Santa Fe Living Treasures – Elder Stories

<<Back to Treasures Index
Norbert Kreidl

Norbert Kreidl

GLASS TECHNOLOGY EXPERT

Honored April, 1988

Dr. Norbert Kreidl

My main interest in all my life from my ninth year on was teaching--in the widest sense, working with smart young people," said glass scientist, lecturer/consultant, and teacher Norbert Kreidl. As a nine year old he "procured a syllabus on how to teach first grade."

Born in Vienna in 1904, Norbert completed his Ph.D. in physics in the late 1920s. Trained in Germany in the science and technology of glass, he worked in the glass industry in Czechoslovakia for ten years. He came to the United States in 1938 with his young wife, Melanie, to escape Hitler's reign of terror. They arrived "with thirteen dollars and a baby." Norbert got a job teaching at Pennsylvania State University.