ONR welding research consortium funding (1980, MIT)

Reagan administration gave ONR more money but no new head count, forcing larger contracts. First went to Penn State on piezoelectric ceramics; second to Tom at MIT — nearly $500K/year. Tom subcontracted Professor Hart's first contract. GM canceled their separate funding after finding 35/39 spot-weld root causes were maintenance issues, but Buick-Oldsmobile-Cadillac picked it up.

Halfway through the 1980s I was being funded by General Motors, Ford, and International Lead Zinc — a little consortium. I'll tell you why. In 1980, the U.S. Navy Office of Naval Research decided, we've got someone at MIT who's interested in welding, we have welding problems, we're going to fund him. The Reagan administration started giving them more money but no new head count. So they had to give out bigger research contracts. The first place they did it was at Penn State, on sonar materials, piezoelectric ceramics. The second was MIT. They gave me at the time almost half a million dollars a year, which today would be like a two or three million dollar a year contract.