dr hans a schuessler was honored at a luncheon yesterday (may 5) for his donation to texas a&m university which combined with a donation from george p mitchell 40 and matching funds by the heep foundation establishes the schuessler/mitchell/heep chair in experimental optical and biomedical physics distributions from this endowed fund will be used to support the work of the faculty chair holder and can be used at the chair holders discretion to advance the programs of the department of physics the department is on the verge of several ambitious projects schuessler said i wanted to help these projects along i am very grateful to all my teachers colleagues and students with whom i have worked all made possible by a&m and i am very happy to be a part of this institution schuessler said he made his donation to honor both his late first wife renate as well as his wife zoreh both were instrumental in helping him in his work dr hans schuessler (center) is joined by his wife zoreh (l) and financial planner denise fries (r) at the luncheon honoring his gift to the department of physics the chair is part of the heep matching funds program at texas a&m and will be credited to the one spirit one vision campaign at the university the establishment and endowment of the heep foundation was the culmination of more than a half century of legendary devotion to texas a&m university by herman f and minnie belle heep herman f heep 20 served on the board of directors of the texas agricultural and mechanical college system from 1957 and at the time of his death in 1960 he held the position of vice president of the board in addition heep was a founder of the texas a&m development foundation serving as its chairman from its creation in 1953 until his death he bequeathed a substantial sum to the permanent assets of the development foundation and also contributed generously to the association of former students until her own death march 21 1993 mrs heep continued to make numerous significant contributions to texas a&m university in addition to her enduring gifts to the heep foundation the heep foundation has enjoyed the success of the matching fund program aimed at enhancing the endowed positions within the college of science and elsewhere said james b bond president of the heep foundation it is always rewarding to see the funding of third party donors be enhanced to a status deserving special recognition when the product of that generosity reaches the level of a million dollars and creates an endowed chair it is a signal event when the third party generosity comes from an esteemed member of the faculty such as professor hans schuessler whose gift gave origin to the final funding of this chair the heep foundation is unusually proud and pleased to be a part of the process schuesslers work is world renowned he has served as visiting associate professor at the university of washington and visiting scientist at the university of mainz and gsi in germany he has been collaborating on research done at cern in geneva switzerland and currently is performing experiments at texas a&m in optical and bio-physics he is leading the laser laboratory at the texas a&m university institute for biosciences and technology in houston on-line nuclear structure laser spectroscopy at triumf in vancouver canada and stored ion spectroscopy at the max-planck-institute for quantum optics at garching germany he was awarded eminent scientist status at riken at tokyo japan for his contributions to study short lived isotope with a novel ion trap which he invented he is a fellow of the american physical society and a member of both the american and european physical societies and sigma xi friends family and coworkers came out to celebrate dr schuesslers accomplishments at texas a&m many of dr schuesslers graduate students were on hand to give accounts of his guidance and friendship don birkelbach development director with the college of science (left) and henry nemick director one spirit one vision campaign with the texas a&m foundation gratefully acknowledged dr schuesslers gift that will be counted in the campaign -atm-