IIASA Employee Number 1

By Martha Wohlwendt

IIASA’s Alumni Association is hosting its first Alumni Day on April 29, 2014, and we are inviting alumni to send their memories and photos of their time at IIASA. Our first post comes from Martha Wohlwendt, IIASA’s first employee, Executive Secretary/Administrative Assistant in the Director’s office.  To contribute, please contact IIASA Development Assistant Deirdre Zeller.

From left to right: Martha Wohlwendt, Howard Raiffa, Vivien Schimmel

It was October 1972 when I joined IIASA.  My first few days at the office,  then located  in Vienna’s 3^rd District, were a bit confusing since there was only a lawyer taking care of matters.  The first IIASA director, Professor Howard Raiffa, and the secretary, Dr. Andrei Bykov, had been travelling back and forth from their respective countries but had not yet arrived to stay.

Andrei Bykov took office shortly thereafter, then Professor Howard Raiffa  and his wife Estelle arrived and with them his secretary Margot Sweet and his first assistant, Mark Thompson with his wife Elizabeth.  In the weeks and months that followed,  the initial team grew: we were joined by Prof. Letov, IIASA’s first Deputy Director, Silver Newton, Ruth Steiner, Julyan Watts, Vivien Schimmel, Claudia Staindl, to name a few.  A personnel system was needed, and one of the first steps was to develop a staff numbering system.  I was given number 001, as the first IIASA staff member.  Andrei Bykov was to receive 002, but it was agreed by all that, because of his good looks and his nationality, he should be given 007.

The small IIASA team then moved to a beautiful villa in Baden – Haus  Rosenauer – from which IIASA operated for almost a year.  In the early spring of 1973 Howard Raiffa and I moved into the first office available in the Schloss – his office.  Shortly thereafter approximately 10 more offices were handed over to IIASA.

My first Council Meeting, in January 1973, was quite an experience.   We were very few and so much to do!  You would see Andrei Bykov and me photocopying, sorting and then delivering the  meeting documents to the participants in their hotels in my little Volkswagen Beetle.  We also drove Council members from the airport to the hotels and back.  Prof. H. Koziolek and his assistant, from the Academy of Sciences of the German Democratic Republic, had to squeeze into my Beetle from the airport to the hotel and then to IIASA.

Howard and Estelle Raiffa, with their warmth and appreciation for others, instituted a strong feeling of family which so many of us still remember today.   They often invited the small staff to their apartment in the Operngasse for dinner, and Estelle would serve some of her delicious homemade dishes. It was during these years that we had the first 4^th of July picnic organized by IIASA staff from the United States, the unforgettable celebration of the October Revolution, organized by  the staff from the Soviet Union, the International Dinner, at which time all of us brought a national dish from our home country, the wine and cheese parties, the beer parties, and other IIASA events, some of which continue to this day.

Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.