[Wednesday: 4 early morning miles with the dog; Friday: 2.5 same; Today: 3 miles with wife and son]
When I was a student at Iowa State in the early 1980s I attended a local church where there was a good group of other students. And I got to know some very interesting people.
One man in the group was a graduate student from Minnesota. He was taking his PhD in Computer Engineering (I think). He was tall, with straight blond hair. He looked like he could be a really good viking if given a thick beard and one of those helmets with horns on the side (and maybe a bit of gym time).
But it just happens that this guy is one of those rare people who has both nerdish and social-organizer characteristics. He wrote a newsletter for the church students, and he has kept in touch with many of them over the subsequent 30+ years.
For the last few years he has been an intellectual property specialist at John Deere and also a technological leader keeping his eye on developments in high-tech agriculture.
Recently Deere named him as a John Deere Fellow and he is getting some well-deserved recognition in the form of biographical write-ups, etc.
I was working yesterday and heard some of my co-workers talking about patents and made reference to a person. I asked who they were talking about, sure enough it was Noel. I said, “I went to college with him.” And they were mildly impressed. (I went to college with about 30,000 people, I’m sure they thought. I left it at that.)