Richard Francis (Dick) Walters
Richard Francis Walters (Dick) died on Jan. 18 at the age of 90.
Dick was born Aug. 30, 1930, in Romania, the son of American parents. His father was a petroleum geologist in the Ploesti Oil Fields. Dick came to America when he was 9, and lived in Scarsdale, N.Y., during the war years. He graduated from Williams College, earned his master’s degree from the University of Wyoming, a graduate degree from the University of Bordeaux, France, and a Ph.D. in geology from Stanford in 1957.
After working for 11 years in the oil industry, he joined the UC Davis School of Medicine, working on computer applications to medicine in 1967. His career evolved due, as he said, to serendipity. He discovered his interest in teaching while he was a graduate student, and in the oil business started working with computers. Glen Snodgrass, a next-door neighbor in New Orleans, invited Dick to come to the newly opened School of Medicine at UCD to apply his computer knowledg