Schwitters, Roy F.
Oral history interview with Roy Schwitters, 1997 March 22 & 1998 March 31.
This pair of interviews was conducted as part of the research for the book Tunnel Visions, a history of the Superconducting Super Collider. The first interview begins by examining Schwitterss perspective as leader of the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF) while the initial design phases of the SSC project were unfolding, including his preparation of briefing materials on the project and service on its Board of Overseers. Schwitters also discusses early SSC cost estimates, his service on the National Academies site-evaluation committee, and his selection as director of the SSC Laboratory. He addresses the disappointment of some that Maury Tigner was not chosen, negotiations for Tigner to be deputy director or project manager, and Tigners departure from the project. Schwitters reflects on considerations in the development of the management & operations contract proposal, personnel-recruiting difficulties, and the tension between industrial and scientific styles of project management, including Tom Bushs management of the SSC magnet program. The first interview concludes with a detailed account of difficulties in working with the Department of Energy, and particularly Office of Energy Research Director Robert Hunter, in assembling the labs senior management in early 1989. The second interview begins with Schwitters recalling the selection of Texas as the SSC site, the disappointment of some that Fermilab was not chosen, and his own willingness to relocate to any of the final candidate sites. Schwitters also discusses the recruitment of Helen Edwards to lead the SSC accelerator program and Tigners preferred choices for various key roles at the lab. Schwitters reflects on difficulties surrounding magnet development, Bushs poor relationship with Edwards, and his own desire to avoid design risk and a protracted accelerator commissioning. He discusses in detail the decision to redesign the magnets with a wider aperture, including his conviction on the basis of simulations that it was necessary, and the factors driving the growth of cost estimates around the redesign. Schwitters also addresses considerations involving proposals to descope the SSC to reduce costs, difficulties in assembling a strong management team, and the shortcomings of Sverdrup as a construction subcontractor. He also reflects on his relationship with the Department of Energy, Energy Secretary Watkinss reaction to cost increases, and Ed Siskins performance as DOEs project manager. Near the conclusion of the second interview, Schwitters reflects on his goal of creating a new scientific community around the laboratory.
Roy Schwitters was a professor of physics at Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Texas at Austin. He was a founding member of the Collider Detector at Fermilab, and he served as the Director of the Superconducting Super Collider from 1989 to 1993.
Chao, Alexander Wu
Edwards, Helen T.
Hunter, Robert Olin, 1946-
Kirk, T. B. W. (Thomas Bernard Walter), 1940-
Panofsky, Wolfgang K. H. (Wolfgang Kurt Hermann), 1919-2007
Pewitt, Doug.
Quigg, Chris
Schwitters, Roy F.
Tigner, M.
Watkins, James D., 1927-
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
United States. Department of Energy
United States. High Energy Physics Advisory Panel
Universities Research Association (U.S.)
University of Texas at Austin
Colliders (Nuclear physics).
Particles (Nuclear physics)
Science and state
Superconducting Super Collider
Interviews. aat
Oral histories. aat
Transcripts. aat
Riordan, Michael, 1946- interviewer.
AIP-ICOS
American Institute of Physics. Niels Bohr Library & Archives. One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA