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| Professor Andrew Brodie retires  A large crowd gathered in the MUSA lounge at Massey to formally mark the retirement of Andrew on Friday 1 May 2009. Simon Hall orated, Trevor Kitson made the presentation to Andrew and Carolyn, and entertainment was provided by a rather eclectic troupe called the Lacto Bikers. Simon Hall's Speech Simon Hall's SpeechFriends and colleagues, welcome to you all on this special occasion. For those who have not met me, I am Simon Hall from Chemistry in the Institute of Fundamental Sciences , and I have been asked to run the proceedings today. So, here we all are to celebrate, or perhaps commiserate about, Andrew's retirement. Andrew has requested that I give a brief speech, perhaps wary of the risk of ever more embarrassing stories being told, or more likely, due to inappropriate bashfulness about his career accomplishments. Inappropriate, because Andrew's career has been extremely successful. Before I start, I have a number of apologies for those who could not attend today, Peter Derrick, Geoff Jameson, Ken Jolley, Gavin Hedwig, Bob Parsons, Steve Kirk, Kee Teo, Geoff Barnes, Sir Neil and Lady Waters, Peter Lewis, Mason Durie, Ted & Heather Baker, Gill Norris, Geoff Malcolm, Toni Wilson and Paul Callaghan amongst others. Andrew, a Canterbury graduate, arrived back in NZ from a post-doc at University College , London to take a lecturing position at Massey in 1970. These were still the very early days of Chemistry at Massey. Andrew formed part of the second-wave of chemistry appointments. Some of the first wave are lurking in the audience here today. Ken Jolly told me that his first impression of meeting Andrew at a welcoming party was that Andrew was sober. Ken then pointed out that he had been celebrating a crucial rugby victory at Kimbolton and was far from sober on that occasion. Paul Buckley tells me that Dick Batt had originally decreed that Massey did not need an inorganic chemist. But then Geoff Malcolm successfully argued that biological chemistry needed inorganic chemistry, and Andrew was ultimately appointed. Well done Geoff for that bit of subterfuge. Inspection of Andrew's curriculum vitae suggests that he was some kind of model employee at Massey, with progression from Lecturer to Senior Lecturer to Associate Professor every six years. This suggests he must have been doing something right, and we will see this was indeed the case. Service to the community Andrew has not just been a Massey man, he has made considerable contributions to the wider chemistry community through his activities with the New Zealand Institute of Chemistry, including: branch editor for Chemistry in NZ; chairing the publication committee; member and chair of the Manawatu branch committee; member and chair of several NZIC conference committees; council member; and then ultimately his roles as vice-president, president and past-president of the NZIC. He has also played his part in the wider NZ scientific community with his council position in the Royal Society of NZ. Service to the University Not content with all these chemistry-type committees, Andrew has made a significant contribution to the operational well-being of this university, if there is such a term as operational well-being.. If not, remember where you heard it first. Andrew has served on the Professorial Board; Promotions and Appeals Boards; the Advanced Degrees Awards committee, and various roles with the AUT. We should also note his probably quite demanding role as Chair of the Ferguson Hall Trust. Research & Eric and wider collaboration One can't think of Andrew's research without thinking of the word collaboration. Of course I am referring to his long term collaboration with Eric Ainscough. Andrew arrived here in 1970, Eric in 1971 and their first joint publication came out later that year. Prior to that Andrew had had to be content with publishing with the likes of Jack Lewis and Cuthbert Wilkins. Andrew and Eric, or Eric and Andrew, as the order is interchangeable, clearly saw the advantages of collaborative research in this environment. Many have done so, but few have had such a long and successful partnership. This was recognized in 2007 with their joint award of the NZIC Excellence in Sciences Award. In that same year Andrew was also awarded the Royal Society Science & Technology Medal. We should note that today's event does not end their collaboration. They will continue to work together in the immediate future on their full Marsden Grant application. You have both my congratulations and commiserations on that one. Andrew and Eric have also collaborated with a large number of researchers in other countries such as Japan, the US, the UK, Germany, Australia and Oman. There is one potentially embarrassing story about Andrew's sabbatical in Japan . I understand that there has not yet been a satisfactory explanation for him receiving a large bundle of used bank-notes in that country. Eric and Andrew's work has led to a number of pivotal research developments: use of phenylcyanamide as a ligand; better understanding of metal-sulfur bonds; doing rude things to the geometries of copper(I) and mercury(II) complexes; and characterizing the iron-binding sites in lactoferrin, part of a ground-breaking body of work here at Massey on lactoferrin involving Sylvia Rumball, Ted Baker and Bryan Anderson amongst others. More recently they have been working on polyphosphazines for use as metal-rich scaffolds. Presumably the old hollow pipe scaffolding no longer meets specifications. Training - Roll Call It is all very well talking about research collaboration, but the people who actually get most of the practical work done in any research group are the postgraduate students and post-docs. Andrew, together with Eric, has trained a large number of these young researchers, not merely using them as lab-slaves, but training them in the techniques and inquisitive research skills that I am sure will