Kurt Byers:
CLASS OF 1970
Comstock Park High SchoolClass of 1970
Comstock park, MI
University of Michigan - Natural ResourcesClass of 1985
Ann arbor, MI
Allendale, MI
Kurt's Story
School
My four sisters and I attended Comstock Park schools from kindergarten through high school. I was into a lot of extracurricular things and did pretty well grade-wise.
Football was a major thing. It was a small high school, so due to the low number of student athletes, I had the advantage of playing both offense (quarterback) and defense (linebacker). Unfortunately, I suffered a severe knee injury early in the season my senior year, and didn't get to finish out the football career in a blaze of glory! A few colleges had contacted me after my junior year. But the knee was beyond repair, effectively ending any prospect of playing college ball. Flash forward to spring 2014: I finally bit the bullet and got my knee replaced after all those years of gradual deterioration. But it has not stopped me from pursuing my addiction...swing and ballroom dancing!
I was the student photographer for the yearbook, and still today am an avid photographer. Also did the student council thing and National Honor Society gig, and was president of the league student council, composed of 6 high schools. It's kinda funny, today I do a lot of special events planning in my job and in my volunteer work, and that calls into play the same skills honed during stints in various student government things, planning school events.
One of my most memorable experiences in high school was when I took French class from Howie Meyers, a teacher I had had for other prior classes, and he was my 8th grade basketball coach, freshman basketball coach, and JV baseball coach as a freshman. I didn't do very well in the French class, but I had a great relationship over the years with Howie. So on my final exam, I paper-clipped a $10 bill to my exam and handed it in like that. When I got my report card (C in French), Howie had written a note next to my French grade reading "A $20 would have done it." He and his wife were the Master and Mistress of Ceremonies in my first wedding a few years later.
Got a couple scholarships to college, Grand Valley State College Honors Scholarship and Michigan High School Competitive Examination Scholarship, and attended Grand Valley (now University) for two years. Did not enjoy that experience. Got married at age 22 to Rose Greulich, who had gone to Kenowa Hills High School and whom I dated my junior and senior years. I immediately bought into a mobile home repair company franchise which before long evolved into my own successful mobile home repair and accessory business in partnership with two other guys, who were twin brothers and U.S. Marine Corps Viet Nam veterans.
In the mid seventies, I suggested to Rose, who was pursuing her undergraduate degree at Grand Valley after working as a licensed practical nurse for a few years, that she apply to law school. She pondered the suggestion, decided to do that, and got into Wayne State University Law School in Detroit after she graduated from Grand Valley. I sold my share of my company to my partners and we sold our house in Grand Rapids and moved to the Detroit area for the duration of Rose's three years in law school. I found a decent job working for a mobile home accessory company to support us while Rose pursued her law degree. The plan was for me to return to college after she got her law degree.
College
Unfortunately, Rose and I broke up when she graduated from law school. But I stuck with my plan to return to college. At age 30 and with lots (maybe too much) real-world experience behind me, I carefully assessed my skills and interests in choosing a university. After being out of college for 11 years and Ârunning my business followed by working with a similar company in Detroit while Rose attended law school, I managed to get accepted at the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment in Ann Arbor. I became a proud Wolverine!
Having grown up in a country setting in Western Michigan near Grand Rapids doing a lot of hiking, fishing, and hunting almost literally outside the back door, I had a strong interest in outdoor conservation. I also had (have) artistic talents--drawing, painting, photography--as well as good writing skills. Considering all that, I discovered the Environmental Communication program at UM SNR&E.
Returning to school as a seasoned adult was a mixed bag. The intimidation factor was not there as it was when I went to college out of high school. But on the downside, with me at age 30, most of my classmates were very young. And I even was older than most, if not all, of the graduate student assistants who taught the discussion sections of my classes and most of the entire grad student population. So it was a bit lonely as far as a peer group and shared life experiences were concerned. Definitely not the stereotypical wild and crazy college life experience for me. Partying was never my style anyway.
