Northwest College is losing a combined 268 years of faculty and administrative experience as a result of 10 employee retirements this year. 

An additional 247 years of experience at the college was lost last year with the retirement of 11 more employees.

“We’re losing a lot of institutional memory,” NWC President Stefani Hicswa said. “People kept telling me they were retiring, and I started to think, ‘Gosh...’,”

She said a couple of people said they felt comfortable retiring now, because the college is in a better place than it has been for years.

Those two groups of employees, plus several longterm employees who retired a year or two before them, “were the mainstay of our college leadership for many years. They will be greatly missed,” Hicswa said. “You can never replace the 30 years that Ron Hitchcock has, or that Duane Fish has, or that Craig Satterlee has.”

Fish, who taught, coached speech forensics and served as a division chairman at Northwest, said, “I wouldn’t have stayed for 39 years if I didn’t love it. I enjoyed tremendously the people and the students. They always kept me going and energized.”

He said receiving the Distinguished Service Award from the American Forensics Association was a highlight of his career.

“At the time, I was the only community college representative that had won that,” he said. “Most (award winners) are from big-name universities.”

Fish said he has wonderful memories of students, and he has kept track of them — and vice-versa — over the years. Many of them helped organize and attended a surprise retirement party for him last month, he said.

Satterlee taught photography at Northwest for 36 years.

“I never intended to be an educator,” Satterlee said. “I kind of fell into this and now I love it, and I can’t imagine doing anything else. ... I have no regrets.”

Satterlee said he saw the photography program grow from 20 students to a high enrollment of 125 students. Now, many of the program’s graduates are distinguished photography professionals working in fashion, food, commercial and portrait photography, he said, naming several who work in the Powell-Cody area.

While there were things he still wanted to accomplish, Satterlee said he felt it was time to retire.

Floyd Young came to Northwest 31 years ago, as the college’s wrestling coach. Then, in 1991, he injured his back when he tripped over a barbell left on the workout room floor while he was moving a 100-pound weight. He lost his coaching job as a result, but then was rehired as a math and PE teacher, and “I never missed a beat,” he said.

He was named the division chairman since 2001.

“I loved teaching at the college,” he said. I liked being the leader of the largest division on campus and helping teachers teach, so I just kept working,” he said. “When I turned 65, I decided not to retire.”

In fact, he kept working at Northwest until he was 75, and at one time, he planned to work until he turned 80.

That changed when his back was re-injured when the car he was driving was struck from behind at a highway construction site in 2011, and Young decided it was time for him to retire this year.

He wasn’t alone.

“Some really good people have retired,” he said. “We’ve been there a long time, when you think of all of us.”

Hicswa said the large number of retirements over the last two years does present challenges.

“I blame SinClair (Orendorff, former NWC president),” she added. “He found really good people and found a way to make them stay. Now here we are, 30 years later.

“My only hope is that the president who succeeds me 30 years from now will have the same problem.

“We had incredible candidates for the searches” to replace faculty members, she said. “We hired rock stars to replace the rock stars that are leaving.

“The new hires, they are very highly qualified in their fields. They all want to teach for their career. They’re professionals in their field, so they have that high level of experience. So, even though many of them are young, they’re not green.

“What they do bring is just a rich background, and it will really bring some nice opportunity for the college.” 

The following are the Northwest College employees who retired in 2014 and 2015:

  2015

  • Allan Childs, professor of chemistry and mathematics, 30 years

  • Duane Fish, professor of speech communication and division chair for Communications, 39 years

  • Ron Hitchcock, professor of biological sciences, 27 years

  • Jan Kliewer, assistant professor of music, 25 years

  • Craig Satterlee, associate professor of photography, 36 years

  • Floyd Young, associate professor of physical education and division chair for Life and Health Science and

    Agriculture, 31 years

  • Roena Halbur, counselor, 31 years

  • Fred Renaud, facilities assistant, 22 years

  • Carol Zawacki, tutoring coordinator, 16 years

  • Becki Rodriguez, administrative secretary for academic affairs, 11 years

Combined years of experience at NWC: 268

  2014

  • Diane Martin, library coordinator, 26 years

  • Rob Koelling, professor of English and division chair for Humanities, 35 years

  • Deb Koelling, associate professor of English, 34 years

  • Mary Ann Wurzel, assistant professor of education, 25 years

  • Gary Sturmer, professor of political science and economics, 35 years

  • Steve Harborn assistant professor of biology, 32 years

  • Kim Mills, vice president for administrative services, 12 years

  • Deb Mills, interim career and transfer coordinator for Project Succeed, 5 years

  • Rob Stothart, assistant professor of  English and English as a second language, 13 years

  • Janice Gormley, division secretary, 14 years

  • Karen Fulbright, registration and records specialist, 16 years

Combined years of experience: 247