Bill Fateley passed away on July 30, 2009 in Tucson, Arizona at the age of 80. He touched many lives at K-State and elsewhere as a colleague, teacher, scientist, mentor, collaborator and friend. He will be sorely missed, and never forgotten. A memorial service will be held at All Faiths Chapel on the K-State campus at 10:30 a.m. on Monday, August 10. Anyone wishing to share recollections of Bill is encouraged to send those in an e-mail to eam@ksu.edu.
"Thank you all for coming and welcome to this ceremony honoring the life of Bill Fateley. We’re here to console ourselves, to share remembrances and recollections, and to remind ourselves just how fortunate we’ve been to have encountered such a remarkable individual.
Bill was husband to Wanda, for nearly 56 years – for which she undoubtedly deserves a meritorious service award. He was father to Leslie, and Scott . . . and Kevin, and Jonathan, and Rob. He was a proud and loving grandfather.
He was a brilliant scientist, teacher, author, inventor, mentor, collaborator, and friend. He was an accomplished woodworker who was very generous with his creations.
Of course, he was also a rascal, a bit of a rogue and a raconteur.
We will celebrate all of these facets of our dear friend this morning.
I met Bill when I was 16 years old. In 1970, he was my freshman chemistry instructor at Carnegie-Mellon, and he was a superb teacher. He arrived for his first lecture wearing a Superman T-shirt and a red cape! Got everyone’s attention right off the bat.
I never had the chance to take another class from Bill, because he left Pittsburgh to become Professor and Head here at K-State.
In Fall 1980, I was interviewing for academic positions, and my first one was here, at Kansas State. After giving my seminar to the department, I had meetings scheduled with each faculty member and I was looking forward to a discussion with Bill.
I wasn’t prepared for what I saw in his office, however. It was filled with all sorts of strange stuff: pairs of cowboy boots, butterflies, a life-size cut-out of John Wayne, a shrimp net, and a mannequin dressed rather exotically. I sat down and said “Professor Fateley, I’m sure you don’t remember me, but I was a student of yours in Honors Chem 1 at Carnegie-Mellon”.
Bill said “Well, since you were my student, I’m going to give you a very valuable piece of advice: make sure you believe only half of what I say”. I guess things were easier back then, with 50%, rather than 10%.
I thought about my freshman chemistry teacher, hesitated a bit, and then replied “Well, I guess that means I should believe 25% then, right?”
He looked at me for a second, then he burst out with that huge laugh of his, and I felt right at home.
– Prof. Eric Maatta, Department of Chemistry, Kansas State University
During my graduate school days in the Chemistry Dept. at K-State in the early 1980’s, I had the pleasure of working with Dr.Fateley in the classroom and in the lab. He was a great teacher, educator, but also a mentor and a friend. Some of my fondest memories are of Friday evening pool at the Union, pancake breakfasts on Saturday, and after seminar get-togethers with students, faculty and the visiting speakers. I will never forget his generous support of finding us lodging for trips to attend the Pittsburgh Conference. In particular was the trip we made from Manhattan to Atlantic City in a school van packed with nearly a dozen people driving straight-through hoping for a place to stay once we arrived. As usual Dr. Fateley came through, and we all had a spot. Also during these trips, it was always amazing to find that an “anonymous” benefactor had “taken care” of our bill while splurging for a nice dinner during the conference. This happened on several occasions, and we never quite knew how or who, but always surmised that Dr. Fateley had something to do with it. I always enjoyed Dr. Fateley’s lectures and seminars; he was an engaging speaker and thanks to him, I enjoy and appreciate the art of Escher. Of course, the lively banter with Dr. Meloan always set the tone and eased the tension of student presentations, in particular prop orals and defenses. The spectroscopy community and K-State lost a good man, but his legend will live on in those of us who were trained by and learned from him. I can imagine even now that he is holding court discussing the relative merits of Hadamard vs. Fourier transforms.
