Engineering Memory of the Month

Terman at Terman

By 1977, Fred Terman had been retired for 12 years, but his presence on campus was about to be embodied in the biggest way possible: with a building. The Terman Engineering Center would be dedicated that fall.

Stanford News Service photographer Chuck Painter took this picture on the opportune date of 7/7/77, when Terman was (you guessed it) 77 years old. Terman’s most famous protégés, William Hewlett and David Packard, led the funding for the $9.2 million structure.

Today, the center provides office space for departments including civil and environmental engineering, management science and engineering, and elements of mechanical engineering. It also houses the engineering library, the dean’s office, and the Terman Auditorium teaching facility.

After 30 years, the building has reached the end of its utility. It will be replaced by a new School of Engineering Center in early 2010 and then demolished. Of course, the memory of the man will be far more indelible than any given stack of steel, concrete, and wood.

We are interested in your nostalgic photos and the stories they tell. If you’d like to share them with the Stanford Engineering community, e-mail them to David Orenstein, manager, Communications and P.R.