A Culture of Innovation Insider Accounts of Computing and Life at BBN

[22] part i. founders and the early days in computing
He managed the preparation of aproposal toNIH, and oversaw the project, for BBN
to conduct a review of the Division of Research Resources, and, with Swets, put together
an illustrious panel for a year-long project that included interviews with Institute
directors. When Jordan Baruch left the company toestablish Medinet (mentioned in
Chapters 6and12), Bolt became acting director of the Computer Systems Division and
subsequently helped recruit Frank Heart for the division director position.
Bolt was a fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, the American Physical Society,
the American Institute of Physics and the American Academy of Arts andSciences,
and a founding member of the Institute of Noise Control Engineering. He served
as president of the Acoustical Society of America and as the first president of the
International Commission on Acoustics. His contributions to the science of acoustics
were recognized by the first R. Bruce Lindsay Award andthe Gold Medal Award, both
from the Acoustical Society of America. His Gold Medal citation read: “For outstanding
contributions to acoustics through research, teaching, and professional leadership,
and for distinguished administrative and advisory service to science, engineering, and
government.”
Those of us who knew Richard Bolt primarily because of our connection with BBN—
we all knew him asDick —remember him with great respect and fondness. He was
many things — scientist, musician, administrator—but, perhaps more importantly to
us, he was a genuinely warm, unpretentious, lively, sensitive and sociable humanbeing.
His character was evidenced in many ways, not least of which was the considerable
lengths to which he went tocare for his beloved wife at home in the face of deteriorating
mental abilities in the final years of her life. Until the BBN staff reached 100 or so,
the Bolts had the whole company at their house annually for an evening of games and
sociability, billed as a Monte Carlo night.
Dick often ate in the company cafeteria. Invariably he would look for a table at
which a few people were sitting, join it and liven the conversation. He was equally eager
to learn what people were doing and to tell of his mostrecent projects andruminations.
His interests andenergy seemed to be boundless. There wasnever a sense of being on
one’s guard because of the presence of a founder of the company, but rather a feeling
of interacting with anexceptional, and exceptionally likable, person. Some of us heard
him describe his life-long ambition as that of becoming “a jack of all trades and master
of one.” He was indeed a man of numerous talents and accomplishments; and his
mastery extended considerably beyond his chosen specialty of acoustics.