Frederick Terman may have died in 1982, but that didn’t stop him from hitchhiking across the country last summer. Terman, ’20, Engr. ’22, former Stanford professor and provost, was one of six Silicon Valley legends whose likeness was used for a traveling art project. Artist Jim Pallas created life-size wooden cutouts of each pioneer (with the exception of William Hewlett, ’34, Engr. ’39, and David Packard, ’34, MS ’39, who have a composite sculpture), each of which was fitted with a GPS tracking system. With the help of Julie Newdoll of San Francisco-based YLEM: Artists Using Science and Technology, the cutouts were left in public places with requests for passersby to help get them to specific Silicon Valley destinations relevant to their history. Hitchhiking wasn’t necessarily a fast mode of transport: late engineering professor William Shockley had to make only the brief trip from San Jose to Mountain View—four people and six days later, he arrived at Shockley Labs.
The Terman cutout began his adventures July 30 at MIT, where he earned his doctorate. On September 27, Terman arrived on campus to a small crowd. He was the last Stanford-related hitchhiker to return to the Bay Area.
