User:Scott Tillinghast, Houston TX

I was born 20 September 1941 in Galveston TX, but lived there just a few months. I have lived most of my life in Houston. I graduated from the Kinkaid School in Houston. One of my favorite teachers was Doyne Holder, who must have ultimately inspired my interest in algebraic number theory, when he told of how Niels Henrik Abel proved there were polynomials not solvable by radicals.

I got a B. A. (1963) and M. A. (1966) from The University of Texas at Austin. I took calculus from Robert Lee Moore and several courses from H. S. Wall, both advocates of a socratic method of teaching. I was then an instructor one year at Blinn College in Brenham TX and two years at North Texas State University in Denton TX.

I did doctoral work at the University of Michigan and later at the University of Houston, but did not finish. Instead I went into computer programming, first with Harris County, then with Getty Oil Company, which in my last year merged with Texaco.

I was raised a Republican and was an active Young Republican in my college years. Then when I got out into the world I saw that I was in the wrong party. My debut year as a Democrat in Houston must have been 1972, when I worked to elect State Representative Ron Waters in the Montrose area. In 1992 I was treasurer of the Houston Gay/Lesbian Political Caucus. From 1995 to 2001 I served on the board of the Houston chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. From 2000 to the spring of 2008 I belonged to the Harris County Democratic Executive Committee, representing a precinct in NW Houston. In 2012 I was a Democratic nominee for Presidential Elector from the Texas 15th Senate District.

In my retirement years my main hobbies have been computers and mathematics. I program Intel processors in assembler language. My main mathematical interests are algebraic number theory and group theory.