- Dr. Brent Fulton, LyondellBasell Industries
From Bill's interactions with my family I have the following:
1) Bill visited us many times in Delaware and always stayed at the house. One of the first times he visited my son Kip was about four. Bill showed up with pointed toe cowboy boots and a huge cowboy belt buckle. Kip was wide eyed and hung on every word Bill uttered. Bill told him the reason cowboy boots were pointed was to be able to trap cockroaches in the corners or the room and then kick them. Kip of course believed every word uttered by "Cowboy Bill", and could not stop talking about cowboy boots. Sure enough, one week later a package showed up with a pair of small pointed toe cowboy boots. The only downside was that I spent the next month repainting the baseboards where Kip had practiced kicking cockroaches.
2) My wife Jamie was very close to Bill. During the years they made multiple trips to museums in Delaware. However, their relationship started on a shaky note. Jamie was unaware of the 90/10 rule with Bill and therefore believed most of what he said. He called one day to ask if one of his students who was interviewing for a job in Delaware could stay with us. Of course, Jamie agreed. Bill told her there was only one problem, John (the student) was a vegetarian who only ate alligator meat. Fully trusting Bill, Jamie searched high and low for alligator meat but was unsuccessful. She did however prepare a wonderful vegetarian meal. When John arrived and we started dinner he looked at the table and a strange look crossed his face. Of course, John was a Kansas farm boy, only meat and potatoes. Score another one for Bill! However, Jamie did forgive him and they went on to become dear friends.
3) In 1989 I was the general chairman of a conference held at George Mason University. At this time Bill was heavily involved in environmental monitoring, and had a Winnebago which was fully outfitted with spectrometers and allowed his group to do remote site monitoring of the atmosphere. Bill and his entire research group drove the van to Virginia to come to this conference. now it turns out the George Mason University does not allow the consumption of alcohol on the grounds or in the dorm rooms. It was then suggested that the Winnebago parked in the parking lot was a private residence and thus beer could be consumed. By Weds evening we had packed close to 100 people into the Winnebago. The van was rocking! Someone then had the idea to order pizza. Bill had a cell phone in the van so we called in an order. The pizza place asked for our phone number for verification. Naturally they were a little nonplussed when we gave them a Kansas area code. After we explained, the owner of the pizza place said that he had to see this, and he made the delivery himself. Ten large pizzas were delivered. However the people in the back of the van only got the smell. All of the pizza disappeared less than half way back through the crowd. It was a wonderful meeting, and much of the success was related to the presence of the research groups of Bill Fateley and Peter Griffiths. It was a sign of how much Bill valued the experience of the vibrational spectroscopic community and he always made sure that his students were a part.
Bill usually got the upper hand in any dealing with his friends and colleagues. It was very rare that anyone else could "play" Bill. However I know of two examples:
4) It was at a meeting in the early 70s. I believe it was a FACSS meeting though it may have been Pittcon. Bill was scheduled to give two talks right on top of each other. So he gave his slides to the session chair of the second talk, Ira Levin, and asked that they be loaded and he would arrive just in time to give the talk. Well the time slot for Bill's talk arrived, and no Bill. Ira tried to fill in the time, talking to members of the audience. One of them was Jack Koenig from Case Western. Ira said "Jack, you have always claimed that you could give anyone's talk. How about giving this one for Bill?" Little did Ira know that Bill had spent the weekend with Jack, and had actually practiced the talk, complete with jokes. So Jack sauntered on up to the podium and gave Bill’s talk. It was wonderful and the jokes were very amusing. As Jack finished we heard the sound of running footsteps out in the hall. The slides were quickly cycled back to the beginning and everyone sat down. As Bill entered the hall, dripping with sweat, Ira told him we were running behind and that he was just in time. So Bill strode up to the podium and started his talk. He hit the first joke, and absolutely no response from the audience, nary a twitter. The second joke fell just as flat. When Bill looked into the audience, people were reading newspapers and talking to each other. No one was paying any attention. Bill finished the talk and was totally crushed. As he came down from the stage, Norman Sheppard who was in the front row looked up and said, "You know, Bill, that is a pretty good talk, but Jack gives it a little bit better than you". Bill never forgave us.