Soon after starting back to college, I met a UM post-doctoral fellow biochemist, Poksyn Yoon, at Mr. Flood's Party, my favorite nightspot in Ann Arbor. Poksyn and I dated for the next 6 years. We eventually married soon after I moved to Alaska in 1988 and broke up in 1990. We never lived together as husband and wife. She stayed in Ann Arbor while I was in Fairbanks, she moved even father away, to Bost...Expand for more
on to continue her biochemical research at the Veteran's Administration hospital there. She died in 2008 while holding the job of science department head at a liberal arts college in Providence, Rhode Island. She was close to finishing her second doctorate when she died and the university posthumously awarded that second Ph.D., in university administration. So instead of my UM college classmates, she was the major focus of my personal and social life while I was going to UM and for the four years after I graduated.
While at UM, I served on the School of Natural Resources Student Policy Advisory Committee and otherwise worked hard to get the most out of my three years there. In my last semester, I got an internship as an editorial assistant at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Michigan Sea Grant College Program at UM. In three years, that job evolved into Associate Editor. That was the start of a satisfying 28-year professional career in science communications which I worked in for 28 years, with the last 25 years at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
I was one of only two undergraduates in the Environmental Communication program. My advisor, Rich Block, lost his job in a cost-cutting exercise my senior year, and SNR also eliminated the Environmental Communication program, which Rich headed. I basically was the person who "closed the door and shut off the lights" on the SNR Environmental Communication program when I graduated in the spring of 1985.
After the stuff I'd been through over the previous decade, graduation, with my family present at the UM football stadium on a beautiful spring day, was one of the most profound events of my life. Governor Blanchard, a Michigan State Spartan, delivered the commencement address.
I got a part-time editorial job with the UM Sea Grant College Program upon graduation in 1985. After three years working for UM, in 1988 I applied for and got the job of Communications Manager at the University of Alaska Fairbanks NOAA Sea Grant College Program. I worked for the University of Alaska Fairbanks until my retirement in July 2013.
A couple years after Poksyn and I broke up, I married Becky Carver, an art student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She's a superb oil painter. We found a house to buy but broke up before we moved in. I went through with the house purchase anyway and I still live in it today. So, three marriages but no children.
Sea Grant is joint federal-state marine research and education program. In heading the communications program, we published books and other information about Alaska's seas and coasts, sponsored marine science conferences, did a radio show, provided information to the news media, attended marine-related community events, trade shows, and conferences, and anything else that helped inform Alaskans and the rest of the world about Alaska's coastal and marine resources and the science that's done to better understand and manage those resources.
Soon after retiring from the University of Alaska in July 2013, in October 2013 I accepted the job of Marketing & Events Coordinator for Norseman Maritime Charters, which is based in Seattle. But I work out of my house in the woods just outside of Fairbanks, Alaska, Âa great setup! No commute to and from work, no staff to worry about supervising...Âjust do what I love doing, being creative in company communications with a fine company that does fascinating work in the North Pacific and Arctic oceans! The company operates two marine research ships, the R/V Norseman and the R/V Norseman II. Scientists and industry people charter our ships to conduct their ocean research. Before being converted to research vessels, our 110-foot ships were Bering Sea crab boats, like you see in the TV show, The Deadliest Catch. Our ships operate mostly in the Gulf of Alaska, Bering Sea, Chukchi Sea, Beaufort Sea, and Arctic Ocean.
My non-work passion is swing and ballroom dancing. In 1996, I founded the University of Alaska Fairbanks Good Time Swing Dance Club, and I'm a founding member of the Ballroom Dance Club of Fairbanks, Inc. I compile recorded music for swing and ballroom dances, find places to hold dances and organize the events, and occasionally give dance lessons and take dance lessons.
Among those dance events, for 12 years I hosted a weekly Saturday evening swing/ballroom dance at the Silver Spur nightclub in Fairbanks which had the best nightclub dance floor in Alaska. I pre-recorded 2.5 hours of music from my collection, and played the music for dancing from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. every Saturday, all year-round. The Silver Spur eventually closed, but two years after it shut down, I resurrected my Saturday night swing/ballroom dance at a new nightclub called the Rock N Rodeo. The current gig runs from 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. every Saturday. I do a special "Boogie and Blues Night" there every second Saturday of each month, indulging my personal love of those swinging musical genres.
I've got a comfortable little house in the woods about 10 miles outside of Fairbanks. It's located in a picturesque hillside setting amid birch trees and some spruce. I like working on the house and yard, occasionally dodging moose that often wander through the grounds.
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