I have benefited from many mentors over my years. I wish I could again thank Joseph Potenza and Harvey Schugar, my undergraduate advisors at Rutgers, who started my journey in crystallography. Many other members of the Chemistry Department were also great mentors – too many to mention. Alas, too few who are still with us. While my subsequent years at Caltech were a time of great personal growth, perhaps the less said of my academic experience there the better, but I did have the opportunity to spend some time with and T.A. for Dick Marsh, from whom I learned much; he was always a pleasure to talk with.

After Caltech, while employed by Union Carbide, Corp. (rest in pieces), I was able to spend time at Brookhaven National Lab and there was introduced to high-resolution powder diffraction, neutron diffraction and Rietveld by David Cox and first met Takeshi Egami, then at the University of Pennsylvania. Both of them changed my life for the better, in ways too great to explain here. At BNL, I also got to meet Larry Finger. He showed me that one can be a great scientist, as well as a computer hardware and software expert. During my years at Penn working for Takeshi, I learned much about TOF diffraction and its analysis from Jim Jorgenson and Frank Rotella while making measurements Argonne’s IPNS neutron source. It was around then that I also started asking questions of Bob Von Dreele and Allen Larson, then both at LANSCE in Los Alamos. At some point Bob entrusted me with the VAX source code for GSAS and I eventually even had the temerity to provide modified code back. My few years at Air Products, Inc. were good ones and APCI bought me a $60K Silicon Graphics workstation that forced me out of my VAX comfort zone. At NIST, I benefited greatly by being able to work with and learn from Judy Stalick – very much missed. So many users and staff at the NCNR were a great privilege to work with, but I want to single out Tony Santoro, Ted Prince and Jack Rush; all no longer with us, alas. Przemek Klosowski was my computing guru when I was at the NCNR and he got me started with Linux, scripting languages and GUI programming, and changed my professional life.

Bob Von Dreele has been a mentor, teacher and work partner, for so many years that I do not know where to begin in thanking him. Working together, we have been recognized for a couple of awards, so it has been quite a partnership. He even had to put up with me as a supervisor twice. Bob and I had the good fortune to land at the kind shores of Argonne, at a time when we were both in need, and that allowed us to collaborate much more closely. I thank Peter Lee, Mark Beno and Gabrielle Long for that. Over the years, I have supervised a few postdocs and interacted with many more, as well as even more students – they should not think that learning went in only one direction.

It seems that many members of the crystallographic community marry into the mental health system, and I am no exception. My partner in every aspect of my life, psychologist Diane Pies Toby, Ph.D., has helped me grow my career in so many ways, not to mention reading and critiquing much of what I write. Our children, Cassie and Josh, have also helped me grow and are always a joy (even when bringing tsouris) in my life.

I was very fortunate that my mother, Frina, introduced me to research computing, and my father, Sidney, showed me how much satisfaction that research and teaching bring. I was actually able to coauthor a paper with both of them during my first undergrad year at Rutgers, but I do owe an apology to my sister, Carole, for what were – no doubt – some very boring dinner table conversations during that period.