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Right now, I am sitting at the memorial for Ron Swartzendruber

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at Western Oregon University. 

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Ron was a great person. He worked for me for 21 years as a programmer.

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And he died suddenly of a massive heart attack one evening.  

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I wanted to build this memorial for Ron

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because of his 21 years of service, his dedication.

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He was well liked by everyone across campus, 

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always willing to pitch in and help wherever needed,

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just an overall great guy. 

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Phase 1 of the project was getting the site ready. 

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We went down about a foot, excavated the dirt. 

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And then filled that with 3/4" minus rock. 

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Facilties did that for us and they compacted that for about an hour. 

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And then in Phase 2, we had the pavers ready.

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And we had a pile of sand. 

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And we would lay down an 1/8 to 1/4" inch of sand to level those pavers.

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And we had a laser light that we would use to  

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make sure all the pavers are at the same level. 

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And each of those pavers weighs about 90 pounds. 

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Not an easy job!

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Moving onto Phase 3 we began laying the brick. 

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And that's really a fun part. You know you're getting somewhere when

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you've got all the pavers down and then you're laying out those bricks.  

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And you want to lay those bricks in an order. 

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You have different lengths. You have 100, 200, 300 & 400 millimeter bricks. 

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And you lay them in an order such that you have nice look. 

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When I first interviewed Ron I discovered  

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he had just graduated with a degree in computer science on the east coast.

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And so him and three of his buddies decided to ride their bicycles to the Pacific Ocean. 

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The bike that you see behind me in the memorial says Ron. 

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That bicycle was a part of Ron. 

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He would ride it to work. He had ridden it across the country. 

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It tells us who Ron is. 

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This memorial to Ron would not have happened

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without Western Interlock's support.

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I had worked with Ray previously and 

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I went to him, I told him Ron's story and Ray said yes. 

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We're willing to provide you materials for Ron's memorial.  

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This space is dedicated to Ron Swartzendruber (1971-2020).

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Ron was an integral part of University Computing Solutions

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and Western Oregon University for 21 years, 

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faithfully and expertly maintaining our university web servers. 

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Ron's vast knowledge put him at the center of projects

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encompassing the whole department. 

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A generous mentor and team player, 

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he fostered a collaborative culture within UCS  

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and was admired and loved by all. 

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Ron rode this bicycle from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. 

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Donated by his wife, Whitney, and transformed into a sculpture

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by Oregon artist, Tamera Greiter, it perpetuates  

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Ron's spirit of energy and endurance. 

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The stone plaza was generously donated by Western Interlock

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and constructed by members of the UCS team. September 2021

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