5) This final recollection involves an episode, that I am not sure Wanda has forgiven us for. Bill was wonderful in the wood working shop, and he always had such interesting wood he worked with. Well it turns out that one of the lumberyards he dealt with (always by mail) was located in Lancaster PA. It was owned and operated by a Mennonite fellow who never missed a sale. Bill asked if we could visit the lumberyard with us. Jamie and I agreed somewhat reluctantly since we were pretty sure we would be held responsible for the amount of wood he purchased. Well this Mennonite lumberman played Bill like a bass on the line. After Bill made a significant purchase and we were preparing to leave, the lumberman "just remembered" another really nice piece of curly oak. He got Bill to go back into the yard and at least 30 more board feet was purchased. Well he played him the same way three more times. Jamie was frantic about the amount of wood he bought and what the potential reaction would be back in Manhattan. I think all the wood fit on a single flat bed trailer but I am not sure. Bill told us that quite a bit of time lapsed before Wanda calmed down. This was one of the few times I saw Bill played by someone else.
- Dr. Bruce Chase, E.I DuPont and the University of Delaware
Anyone that knew Bill knows that he was a kind and generous man. I was at Pittcon a few years back, and spotted Bill walking across the exhibition floor. I went over to say hello and he announced, “I’m hungry; let’s go get something to eat.” I followed Bill, and he led me to the cafeteria for the Pittcon staff. At the entrance was a person checking names. Being the generous person that Bill was, he introduced me as someone much better known in the world of spectroscopy – Bruce Chase. After my elevation to celebrity status, we each grabbed a bowl of soup, sat down, and began chatting. After a few minutes I heard someone yell “Billllll!!!” I looked up and there was Bruce at the entrance, stopped by the person checking names.
- Dr. Barry Havens, Xerox. Inc.
There are many stories to share from my days as a graduate student, after graduate school and later after I was married, but I have to choose one.
This story involves my wife, me, and a cribbage board. Several years ago Lorraine and I started playing cribbage again. I told this to Bill during one of our phone conversations and several months later I got a call that he had made us a cribbage board and was sending it out from Arizona. From the time we spent at K-State, my wife and I have a fine appreciation for the Bill’s wood working so we were excited to get something that we knew would find a prominent place in our home.
As expected, when it arrived it was gorgeous, made out of a fine piece of mesquite wood with turquoise inlays - very Southwest. When not using it, and to appreciate the full effect of the board, Lorraine wanted me to hang it on our family room wall. Well, after about several weeks she noticed some dust under the board on the floor. Not thinking much about it, she cleaned it up and the next day same thing but a little more. This went on for a while till one evening she mentioned that she had been cleaning up this dust from the floor underneath.
I dismissed it per my usual self until several days later, I noticed a pile of dust one evening and I looked closer at the board: there to my astonishment were 30 - 40 tiny little holes bored into the wood with wood dust coming out of them. The damn cribbage board he sent us was INFESTED with tiny wood eating bugs! So I called Bill and in the course of the conversation he asks how we’re enjoying the cribbage board and I say matter-of-factly that we are really enjoying it except for the bugs that keep eating away at it. I then asked him what the hell did you send us and that he may be personally responsible for infesting southwest Ohio with some invasive western wood-boring bug! There was a moment of silence, then an “Oh S***, I’m sorry Mark” and then the laughter, that characteristic laugh of his.
I then started getting calls from him on how to kill the bugs. My favorite was to take the cribbage board and put it in a microwave oven on high for several minutes to kill the bugs. Mind you he had forgotten that the length of the board was larger than most conventional microwave ovens!
I’m grateful that I had an opportunity to spend some of my best days here at K-State working for Bill. I’m thankful he had an opportunity to know my wife and eventually my daughter Tara, and to see me find my real niche in doing forensic science.
