The Eighth Tribe, 1976 (3. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1976-07-01 / 7. szám
Page 6 THE EIGHTH TRIBE July, 1976 Dr. I. S. Tuba: HBA NEWS JOE SELMECZI Mr. Selmeczi, a summa cum laude graduate of Polytechnic Institute of Sopron, Hungary, immigrated to the United States in 1956 after the Hungarian Revolution, mainly to find good medical care for a small son with polio. A specialist in hydrogeology, his first job (in Wilmington, Del.) was as a floor sweeper in a plastics firm. He was allowed to do some jobs “on the fringes” of engineering between other duties. Joe spoke Hungarian and had studied Russian, French, German and Latin for many years but hadn’t a word of English. As he was not yet an American citizen, he was laid off when the firm got a government contract to make shells for the first solid fuel rockets. The next jobs put him back in his strongest field. After working as a hydrogeologist for a well-drilling firm on Long Island, Joe got a job as chief chemist for a water conditioning company in Brooklyn. There he had to write reports on several water samples a day, which helped his English. In the next ten years Joe took advantage of every opportunity for professional growth, always “reading beyond” his jobs and picking up, in water treatment, the first two of numerous U.S. and foreign patents he now has allowed or applied for. (His first Dravo patents were in coal gasification and desulfurization and in sludge disposal.) After four years as technical director for a Western Pennsylvania water treatment firm he joined the Dravo Research Center staff in 1968 as supervisor, water-waste and hydrometallurgy laboratories. “Until I joined Dravo,” Joe said, “I had always worked for companies that could grow only by increasing their market share. But, Dravo has so many technologies that the company’s opportunities for growth are endless....” Creative Research At Dravo, Joe could put to fullest use his conviction that “research work well done and research work routinely done can be the difference between beating the competition and not beating the competition.” In his spare time, Joe writes and delivers numerous technical papers, is a gourmet cook and an extraordinarily effective indoor gardener. And when you go to his house for a ham supper, you don’t just get regular baked ham. He makes some kind of solution out of bay leaves and stuff and injects it into the ham with a hypodermic needle ... not by trial and error, you understand, but from a theoretical point of view. Joe lives in Mt. Lebanon, with his lovely wife, Ilona, who is a kindergarten teacher and a gourmet cook. They have two sons, Gabor, a college senior, and Gary, a high school student. Congratulations to Joe Selmeczi. * * * The Hungarian Business Association (HBA) is a nonprofit organization with the purpose of fostering cooperation and coordination among the dispursed Hungarians, (emmigrants, displaced persons, refugees; first, second and third generations, etc.) for the successful entry into the business community of the new homeland. In principles and operations HBA is similar to the Chamber of Commerce. The current membership fee is $25.00 a year, which also includes subscription to The Eighth Tribe, which carries the HBA News by special arrangement. Those wishing to become members of HBA or would like to have more information on HBA or MGT should write to the respective organizations, both at: 7129 Saltsburg Road Pittsburgh, Pa. 15235