have helped them with the careers, whatever directions they may have taken. At this point in the proceedings I would like to ask Ross Davidson, Andrew and Eric's most recent PhD student, to do Andrew the honour of reading out a list of his postgraduate students and post-docs. Roll Call (see below) Thank you Ross, we anticipate you joining that list again soon. We should also note that Andrew and Eric encouraged others in the wider university community to work with them. As a consequence you will find in Andrew's publication list co-authorship with the likes of Graham Freeman, Anna Wallace, June Husband and Russell Mathews. Leadership I think the largest impact Andrew has had on his colleagues is his leadership. Impacts can either be good or bad. In Andrew's case we are thankful they were benevolent. Andrew took on the role of Head of the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry in 1991 and was appointed Professor of Chemistry in 1992. For several years he managed and provided leadership to the team of chemists and biochemists that had evolved out of the former Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Biophysics. He probably thought he was getting on top of things, apart from a decided inability to appoint a replacement for Robert Brookes, when in 1996 the Department was split in two, and he became Head of the Department of Chemistry with Biochemistry going off on its own. I have no idea whether this made his job easier or harder. We might ask him to comment later. This was at the point I had my first face-to-face meeting with Andrew. I joined the department the day of the chemistry-biochemistry schism as the 4th replacement for Robert Brookes. Ever mindful that I was joining a new department, I watched with interest how Andrew operated. It was clear to me that Andrew saw his role as championing chemistry's cause in the University. He was not afraid of speaking his mind to the university heirachy, and often did so, and has continued to do so - usually to our advantage. One of the things that struck me immediately was that this department was a group of chemists that by and large got on very well with each other. I wondered what is the collective noun for a bunch of chemists? Two suggestions I have found on the web are a cluster'or a colloid of chemists. Anyway, feuding between factions was not a feature, unlike at many other institutions. I suspect in part this was due to the size of the department. You need a relatively large number of people to get a really good feud going but I think more importantly, it was due to Andrew's, and his predecessors', styles of management. It is often said that managing academics is like herding cats. Andrew did not try to overtly manage us, at least I didn't think he did, nor did he treat us like cats and put out bowls of milk and tasty titbits. I think he recognized that he didn't need to manage us, but to lead us instead. I am not the only one who has noted the cohesive behaviour of the chemists at Massey. As a new boy I was given the seminar convenor task, and visiting speakers both national and international often commented to me about the unusual nature of our group. Andrew's next change in leadership role was being appointed Chemistry Discipline Leader upon the dissolution of the Faculties and Departments. Andrew also had visions, not the sort that required pharmacological treatment, but new ideas. Paul Buckley wanted me to mention in particular that Andrew had the key idea to take Judy Edwards out of the teaching lab and get her involved in computer-aided learning. Of course we now take these developments for granted, but in 1991 this was a major innovation. While we are congratulating Andrew on his success as Chemistry Head and Discipline Leader, we should note that no one really wanted to take on the job after him. A too-hard-act to follow? Or was it the evident relief on Andrew's face when he stood down from the position? Roger Reeves took on the job under some duress for a time and then Ken Jolley had to be tricked into volunteering. Trevor Kitson is now in charge of putting out the bowls of milk and Whiskas at chemistry staff meetings. I have been sent a number of messages to be read out today. From Paul Callaghan: The early years you and I spent together at Massey were golden, and in later years, when we were both Heads of Department, I especially appreciated you as a great colleague and friend. And from Peter Gill: Andrew was largely responsible for my returning to New Zealand and he was a superb HOD for a young academic beginning his independent career. My research group flourished under Andrew's leadership and I was very happy during those three years Family We musn't forget that Andrew relied on others. I am speaking of course of his family, Carolyn and his children. One of whom, Sam, a former chemistry student at Massey, is here today. Thank you Carolyn for letting Andrew out to play with us for so many years. We'll be handing him back to you today in hopefully a not-too-bedraggled state. Andrew, I think you had five minutes in mind when you said a brief speech, I have clearly gone on for longer than that, by at least a factor of two. I had agreed to your request for brevity but then promptly ignored it. I thought that less than 8 seconds of speech for every year of service was a tad hasty and it wouldn't do you justice. Finally, if I could ask our retired chemistry, biochemistry and physics, and any other of Andrew's retired colleagues to come forward. Andrew, on behalf of chemistry and the wider community at Massey, I thank you for your stirling efforts throughout your career. We farewell you as Professor of Chemistry, but greet you as our new Emeritus Professor. Simultaneously, retired colleagues, please welcome Andrew as a new member of your throng. And with the rest of us, please raise your glasses with me in a toast to Andrew. Andrew Brodie's Past Research Students & Post-docs
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