There are not too many things that you could beat Bill at and more often than not one would always come up short. But the one thing I was finally able to start beating him at was story telling. Over the last couple of years my stories were getting much better than his. Working in forensic science has opened up a wealth of bizarre tales that would often outdo his and he would love to hear and laugh about those.
He will terribly missed – especially that laugh.
- Dr. Mark Witkowski, Forensic Chemistry Center, Food and Drug Administration
We received our Ph.D.s in 1980 from Jim Durig at USC. During our time in Jim’s research group we had numerous occasions to meet and be around Bill. In addition to being an excellent researcher and teacher he was also a wonderful person. He was always very friendly to us lowly graduate students, he was very funny and had a wonderful laugh. Some of our best recollections occurred during a NATO Institute in Italy in 1979. We would gather during the evenings, relax, refresh and have wonderful conversations. Some related to chemistry but most were pure fun. It has been quite a few years since we have seen Bill but still from time to time think of some of the times that we were with him. We were quite saddened to hear of his death. We know that he will be missed not only by his loved ones but also by the scientific community of which he was a part.
– Drs. Stephen D. and Sarah Johnston Hudson, Charleston Southern University
My first encounter with Dr. Fateley was back in 1988 when I made my first ever trip to USA to attend an FTIR conference in Fairfax close to Washington DC. Although I don't recall talking to him personally I remember the crowded loud parties in his big van where we all drank beer and had fun late into the morning. I was once grabbed by one of his students and led back inside the van since I had gone wandering outside not knowing that it was not allowed to drink alcohol in public places.
My second encounter with Dr. Fateley was in Finland in 1993 when he visited our company Temet Instruments together with Mark Witkowski and Robert Hammaker. After spending few moments with Dr. Fateley I found him very easygoing, to me he was like a cowboy with temper. I recall one amusing occasion during his stay when we were in my car and we were returning to our company for a sauna party. As I had told Dr. Fateley that the next thing we were to do was to go to sauna he became somewhat concerned and asked me if it was true that it was a tradition in Finland to go to sauna naked and together with women. I remember laughing and explaining that he was only partly right.
In 1997 I finally finished my Ph.D. work and asked Dr. Fateley to be my opponent for the public defense of my doctoral thesis. Needless to say, I was extremely honored that he agreed. We spent perhaps one hour in discussing my thesis in front of the audience -Dr. Fateley asking questions from me and I answering them the best I could - after which he suddenly stopped and said: "I run out of questions!" and turning to the audience said: "It is now your duty to ask questions". Since it is more than customary in Finland that the public defense takes anything from 2 to 4 hours and no one from the audience ever asks any questions, the expedited timetable became almost as a shock to the university administration people overseeing the event.
A couple of days after the public defense Dr. Fateley insisted that I should take him gambling. We went to the only casino in Helsinki of that time and spent an evening at a roulette table and playing blackjack. I recall Dr. Fateley winning in the beginning a few hundred dollars but finishing the evening with 500 dollars less in his wallet. With a big smile in his face he said to me that the sole purpose of the evening was to have fun, not to win!
I will never forget Dr. Fateley’s face when he showed me a T-shirt that he had bought from Finland. It depicted large mosquitoes with a text: "The Finnish Air Force". It still makes me laugh when I think of it!
– Dr. Petri Jaakkola, Chairman of the Board, Gasmet Technology Group
Wanda gave me two very specific rules the last couple of summers: 1) No trips to the bank, and 2) No trips to buy more wood!
One of Dr. Fateley’s more famous quotes: “There are two things whose cost I don’t talk about, and those two are women and wood.”
The last few summers, we went out to Jan’s woodshop to work on our projects. To repay Jan for his help and for allowing us to use his shop, Dr. Fateley bought Jan some wood. Jan was very thankful to receive the wood because he was working on his house, and decided the wood would be perfect for his bathroom. Dr. Fateley jumped at this occasion and replied, “From now on, that bathroom is not called the John, but the Bill!”
One of Dr. Fateley’s favorite snacks was “yellow worms” (his name for Cheetos). We would tend to pick up yellow worms once in awhile and that would be a good snack before one of his many afternoon naps. One day last summer after I dropped him off at home, something fell out of his sandal while Wanda was nearby. It was a yellow worm and he got caught! Boy, he was really quick in calling me up and yelling that I have framed him by putting a yellow worm in his sandal!
Dr. Fateley tended to not have any problem talking to anybody, including waitresses or any young women in his vicinity. He would tend to ask all of these women almost everyday if they were willing to marry me and would even offer them money to do so. (Dr. Fateley would do this all to of his other previous drivers also.)
Before every meal, Dr. Fateley had to take a shot of insulin. He would many times offer everybody at the table with whom he was eating with or the waitress if they wanted a shot as well!
When I drove Dr. Fateley to the doctor’s office, we’d have to fill out a couple of forms and answer some questions. Whenever we came upon the question, “How many times a week do you have sex?”, we would check the box “Two or more times a week.” Once he’d gone into the patient room, the doctor would walk in laughing like mad and say, “You are such a big liar!”
On many days, when Dr. Fateley was ready to go home, he would yell, “Home James, and don’t spare the horses!”
We would get our haircuts from my Uncle Roger at Campus Hairstyling, and Dr. Fateley tended to think the haircut was free many of the times. After he got a nice trim, he would turn to Roger and say, “This haircut is free, right?” and turn to everybody sitting in the barber shop and tell them that Roger gives free haircuts.
– Brett Landoll, Bill’s chauffeur and aide-de-camp
Bill was generous, witty, and liked to make big things happen. Here are a couple of instances:
He once hired a stretch limo to drive from Topeka, pick up Wanda and three of her friends – among them my wife Connie – and drive them to Topeka where they celebrated Wanda's birthday at Rob's restaurant. I think champagne was flowing freely on the drive over. After the lunch, the limo drove them back to Manhattan. They were picked up and delivered to their front doors. Door-to-door service.
Once, without any prior notice or preparation, Bill showed up on our front door with a handmade "tall clock" he had fashioned from a single old door made of birds-eye maple. The clockworks were special-ordered from Germany, and have the name "Die Tür." All this was by way of what Bill regarded as a simple thank you to Connie, who had been Wanda's campaign chair in her first successful run for a seat on the Manhattan City Commission.
These are bigger things than most people imagine. Bill did them naturally, often without a lot of planning, and never with any calculation.
I also knew Bill in the academic setting. He was a good colleague. He cared about academia – not unconditionally, mind you, but he cared about all the pieces that go into successful teaching and research. With Bill, these goals were simply a given.
And he was enthusiastic about any serious intellectual work, not just about work in the sciences that were, of course, his first love. I have had the opportunity to hear him ask questions of academic colleagues whose work was well outside his own areas of expertise. What always struck me was his insatiable and wide-ranging curiosity. If there was an issue about which Bill was not curious, I do not know what it was. He also brought a capacity for creative thought to any problem. And to any question he brought keen analytical skills; he had a real nose for finding out what's true. Moreover, his questions always seemed to inspire people to think longer and deeper about their own work.
Bill's mind could light up a room.
We all know Bill's 10%-90% rule: "Only believe 10% of what I say," he would tell us. But for me, nearly everything I ever heard come out of his mouth was 'coin of the realm.'
So, today I am really glad that just a couple of weeks ago Bill got to see his birds-eye maple clock, see that it still works, see that we have it in the entry to our home, and see that it still looks beautiful.
Today I am happy to be among the many people in this room who could regard Bill Fateley as their friend – remembering him, his wit, humor, generosity, and brilliance.
But I want us also to remember this about him, maybe most of all: Bill loved his family, deeply, and without reservation.
– Prof. Jim Hamilton, Department of Philosophy, Kansas State University
My name is Rita Newell and I am representing the office staff in the chemistry department. Even though it has been several years since I worked there, I still feel a part of the chemistry family and I hope they feel the same way.
Dr. Fateley was a world-renowned and revered scientist, researcher, inventor, and patent holder, and we respected that, but to us he was a friend, a lover of practical jokes, a man generous to a fault and always teaching, teaching, teaching. Many of us, I for one, didn’t even recognize those teaching moments until later in life.
I want to share with you a couple moments that come to mind when I remember those years beginning when I first went to work in the Chemistry Department. My first day, someone had told the faculty and staff that it was my first day and one by one faculty came in to introduce themselves and welcome me to the department. During that day, two faculty came in together. The one in the lead wearing the string tie and sporting a goatee, said to me “Hello there, welcome to Chemistry, I’m Cliff Meloan and this is Bill Fateley, you need to watch out for him”. And then followed a roar of laughter and I knew I had been had, because of course it was Dr. Fateley speaking. But I also thought to myself, I believe I made a good choice coming here.
In 1984 we were switching from keeping all accounting records by hand in a written ledger to using computers. JVP (Dr. Paukstelis) was spending hours teaching us what we needed to know to do that and so most conversations in those days were about computers.
Dr. Fateley had a cat. I don’t remember the cat’s name, but they were pretty good buddies and the cat kept him company in his workshop a lot of the time. One day Dr. Fateley came into the office and said he had to buy his cat a computer. We asked why, and he told us he had to do it, because the cat had heard that mice came with computers.
We did accomplish a lot of work, but there were many fun times along the way.
To Wanda, Leslie, Kevin, Rob, Jonathan and we won’t forget Scott, and all of the Fateley family: thank you for sharing him with us.
And to Dr. Fateley, Godspeed.
– Rita Newell, Assistant to the Dean of Human Ecology, Kansas State University
In my second year of Graduate School at Kansas State University, Dr. Fateley and I made a table together in the wood shop. Now for the rest of the story. The wood we utilized for our project was wood he had acquired some years ago from Fort Riley, Kansas. The wood itself had been removed from an Old Post office at Fort Riley and he had kept it for just the right purpose to be used for some military way. As it turns out, our table project was the right purpose. Together we worked, fashioned and built a table in his prized wood shop. Just being there in the sawdust while he worked was a treat in and of itself. One by one, he taught me about all of the special tools in his shop. He even shared how to make use of the wood worker’s secret and most coveted tool, the atomic wood board stretcher. If you do not know of or how to use the atomic wood board stretcher it must be that as we say in the security realm, you must not have a need to know. But for all of you in the audience who have been cleared and know of this secret capability, you can appreciate its real merit to a highly skilled wood worker. Back to the project, our table. Our table was not just any table, It was a TABLE. The table comfortably seats 8 and can expand a few times over to accommodate many more. It is large and it is heavy. It was designed so people can stand on it. Movers a few times over have been challenged getting the table in and out of our home, Did I mention the legs do not come off ? (at least they are not supposed to). Timing is everything, and this was true of the table as well. Our project was completed just as our family was to move from Fort Riley to West Point, New York where the Army assigned me to teach Chemistry. Imagine for a moment the movers loading furniture and boxes onto a moving truck when to their dismay they discover another moving truck rolling in to trans load a table delivery. We barely got the table on the moving truck the first time. As we drove away en route to New York, we wondered if the table would even fit through the doors of our tiny house in New York due to the difficulties we had getting it on the truck. The table fit perfectly and ever since, our family has enjoyed meals around the table and shared the special story about the special wood the table was made of, the loving hands that crafted the table and why the TABLE was in a military family. Why is that you all may ask? Because, General George Custer's mail was sorted on this wood. As Paul Harvey would say, now you know the rest of the Story.
The last time I spoke to Dr. Fateley, I was in the airport on my way back to Iraq and as we concluded our phone call, he told me to take special care of myself and be careful. He had already had experienced loss and did not want to lose another one close to him. Instead it would be me to know the loss of a loved one.
