Tom is the Director of SCEC, which is a full-time administrative position, but he still does some fundamentally interesting research. His recent directions has been scaling of earthquakes from events recorded in South African gold mines, and the evolution of the continental crust and mantle. Both are knotty problems.

His research group is doing more applied but excellent work. They are mapping the structure of the basins around Los Angeles (and also Asia, somewhere in Africa, and Taiwan) with the latest tools.

Before moving to USC, Tom ran the Geology department at MIT for at least a decade, again with excellent results.

And he is most likely to discuss something he's calling the Center for the Study of Earthquake Predictability, which is likely to focus on seismicity and geodesy, but might consider ULF if proposed. Tom led the effort to evaluate KB's recent work, serves on the CEPEC and the reincarnation of NEPEC, whose rebirth he initiated.

So I'd argue that if there is anyone in the country able to construct and run such a Center, it is Tom.

John