Cyril Grivet worked at Carnegie Institution on Stanford campus
by Heather Rock Woods and Tracy Jan
Cyril Grivet dreaded turning 50. "He was very apprehensive about it. He said no good surprises happen after 50," said his close friend Carol Prevost, who works in Princeton, N.J.
Grivet, a Menlo Park bachelor who loved playing tennis and living in California, was among the 230 people aboard TWA flight 800 which exploded shortly after leaving John F. Kennedy Airport bound for Paris on July 17. The plane crashed into the water off Long Island. There were no survivors.
Federal investigators are examining several possibilities, including that the explosion was an act of terrorism.
A French native born in Paris, Grivet was heading to France to see friends in Paris and his family at their vacation home on the French island L'Ile aux Moines. He traveled to France several times a year.
"He was always courteous in tennis and other things. He was a very gentle and friendly fellow," said Darwin Patnode of San Carlos, a friend of Grivet's for 13 years and a regular tennis partner.
Patnode drove Grivet to San Francisco International last Wednesday for an 8:40 a.m. flight to New York. "In the car he was in a very good mood--looking forward to having a vacation, to seeing his mother, and to go windsurfing."
Grivet would have turned 50 in December.
A permanent U.S. resident, Grivet was a senior lab technician at the Carnegie Institution located on Stanford campus, where he worked the last nine years.
"He was a superb computer specialist, extremely gentle, with a marvelous sense of humor. This place is in shock. It's just an awful loss," Winslow Briggs, director emeritus of the Carnegie Institution, said Friday. Briggs hired Grivet.
Grivet received an engineering degree from the prestigious Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. Then he studied at Stanford from 1969 to 1978, earning two master's degrees--in math and statistics--and a Ph.D. in applied earth sciences.
At Carnegie Institution, Grivet researched global climate change in the department of plant biology. He built and ran scientific equipment for the field and the lab, and worked with complicated math problems, including computer simulations of global change.
As well as technical expertise, his colleagues and friends remember Grivet as an avid tennis player in "perfect condition," who also loved to hike, sail, windsurf and ski.
"He said that he missed his family but he just absolutely loved California and all that it offered," said Kris Zavoli, a Palo Alto resident and fellow member of the Palo Alto Tennis Club.
Zavoli had just met Grivet at a tennis tournament the weekend before his death. "He was somebody who touched me immediately. Needless to say I was really disturbed to learn" about the tragedy, she said.
Patnode said Grivet was a vegetarian and interested in politics and drama. "He was fond of Shakespeare even though he was French. He led a life of high ethical standards."
Grivet's colleagues learned about his death Thursday morning when Prevost, his longtime friend and sometime girlfriend, called.
Prevost and Grivet's family had to wait what "seemed forever" before TWA confirmed he was on the plane. "He always flew TWA because he had mileage with them, so I feared the worst," Prevost said.
"Even though he was trained as a scientist, he loved writing," said Prevost, a Stanford graduate. "He had just translated his favorite children's book, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," into French in rhymes. He submitted it to an editor in Canada and was looking forward to hearing back when he returned."
Graduate student Catharina Casper-Lindley saw Grivet Tuesday night a week ago at their weekly tennis session. After the game, Grivet left to pack for his trip.
"On Tuesday he told me he stopped rock climbing because he didn't want to put his life in danger. He stopped 10 years ago. He told me why (he stopped) because I told him I started," Casper-Lindley said.
Grivet lived in an apartment building on Fremont Street near downtown Menlo Park. Steve Webster, his neighbor for seven years, said Grivet was a private person. "He was very scientific. He would give us fruits and vegetables regularly."
"This is very upsetting to me right now," said Webster, who, like many, didn't learn of Grivet's death until Friday.
Carnegie Researcher Greg Colello worked closely with Grivet for five years. "After hours we spent time talking about philosophy and problems in life. That's the part I'm going to miss about Cyril."
Grivet's friends found his dental records in his apartment last weekend and shipped them to New York to help in identifying his body.
Grivet is survived by his mother, Therese Grivet of Paris; his brother Jean-Philippe Grivet of Orleans, France; his sister Francoise Grivet of Paris; and five nephews and one niece.
His friends here are planning a memorial service for sometime between Aug. 15 and 20, when his family comes to the area.
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