Bill Nix
Bill Nix had the misfortune to pick up the pieces of yet another broken education
when he took me on as a grad student. Patience is one of Bill's long suits,
and I am sure I tried him sorely at times. Too late to mold my personality
much; all he could do was put up with it. He always did graciously.
Bill is all business but knows how to have fun. Alone among my mentors,
he taught tough stuff, sometimes with a nearly futile hammer. The
miracle was not his teaching, but the tiny details and insistence
on getting them all right was not only impressive, but imperative
as I was to learn again and again, and yet again. What analytical
abilities I have I owe to him. He is younger than me, but that never
seemed to affect how he treated me. He provided equal time for each
of his students.
I still have my notes from his classes; I intended to master them
more fully. But opportunities took me in other directions, into entrepreneurship.
Now, every time I jump the gun on a project, I have to pause, "No
Bill would not do it this way." Then I laugh, and if there is
time, I start over. But usually there is no time; after all, entrepreneurship
requires speed, not perfection.
Bill is subtle to a fault. By that I mean I usually have to read
his email two or three times to get all the meat out of it. He is
especially good at pointing out half-baked ideas by skirting around
them.
What the others did for me emotionally, Bill did for me intellectually.
Three decades later, he is still unselfish of his time and advice.
I have one last paper on metallurgy in draft. The enabler? Bill Nix.
Would he put his name on it? No. The world needs more people like
Bill Nix.
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