Summer 2011 - University of Massachusetts Lowell

A L U M N I L I F E
He first saw her in the Lowell Tech library,
one day in 1962 or ’63. He was two years
ahead of her, a physics major from Methuen;
she was from Pennsylvania, a major in plastics
engineering. She was studying in the balcony,
he remembers — he noticed her right away.
They went out a few times; he asked her to join him on a
ski weekend (he was on the ski team). The first day out,
she broke her ankle. The next day, he broke his. And
that, he says today, “was when the bonding really got
started.”
Paul Katen and Cheryl Vasey were married in 1968,
five years or so after that first library sighting. The path
they’ve traveled since — mostly together, occasionally
apart — has taken them from Florida to Colorado to
California to Oregon (with a two-year side-trip to Australia
by Paul), back to California, and now — finally, since
their retirement 11 years ago — back to Oregon again,
where they both remain very nearly as busy as when they
were pursuing their careers.
These were two careers that involved some pursuing.
Paul, an atmospheric physicist, worked in the early years
for Pratt and Whitney, received a Ph.D. in atmospheric
sciences from Colorado State University, then later was
on the faculty at Oregon State University (where he did
research on the physics of aerosol); then there were the
two years in Canberra, Australia, studying the impact of
coal-fired power plants, and a later stint as pollution
consultant to the City of Los Angeles.
Cheryl’s path, though nearly as peripatetic, is easier to
chart. In 1972, following a year or so with a start-up
whose name she can no longer recall, she went to work
for Hewlett-Packard in Colorado (“I was one of the first
women engineers in the business. We were a rare breed
in those days”). Over the next 28 years, as she rose
through the company’s engineering ranks, her responsibilities
widened: from automated tooling of HP’s calculators,
to managing its new inkjet project, to running the
project’s R&D side; and finally, to the post from which
she departed in 2000 — general manager of the company’s
Home Imaging Division, the branch responsible for production
of the company’s photo printers, cameras and
scanners.
“I was in charge of a lot of very complex projects,” she
says today. “And a big part of why I could do that, and
do it well, was my Lowell Tech background. It made me a
superb technologist.”
Their careers, though parallel, weren’t always a perfect
fit. Paul moved between jobs; Cheryl’s job moved her
sometimes between cities. But they adapted — and it
kept things interesting, both say. During the time Paul
was posted in Australia, remembers Cheryl: “We would
arrange to meet somewhere every three months. It could
actually be very romantic sometimes.”
Their retirement, from what they tell of it, sounds less
like retirement than a series of second careers. For Paul,
it has offered the chance to direct his physicist’s skills
toward preservation of the Oregon environment. A
defunct amusement park on what was once part of an estuary
on the Salmon River, abandoned decades ago, over
the years has crippled an ecosystem crucial to the survival
of many species, particularly the river’s salmon.
“This is an important habitat for them,” says Paul,
who now spends his days testing water quality, repairing
fish ladders and removing dams — all part of a $1 million
project, led by Salmon Drift Creek Watershed Council,
where he’s been a volunteer for close to 10 years, and the
U.S. Forest Service, to restore the site to its original
state.
“It gives them a place to hide from predators, and
gives them refuge during heavy rains,” so they’re not
swept out to sea before they’re ready. “It hasn’t been
there in forty years. We’re trying to put it back.”
Cheryl’s version of retirement has been just as full,
and at least as diverse. During part of her week, she
serves as a driver for Meals on Wheels, distributing food
and companionship to seniors along her stretch of the
Oregon coast. “It can be very gratifying work,” she says.
Another block of time, at least seasonally, is given over
to her work as a tax consultant for AARP — which, as
April 15 approaches, she says, can feel almost like a fulltime
job.
The final piece of her working life these days may be
the most fitting. Her job as a volunteer at the local
library, she says, keeps her in touch with an abiding
passion, one that stretches back to her Lowell Tech Days
and beyond.
“I love libraries. I always have. I love scanning their
shelves, pulling out books — a book here, a book there
— until you come across one you find absolutely fascinating,
a book you just can’t live without. That’s a wonderful
process. And for all the advantages of the digital age —
and there are a lot of them, I’ll be among the first to
tell you that — that’s just something that doesn’t happen
with computers.”
It’s a passion that hasn’t stopped with volunteer work.
The Katens’ recent gift to the UMass Lowell library fund
— the largest ever, at $230,000, to be divided between
money for technical journals and for a new learning
center — is a clear reflection of where their passions lie:
“It was in libraries, probably more than anywhere else,
that I learned how to figure things out for myself,” Cheryl
says. “I always loved studying there. A library is the heart
and soul of a university. That’s why we chose the gift
we did.”
What she doesn’t say, but just as well could have, is
that, for a couple whose life together began in the stacks
of the LTI library nearly 50 years ago, theirs is also a gift
that brings a marriage full-circle.
“IT WAS IN
LIBRARIES,
PROBABLY MORE
THAN ANYWHERE
ELSE, THAT I
LEARNED HOW
TO FIGURE THINGS
OUT FOR MYSELF.
I ALWAYS LOVED
STUDYING THERE.
A LIBRARY IS THE
HEART AND SOUL
OF A UNIVERSITY.
THAT’S WHY WE
CHOSE THE GIFT
WE DID.”
—CHERYL KATEN
S U M M E R 2 0 1 1 UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE 33