His Payoff Is to Interest Young People in Science

Walter Clark is as refreshing as a cold drink of water.

Just ask him.

He might also say “I’m controversial and never dull,” “I’m absolutely correct in everything that counts,” and “I don’t have fun, which may account for me not being married.”

Clark, 44, does have an unusual lifestyle, considering he quit his high-paying engineering job two years ago at Northrop Corp. to become the unpaid president of the Youth Science Center at Ladera Vista Junior High School in Fullerton.

Clark, who worked at Northrop for 17 years, said he was waiting for a good excuse to quit because quitting was difficult for him. “The job was fun,” Clark said.

A Fullerton resident, Clark was also a ballroom dancer for five years but gave it up. “In five years I probably overdosed” on dancing, he said.

Now his aim is to interest young people in science, although he admits that he doesn’t particularly like kids. He would rather get into a good dialogue with an adult on just about anything.

“It seems when I am with adult people, the purpose is to debate,” said Clark, a classical music fan. “It’s not a search for conversation, it’s a search for truth.”

It irks him to see kids waste their time.

He remembers seeing a couple of hundred kids playing soccer right outside the youth center--”and no one was inside.”

At the center, children are invited to see and touch such science projects as satellite dishes, a horseless merry-go-round and a machine that sends electrons to light up bulbs held by the students.

The center is open Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., according to program director Michael Fogg, 33, of Moreno Valley.

“There’s no waiting,” he said. “We might have three or four people if we are lucky. The center is not yet well-known, and it’s sad that we have so few people visiting us. Everything here can be seen, touched and worked.”

Clark contends that science is not as popular as it once was.

He said he won first-place awards in science fairs all four of his high school years, and the last year also entered a laser in an industrial fair.

“Lasers are a big thing now, but not then when hardly anyone knew about it,” he said. “It gave me a big head. I assumed since I was doing well, I was a great scientist.”

The UC Irvine physics graduate has enough money to keep going for another year.

“After that I’ll take another job and make enough so I can quit again,” Clark said.

Clark serves on the boards of directors of the Orange County Astronomers, Assn. of Psychological Types and the Optical Society of Southern California.

His main interest, however, is the science center and his inventions, none of which he has completed. Or started.

“I write down things I invent,” he said, but claims he doesn’t have the money or time to develop them. “Everything I want to do just sucks up all my time.”