I found a nice fix to make this happen in the feature request forum
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/feature-req-media-view-default-view-image-size?replies=13
This bit of code for functions.php
https://gist.github.com/fishnyc22/5593693
It was only a week later I discovered it breaks JS drop down functionality in the Admin. Not sure if something changed when I updated to 3.6.1.
Is anyone else using this function successfully?
Thanks in advance!