AUGUST 2007: IN CHARACTER
The perpetual student
Tom Chester applies his own considerable energy to the task of
developing alternative power.
Tom Chester,
director of the Oregon Renewable Energy
Center
Photo by Todd E.
Swenson.
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By Christina Williams
Tom Chester topic-hops even faster than he walks.
In the time it takes for the director of the Oregon Renewable
Energy Center to walk from his office on the Klamath Falls
campus of Oregon Institute of Technology to OREC’s lab in
the building next door, he’s touched on the downsides of
today’s entertainment-oriented society, a book about
metaphors he read a few years ago, and the fact that life is
ultimately a football game played with a no-cut team. In
between, he weaves in color commentary about the engineering
building and some of the myriad projects going on inside its
labs.
When he gets to OREC’s corner he strides about in an
oval, gesturing to the abandoned biodiesel still and
left-behind fuel cell-powered go-kart and describes the
showcase and conference room he’d like to install in the
space. He wants it to be a place where people will come
together and make the connections necessary to move the
practical application of alternative energy forward — in
homes, in businesses, in fields.
And that’s when he edges into yet another topic. He sees
the promotion of renewable energy as something more than green
and trendy. He stops his walking to emphasize the point.
“It’s not a technical challenge, it’s a moral imperative,” he
says. “We have to muddle our way out of this.”
Then he catches himself. “You’ll have to forgive
me,” he says with a smile. “I tend to speak in
homilies.”
Chester was hired in September as OREC’s executive
director, a job he applied for in 2004 when it was awarded to
Rajiv Arya, a solar-energy expert from the East Coast. In the
intervening months, Chester systematically made a pest of
himself, calling OIT provost David Woodall’s office on a
regular basis to see how things were going at OREC.
“He indicated a continued interest in the
position,” says Woodall with diplomatic understatement.
When Arya left in 2006 to work for a California solar company,
Woodall invited Chester to OIT for an interview. “He has
a lot of experience with energy projects and he knows how
universities work.”
Chester’s credentials include a majority of his 59 years
spent in the energy industry. After he nailed an engineering
degree at the University of Oklahoma (he financed his education
by buying a bar in Norman, Okla., and running it with his
buddies), Chester went to work in the oil fields. He later
moved to San Francisco with his bride and built a name for
himself as a hired gun for gnarly energy research.
Created by state legislation in 2001, OREC is charged with
promoting energy conservation and renewable energy in Or-egon.
But its identity is still unformed, something that
doesn’t bother Chester one bit.
“Fostering renewable energy,” Chester repeats with
relish. “That’s a nice hunting license.”
In pursuit of that goal, Chester keeps busy. He flies to
Portland almost weekly — OIT offers its bachelor of
science in renewable energy systems at its Portland campus
— and then drives back down to Klamath Falls, usually
stopping for a meeting in Salem or Eugene along the way,
avoiding the speed trap in Oakridge, stopping for a soda in
Chemult.
The way he figures it, he’ll leave the basic research to
the big universities, the workforce training to the community
colleges. OREC will stake its claim in the application of
renewable energy and its link to economic development.
Betty Riley, executive director of the South Central Oregon
Economic Development District, is happily taking advantage of
Chester’s energy expertise. “We’ve been
talking for a long time about renewable energy,” she
says. “Tom sees an opportunity to bring many efforts
together and highlight what is happening here.”
Thanks in part to leadership from OIT faculty, the Klamath
Falls region has become a hotbed of activity around renewable
energy as businesses tap into the natural resources such as
geothermal heat, hundreds of days of sunshine for solar power
and local crops for biodiesel. The possibilities thrill
Chester.
“He has a lot of energy,” says Riley.
“He’s not one of those people with a lot of
experience who’s been there, done that. He has a focus on
the future.”
Chester’s wife is the eye in his storm. A patient
presence who doesn’t let him get away with grandstanding
or guff, Thea Chester is a worthy match to her husband’s
rangy intelligence. Her game is law. She works part-time for
two different firms and keeps track of the couple’s two
20-something daughters.
Walking around the campus on a summer evening, Thea points out
her husband’s tunnel vision. “You walk by these
every day,” she accuses with a smile. There are
astonishing, fragrant roses blooming outside the door of his
office that Chester claims he’s never seen before. This
kind of teasing goes on between them a lot. They have lively
debates over memories of raising two girls in San Francisco
before setting out for small-town life.
Tom, Thea, two dogs and a cat left San Francisco in 2005 in a
’92 Winnebago and scoured the West looking for a livable
town to call home. They thought they found the spot in Las
Vegas, N.M., but they got cold feet: There are small towns and
then there are insular, very small towns. They set up temporary
digs in Tucson (“We called it our margarita
summer”), where a daughter was in college, and happily
took the call from OIT when the OREC’s director’s
job became available again last year.
Chester is comfortable in Klamath Falls. He sometimes pines
for the big city, but is entrenching himself in the south
central Oregon life. He’s a regular at all the downtown
meeting spots and raves about the access to nature the
city’s location provides.
The intellectual challenge of establishing the center’s
identity appeals to Chester, as does OIT itself with its
practical curriculum and scrappy second-tier status. Walking
around the OREC lab, Chester is pleased to show off the gutted
VW Jettas that were converted to electric cars. “The
students actually learn things here,” Chester says with
obvious pleasure.
The best part for this curious soul? He’s learning
things, too.
