In the fall of 2005, Bob got a
contract assignment: process engineering study in Bellingham, WA on modifications required for BP
Cherry Point
refinery to process Canadian
extra-heavy crudes. Since he was there alone on "bachelor status", made
good use of his spare time by offering to teach courses at
Western
Washington University using my career GIS and planning skills.
CLASSES FOR UNDERGRADS
These were both in the "Urban Planning and Sustainable Development"
department within Huxley College of the Environment. One was an
"Introduction to Planning" course on behalf of
Nick
Zaferastos who was going on sabbatical. The other was an "Advanced
GIS" 400-level class, working in groups on selected topics.
Bob split their EGEO-452 "Advanced GIS" students into two separate
topics. One team created a decade-by-decade timeline map of development
around the
Bellingham Harbor, with clickable map-links to maps, historic photos and text about
buildings, some now long gone.
The second was a larger group of several teams working on a study for a
proposed town center for Birch Bay, a coastal tourism and retiree
village near the Canadian border. Whatcom County Planning & Development
were impressed enough by this study to feature it on their
website.
DEVELOPING GRAD INSTITUTE
Right before he was due to go back to Texas in summer 2006, a
tempting opportunity arose. The governor of Washington had secured
funding for a new graduate Institute at WWU, and he was invited to apply
to head it up. The idea was tempting, but had been gone from family
many months already, and was not quite ready - at that time - to go back
fulltime into academic life far from them, while we still had
responsibility of aging parents to take care of.
Bob is so glad to see what became the
Resilience Institute looks to now be well-established, facilitating
"scholarship, education, and practice on reducing social and physical
vulnerability to natural hazards through sustainable community
development"planning and regional coordination.
