Retired professor honors friend and colleagues

Three University of Hawai‘i scientists disappeared at sea in December 1978 when a research vessel left Honolulu Harbor and did not arrive at its destination on Hawai‘i Island. Gary Niemeyer, Michael Allen, Robert Harvey and seven other researchers and crew members aboard Holoholo were never seen again.

“I was invited to go along,” says Dr. Thomas Schroeder, a UH Mānoa professor emeritus and former chair of the meteorology department, known today as atmospheric sciences. “They were going to drop me off at Keāhole Point on Monday so I could fly to Honolulu to teach an afternoon class. I wasn’t sure I could make it back in time, so I declined.”

UH marine scientists built a memorial to their lost colleagues on the Diamond Head side of the Hawai‘i Institute of Geophysics building shortly after the accident. In 2004, Schroeder, with oceanography professors Dave Karl and Roger Lukas, worked with the UH Mānoa landscape committee on refurbishing the area, restoring the plaque, and rededicating the space.

Still connected

“This is part of my motivation for giving,” says Schroeder, who continues to support the university in his retirement. His gifts to the atmospheric sciences department, the dean’s office at the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, and the Peter Rappa Sea Grant Fellowship have contributed to student financial assistance and the Holoholo memorial.

A 37-year career on the faculty at Mānoa forged strong friendships, and Schroeder’s relationship with Peter Rappa was especially close. “I met him soon after my arrival 50 years ago,” he says, “at a weekly TGIF the Hawai‘i Institute of Geophysics had every Friday after work, attended by faculty, staff, and students from neighboring programs. We were friends ever since.”

The fellowship honors the memory of Rappa, a long-time member of the marine science faculty who organized Hawai‘i’s first Earth Day. Recipients, who may be undergraduate or graduate students, pursue studies related to sustainability, urban and regional planning, water resources, and related fields.

A long, wonderful career

“What surprised me most about Hawai‘i when I first arrived,” says Schroeder, “was the diversity of people and the international scope of the programs at Mānoa, and Hawai‘i in general. It was quite different from my first 27 years of life in Indiana.”

Now retired in Portland, Oregon, Schroeder says he will continue to support programs at the University of Hawai‘i.

“I’m most impressed by the continuing excellence in national and international education and science,” he says. “I had a long, wonderful career at UH, and happily support it while I can.”