Subsequent to finishing his doctorate, Harsh accepted a position with the College of Texas space science division, eager to move back to Texas. However, UT had to call Stern to inform him that they no longer had a position for him due to a cut in funding.
“For the start of my logical vocation, that was a quite terrible blow since I had previously told every other person no,” he reviews. ” I never considered this could occur, so I didn’t have a backup plan.
This “fiasco,” as Harsh calls it, would seal Harsh’s future in one significant way — associating him with SwRI. Harlan J. Smith, the longtime director of the McDonald Observatory at UT, contacted his friend Jim Burch, who had just established SwRI’s Space Science Division in San Antonio in 1985, in the hope of keeping Stern in Texas while UT sorted out its funding.
Harlan passed away in 1999, and Stern never returned to UT. However, Stern attributes much of his career’s success to him.
He stated, “Once I got to Southwest, it turned into my entire career.” It just totally ended up working.”