Les Brewer: I’ll introduce myself first. This is Leslie C. Brewer, the first chairman of the Board of College of the Atlantic. In the year 1969—

 

Donna Gold: And you’re talking about College of the Atlantic’s history?

 

LB: Yes.

 

DG: Are you going to be too hot?

 

LB: No.

 

DG: So, beyond COA I actually want to hear a little bit of your background. Where your—

 

LB: I’m a fifth generation Mount Desert Island resident. My forefathers have done some shipbuilding to other businesses and I grew up here, of course, and went to the local schools. And as a secondary school, high school period of time, is when Father Jim Gower and myself, of course at that time he and I were just students. Jim Gower and Les Brewer as freshman through senior year of our high school education and from that time he went his direction and I went in another direction to the University of Maine as an engineering student. And after three years at Maine, of course World War II started and I was taken from school and into the service and served about five years in World War II and how I returned and graduated from University of Maine.

 

DG: So, were you and Father Jim, were you friends in high school?

 

LB: Oh yes, yeah. Took the same courses all four years.

 

DG: Was that a college preparatory track?

 

LB: Yes, yeah. And I don’t know his experience right from high school going forward, but, he was in the Navy during World War II and I was in the Army. But we came from different directions. He came from some other school and I came from University of Maine R.O.T.C. program, and was in the service in Europe and I don’t know where he was. But, you’ve talked with him.

 

DG: Yeah, yeah, I talked to him

 

LB: So—

 

DG: I was just curious, so you were also captain of the football?

 

LB: No, no. I, He and I were both in football, as you remember that, during our high school days and we were both quarterbacks. And in our senior year, one of the games, I think it was down in Rockland and the person that was writing the report of the story, as I recall, wrote the story as if I threw a pass and the person that caught it ran for a touchdown. But it wasn’t, it was Jim Gower serving as quarterback and he threw the pass.

 

So, that’s all I remember about football, but we both did our own thing in our own way, and—

 

DG: He remembers you as being very studious.

 

LB: Well, I was valedictorian, and maybe I was valedictorian, maybe because other people who were very, very smart went to other schools eventually and didn’t stay there. I stayed there, so I finally was in that top position when we graduated.

 

DG: So what town did you live in?

 

LB: Bar Harbor, and so did Jim.

 

DG: And, and your father was a—what did he—

 

LB: He, well, my father was a—he had a business, a garage business and he also, with his father and brother, had an electrical contracting business and—but they’re just businessmen in the community.

 

DG: So it was generations back that they were, what was it, sea captains?

 

LB: Well, that was, that would be my grandfather’s father and uncles were in the building of boats. Shipbuilding business, and there is a, in the library here at the College of the Atlantic there is a—a genealogy that goes way back to the beginning of my part of the Brewer family that came out of Connecticut, came into Maine, and Massachusetts and Maine and eventually to Mount Desert Island and there’s a copy that my sister finished and wrote, sitting in the library. She gave it to the library after she published it.

 

DG: And so, how many were in your family? How many children were in your—

LB: Oh, no, just two sisters and myself.

 

DG: And, you were, you sort of came of age, then, during the Depression, right?

 

LB: Well, ‘29, I was born in ‘22, so I was seven years old in ‘29.

 

DG: Ok, So—

 

LB: The Depression, this area, or this island is a unique location. When it comes to College of the Atlantic, which we can talk about later on, I don’t believe you could have ever started a college of, or place of higher learning and been as successful as we have been here on Mount Desert Island. It’s the same way in the Depression years in ’29 through ’35, the Depression never really hit here until five or six years after it hit the cities because of the summer colony and the summer visitors, they still kept coming! And, therefore the businesses that was here in ‘26 and ‘27 and ’28 continued to be here in ’29 through the ’30—early ’30’s and we didn’t really notice it until probably five or six years after the actual ’29 Depression. So, as I say, the island is a unique place and then, of course, Acadia National Park did its development. The Jackson Lab, which is only 75 years old, did its development and all of those things now, are highly successful operations here on an island that still sees many, many visitors and still many, many people enjoy coming here and returning, year in, year out. I think the same thing is recog—can be recognized by graduating COA students. A great number of them have found the opportunity to stay here in the island area and I think that shows nothing more than the continuation of what has happened in years past. So, it’s a unique place to begin with and because of that it deserves COA, it deserves the Jackson Lab, it deserves Acadia National Park, it deserves the MDIBL, The Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory. All of these things find it, find a home here, easier then they might find it in other places. The MDIBL, I think, moved from down in the middle of the state to the island and in, in its history, Dr. Little who created the Jackson Lab had experiences both in Michigan at a college in Michigan, and he was a president at University of Maine. But, he met friends in Michigan, in the Ford family who then when he came and started Jackson Lab on Mount Desert Island, that was his relationships and the people from Michigan that supported the beginning of The Jackson Lab. It’s a small world.

 

DG: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

LB: But if they all come together here on Mount Desert Island. So, that’s the history that I have a very loose understanding of its—of it. I’m not going into depth, but I’m telling you some of the basics.

 

DG: So, so you were at UMO and you saw that the war was going to happen so you got into ROTC?

 

LB: Well, I was—you had to take ROTC in a land grant college.

DG: Ahh

 

LB: It’s required the first two years and the second two years you earn the right to continue if you do well in the first two years, and I had that opportunity to continue and of course from there they took us. Because we were in the reserves—

 

DG: Right.

 

LB: And they took us as juniors, after our junior year and into the service directly.

 

DG: How old were you?

 

LB: I was just twenty years old when I was taken in because I was in the service when, on my twenty-first birthday.

 

DG: And you served with what division?

 

LB: I served in the Signal Core, and I was in a separate unit which was detached from larger units and we just did the specialties that we had learned in the service and in my college education.

 

DG: So that means like radio?

 

LB: I was in, actually in, communications. Long-distance communications. And of course, I was an electrical engineer in college so it fitted very closely into my own education.

 

DG: But not codes, you were doing the, the hardware?

 

LB: Well, I did the hardware. That created—in fact I was in Paris, France when the Potsdam Conference took place and I helped create the circuits for President Truman to communicate from Potsdam back to Washington.

 

DG: Wow!

 

LB: Via Paris, France. They had to create different means of communications over and above radio communications. They also created land communications from Potsdam to London and then overseas by radio from London back to this country. So, I happened to be in Paris in the main office of the land communications and helped set up those circuits. So it’s a small world, again—(chuckles)—as far as I’m concerned.

