A teacher imparts knowledge to others as a profession.  He or she cares for future generations and wants them to use new insights to deal with their many problems.  A good teacher is learned, caring, enthusiastic, patient, and sets high standards.  Great teachers exceed these qualities; they affect others by planting ideas that blossom into something beyond all expectations.

Martin L. Stout was a great teacher.  He inspired ideas in the minds of those around him just as he cultivated flowers as an amateur horticulturist in his beloved garden.  Geology majors learned of both the applied and theoretical aspects of science and used Martin as a role model.  Nonmajors recognized science as a living, vital endeavor and discovered that the Earth really does play an important role in the human experience.

Martin was born on February 11, 1934 in North Hollywood.  The population of southern California exploded during his lifetime as housing and commercial development spread across the flood plains, into the hillsides, both stable and unstable, and onto every active fault in the Los Angeles Basin.  He witnessed the establishment of building codes, grading codes, channelization of rivers, and land use legislation to mitigate geological hazards in California.  Martin was fascinated by this decades-long drama of crisis and mitigation.

 Martin had a profound love of the out-of-doors.  This love was sparked by his family's move in 1946 from North Hollywood to the north shore of Big Bear Lake in the San Bernardino Mountains.  This beautiful setting was perfect for camping, hiking, and rock collecting trips during his high school years.

 In the fall of 1951, Martin entered Occidental College as a freshman geology major.  Field trips with Joe Birman and Mark Meier to Owens and Death Valleys set the stage for a life-long passion for field geology.  He was a teaching assistant during his junior and senior years, graduating in 1955.  He entered graduate school at the University of Washington and soon met Howard Coombs and J. Hoover Mackin.  Coombs was consulting for Seattle City Light and Mackin for the Columbia/Yakima Basin Authority.  Although he learned a great deal from both men as they introduced him to engineering geology, it was Mackin's active involvement of students with his projects that greatly influenced Martin's teaching style.  Years later, there was nothing in teaching that excited Martin more than taking students to a project site, having them inspect the trenches, and encouraging interaction with the technical staff.  Martin completed his Ph.D. in 1959 and went on a short, active-duty tour with the U.S. Corps of Engineers at Fort Belvoir, Virginia and Fort Lewis, Washington.

 Martin joined the Department of Geological Sciences at California State University, Los Angeles in 1960.  He rose rapidly through the ranks to full professor and served as department chair from 1970 to 1973.  As chair, he was instrumental in initiating the department's master of science program.  Martin set high standards and was well known for extensive use of the Socratic method of teaching.  His courses were very popular with both majors and nonmajors.  And, of course, he was prolific in responding to student needs, teaching courses in at least 15 different subjects.  His courses in photogeology, topographic map interpretation, engineering geology, engineering geomorphology, and paleoseismology were favorites.  These high quality courses enabled the department's masters program to be recognized for excellence in engineering geology.

As Martin rose through the academic ranks, his skills as an engineering geologist grew and were widely recognized.  His first professional opportunity came with a mapping project in the Conejo Volcanics on North Mesa near Thousand Oaks.  Martin loved mapping vents and defining flow stratigraphy and paleoslopes.  He soon joined Doug Brown at Moore and Tabor to define and solve geologic and engineering problems.  In 34 years of professional activity, he worked on over 800 projects, serving as expert witness for individuals, attorneys, corporations, and Cal Trans.  The important trait though all of this is that he brought what he learned through consulting to the classroom for the benefit of the students.

Field geology is the unifying thread of Martin's professional life, both as a teacher and as a consultant.  He absolutely loved it.  He taught summer field courses in Washington state's Cascades Mountains, the Henry Mountains of Utah, and in California's Sierra Nevada.  Day and weekend trips went to every point of geological interest in southern California.  He took groups such as the Association of Engineering Geologists and the Inland Geological Society to the Blackhawk Landslide.  Students quickly accepted his ethic that the best geologist has seen the most rocks.

Landslides held a special fascination for Martin.  Those around him couldn't help but see landslides where they had never seen them before.  He presented talks with titles such as “The Role of Landslides in Confusing Geology(ists)”, and published papers entitled “Mega-landslides: the bigger they are, the more difficult to recognize and mitigate Ð Is this why there aren't more of them?”  His research interest in slope stability, slip-surface geometry, and late Wisconsin and Holocene history of southern California, particularly the Blackhawk Landslide, is recorded in almost 50 publications and untold numbers of lectures.  His study of the Blackhawk Landslide was the first by an engineering geologist to use radiocarbon dating to determine slide history.

Martin loved to combine travel and field geology.  He fully appreciated the international quality of science.  A National Science Foundation Fellowship enabled him to spend the 1966-67 academic year in Norway and Iceland where he worked at the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute on a study of “quick clay” failures and erosion.  In 1970-71 he was awarded a National Advisory Senior Research Fellowship to work with the New Zealand Geological Survey and other government agencies to improve awareness of landslides and soil erosion.  This effort was instrumental in establishing the engineering geology program of the former NZGS.  An NSF field conference in the Rockies, an AGI field institute in Scandinavia, landslide conferences in Japan and Czechoslovakia, invitations to return to New Zealand, and field trips organized by his dynamic wife, Dorothy, to China, southern Europe, Britain, East Africa, Russia, and Indonesia exposed him to a lot of the world's geology and inspired more ideas on mega-landslides.  The unidentified person shown on the cover photo of the January 1, 1991 issue of the NAGT Journal of Geological Education with the famed unconformity at Scotland's Siccar Point is Martin Stout.

Science is frequently done alone, perhaps with a map and compass in the mountains.  Martin's skills here were unquestioned.  But scientists also interact and exchange ideas with others through professional meetings and organizations.  Martin was highly devoted to numerous professional associations.  Locally, he was a founding member of the Inland Geological Society, very active in the South Coast Geological Society, and past president of the Branner Club.  As Secretary of the Cordilleran Section of the Geological Society of America from 1973 to 1985, he carried enormous responsibility for the annual conventions and on two occasions convinced his home department to host the meetings.  He was a Fellow of the Geological Society of America and served two terms on the Membership Committee.  In 1980 he joined the 6-member State Registration Examination Committee; he help prepare the annual registration exam for geologists and certification exam for engineering geologists and geophysicists.  His enthusiasm never waned.  In 1992 he was program chair of the national meeting of the Association of Engineering Geologists in Long Beach.  In 1994 he was awarded honorary membership in the Association of Engineering Geologists and the South Coast Geological Society dedicated its Mojave Desert Guidebook to him.  Most importantly, Martin brought the benefits of all of this activity home to his students.  He took them to professional meetings, co-authored papers with them, and founded a student chapter of the Association of Engineering Geologists.

Martin retired from California State University, Los Angeles in 1990, but continued teaching until 1994.  Failing health had no impact on his enthusiasm for field geology.  In 1992 he initiated an out-reach field program for school teachers called “Let's Go Geologizing!”

All of Martin's qualities were combined with infectious good humor and a true love of people.  On September 23, 1994 Martin succumbed to a seventeen year battle against cancer, during which he taught those around him about life itself.  His memorial service was held in the garden that he so carefully nurtured and that was a metaphor for his life.  One of the most moving statements came from a surprise guest, a young window washer: “I didn't know Martin very long - only one day.  But during that day I came to love him.  He showed appreciation for the work I do.”

                                                                                                Robert J. Stull

Stull, R. J., 1995, Memorial - Martin L. Stout 1934 - 1994: Jour. Geol. Education, V. 34, p. 258-259.