Page 7 - Annual Report 2017-18
P. 7
Ethan R. Allen, DO, accepts the Lifetime Achievement Award.
WesternU honored osteopathic pioneer Ethan R. Allen, DO, with the Lifetime Achievement Award. Allen
was a major force in the creation of the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific and has served on
the COMP (now WesternU) Board of Trustees since its inception in 1977.
Allen graduated from the University of Wyoming in 1943 with an electrical engineering degree and made
electric motors for the B-29 airplane for General Electric. He was recruited, along with 30 other young
engineers, for the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb. He was drafted into the military in
1944 and trained in the Navy in San Diego and Corpus Christi, Texas. He served in the Navy Air Corps as a
radio and radar technician.
His career change from electrical engineering to osteopathic physician took place because of a
“happenance,” which Allen explained is a conversation, a book, or an event that changes the course of
your life.
He was talking with another engineer about the book “The Phenomena of Life: A Radio-Electric
Interpretation” by George Crile. His colleague said, “Well, if you’re thinking about your electrical
engineering being able to help people, maybe you ought to become a doctor.”
That book and that conversation changed the course of Allen’s life, and as a result, affected all who
graduated from and work for WesternU.
“So I hope sometime you may look back on your lives, each and every one of you, and think about what
happened, by someone, or some event that changed the course of where you were going, and you have a
happenance,” Allen said. “And I hope even this evening, with all of the students and their activities and
their participation and their visible presentations, that all of you have a happenance tonight.”
Annual Report | 2017 – 2018 5
WesternU honored osteopathic pioneer Ethan R. Allen, DO, with the Lifetime Achievement Award. Allen
was a major force in the creation of the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific and has served on
the COMP (now WesternU) Board of Trustees since its inception in 1977.
Allen graduated from the University of Wyoming in 1943 with an electrical engineering degree and made
electric motors for the B-29 airplane for General Electric. He was recruited, along with 30 other young
engineers, for the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb. He was drafted into the military in
1944 and trained in the Navy in San Diego and Corpus Christi, Texas. He served in the Navy Air Corps as a
radio and radar technician.
His career change from electrical engineering to osteopathic physician took place because of a
“happenance,” which Allen explained is a conversation, a book, or an event that changes the course of
your life.
He was talking with another engineer about the book “The Phenomena of Life: A Radio-Electric
Interpretation” by George Crile. His colleague said, “Well, if you’re thinking about your electrical
engineering being able to help people, maybe you ought to become a doctor.”
That book and that conversation changed the course of Allen’s life, and as a result, affected all who
graduated from and work for WesternU.
“So I hope sometime you may look back on your lives, each and every one of you, and think about what
happened, by someone, or some event that changed the course of where you were going, and you have a
happenance,” Allen said. “And I hope even this evening, with all of the students and their activities and
their participation and their visible presentations, that all of you have a happenance tonight.”
Annual Report | 2017 – 2018 5
