Caltech President Jean-Lou Chameau with the board

Caltech President Jean-Lou Chameau received an unusual gift from a longtime friend at Georgia Tech this week: a surfboard.

Patty Bartlett, the director of federal relations at Georgia Tech, who has been a friend of Chameau and his wife, Carol Carmichael, for about 14 years, purchased and shipped him the gift for several symbolic reasons.

She hopes that the board, which is orange on one side, to symbolize Caltech, and yellow on the other, to symbolize Georgia Tech, and includes logos of both schools, will represent not only his new home in California, but also some of the extreme sports Chameau has participated in over the years.

"He's a guy who likes exciting stuff. He has actually skied off the Alps and parasailed to the bottom, so I'm not sure I want him to hurt himself going surfing, but I figured that if he had a quiet day there in Pasadena, he could look at that surfboard and decide to head out to the coast and go for a surfing lesson," Bartlett said.

It was also a way for her to show her appreciation for Chameau, who hired her at Georgia Tech and served as a mentor to her. "He and Carol are two of the most memorable people in my professional and personal life. I just wanted them to know that I miss them terribly, and I wanted to find something unusual to fit this very unusual guy."