Several decades ago, I had the good fortune of having a highly capable and effective boss. Dr. and Professor John Nemo was our outstanding Vice President of Academic Affairs at the University of Saint Thomas. I was head of the Engineering Department at the time but also the author of some academic studies that are now part of this website. John Nemo was a very close friend and a superb mentor of much of my academic work. Though John was of Italian heritage, he was also most notable as an acclaimed professor of Irish literature. At one of our many informal sessions, he suggested that much of my academic work contained altogether too much logic. He asserted that logic was indeed an important attribute particularly in a discipline like engineering, but logic did not move people or change opinions. Literature did that. Dr. Nemo explained, “Look at the books people remember – those that alter the paths of world history, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Devine Comedy, War and Peace, and others. You make some important observations in many of your writings, but not much will catch on with the population unless you can convert some of it to literature."

I am not sure that I ever rose to the expectations that Dr. Nemo had for me, but I did dabble. Here are a couple of examples that might be of interest.

Plays