 

DG: Right, right. That’s fascinating.

 

LB: So then when I came back and finished my college, ’cause I had one more year to do and then I finished that and went to Boston to work a year and then I choose to leave a larger company in Boston and come back to the island and go in the family business. And live here and enjoy what I’ve always enjoyed, living on Mount Desert Island. And that’s when Father Jim also was reassigned in the church to work here on the island. And if he hadn’t been assigned to work in the church on the island, then hadn’t reacquainted our, ourselves together, this might never have happened!

 

DG: That’s right.

 

LB: But he just happened to say one day, I’d like to do some work outside of the—my church work—and if there is something we can do together, lets get together. And so we did.

 

DG: What, so what is your memory of that conversation? You, he came to you or you came to him?

 

LB: We just happened to meet. On Cottage Street, right in front of my business. And—

 

DG: What number Cottage Street?

 

LB: 26 Cottage Street.

 

DG: You’ll have a plaque there someday—

 

LB: Oh, well. Can’t do it now, ‘cause I sold the building. But—

 

DG: The sidewalk.

 

LB: That’s right, right on the sidewalk. So, I just said, Well, I said, They’ve been trying for a good many years to start a school here on the island. But, I said, they haven’t seem to get to first base, they can’t get going. And, I said, I think I know some of the reasons why they haven’t. So, I said, If we want to get together, we might try it out. So, he asked a couple of friends and he and I with three other people just met one, I guess maybe two other people the first night, met in his house one night and just talked it over, the ideas, and it seemed like there was a possibility that we could explore it and at that particular time, in order to start something, it was a little easier than it had been in prior years because the Legislature had just passed a bill permitting the—the Department of Education, State Department of Education to grant an organization the right to use the word college in their name, without going before the state Legislature. So, there was a law on the books that permitted us to make an application to the Department of Education and we went down to Augusta, the five of us, and made a presentation about what we’d like to try and do, and that is start a college on Mount Desert Island. It was the same year that up in Aroostook County they were trying to start JFK College—and they did start it. But that didn’t continue. And at the same time, they were starting Eisenhower College in New York State, which didn’t continue. But, they gave us the right to do that and we therefore came back here and continued to work and—and expand our board to local people, and everyone was interested in helping. And then we raised about $65,000 of seed money.

 

DG: I’m going to stop you right there.

 

LB: Ok.

 

DG: Going so fast, and I want to get a couple of details to make sure. So, tell me, the conversation that you had with Father Jim, on Cottage Street, was that, do you remember him saying I’d like to do something or I’d like to—

 

LB: That’s right, I remember him saying that I, I’d like to participate in some community activities other than my church work.

 

DG: So, he didn’t say he’d like, to start a college?

 

LB: No.

 

DG: Oh. Ok.

 

LB: So, that’s when I said to him that there was a committee the chamber of commerce had created some time ago and were working on it and I said they just haven’t really been able to get going. And so I said I know some of the people that are involved, why don’t we ask them and others and see if we can get together.

 

DG: So, then you got together and, and who were the first people?

 

LB: Well, the first five people were Jim and myself, Dick Smith, Sonny Cough—Bernard Cough—and one other person who was here in the Department of Immigration at the Ferry Terminal, Richard, Richard, Richard, Richard – what’s his last name? I can think of it later on, we can identify it—it’s on a plaque of founding trustees. And the five of us, as I say, got together and Sonny, who had been on the previous committee, and so had Richard, talked about what they had done and what they seem to be in, in difficulty in accomplishing and so it appeared to me, and to the group, that what we needed to do is, is to move forward by seeing what the state said you had to do. And that’s where Dick Smith, I think that it wasn’t Dick Smith, excuse me, Robert Smith, Robert Smith, who was working in Augusta at that time, knew the members of the Department of Education and he went in and delved and found all the information we needed to establish the foundation of a college and that’s when he found that this state, at the, there was a state statute on the books that permitted the Department of Education Board to give that authority to create a college. And then after you got moving forward, the law required you to visit the Legislature to ask permission to grant degrees. But it made it so much easier to get started than having to go before the legislature to get a bill passed to start a college!

 

DG: And so that was a state legislature?

 

LB: State statute.

 

DG: State statute. So, do you, now who was Robert Smith and Sunny Cough?

 

LB: Well, Robert Smith has died.

 

DG: And—but what was his background?

 

LB: Well, his background was just that he was—I don’t know too much about him, anymore that he was working out of Augusta in some office and thus knew other people in the Augusta area and in the Department of Education. He was working as a state representative of some agency. So, he knew people in Augusta and it was easy for him to move around and get information, because they, you know they, impart information from agency to agency. Sunny Cough was just a local business man, just like I was here in the town of Bar Harbor. He owns the Atlantic Oaks, and is in the hospitality business in a great way. But when we started he was in another business, similar to what I was in another business.

 

DG: And so was he in the hospitality business at that point or not?

 

LB: Just starting.

 

DG: Just starting. And you were in what—what were you doing?

 

LB: I was an electrical contractor. And I was also a real estate broker, and in real estate insurance business, and then I went into the hospitality business.

 

DG: Ahh, ok. In, what was—

 

LB: In Bar Harbor. I started in ’68, same year we started this.

 

DG: So this all happened in 1968, all this discussion

 

LB: Yup. Yup.

 

DG: And, what—the, I mean, COA is not only, you know, a small college on MDI it’s also a very unusual kind of college. What was it, how did that get—

 

LB: Well, before you could get to that point you had to first of all get incorporated. So we asked a sixth person to join the five of us, and he was an attorney. His name is Burrough, he’s now retired in Southwest Harbor—Fred Burro—and he joined us as an attorney and he incorporated us. As a—as the first thing you do is you incorporate to create a corporation, to work from. And that’s when I was voted as the Chairman of the Board. And, Jim was Secretary and other friends filled other roles. There were about eight to ten of us on the original Board. Has to be seven I think. There was about eight to ten of us on the original Board. In fact, we’ve got a plaque on the original trustees, founding trustees

 

DG: Right.

 

LB: in The Turrets—

 

DG: Right.

 

LB: I think it’s in The Turrets, I mean, maybe it’s been moved over to the Gates Auditorium I don’t know if it has or not. But there’s a plaque.

 

DG: I know I’ve seen it. I don’t remember where. And, so you were—this was still in 1968?

