When Tom Kline includes his early wage payroll days, he  accumulated over 42 years at OPP! Tom described his workday before he retired.

"I'm one of those nuts who got here early. I was only coming in from Lemont, but I really hated heavy traffic and did my best to avoid it. I was usually here about 6 a.m. and started work at 7 a.m. Between 6 and 7, I had some coffee and talked to people to warm up for the day." 

Tom did Continuous Commissioning, and one of his last projects was the Chandlee Building. It was considered one of the worst buildings on campus because so many systems were patched into it, and one system would be fighting another. "We used to have horrible smells up in the mechanical rooms...we called it the love canal building!" Tom said that when OPP finished with the building, the horrible smells vanished.

Every day Tom's job was to make campus buildings energy efficient and provide comfort to building occupants by supplying clean air flow. His most recent projects, prior to Chandlee were Borland, and the Life Science building where he spent two years fixing building systems. A variety of contractors were called in to make changes based on Tom's work. 

"I really like working on controls and renovations; when I started it was so primitive. The technology is so advanced now, I can be in one building while scanning another. We can see the whole building temperatures, the air handlers. To me, it's amazing after having lived through the old system when I used to run through every room in the building, stand there, and check the temperatures. Everything was inaccurate and hard to keep calibrated. We had a lot of customer complaints! Now we can maintain high quality by just watching the data on screen and e-mailing reports!"

Once Al Rossman retired, Tom had the most seniority of any technician at OPP. Tom has seen all the students change from using walkmans to cell phones and now texting all the time. "Every generation is a little different. Students are still students, and I think the current group is the best behaved I've seen in years. Years ago there was more student friction. I feel more comfortable around them now."

Tom has seen a lot of changes at OPP. "Years ago we were given pagers that would beep and you had to call in. Then we got pagers that would even give you a message. Now we have cell phones, email, and computers. I live with my computer, a lot like a doctor and his stethoscope."

When Tom began work at OPP, Erik Walker was the Penn State President. "He didn't believe in air conditioning except for animal labs. At one point they told us there would be no new buildings on campus because we didn't have enough steam to heat them. Looks like we have plenty of steam now!"

Tom Kline always enjoyed his work at OPP and recently retired so that his could provide full time support for his ailing wife.

*Postscript

It is with great sorrow that we report the passing of Tom's wife Rita M. Kline on Oct. 15, 2013. Rita was always an avid animal enthusiast, and friends of Rita are asked to make a donation to the animal shelter of their choice in her memory. Our heartfelt condolences go out to Tom and his family.