I have realized the loss of a dear friend. What I have come to appreciate is what a gift God gives to us when He places people in our lives. I have learned that when we take the time to have a genuine relationship with them, things, everything just seems so right. For me, I have spent a lifetime for the most part avoiding too many relationships at such a deep level of intimacy. One of few people I had such feelings for passed away peacefully. I found out early this next morning and spent the day pondering the loss I experienced and I came to this conclusion: it is not loss but gain. My life is so much better because one man, for some reason or another, saw some potential in me and took the time to invest in me to bring that potential to fruition in my life. No one ever spent more time teaching, coaching, mentoring and encouraging me than he did.
Regardless of the circumstance(s) encountered, he had faith in me and believed I could do it. The really nice thing about that is, he did not keep it to himself. He shared it with me. No matter how far away from one another we were in miles of separation it was not uncommon for me to get a call from a familiar voice. The voice of a friend just calling to talk, share some insights and often just so we could laugh together. I used to think I loved life until I met him, Dr. Wild Bill Fateley, my Professor, a man's man. No man I have ever met was so full of life or zeal for living. He was positive energy to anyone around him. But most importantly, he was all that and a whole lot more to me. I want to be such a man for another.
I can say wholeheartedly in this note, our lives are a gift from God, and Dr. Fateley used his to bless those of us who knew and loved him. Today, as we celebrate the joy of a life well-lived and the significant impact that this one man had upon each of us, I ask you to consider one thing. Please consider this. Will you ensure that his gift to each of us remains a gift that keeps on giving? Be a friend like the one we honor today. Share your insights; encourage and laugh with one another. Enthusiasm is contagious, catch it. Embrace the joy in life we witness, share that zeal for living and invest in someone and at the end of the day perhaps, we, you and I, may impact lives in the manner and to the extent that one beloved man did, Dr. William G. Fateley. If you do, you will learn the secret to the BORED stretcher.
I love you and deeply regret I am unable to join you here this morning. As you know, I am a Soldier and duty calls. I know it is a time of celebration and memory there at Kansas State University. Go Cats.
– Col. Vance (Phil) Visser, Deputy Director, Future Operations, US Army
Bill was invited to present at Wurtzburg University in Germany and one of his topics was Hadamard. Bill was using some of the work I had performed and others from our group were going with him to Germany: I was not. After days of badgering Bill to take me along, I reminded him that I spoke German and suggested that he look at my undergrad transcripts. This did the trick and I was invited.
We endured the flight to Frankfurt, all of us were tired and we still needed to take the train to Wurtzburg. Upon arrival at the train station Bill asked me which pier we needed to be on to board the train. I looked at him, stunned, and said I did not know. Bill pointed to a sign and asked me to read it. I explained that I could not and Bill challenged the comment I made about being fluent in German. The only thing that I could think of was to explain that I spoke East German and this is West Germany! He laughed, determined which train to board and started his revenge by telling me to wait on the pier keeping watch on the luggage. Soon Bill's head popped out of a window and he instructed me to bring the luggage over to window and pass it through. I think everyone on that train wondered what kind of American I must have been, too lazy to carry the luggage on board.
Following the week in Germany, we took the train to Interlaken Switzerland for the weekend. I again was tasked with hauling the luggage and passing it through windows. While at Interlaken, Bill did little things like asking me to pay for items at a store, handing me his credit card and disappearing, leaving me fumbling when my passport name did not match the name on his credit card and the purchase was refused. Bill really wanted to ride the cog train to the summit of a mountain where a James Bond scene was filmed. The line was long and we were destined to stand for hour. Near the front of the line was a woman with a Bernese Mountain dog, and it was as big as a mountain. Bill pointed it out to me and I walked to the front of the line, pet the dog and discussed its habits with the owner. As the train was boarding, Bill slipped in front of me and got on the train. We did not wait the hour and all the tourists blamed me!