 

LB: Yeah, ’68-’69. And the next thing we did is we went and made the presentation to, in Augusta, to the Board of Education and they came down and visited us, here on the island. Because in that same period of time, not only getting to have a corporation, getting the right to use the word college in our name, and getting a location to have the college function. Now to have the location, Father Jim and myself went to Ellsworth one day to lunch with Charlie Sawyer and Mike Garber who owned a certain portion of this campus. And at the end of that luncheon we had the five-year contract for $1 a year to use what he owned here as a location in a five-year lease, $1 a year, and we had the right to use this place to start a college.

 

DG: Now what possessed him—

 

LB: Well, he was, first of all he was a philanthropist, secondly he was a very close friend of Charlie Sawyer’s. He knew my father. In World War II they both worked at, in the CAP here at the Trenton Airport. That was the Civilian Air Patrol. And, he was interested in the island, he had businesses here on the island, he had businesses in Connecticut. And I was a very good friend of Charlie Sawyer’s. In fact, I was in business with him, in the real estate and brokerage insurance business. And, it’s just a networking situation where it all came together! And, so, when we came back we had this five-year lease and within the five years we then contracted to buy it. And of course, when we bought it, two or three years later, Mr. Garber had sold it to another group of people. But that other group of people also were friends of friends, and when we said we wanted to buy it, they sold it to us.

 

DG: Oh, ok. So—

 

LB: So that’s—I’m just trying to say to you, to establish the college, we had to get the corporation. We had to get the right to use the name college in our, in our name, not knowing what it’s going to be, and we had to get a location. And we had that location when the Board of Education came from Augusta, came down and visited this site on a day in spring, that would be ’68. And they gave us the right to use the word college in our name, and they gave us the go ahead. And, I remember one of the people who were on the Board, who I had met at a previous time, in some relationship, and he said, well he said, This is a tough thing to get started, a college. I said, Yes it is, but, I said, I’ll—I’ll, I can only tell you one thing and that is you will not have to come and tell us we are not successful. If we, in moving forward recognize that we’re in an uphill battle, we’ll come and tell you. Now whether that convinced him to give us the ok or not, I don’t know, but anyway, we got the ok. So we had the name, the permission of the state, and a location.

 

DG: So, you – you had, not the name but you just knew you could be College of—

 

LB: We could use the name college in our name when we choose a name.

 

DG: And, and was this a very heady time, exciting—

 

LB: To me it just, logical steps moving forward. And, and there’s, as I say, if you are going to continue something and keep moving forward you have to accomplish things. And that was my feeling, that we accomplished two things. That we had a location and we had a name. And then with that we raised seed money. And we raised about $65,000. So we had made steps when we kept moving forward. The next thing we did, is we hired a president.

 

DG: Ok, but you—hold on, I just want to go back a little bit. Because this is something that you said the Chamber of Commerce had been trying to start for a number of years. And why, was it the Legislation that enabled—

 

LB: That helped. They didn’t have that on the books when they were trying to do things. But, they didn’t pick a location, they didn’t know what type of school they were going to have, but at one time I think it was going to be a Secondary School.

 

DG: That was what Betty Thorndike wanted?

 

LB: Well, her family—tried to encourage that to occur, but it didn’t work out. And, in fact, when we got this location we also were looking at a location that Betty and her husband owned. And, I called Amory [Thorndike] and I asked him about it, and he said: Well, he said, I wish you’d called me a week ago, ‘cause I he said, just three or four days ago I signed a Purchase and Sales Agreement to sell that piece of land to somebody away from here. So that wasn’t available. So, but then later on, they gave us some land, on another location, which we could have used as a permanent site. But, then again, we didn’t, we sold that. We felt this site was better, for future planning. And, of course, I think it has been. You couldn’t beat it.

 

DG: No.

 

LB: So, all of those things took place in ‘68 and ‘69.

 

DG: And, so, at that time it was just a college. There was no mission or—

 

LB: We, we did choose the mission of ecology, and that came about—Jim probably had as much to do with that as anyone—because he was listening to the TV. when he heard a presentation on ecology from Ian—

 

DG: McHarg

 

LB: Yeah, McHarg.

 

DG: McHarg, yeah.

 

LB: And, that impressed him and he told us about it at one of our meetings. And we shifted from being a marine biology-centered college to ecology. That same year, in ’68, Time Magazine created a section in that magazine on ecology. And all of those things happened in ’68 and therefore made it easy to switch to that term ecology. And, so, we said we would be a college on ecology. So, we had picked the mission, the philosophy, the location and so forth. And then we had to find a president.

 

DG: Right, now, not every college starts with a mission or focus.

 

LB: No.

 

DG: What was it that made you decide to have that focus?

 

LB: Just—

 

DG: Have a focus?

 

LB: It just came out of the discussions that we had at our Board meetings! We just felt that considering the location of an island, and the ocean right here, we just felt we had to have some connection to the ocean. And, therefore we was thinking of marine biology more then anything else. Similar—similar to Woods Hole, which has a function and philosophy of dealing with the ocean only. But, we were just talking and thinking and, and planning and those things came out and seemed to be what we needed to adopt at that time in looking forward. And so, it was just step, by step, by step as far as I’m concerned.

 

DG: Was it fun?

 

LB: Oh, yes. We enjoyed having those meetings and I think everyone, everyone showed up. Everyone showed up at every meeting! We never had a problem of getting it, you know, just two or three people there. Everyone that was asked, participated. In fact, that was one of my responsibilities was to ask people to join the Board, and everyone that I asked, willingly, joined the Board until a little later on, two years going out I asked Tibby Russell who was at the Jackson Lab, if she’d join, and she turned me down. And yet, when she turned me down, she suggested Selden Bernstein who when I talked to him, he joined us. So that was fine and about a year or two later, Tibby Russell joined us. So she came on eventually, even though, she, the first time it was not possible. And there was one other person that turned us down, but he later on, a year later, joined the Board. So there, there’s never been, to my knowledge, any person ever asked to join this Board has ever refused forever. There are other people on the Board today that the first time they were asked they were, it was just not possible for them to add another responsibility to their life. So, that I think has been very satisfying that the idea must be good if everyone together is willing to help in one way or another.

 

DG: Now in those early days, did you always conceive of it as being a very small college?

 

LB: A lot of those things never came up, early on. As I said, you have to accomplish something in order to get people to want to join you or help you. And so you have to take—take a step at a time, whether it’s a step up or a forward makes no difference. You have to have some accomplishments. So as I say, we started off with a name and we started off with a location and we started off with some seed money and then we hired a president.

 

DG: Right.

 

LB: See.

 

DG: And, and as to what it, even before the president, I want to go back and understand also what, what did you perceive as the need to try and start—for a college on this island?

 

LB: The, I think basically, we were trying to find another economical resource for the community. You, you had Acadia National Park, you had Jackson Lab, you had MDIBL, you had the summer hospitality business, and of course, before the fire of ’47 and before the Depression of ’29, you had the resort type of family living and it was different then what came about after ’29 and then after ’47. That really ended the families’ economic support the island, to the degree that would keep the island really economically afloat. So it had to have other types of business and that’s when these other things developed. And, of course, with Acadia National Park, I think the logical thing is the hospitality businesses that we have here on, in Bar Harbor especially. With over two thousand beds—pillows—for visitors to come and see this beautiful place. And so we just felt you needed stimulation to the economy of the area on a twelve-month basis, and it isn’t the hospitality business, it’s something like a college. After the ‘’47 fire, which I was here of course, my family was here—

 

DG: Where you on the island during—

 

LB: No, that was the year I was working in Boston after I graduated from college. But I came back right shortly thereafter. Nelson Rockefeller started a small thinktank here on the island to develop business to the island. And that really never had any great success. And, the only thing happened to that thinktank, eventually it used its resources to help The Jackson Lab further expand. But it never accomplished getting any kind of businesses going on the island on a year-round basis. I mean when we started COA, I think we did more, eventually, than, than any of those other efforts. But all those other efforts helped a little, and then when we came along, we found maybe more support than we would have if they hadn’t have tried other things. So we would—

 

DG: Interesting. So you think that the fact that other things failed helped this succeed?

 

LB: Oh, certainly, certainly. And the location. The location is unique and the—and the friends that come to this island year-in, year-out and they just love the place and they love to see things happen here. And of course, education—it’s just like you have a hospital and it’s needed to take care of the health of the people that live here and come here, education again, is probably the next easiest thing to get people interested in, when you stop and think about it. I don’t think you—it’s any different anywhere else.

 

DG: Well, let me ask you a question about that, because this is late ’60’s, it’s the time of the hippies. I understand that Turrets was overrun with all sorts of different people, young people. Were businessmen at, you know, in your group, were they at all nervous about bringing more young people onto the island?

 

LB: No.

 

DG: No. That didn’t enter at all—

 

LB: No. I think we were a little ahead of that. The real element of, of young people becoming more obvious to the general public I think occurred in the ’70’s more so then in the ’60’s. In fact, even though what you said probably was true, it wasn’t as—it wasn’t as great an interference as it became in the ’70’s in other places here on the island. And even today it’s—there’s a lot of people visit Mount Desert Island that do not come via planes, or trains, or automobiles or to vacation. They come here because they’ve heard of this place by word of mouth and they walk in and they walk out. And where they live when they’re here, I don’t know.

 

DG: So, ok, that’s interesting. In the meantime in like the ’50’s and ’60’s you were already getting very involved in the community. Were you not—

 

LB: Me?

 

DG: Yes.

 

LB: Oh, well, I’ve always been involved in the community. Ever since I’ve lived here from ’47 on. When I returned after World War II and after my college education and after working in Boston for a year. I’ve always been involved, in everything. I’ve been in everything there is. I’ve been in every town office, I’ve participated in many different organizations, I’ve been in several different types of businesses, and I’ve just—I’m an involved person.

 

DG: What is it that motivates you, do you know?

 

LB: I’d like to leave the community as well off as it can be left after I move along and disappear. I just have that interest of, I just love the place. And I like to see things happen. I was a member of the Lions Club and I left the Lions Club about the same time, in ’68, when I got involved in the college idea, because the Lions Club was—even though they professed of doing, or interested in the community and trying to do things for the community—which they did—they seemed to be more social then concerned about accomplishing things. ’Cause I remember one year I made a presentation about advertising, saying what was needed in the community was a short film, that before video cassettes were made and things like that, and I did all of the investigation and presented it, and then they wouldn’t carry the ball and do it. So, I said I guess it’s better for me to give up the social relationship and—and go into something that, where I can see things happening. So that’s, I like to see things happen.

 

DG: And you seem to be an idea person as well, I mean you’ve generated—

 

LB: Well, there’s always a way to do something. I’d, I, just like I was talking with Laura [Johnson, at that time acting development director] and we were talking about different things but, and I gave her some ideas that she hadn’t yet had in front of her. Because I—I just feel that there’s a way to accomplish everything that needs to be done. You’ve got to decide what needs to be done. But you, you can accomplish it. And there are other people who will help, basically. And this college is a perfect example of it. When you go to a—a Board meeting or you go to any other meeting of the college and you find everyone that’s involved is working their darndest to succeed and determine what is needed and then accomplish what is needed. But, the Board meetings are the things that really interest me in that every member of the Board is there that can be there, and when they come they participate. I don’t know if you’ve sat in on a Board meeting, but you find there’s no one comes and just listens.

 

DG: Oh no.

 

LB: They, they’re gonna—

 

DG: No, no

 

LB: —think about it. But I think the same thing happens, whether it be a faculty meeting or a staff meeting or whatever, is the meetings really mean something to everyone that participates and, and we seem to move forward.

 

DG: Ok. Good, so now I can go back to—

 

LB: Selecting a president

 

DG: Yeah, get up to the president.

 

LB: The—we had some people, as I say, we first put out a notification in the right periodicals to advertise for faculty, knowing that we would have to be hiring a faculty. And as I say, I think we had twelve hundred or more applications for three or four positions. And, somewhere in our communications to—through Augusta, through our other sources, it was identified that there was a man from Harvard who was looking for a new position, and I believe he was looking at Unity College. And somehow, we got word to him, and I don’t remember the details of how that happened, and it was Ed Kaelber, of course, and he came here to visit and look at the location, look at what we had done to date and the relationship with the Department of Education and the state statutes and after he had looked it all over, we decided that we would hire him if he would consider coming. So, Father Jim and I had breakfast with him at the Bar Harbor Inn. I can almost remember the table. And, and at that time, Mike Garber, who had leased us this property, owned the Bar Harbor Inn. He and his brother, brother-in-law, I guess it was. So, Ed said he would go back, talk with his wife, and if they agreed then he would take the job. So, he left here and the following Monday or Tuesday he called back and said he was going to take the job and then came up. But, he had the choice of becoming president of Unity or president of COA. Unity was having difficulty because it was a starting institution, but they had started a year or two before 1970, I don’t remember the exact date.

 

DG: ’65 maybe?

 

LB: I’m going to guess—

 

DG: Or maybe earlier.

 

LB: Yeah, but in the ’60’s. [It was 1965—DG] So that’s how that came about and then of course when he chose to come here, that was a big—a big boost for our moving forward. So that was the for—really I think that was the about the fourth step of real major sequences.

 

DG: Now, my understanding was, at that point did you have Human Ecology as a—

 

LB: No, no. Human Ecology, I believe didn’t stick until ’71 when the faculty—Bill Carpenter and Steve Katona and Dick Davis, and the architect, not the architect, the attorney

 

DG: Dan Kane.

 

LB: Dan Kane. When three, I guess, not all four but, three of them, had that summer—

 

DG: Summer session.

 

LB: Summer session, where they hired twenty-five students to come and be make-believe college students or something, out on Bar Island. [This summer session employed three faculty members, a biologist, a political scientist and literature professor Bill Carpenter, but only Bill stayed on. What Bill remembers, is that while human ecology was the central theme, it was more scientifically conceived until it was put into practice with literature and government faculty. While the program, and its classes were centered in the college’s current locale, Bar Island became a topic of study.—DG]

 

DG: They hired students?

 

LB: They hired them to do it. I believe they paid them a small stipend. Maybe they just paid them the room and board, but they did something and they, they and most of their outside activities were on Bar Island. But that program, as I recall, and Bill Carpenter can tell you for sure, is when it was determined that you could not use the word ecology without having human attached to it. Now it had been thought of before, but it never came home and said the two words make a perfect fit, the union of it has to be. And I think, of course, that is true that the two words do blend together and are just right. So, that’s when it really, it came home. Even though it had been mentioned prior to that by different people, more than one. I, I, can’t, I don’t know any other way to give credit to an individual for it.

 

DG: Ok, I, I mean I know that Father Jim thought it was Cush McGiffert who had the idea of human ecology, but then you’re saying that it didn’t

 

LB: Didn’t—

 

DG: Didn’t make much sense—

 

LB: It hadn’t been proven.

 

DG: Yeah.

 

LB: In other words, you might have taken as a possibility, but you didn’t put it there and say That’s it. But I think it came from that summer session.

 

DG: What was it that attracted you to Ed Kaelber?

 

LB: Oh, I think his philosophy and his ease of talking and discussing and, and exploring a question. He, in other words, I don’t think that a person that had all the answers and was quick to take a position or take a tangent would have fitted here on the island. And—Ed was a perfect fit. He was a perfect fit. And I—

 

Side B

 

LB: And another thing that really fitted into the situation in Ed Kaelber’s situation, he’d been in business as well as education and in addition to that, he had a lot of friends in and around Harvard, in education, and I think that network proved very, very helpful to the establishment of COA. Many of his friends joined the Board when he came aboard. They—they—I lost that job of establishing friendships and relationships to get the new Board members because it became his job when he took over as president, to go out and find people who would help us move forward. And he found some good people, great people.

 

DG: What, what is fascinating to me is the idea of a group of businessmen, and a priest, launching an academic institution that is, eventually, you know, not very, you know, business-focused but trying to get business a little bit—

 

LB: That was just a background, I mean—

 

DG: But, but what is it that, that, I mean they, you had been to college and Father Jim and maybe some of these—

 

LB: Oh all the others had been to college.

 

DG: They all went to college—

 

LB: We had bankers and attorneys, some of them hadn’t been to college, but most of them had. And we had a songwriter, Eddie Hayman, and we had the superintendent of Acadia National Park. He was an educated person, but you want to remember, you don’t know this, but, I’ll have to tell you that I myself am a great believer of education. I had just finished the job as being Chairman of the Board of the local schools.

 

DG: At that—

 

LB: At that same time, and I was very helpful in establishing a new high school and creating the curriculum for that new place when we combined three high schools on the island into one. So I was involved in all of that. But I am a great believer in education. And there’s two ways to get an education. And of course, one is to attend school and another one is to travel and have experiences in world—opportunities, in business or whatever. You can be self-taught or you can go and learn it in a classroom situation. But, no matter how you do it, you must somewhere along the line, be involved in education. And if you want to solve the problems of this world, you’d better make sure that every region of people have the opportunity to be educated. That’s the way your ever gonna bring two people together. If you educate both of them separately then they’ll more likely come together than if they don’t receive some education. So, I’m—I was, I’ve always had that belief. So even though I was an engineer and a business person, I also believed a great deal in education.

 

DG: But you also, and you knew, you knew really seemed to have known exactly what COA needed. Which was a new institution, I mean, which is an open-ended mind—

 

LB: Don’t try to read too much into that, because that I don’t believe is the case. It’s the many, many different people all coming together and willing to work together that accomplished what we have accomplished. No one person developed all of the right ideas. They came from this person, that person, some other person, and I can’t think a member of this establishment, whether it be a member of the faculty or a member of the staff, or a member of the Board, or a student, that hasn’t in their own way left something here to bring us to where we are today. I really believe that, and of course I am closer to members of the Board, but I’ve also known, I think, every member of the faculty, and I’ve known most every member of the staff. I’ve known not many students. Father Jim has known many more students than I have. But, there’s still over fourteen hundred of them out there that have graduated and they, they still, they left part of themselves here too, ’cause, as I say, many of them are still in the area. Twenty to 25 percent of them I think are still in Maine. But everyone did something. Everyone. One way or another. Unknowingly—but, so don’t look for all of the right ideas coming from one person or another person over here. I don’t think.

 

DG: That’s a very COA think to say!

 

LB: Well, I think it is the place. I think it’s—I mean just Ed’s statement, The omens are good—they weren’t good every day. And, what, and who, had given him a thought or idea on a given day so he could make that statement, I don’t know. He found the same opportunity by reaching out and if there was a need, to keep reaching out until that need was taken care of. I helped for many, many days that he had a need, and he’d call me and I was able to find a, a—some sort of a solution to that particular need. But, I’m sure that hundreds of other people did the same thing for him and he was one that you were willing to do it. But you had to believe in the mission. And I still believe in the mission.

