I finished college 40 years ago this month. Grinnell College of 1980.5
I graduated a semester later than my class because over the winter of 1979 I ski bummed in Steamboat Springs. Washing breakfast dishes in the morning and skiing in the afternoon, something like 110 days straight of skiing.
The Roaring 80s
After graduating I nearly stayed at Grinnell to work as a graduate assistant coach with a new coach of the track team. He had a stipend all set up and I could live in a dorm room for free. That coach was the now well known Will Freeman, author of Peak When it Counts (Peak When It Counts : Periodization for American Track and Field (4th ed): William H. Freeman, Freeman, William H.: 9780911521627: Amazon.com: Books), and several other training manuals. Had I known Will would accomplish so much as a coach, maybe I should have stuck around for a semester or two. I was leaning toward staying, but talked to a couple of my biology professors, and they said why stick around? You need to move on. So with mild regrets (then, maybe now) I did.
What follows is a guide to how I have spent my life since that decision, which I mad in early December 1980.
I went home to my parents’ house in Colorado and started looking for work as a wildlife biologist. The beginning of the Reagan era was not a good time to seek employment with the federal government, not to mention that we were in a recession and a period of malaise.
1981-84 I took a course in ornithology at CU Boulder, and found that wolf biologist David Mech was giving a lecture on campus. In his hour long talk he mentioned that he was looking for field technicians, with a degree and willing to work hard. The next day he gave a seminar, and I handed him a resume’ and letter of interest, and a week later he called back and asked if I could start in April! So I worked for Mech and “The Wolf Project” in Minnesota for a year.
Then I came back to Colorado and picked up the schooling with a summer at CU at their Mountain Research Station near Nederland, and CSU for the academic year enrolling in undergraduate courses in wildlife biology. Summer and fall of 1983 I worked for the US Forest Service back in Steamboat Springs, but over the winter I bucked my 1979 desires to ski bum again, and went back to CSU for another semester. By then I had amassed enough credits and experience to apply for graduate school, and I landed a research assistantship in the Department of Natural Resources, studying food habits of elk and deer. I started the program in the summer of 1984.
1984-86. Stayed in Fort Collins working with tame elk and domestic goats, feeding and mucking pens every day and many weekends while taking classes and doing research. That’s also when I met Tamara, an animal enthusiast, and she was smitten the moment that I told her that I had done research work on wolves and elk.
1987. I wrapped up my thesis over the winter, while taking one last stab at ski bumming. This time as a Nordic racer where I competed on the Rocky Mountain circuit and national championships. We got married and I needed a job.
1987-89. I landed a technician job with the Bureau of Land Management in Nevada, and we packed our bags on the 4th of July and moved out to the middle of nowhere in the high desert. I collected grazing data, worked on a couple of wild horse gathers, and did a season of habitat mapping. They offered me a career position, but we decided that Nevada was not for us and I applied for graduate schools and jobs across the country.
1989. I ended not going to graduate school right away, but landed a job as a research associate at Cornell University in New York, doing work on deer damage to ornamental plants in urban and suburban areas.
Next up! The Good Old 90s.
rrunnin234 