Returning to the US, we stopped in Pittsburgh for Mark and Lorraine Witkowski's wedding. We flew all night and arrived in time for Mark’s bachelor's party; Bill made an appearance before going to the hotel for some much needed rest, I did not. After 24 hours of no sleep and a good time at the bachelor's party, I went to bed. I do not know what time I awoke, freezing to death and very much in the dark. Bill had closed the curtains, turned off everything that illuminated the room and turned the air-conditioning to it's lowest temperature before leaving the room. He explained that I needed to sleep with my feet under the covers in the future!
When I finally got home, the phone rang and it was Bill: “You S.O.B., I thought that suitcase was heavy!” He laughed at all the Pittsburgh phone books we were able to line his luggage with.
Shortly after that trip, Bill took a semester and went to work with Bonner Denton in Arizona and the Pittsburgh trip came back to haunt him. One night while in Pittsburgh, Bill paid for dinner. Somehow credit cards got switched and some poor person received credit card statements with airline tickets, meals and hotels for all over the US. Bill, unknowingly, was using the card that was switched for his at the restaurant.
Every year at Pittcon, he told this story to all who would listen when we were together, and a large smile and loud laugh always accompanied it.
– Dr. Ed Orr, Analytical Division, ABB Bomem, Inc.
There never will be another "Bill Fateley" in the world of spectroscopy. From his excellent work in infrared, far infrared, Raman and Hadamard spectroscopy to his many publications and books and graduate students, the field was enriched and definitely enlivened! Bill was full of fun and jokes - which he loved to pull on his friends and on himself. He was a delight to be around. A unique individual who lived life to the fullest - even when things didn't always go right. He was unforgettable and irreplaceable. Most of his friends have a gorgeous piece or two of his woodwork - mine are a flying angel sculpture for over the bed of our grandchildren and a fabulous wall clock. I think of him with every tick. He spent hours lovingly crafting these and they always were individually made for the person he was thinking of. How fortunate we all were to have had Bill in our lives. He will be terribly missed.
- Dr. Jenny Grasselli Brown, former Director of Corporate Research, BP
As a graduate student, I first met Bill at ICORS in Wurzburg in Germany in 1992. I was giving a poster on Raman characterization of polybutadienes and simply noted that band area ratios were more quantitatively accurate for microstructure determination than were band height measurements as proposed by Professor Jack Koenig in a paper he published in 1968. Now, I hadn't met Bill before nor knew of him since I was in the United Kingdom. Bill, in his checked blue and white short-sleeved shirt and arrowhead tie, came up to my poster, looked at it for a while, and then turned to my advisor and me and said: "I know Jack Koenig; I am going back to the US and tell Jack that you said his work was a bunch of horse-s***t." After that pronouncement he immediately turned around and walked away.
I have to say that is one of the most memorable introductions to someone that I have ever experienced. I subsequently applied to work as a post-doc with Bill but he wrote back to me that he was retiring and recommended several other labs.
I next met Bill while I was a post-doc at Peter Griffiths lab in 1993: Bill asked my girlfriend (now my wife) to go out with him! Later that trip when at the ICOFTS meeting in Calgary, he took both several Griffiths people including my wife and me out in a taxi - her first! - and then to dinner making sure that every dish at the Thai restaurant we went to had no shellfish as one of our party was allergic to them. As speakers noted at the service, he really was interested in everything that people were doing.
Subsequently, I talked to Bill regularly at numerous meetings including FACSS and Pittcon, and he always asked after my wife and children. He would periodically tell me that I should have worked for him and this allowed me to remind him that I asked and he declined! He brought that up a few times. I will never know whether that first time he asked he had forgotten or he was "testing" but I am pretty sure that the subsequent times he was expecting my "you declined" response. Last year both my wife and I had a chance to see him for a final time at Peter Griffiths's retirement symposium in Idaho. It was clear he was slowing down but still asked people great thought-provoking questions, and made people laugh.
– Dr. Ian Lewis, Kaiser Optical Systems and President, Coblentz Society
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