 

DG: And that mission, came, you see that mission as starting in that period between ’71 and ’72 really. After the—

 

LB: Well, as far as I’m concerned it started in ’68.

 

DG: Yeah, but the, the mission of—

 

LB: Of creating a college on Mount Desert Island.

 

DG: But the human ecology part of the mission is what I was thinking of.

 

LB: Well, it’s not, I don’t consider, myself, the philosophy of human ecology to be necessarily more valuable than the idea of having a college. It is important, very important, and it is good. And it fits, but it fits—it could have fitted anywhere in the country. This college could be some other place in this country and still carry out the same mission and attract the same students. But no better place than Mount Desert Island. And, therefore, we were, came along at the right time and, and here we are. As far as I’m concerned.

 

DG: Really? I mean—I mean—I just, just realizing how essential it was that you were able to get this place.

 

LB: That, that was a stroke of luck.

 

DG: And so you knew that these buildings were empty.

 

LB: Well, of course, there was an Oblate Seminary here. That was a start. That was an educational organization. They only had three of the buildings and they didn’t use The Turrets at all. But, we’ve done a service to the community. Because if these, if this, thirty-odd acres of land had not been developed as what we are using it for, they would have been a hospitality use. And I think we’ve done great service to the community of having this barrier of insulation between the motels to the north of us, or west of us, and the community to the east of us. So I think we have served a value to the community, if people will think of it that way. And of course, where I was a—I also was a great member of the—of pushing Bar Harbor and Mount Desert Island on people that came here, even Jack Perkins when he came here. The first day he stayed in a motel that I had helped build.

 

DG: This was?

 

LB: The Golden Anchor, where the Tom Walch’s new motel is now. And when he came, I recognized him, seeing him on NBC, and so I immediately fed him all of the information from the Chamber of Commerce. And he never forgot it! And he’d always mentioned it to me.

 

DG: And that’s when—after that he bought Bar—

 

LB: Bought Bar Island, yeah.

 

LB: Well, yeah. I didn’t know that until later on. But he was in a unit looking right at it and he had just signed the papers and bought it. It’s a small world, once again. You’ve heard me say that several times. But don’t ever take away the value of the friends of Mount Desert Island. This college could not have happened without those friends, and we had many of them on the Board. I mean starting right off in the beginning with Betty Thorndike and Charlie Tyson and Bob Blum and Amos Ano and go on and on. They, the feeling for this location and for a good idea is so strong, and they have helped so much. And they wouldn’t have helped if you didn’t have a person like Ed Kaelber as the first president. I mean he was so well, suited, for that job that when after nine years, we were at a function at Betty Thorndike’s, and I don’t know the time of year it was, just about this time of year, in the fall and Ed started a little message going on, Well I think it’s time for me to step aside and find a new president. And that’s when Tom Gates, who was on the Board at that time said, Don’t think in any way that you’re going to step aside at this time. You’re here and you’re going to stay here. So, he was really like— and, and—and he did. And he stayed another two or three years.

 

DG: I, want to also, want to make sure that I understand the connection that Charlie, Charlie Sawyer did. Because—

 

LB: Well, he and I were very close friends and in business together and he knew Mike Garber very, very well. He had done a lot of business with Mike Garber. And he, Charlie was—he would recognize … the right thing to have happen. And when I told him, he knew what I was doing, working on behalf of the college. And I said, We need a location and what do you think? Do you think there’s a chance that we could use this this former Oblate Seminary area. He says, Well, let’s find out. We’ll talk with Mike. And so he arranged the luncheon, and drove us to Ellsworth and the four of us sat down. And, of course, Father Jim is easy to get along with, and Mike Garber liked us, and as I say, he, he knew me and knew my family. And all of those things helped a little. But it’s the, it’s the inter-relationship that occurs when you meet that can accomplish something, and so, when we ended, Mike said Yeah, you can, you can have the place for a dollar a year for five years. He was willing to step aside, because it meant a lot of money if he sold it.

 

DG: Right—

 

LB: And—he did sell it. But he sold it to a group people, which Charlie was one of them, and other friends of mine involved, I wasn’t. And so when I went to Charlie and said we now would like to buy it, Charlie said OK, I’ll set it up and fix it up, which he did. Got us a price of five hundred thousand and we signed a contract.

 

DG: What, was, what would have been the true value of this property?

 

LB: Well, you can’t, you’ve got to remember that every moment in time, something has what is known as current value, future value, past value. It’s all relative. And at that time it was a fair value, if you had a use for it. Now, we had a use for it as the buildings were, so to speak. ’Cause we were still working towards reaching a point of having anyone else come here to use the buildings. We were trying to find some more money and fix them up. They weren’t useable for every type of use and so the land probably had about that much value, the buildings had zero. But, by the time we opened in ’72 we were able to renovate them sufficiently to—they served our purpose for the beginning of the college life. But we spent a lot of money. We spent over a million dollars just on The Turrets alone.

 

DG: What was it—how did you do that early fund raising? Was that—

 

LB: We just, all’s we did is, we decided to have four coffees on a Sunday afternoon in the four communities on the island. One in Southwest, one in Seal Harbor, one in Northeast, and one in Bar Harbor, I think is the four. And I went to two of them. I went to the one in Bar Harbor and the one in Seal Harbor. And Jim went to the one in Northeast and the one in Southwest, and other members of the Board went to different ones. And before we had the coffee, one of the people we had on the Board was, Albert Cunningham, he was a life-long friend of mine and he happened to be the president of the Bar Harbor Bank Trust Company, and they have a fund there which he was able to get the Trustees to give us ten thousand dollars, so we had a ten thousand dollar gift this first one and before the coffees and then in the coffee we had pledges of another fifty thousand dollars and then over time it amounted to about sixty-five thousand. When Ed first came here we had that in the bank, so that’s how we did it. Through coffees in the different communities. And we could tell them that we had two things to announce. We had the right to have a name and we had a location, we had those two things. So, you see—and that’s what makes people willing to step up and do things ’cause you accomplished something. You aren’t just selling them an idea, see, that’s the way I felt. And it worked.

 

DG: Yeah, yeah. It makes sense. It makes a lot of sense. So you, you’d been primarily involved in the fundraising?

 

LB: No, no—

 

DG: What do you think of as your involvement, primarily?

