An Important Place, A Special Person

Two institutions are celebrating significant milestones in 2017.

Herkimer College, Herkimer, NY

My junior college, Herkimer College (formerly known as Herkimer County Community College) is marking its fiftieth year. 

I graduated from that college many years ago and went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree from Syracuse University. 

I met my future wife at Herkimer. 

It was an important place for me.  The College is marking the year with activities focused on fifty years of commitment to serving the educational needs of the Mohawk Valley region of upstate New York.

Dave Trautlein from the early 1970s when he served as Dean of the College, at Herkimer County Community College, now known as Herkimer College.  Photo from Factory 70 (Herkimer College yearbook)

The other institution reaching a milestone is my father-in-law Dr. H. David Trautlein, Dean of the College Emeritus, Herkimer College.   

Dave marks his ninetieth birthday in March.  He'll celebrate his birthday with his wife (my mother-in-law Angie) and his family in California. 

The couple gave up their Central New York snow shovels and moved to the Golden State last year.  His birthday celebration will unite four generations of family sharing reflections.

I have my own reflections. 

The memory I hold closest happened more than three decades ago. 

I’ll never forget the wide eyes and big smile.

There I was in Huntsville Hospital in the early 1980s, holding my newborn daughter.  She came into this world about six weeks early and required neonatal care. 

She was going to be all right, or at least that’s what the doctors and nurses kept telling me.  It was hard to see normalcy at the end of an image of tubes and wires that kept my little girl alive during these critical first days of life.

When my in-laws arrived from upstate New York, they wanted to see their first grandchild.  I took them to the hospital.  I went inside the neonatal unit where I scrubbed, put on my surgical gown, and sat down as the nurse placed my little girl in my arms. 

I looked at her for at least a minute before realizing that her grandparents were on the other side of the window looking in. 

That’s where I saw the big smile on the face of my father-in-law.

At that moment, I knew everything was going to be all right.  And it was.  My daughter celebrates her thirty-fifth birthday in March alongside her grandfather and me.

I was so taken by that simple act of a genuine smile that I wrote about it in my book Soft Skills for Hard Times:

“ That look of sheer joy on the faces of my in-laws told me everything was going to be all right.”

Dave Trautlein is third from the left in the top row of this picture.  He served in the US Navy in the closing days of World War II

Born as the Great Depression was winding down, Dave was the youngest in a family with four boys and two girls. 

He went into the Navy in the final years of World War II and was ready for action when the Japanese surrender was signed.  He then left the service, went to college on the GI Bill, and began building a life for himself.

He married Angie in the 1955 and they had three children.  He taught English in a western New York high school before accepting a post with Alfred Agricultural and Technical College in New York State. 

In the mid-1960s, he took a sabbatical leave and moved the family to Florida for one year as he pursued courses for a doctoral degree. 

He received his PhD from Florida State University shortly after accepting a new post as Dean of that new community college in Central New York.

I came into his picture a few years later.  As a student at Herkimer College, I met and fell in love with his oldest daughter.  We married in 1980.

 In retirement Dave enjoyed a number of activities including an annual fishing trip with his friends.  Photo from Dave Trautlein

Dave served Herkimer County Community College, until his retirement in the mid-1980s.  Retirement was spent traveling, visiting his grandchildren (there would be four in total), camping, fishing, reading books (as well as the Sunday New York Times), writing two books, and listening to jazz.

I’ve learned a lot from this man over the years.  He’s been a great audience to my occasional outbreaks of laughter. 

I found out the best way to fold a cardboard box, why one should buy the best cut of steak for an outdoor barbecue, and learned why luggage expands to fit the size of the car trunk. 

And I saw by his steady attendance at the annual reunion, that family really matters.  

I hope I learned a lot by following his example. 

Dave wrote a history of Herkimer College's first twenty years.  He was recognized as one of the institution’s torchbearers in 2004. 

A scholarship endowment created by his oldest daughter’s family bears his name and embodies his core beliefs of what a community college should be. 

This year, the endowment will award its tenth scholarship to a deserving student.

His family will gather to honor him when he celebrates his birthday.  A lot of memories will be shared.

But for me, only one memory matters.  It's that image of a proud grandfather looking at his new grandchild for the first time.  That’s an image that will remain with me for the rest of my life.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced. 

He is one of several volunteer presenters at the Love Plus life skills program organized by Love INC of Greater Merced.  In the Love Plus program, he uses his book Soft Skills for Hard Times to offer ideas on increasing people's value at work and in their lives. 

The Soundtrack of our Future on the UC Merced Campus

Construction Project is Well Underway

On any weekday at the University of California at Merced Campus, there’s a distinct sound in the background.  It’s the noise from construction equipment moving earth and creating the long awaited 20/20 building project.

The 20/20 Construction Project at the UC Merced campus.  Photo by Steve Newvine

The sound is what you might expect from any construction site.  It can be the “beep-beep” of a heavy-duty truck backing up.   Or it could be the grinding of earthmovers as they carve into this one-time farmland.   

Way off in the distance, you might hear construction workers shouting directions as they guide the machines to the right places.

These are the sounds of an active construction site.  But for the students and staff at the UC campus, it is just another day.

“We hardly notice,” one student told me when I asked whether the noise bothered her.  Another student responded, “Until you mentioned it, I wasn’t even aware of it.”  

From the third floor of the UC Merced Engineering Building, the vastness of the 20/20 project becomes very real.  Photo by Steve Newvine

The 20/20 Project was approved by the local governments shortly after land use, annexation, and tax sharing agreements were agreed upon.  

As the sign along the walkway to the main campus spells out, the project will encompass one-point-two million square feet, include three new research laboratory buildings, seventeen-hundred new beds of student housing, fifteen-hundred parking spaces, a conference center, wellness facility, recreation field, and a new entrance at Bellevue Road at Lake Road.  

The buildings will be built to one of the highest energy efficient construction standards.

A construction fence keeps debris and dust from a busy walkway on the UC Merced campus.  Photo by Steve Newvine

The project cost is one-point-three billion dollars.  The first phase is slated to be opened in the fall of 2018.  The second and third phases will open in succeeding years.

From the perspective of the students attending UC Merced, the timeline could look like this:  a freshman entering next fall (2017) could possibly go to a class in one of the new structures by the time he or she becomes a sophomore.

That same student will enjoy the results of most of the full three phases of this project before he or she graduates in 2021.

 The pastoral landscape off Lake Road will continue to change as the 20/20 project moves along.  Photo by Steve Newvine

In addition to the work on the Lake Road main campus, downtown Merced is experiencing one of the largest construction projects in its history.  

UC Merced’s new Downtown Center is adding nearly seventy-thousand gross square feet of office space to the area across the street from City Hall.  

The three-story building is slated to open later this year.  

It will consolidate leased office space from around the community under one roof.  Conference and seminar rooms are part of that building plan.

Back on the main campus, the magnitude of the 20/20 project is stunning.  On a recent visit to UC Merced, I was taken aback by the sheer size of the construction footprint.  

It looks as though a second campus of the same size as the current one is being created before the eyes of everyone who takes in the view.  I was not in the community when the original campus was under construction, but this new project can give one the idea of what it must have looked like as machines ruled over the land and the buildings and infrastructure were constructed.  

Steve Newvine

It’s much like it must have been back when the campus was new- only this time there are thousands of students and hundreds of staff members around to see and hear it.  

And that takes you back to the sound:  the din of graders, bulldozers, and backhoes making progress at our UC Merced.  

Some would call it the sound of progress. Others might call it the soundtrack of our future.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced