As the son of two Korean-American educators who earned their graduate degrees during the Great Depression, Mr. Park’s parents provided him with a unique foundation and perspective.
Mr. Park’s father, Dr. Joseph D. Park (1906–1988) was a renowned organofluorine chemist and professor (University of Colorado-Boulder) who earned his Ph.D. from The Ohio State in 1937 and his mother, Bernice “Bong Hee” Kim (1911–1993) was an English/semantics teacher who earned her Master’s degree from the University of Hawaii, also in 1937, when there were few people, much less Korean women pursuing graduate degrees.
As an apprentice engineer under Thomas Midgley, Eric’s father could be counted among those responsible for the effects of CFCs on the earth’s ozone layer, as well as being a pivotal architect of today’s modern Korea that caught up to and is now competitive with Japan, while his mother’s 1937 Master’s thesis, The Koreans in Hawaii is one of the earliest sources tracing how Koreans first emigrated to Hawaii (1903–1905) and on to the rest of the United States. (reference1, reference2, reference3.)
Eric’s childhood memories include a massive dictionary that was so big it sat on its own stand w/wheels, a complete set of the Encyclopedia Britanica that was impossible to read without the aforementioned dictionary and his own lab bench in his father’s chemistry laboratory at the University of Colorado. With such teachers as parents, Eric’s education was literally 24/7/365 — with scientific methodology from one side and semantics from the other.
“There was never a question about how or why something worked that my father couldn’t explain,” says Park, “including diagrams on his favorite media — paper napkins.” And although there were times when you wished you hadn’t asked the question in the first place, you always learned something you didn’t know — even if, by the end of the answer, you really didn’t care anymore. “It was like having my very own ‘Mr. Wizard’ - a view I know many of my father’s students shared,” says Park.
Although Dr. Park rarely taught undergraduates, occasionally he would teach a Chem 101 introductory class, which would be instantly filled with a long waiting list because of student word-of-mouth. In the class, Dr. Park would ask students to bring in various household items and he would explain the role of chemistry in everything from drain cleaner to baking soda to plastic wrap to aerosol sprays and Scotch tape.
Eric’s father was recruited by the US (Johnson administration) and Korean governments to bring his unique skills, experience and vision to create the post-Korean War partnership between Korea’s educational system and its emerging industry patterned after his own career — where his time was spent constantly moving back and forth between industry and academia — never losing sight of his personal view of the role of education — to apply what you have learned in order to make a difference in the real world. All of his graduate students were assigned research projects from Dr. Park’s industry contacts and he would even delay the final oral exams until the student had a firm offer of employment. (See page 389 of Origins of Korean State Science, by John Paul DiMoia.)
There is little doubt that Dr. Joseph D. Park’s contribution and vision had much to do with the technical and industrial excellence that is Korea today. His “suggestion” in 1970 for Korea not to join the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) served the country well. (Korea did not sign the treaty until 1984.) Dr. Joseph D. Park served as President of KAIS (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) from 1972–1974.
Eric was never able to sit in on one of his mother’s classes, as she retired from teaching to start the family, however from his experiences at home and meeting some of his mother’s former students — he knew that she too was a terrific teacher — albeit, more strict and authoritarian in her method of teaching than his father.
As a young, female Korean teacher in the Honolulu public school system in the 1940s, Eric’s mother was given the not-so-great (read “crappy”) assignments — with mostly what you would today call “problem students” (read “juvenile delinquents”). Picture a five foot two, 98lb woman collecting switchblades and other non-education related paraphernalia every day before class.
Eric says, “I know you’re thinking the same thing I did when I heard these stories — no way, right? And that’s what I thought whenever my mother would tell her stories about the depression and how hard it was and how ‘everything cost a nickel’…until one day she told me to go up to our attic and bring down the box with all the weapons she had confiscated over the years. And it was a pretty heavy box with at least 25 switchblades of various sizes, slingshots, and some other devices that were definitely not school supplies.”
“It’s difficult to imagine that anyone carrying these weapons to school could ever amount to anything,” says Park, “but having met the judges, lawyers, and teachers that were once my mom’s students — you understand the difference education and the right teacher can make in a person’s life path.”
Eric says, “Looking back, it appears that there is a logical step-by-step progression that has brought me to this place and time with the ideas that I’ve developed over the years.”
“I have always been haunted by my father’s favorite quote — ‘to see what everybody has seen, but to think what no one has thought’ by one of my father’s acquaintances, Albert Szent-Györgyi — actually ‘haunted’ isn’t the right word — more like ‘pounded into my brain’ would be more accurate,” says Park.
While not explicitly demanded of him — it certainly seemed expected, although his parents were genuinely concerned when so much of their son’s thinking was “outside the box” — and often caused problems. “I was raised in an ether of scientific method and semantics, to question everything, apply logic and imagination to determine hypotheses, then rigorously test those hypotheses and follow the results wherever they might lead,” states Park.
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