To the Chair of BBE and the Caltech Administration:

On March 16 of this year, our dear friend and colleague, William Lease passed away just a few days before he would have turned 84 years-old. While he may have been officially known as “Biology Stockroom Supervisor”, those of us who had the pleasure of knowing and working with Bill know that he was much, much more. Faculty, staff and students alike found that Bill was part of the Biology Division’s, and later BBE’s, “secret sauce” that actually allowed the Division’s insight and ingenuity to flourish. He not only ran the stockrooms, but also fully built out the labs of new faculty, greased the skids on new equipment acquisitions, served as a friend and mentor to grad students and postdocs, was a “fixer” in any number of situations (having worked in the Division since 1965, he knew “where all of the bodies were buried!”), and was a vital element in our social fabric (think beer hours, softball, and parties at Prufrock House). To this end, we the undersigned, together ask that Bill please be memorialized appropriately, and we are willing to contribute to this. Please seriously consider a publicly visible and permanent acknowledgement of Bill Lease’s long-lasting contributions to the Biology Division/BBE in so many dimensions, and of his enrichment of our lives.

(NOTE: We are not collecting donations at this time. Any donation made at the prompt goes to iPetitions and NOT to a proposed memorial!)