Apr 17, 2012 - Claremont, Calif. -

The Harvey Mudd College Alumni Association Board of Governors (AABoG) has chosen alumni and other individuals to receive some of the College’s most prestigious awards, which will be presented at a ceremony April 28 in Galileo Hall.

Outstanding Alumni
The Board of Governors selected three alumni— George “Pinky” Nelson ’72, Robert Bell ’72 and Edwin “Ned” Freed ’82—to receive the HMC Outstanding Alumni Award for their significant contributions to science and society.

Nelson was the first HMC graduate to become an astronaut. He took part in three space flights on three different space shuttles (1984, STS-41C Challenger; 1986 STS-61C Columbia; and, 1988, STS-26 Discovery). He logged more than 411 hours in space and, in 2009, was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame. Nelson is the former director of Project 2061, an American Association for the Advancement
 of Science initiative to advance literacy in science, mathematics and technology. He is presently the director of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education (SMATE) at Western Washington University. The SMATE program mission is a national model of the highest quality preparation of future elementary and secondary science teachers. Nelson earned his bachelor’s in physics from HMC and his master’s and doctorate in astronomy from the University of Washington.

Bell is best known for being a member of the team that won the $1-million Netflix Prize in 2009. (The goal was to exceed the accuracy of Netflix’s movie recommendation system by at least 10 percent.) In the 1980s, Bell performed public policy analysis for the RAND Corporation and taught statistics at the RAND Graduate School of Public Policy. A member of the Statistics Research Department at AT&T Labs-Research since 1998, Bell does data analysis and model building for a variety of AT&T projects and theoretical research for academia. He has served on four National Research Council panels advising the U.S. Census Bureau and is a recognized expert on the use of statistical methods in the decennial census. Bell earned his bachelor’s in mathematics from HMC, his master’s degree in statistics from the University of Chicago and his doctorate in statistics from Stanford University.

Freed co-founded Innosoft International, a leading developer of Internet standards-based messaging and directory solutions, which was acquired in 2000 by Sun Microsystems. He transitioned with Sun and worked on the Sun Java System Messaging Server (now called the Oracle Communications Messaging Exchange Server) and continued that work after Sun was acquired by Oracle. In addition to his work with Sun and Oracle, Freed has contributed to several Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Request for Comments mostly centering on email and Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions standards. He also has a patent for preventing unnecessary message duplication in electronic mail. Freed earned his bachelor’s in engineering from HMC.

Lifetime Recognition Awards
The AABoG has selected four alumni to receive Lifetime Recognition Awards:

Dick Olson ’62 spent 46 years teaching at the university level, including a year at Tufts University, a decade at U.C. Santa Cruz and 35 years at Harvey Mudd College.
At HMC, Olson developed and taught history of science courses and served in many leadership roles, including chair of the steering committee for the Hixon Forum for Responsive Science and Engineering, chair of the HSA department and director of the STS Program. His work has focused on the interrelationships between the natural sciences and other cultural domains, such as social sciences, political ideology and religion. He’s a prolific writer with more than 60 published works, including articles, invited book chapters and books.

William Hartman ’62 served 20 years as a Naval officer and pilot. While stationed in Guam in the early 1970s, he developed and implemented a system to transmit acoustic data collected by aircraft. After leaving the Navy, Hartman worked at Lockheed in Sunnyvale, Calif., supporting satellite operations. Now retired, he serves on the AABoG and each year leads the HMC Mt. Baldy climb. Hartman is also an assistant scoutmaster for a Boy Scout troop in Carson City, Nev., where he leads older boys in high adventure activities. An ardent HMC supporter, Hartman has given generously to the College, including spearheading the Samuel Delich ’62 Memorial Endowed Scholarship.

Richmond “Dick” Hoch ’63 built a successful real estate investment company, Sigma Financial Group, for which he still serves as president. Hoch and his wife, Diane, have supported the college for two decades and Dick has been a member of the HMC board of trustees since 1998. The Hochs established the Alfred B. Focke Memorial Endowed Scholarship in honor of HMC physics professor Alfred Focke. They also spearheaded the fundraising campaign for the HMC dining commons and contributed a $2-million lead gift to the project.

Chris Schwarzenbach skied for the U.S. Ski Team in the world championships in 1938 and was a member of the U.S. Ski Team for the 1940 Olympics (which were cancelled due to the start of World War II). Schwarzenbach entered the Navy and served as an aviation cadet. After the war, he owned and operated several aerospace companies, ultimately joining Paschall International in 1965, and becoming sole owner in 1980. In 1997, he sold the company and retired. An HMC trustee emeritus (1983-2003) and former chair and member of the Clinic Advisory Committee (1991-2003), Schwarzenbach is a longtime supporter of the College.

Honorary Alumni
Selected as Honorary Alumni by the AABoG are Noel Keller, former registrar, and Clive L. Dym, a 2012 Bernard M. Gordon Prize recipient, Fletcher Jones Professor of Engineering Design and director of the Center for Design Education at Harvey Mudd College. The award acknowledges their significant contributions to the students and alumni of Harvey Mudd College.

Order of the Wart
Former Senior Director of College Advancement Maya Chalich, who worked at HMC for four years, will receive the Order of the Wart, given in recognition of her significant contributions to the alumni of Harvey Mudd College.