Paul Faust

Paul Harry Faust (Chemistry, Throop, 1941) passed on at his daughter Betty’s home in the southeast of Mexico on January 13, 2021.  He would have been 102 this April.  After graduation, he worked as a chemical engineer in Mobil Oil beginning in the Torrance refinery (Los Angeles, CA) until he retired in 1982 as an executive in the division of Supply and Distribution in Falls Church, VA.  In between, he worked for nearly twenty years in the company’s headquarters in NYC.  His wife Patty (Iva Pearl Wammack) attended Pasadena City College and UC Berkeley, studying food chemistry. They met at the dancing classes Caltech conducted for its all-male students, inviting women students from PCC.  They continued to enjoy dancing throughout their 72 years of marriage.  They also enjoyed attending the Alumni Seminar Day along with their children, grandchildren, and old friends. They traveled to Europe, Africa, Alaska, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala and Panama.  In between trips, they were active in the local Presbyterian Church and developed beautiful flower gardens and a bountiful orchard.  They both volunteered to tutor first graders who had difficulties learning to read.  They each had their own charities and did other volunteer work.  He participated in Rotary Club and supported the Salvation Army, national public radio and television, and a San Diego program that provides meals for the hungry.

Paul passed on to his children and grandchildren his love of anthropology, astronomy, geology, chemistry, biology, photography, poetry, travel, and history, with frequent references to what he learned from his professors at Caltech.  A Pasadena native, he had roamed both the Caltech campus and the Huntington Library from childhood, and often took his children and grandchildren to visit both. His German-speaking mother (Louise Marie Koehler from Suhl, Germany) presented him to Einstein at age 8.  His respect for Einstein grew with time, as did his admiration for two professors with whom he worked as a research assistant: Linus Pauling and Laszlo Zechmeister.  He was included as an author on a couple of scientific articles while still a student.  After graduation, he began to write technical articles for petroleum industry journals, which contributed to his promotion into management. His fascination with scientific research continued throughout his life.  Well into his 90s, he was enthusiastic about visiting his eldest daughter’s anthropological research project in Mexico.  

He is survived by three children (anthropologist, dentist and artist-printer), six grandchildren (director of nursing, executive for new technology firms, financial investment analyst, environmental scientist/engineer, published poet plus manager in a law firm, and a program administrator for the State of New York Department of Health).  There are also 5 great-grands (teacher of English as a second language, produce manager, bartender, art student, and a one-year old), plus there is one great-great grandson who will be 8 this February.   He delighted Grandpa Paul with a geode for his 100th birthday.  

Paul’s many relatives and friends loved him very much and will miss him, but we carry with us a wonderful example of how to live a good and long life, full of explorations of the world around us, and with an appreciation for science that Caltech gave to Paul.