 

LB: Just a local … resident who has been available to … to tie together, in a small way, local businesses, and local people, with the college, and people who have come from away to join in and help make this place work. So, I’ve just been that interconnecting link for the local relationships.

 

DG: I see. Strong community. It’s a community college.

 

LB: Right. I could go anywhere in the community and say that the college needs this or needs that and would you consider helping, or would you know someone that would help? Or something like that, and it has worked reasonably well. Everyone hasn’t helped, but a lot of people have.

 

DG: What was your response when the fire happened?

 

LB: In ’47?

 

DG: No, in ’83.

 

LB: Oh in ’83. Well, that was—I mean it’s a small thing, but, one of the Sunday afternoon coffees, it was held in Bar Harbor. It was held in the house that I know own. I didn’t own it then. After the fire here, when we lost one building, the first meeting with the president, Judith Swazey, and certain members of the Board were in my living room on West Street where I was then living, and so it’s been involved in my home, some of the things that were really, really important parts of things that happened here at the college. And, of course that meeting was when we decided that, so we’ve had a fire, we need to group, re-group, and build. And of course, I was very helpful then. That year we had to go down and rent where Kids Corner is now for our library, and having my relationship with the community I was able to help that arrangement for getting that lease. Things like that. It’s what I’ve—or I’ve I think been somewhat valuable.

 

DG: Do you remember more about that meeting, was it—was it a close decision?

 

LB: No, no, no unanimous. We were, we had gone too far to not be able to continue.

 

DG: You were just going into the teenage years when it went on—

 

LB: Yeah, they, they look at the starting date year as ’72, more then they do any other year. You know it’s going to take a couple to three or four years to put things together, and it did. I think we planned to start in ’71 and very wisely Ed Kaelber said we should delay this a year, and we did and ’72 I think is really the start, when students came. And that’s, so we have to look at that. I was disappointed for a moment, but you look at the longer view and it was—it’s been successful, beyond that by delaying it the year.

 

DG: Did you—I know that the college started to be, well, you said to be an economic resource for the community year-round. Do you think it’s been successful in that?

 

LB: Of course there has been an economic report which you are aware of and Steve had written about three, four years ago, and that report says positively yes. I think it has been, for several different reasons, other than the economic background that you can research and develop assumptions from. But the way I look at it is that, it had broadened the—the—the background of the community. In the education area where you only had secondary schools and that is associated with secondary schools here, and you had research organizations—The Jackson Lab, the MDIBL—which certainly was well beyond the baccalaureate, the first years of college. They’re all PhDs and whatever. So in, in bringing the College of the Atlantic here you, you’ve broadened that aspect of, of knowledge in the community and so that’s an asset that’s very hard to measure, and probably never will be accurately measured. But it’s there, it’s here, and certainly the resource of your library associated with libraries in the communities, it has broadened their opportunities—if they recognize it and use it. So this is a way that is, it just makes a more diverse community on the island. And this island is a community of itself. Don’t look at Southwest Harbor or Bar Harbor as the only community, it’s the island community that has made this college, and it really makes the whole island an economic unit. But we’ve been successful in we have approximately a hundred jobs, and a hundred jobs is, is significant. And, so there are many different ways to look at it, then when you have three hundred students here and that’s—they all have parents and all of the parents at some time or another will come and visit, probably, except for your foreign students. It adds a lot of little things that you sometimes don’t think of. So I, I think that in a way it has been economically successful for the community. The one negative is the fact that we have such valued property, which is not on the tax rolls. And I think we’ve stepped up a little and we do make a token payment annually to the town on—so it’s a gift just like The Jackson Lab does. But those things, again, will work itself out. So I think the answer is, is yes.

 

DG: What about the alums that, that start businesses in the community? Do you see that as making a difference?

 

LB: Not necessarily for the community, but it has certainly for the college. And it certainly has the opportunity for those individuals to find a reason to stay here—is certainly a big benefit in their lives, because this is such a beautiful place to live and raise a family and so forth, etc. So I think that yes, it is a—it’s a good thing. And it will work both ways, it will work, many of them now are involved in the community and the different committees and the other organizations in the community.

 

DG: Did you manage to—did your children stay here, on the island?

 

LB: One child is here and one child is in South Portland, Maine. But they are in Maine.

 

DG: So there’s seven generations now of Brewers?

 

LB: Oh, there are ten!

 

DG: Ten generations?

 

LB: Ten or eleven—it’s right up there. The book covered—I said I was the fifth. The book covered nine and there’ve been two generations since the book was written. Ah, there, maybe not two but one. So it’s right up to ten. Ten or eleven. The book’s in the library. I can bring you up my book if you want to see it.

 

DG: No that’s ok. So, yeah, so the, your love of this community has reached out to your family as well.

 

LB: Right, yeah. Yeah, now I have two grandsons that live here on the island and have a place on Indian Point Road. In fact I gave them some land that over 125 years ago, my great-grandfather first purchased a portion of. And they now own it. So—So, this gives you up to that point, you, all the rest of it is the history’s here I guess.

 

DG: Well now that’s what I’m wondering. I mean I didn’t do—I’ve been focusing on the first few years. But is there something, are there other times that stand out? Or other milestones that stand out?

 

LB: Just individuals who have stepped up and, I mean it’s just, I guess, as I say I just enjoy so much meeting you, meeting Laura. I mean look at the job Laura is doing. I mean she started here as, I remember her as a secretary in the Town Office Planning Department, and then she left there and came here and I was pleased to see her come here and she’s worked right up and sits in that chair and I think she’s doing a great job. And Millard Dority, I mean, when he came here he hadn’t, didn’t even have his high school diploma. And now he has that and he has a lot more too and he’s a very qualified person in his position. So, no I just enjoy the relationship of, of everyone that I have the opportunity to meet and work with. So—

 

DG: Do you, I wanted to ask you, two more things. One is, you have a degree now in human ecology.

 

LB: They gave me one here (chuckling), yes. It’s not a master’s degree, but it is a—

 

DG: So you have two baccalaureate degrees?

 

LB: I have, I have an electrical engineering Bachelor of Science Degree. And then I worked on a, a Master’s in Business Administration, but I didn’t finish it, at Northeastern in Boston. I was teaching down there, in ROTC during the Korean War and so I took some night courses and worked, working towards a Master’s, but I never finished it. But I’ve had so many opportunities, I’ve, I’ve practically done a law degree just in law work of my own, in my own business, my own family. So, I’ve done many different things. As well, as I say, insurance business, and real estate broker’s business and all those different things that I’ve had the opportunity to work with.

