Air Heating and Air Conditioning Association, the sponsor of the project at Illinois. My work in Cleveland included liaison with the University research program, supervising field studies of air-conditioning system performance, and developing a series of air-conditioning design and installation manuals. We left Cleveland in 1967, moving -- by now the family included five children -- to Cedar Falls, Iowa, where I built a product research and development laboratory for the Waterloo Register Company. Just before we moved, Mona was found to have breast cancer. Following surgery in Cleveland, the family completed its move to Cedar Falls. We were living there when Romona died in 1970. Being in her hometown -- with her family and close to mine in Ames -- during those final months was good fortune for all of us in a time of pain and loss."

Unfortunately, the Waterloo Register Company closed at the end of 1970 due to problems between the machinists' union and the sheet metal workers' union. "The plant closed and I moved to the Washington area to pin the staff of the Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute (ARI)."

After moving to Washington, Herb met the former Mary Louise (Tucker) Brown. During World War II she and her husband Paul, who died in 1968, had moved from Boston to the Washington area where they raised their five children. Herb and Mary Lou married in 1974 and live in Vienna, Va.

"I was with ARI the for nine years and then joined the staff of the Sheet Metal and Air-Conditioning Contractors' National Association," Herb says. "Since 1985, when I left SMACNA, I've been consulting on my own."

Herbert has long been active in the American Society for Heating, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). "I know your [James W. Phillips'] father, Clinton W. Phillips, very well. He is a past president of ASHRAE."

Herbert and Romona had five children. "The oldest is Virginia Anne. She graduated in physical education at Iowa State and is a physical therapist, having trained at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. Ginny is married to Wayne C. Dowling, professor of engineering fundamentals and design at Iowa State. They have two children, Mildred Marie, born in 1979, and Walter Harold, born in 1983.

"Second is Herbert David, an accountant in Las Vegas, Nev. Herb and his wife Jeannie have no children.

"Third is Edele Christine, a school teacher. She lives in Woodridge, Va., teaches second grade in the dependent school system at the Quantico Marine Base, and is a Girl Scout leader. Edele has never married.

"Fourth is Arthur Talbot Gilkey. He is in military intelligence and currently stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas. He and wife Mary Susan have one son, John David, born in 1982.

"The youngest, Martha Olive, married Henry Lee. They met when Martha was taking a master's degree at Iowa State, and Henry was doing his Ph.D. in statistics. They're now at Corvallis, Ore., where Henry is working for an Environmental Protection Agency contractor, doing statistical analysis. Corvallis that's where my dad went to college -- things go around and around! They have two children, James Edward, born in 1983, and Patricia Jean, born in 1986."