 

DG: And you’re still working, now? Or have—

 

LB: No, no. I’m not working now.

 

DG: Fully retired?

 

LB: Yeah, yeah.

 

DG: And so, can you, were you part of the time when, when Steve was hired? Do you want to talk about that?

 

LB: When Steve was hired?

 

DG: When Steve was hi – oh, well, well actually, were, were you involved in the hiring of the first teachers?

 

LB: The person that was really mostly involved with those original applications was Winston Stewart. We did it by committee, even in our small Board and he, Dr. Winston Stewart, he lives in Florida, he’s not here now, but he really spent a lot of time. He looked at as many of those, if not all of those applications to identify the people that were picked out. And I do not recall being directly involved, only in the—when they were presented to the Board of approving them in the minutes. So, I can’t remember that. And should not speak to that.

 

DG: And when, when Steve became president were you involved with that?

 

LB; I was involved with, I was on the committee and Judy Swazey was selected out of all of the applications that were made. I was on that committee, but I was not on Steve’s committee, and I have not been the current committee, for the next president. I was very much involved when Lou Rabineau was contacted for, but only as a Board member. No I haven’t been too much involved with the individual selections down the line. I’ve been very pleased with Steve being selected because we had no learning curve to follow through. And he had no learning curve ’cause he knew the organization and we knew him, and he knew us. You know, the staff and the faculty and the trustees. So, I think that moved ahead and we got up to speed really quickly. And it’s been very, very good. He and Susie together are a tremendous team, and she’s put as much into this as he has. And I think we all recognize that.

 

DG: So, is there anything else that I should ask you about the college that I haven’t—

 

LB: No, I don’t think so. I, I just like to see things happen and I’m sure some more things are going to happen.

 

DG: Right.

 

LB: And, and I think things must happen. Because, it’s certainly there’s always something to do. It’s—I, I think the one thing that probably disappoints me as much, the only one thing that disappoints me in the current year, 2005, of College of the Atlantic, is that we haven’t been able to have the funds to make the campus a—an example to the outside world, in—in ecology. Which I think now we have that started. Hopefully that we’ll be able to make a little better presentation of ourselves to the world. I don’t know if—I haven’t heard of anyone else criticize us, strongly. I’ve heard some criticism but not strong criticism. But we do need I think to present ourselves as well as we can, because we’re teaching something that is so important to the planet of protecting it. And I’d love to see—see COA philosophy of human ecology be a stronger thought provoking project in government. There is some there, but it’s not too strong.

 

DG: Meaning government, in State of—

 

LB: In State, State of Maine and federal government. You know the United States. I don’t think that we have a strong enough feeling on the human ecology of the planet that we need to take. Now, of course, there are a lot of other problems, but even Prince Charles is an environmentalist more so then other people in government. According to what he says, and I give him credit for that.

 

DG: Does he give an environment—I know he’s just arriving—

 

LB: He, there’s a little program on him and what he does in England, and one of the things he does, is that he has—many, many years ago, they created a Duchy that has about 135,000 acres of land in it and several farms and areas that produce things under his direction to support him and for him to support his charities, but he demonstrated the whole community that he built from the proceeds of these businesses that are part of his Duchy as they call it. [According to the website, duchyofcornwell.org, “His Royal Highness decided to convert the Duchy Home Farm into a completely organic farming system” in 1985.—DG] It is to support his life, but he uses it to create examples to the commun— to different, to the people in England that, how you’re going to prolong the use of the land by, protecting it and preserving it. And he spoke very highly in that direction, I thought. So I give him credit for that. But, how do you feel about College of the Atlantic? And it’s mission and it’s—where we stand today?

 

DG: Oh, I think the students are quite amazing and my, my personal aim is to get it to the point where that’s recognized around the country.

 

LB: And that’s hard. That is hard.

DG: It is hard. And I—I don’t know, you know my son is at St. Paul’s School, the boarding school in New Hampshire and Bill and I went in, to talk to the college, college advisor and I realized that there’s a little hurdle there. That we, we wanted to you know, introduce College of the Atlantic and that he wasn’t interested in students from this school going to COA ’cause it doesn’t rank, as, you know, it doesn’t sound as good. So, it gave me a good goal, you know, it gave me that goal to say, I want COA to be on that radar screen, for people to be really proud to send their kids.

 

LB: It isn’t fair not for it not to be there. The one point you can make out to them, is that our accreditation is the same as Harvard’s or Yale’s or Princeton’s. It’s ten years. There is no greater period of time you can get accreditation for. And we were the fastest new college ever to start to receive full accreditation.

 

DG: Ah, interesting. That’s good to know.

 

LB: I mean when the first students came here in ’72, we were unaccredited. Just think of their parents!

 

DG: Yeah, I know.

 

LB: And sending their students. But, by the time we graduated the first student, we were accredited. And we had to go back to the Legislature to get permission from them to graduate students. We had the right to use the name college in our name. But when we started, we did not have the right to grant a degree. And you had to go back to the Legislature, report what you’ve done, and then sell them that you are ready to have that right to grant degrees. And we did it the first time we presented it. ’Course we had, we worked the system. We had some friends. But we had some people there that questioned why we were given the right the first time by the Board of Education, even to start. They weren’t convinced when—in the Legislature—when they heard about it. But by the time that we finished our presentation they came around and they agreed to this. It wasn’t easy.

 

DG: No.

 

LB: I mean, it wasn’t 1-2-3, it was 1, 2 ½, maybe 3, 2 ¾ then maybe 3. So it was, but, it was an interesting time.

 

DG: It’s just amazing to me, to find what these, that it, you know, I see why it’s such an amazing institution and just to understand the little steps that it took to build it. And, you know, it’s an unusual institution, it’s not in the mold in that it has to be enough in the mold to get the accreditation and all the students and the funds.

 

LB: But you take Bill Gates, and he created Microsoft. He did it in little steps, and some very opportune moments that happened, and yet he’s now of course the biggest in the world, in that particular area. So, he really was able to get through all the hurdles. But they still question him when he makes a statement today. So, it’s, it’s—but we need to find someone like him to help us, too, if we could, somehow.

 

DG: And it’ll happen.

 

LB: Oh yea, it’ll happen. Ok

 

DG: Well, thank you. I appreciate this. A day early.

 

LB: Yeah, you won’t have to do it tomorrow.