People
by Jim Powell
 Focus
on Carlene Nelson
“I realized I couldn’t
be a doctor, but I became a doctor. I had the desire of learning.
My desire to learn is overwhelming, and I can’t imagine
not learning and growing. It’s important for me.”—Carlene
Nelson
If anyone epitomizes the mission and
goals of a university, it is Carlene Nelson, the only member
of the Information Technology staff (non-management) with
a doctorate degree. Her long journey to achieve this goal
was fueled by a thirst for knowledge, introspection, perseverance,
personal courage, and the love and support of her family and
Cal State Fullerton colleagues.
Nelson grew up as an only child in
the unincorporated area of Hauser
Lake, north of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. From one of
her bedroom windows she had a view of the lake and, from the
other, a view of the mountains. The small town atmosphere
and remote location afforded many opportunities for life in
the great outdoors, from ice skating and sledding in the winter,
to swimming and hiking in the summer. “I was physically
very healthy; I was outside, I was exercising, and having
that as a natural part of my everyday life established my
healthy body early,” Nelson said. “It really was
wonderful, although I didn’t think it was so cool then.
But it helped me to think and process and learn about myself;
something I highly value now.”
From her earliest years she developed
what was to become a lifelong love affair with reading and
learning. During the summer, she would take her dog and a
book and hike into the mountains for a day of reading. A self-described
“open book,” she recalls enjoying everything from
fairy tales to Edgar Allen Poe. “It was so easy for
me to get into ‘Harry Potter;’ it’s so wonderful,
it’s like a fairy tale,” she explained. “And
I learned from Poe that out of his suffering and pain came
some pretty good writing.”
She graduated from Rathdrum
High School, a member of a graduating class of twenty-five
students. She recalled reading her high school year book recently,
noting that she’d answered the question “What’s
your goal?” with “To be a doctor.”
“Of course, at the time, I thought
that meant medical doctor,” she recalled with a laugh.
“Why did I think I could be a doctor when I couldn’t
even stand to see myself bleed?
That fact notwithstanding, Nelson was
still on the road to a dream. But the road was longer than
expected, with a few detours.
She attended the University
of Idaho where she changed her major five times in her
first two years, finally settling on a business education
major with the intent of becoming a high school business teacher—a
career she thought would fulfill two needs. “I loved
accounting, but there’s a part of me that really values
interactions with people. Relationships are the most important
things in my life,” she explained.
In her sophomore year she entered into
a platonic relationship with a senior named Lorin Nelson,
who became her best friend. The two had similar backgrounds
and “we shared similar pains and we really had a great
time sharing; it was really nice having someone who was different
from any other male that I’ve known; just a friend,”
Nelson said. The two soon started dating which “was
awkward for me, at first, because I didn’t want to lose
my friend.”
Lorin Nelson graduated and obtained
his commission in the military while Carlene returned to school
for her junior year. But she lasted just one semester before
her money ran out. Although she’d borrowed “every
dime I could get my hands on,” it was just too much.
And then Lorin proposed marriage.
“So I stopped school and worked
for a year to repay all the money I had borrowed, because
all of my loans required repayment on the event of my marriage,”
she recalled. “So I paid it all back before I got married.”
Lorin was soon off to a posting in
the Aleutian
Islands and Nelson completed her junior year through the
Washington State
University Extension. After resigning his commission and
leaving the military, Lorin attended Children’s Hospital
of Los Angeles School of Physical Therapy for 18 months. Upon
graduation, he received a job offer and the family moved to
Orange County.
Nelson threw herself into volunteer
work that supported the activities and education of her children
Kathy and Tim. “My body conformed to the shape of the
car seat,” she laughed, recalling the countless hours
as the family chauffeur. “Parenting was an absolute
joy for me.”
But there was something else she still
needed to do. “I really knew I wanted to go back to
school and finish my degree,” she said. “I was
so disappointed that I had not been able to do that.”
With her children more independent
in their years of middle school and high school, Nelson ended
her career as a volunteer and, in the spring of 1977, returned
to college as a reentry
student at Cal State Fullerton. She entered as a human services
major, but a sociology class with Dennis Berg changed that.
“I’d written a paper for his class. When I got
it back, I saw that he had written on it ‘A+, best of
the lot, come see me,’” she remembered. “He
told me that I should be in sociology so I could pursue graduate
work research. He talked a good case, so I did.”
Nelson received her bachelor’s
degree in sociology in December of 1981, and intended to find
a part-time job. But a call from sociology professor Tony
Bell changed that. Bell had just received a significant grant
from the Hilgenfeld
Mortuary to study death and dying. Nelson had been in
one of Bell’s classes on the subject, and he wanted
her to work with him on the grant study, but only if she was
enrolled as a graduate student. She readily accepted.
Nelson had her first exposure to computers
as an undergraduate doing statistics with punch cards on the
main frame. During her stint as a graduate student, the Sociology
Department bought an Osborne
computer loaded with Wordstar and other programs, and she
quickly saw the potential. “I offered to make a deal
with the department. I told them that if I could do my thesis
on the Osborne, I would pay for the related supplies and teach
interested faculty and staff how to use the computer. And
so, I did,” she said. “I was so thirsty to learn
that.”
Nelson graduated with her master’s
degree in 1983 and began working part-time managing the sociology
department’s small computer lab where she helped faculty
and students with research, data input and report writing—the
exact skills needed by the Computer Center’s Kerry Boyer
who invited her to apply for an open position with the center.
He promised to teach her everything she needed to know in
addition to the skills she brought to the job. “My responsibility
when I got to the Computer Center was to shadow Kerry,”
she said. “When he taught classes on Xedit
or the mainframe, I was there to learn it so I could take
over for him. It was so much fun and I loved it.”
“Most people limit their potential
by restricting what they do to areas within their comfort
level or which might have a high degree of success. Carlene
doesn't generally know what she can't do,” friend and
IT colleague Kerry Boyer explained. “One of my favorite
quotes comes from a 1968 Woody Woodpecker cartoon—it
epitomizes the most endearing qualities about Carlene. The
quote goes like this: ‘You know how much you know when
you know how much you don’t know.’ Carlene is
constantly looking to see how much she doesn't know.”
Nelson was soon consulting with faculty
in the Humanities, Business Administration and Human Development
and Community Services. “Carlene has a strong relationship
with . . . faculty who need to use computers and statistical
packages for research, but who are not naturally disposed
to enjoy the experience,” noted IT Senior Director Dick
Bednar, a long-time colleague. “For over a decade, our
advice every time was, ‘talk to Carlene.’”
Nelson later managed the then-computer
center’s prototype computer lab in the basement of McCarthy
Hall, and played key roles in the implementation of the campus’s
first email system and, later, the transition to the current
Outlook/Exchange system where she now manages email accounts.
The year of 1989 marked a turning point
in her personal life. That was the year that her daughter
graduated from Biola University, and both of her parents attended
the ceremony. “They’d been divorced for 43 years.
And yet they sat by each other and laughed and giggled. The
next thing we knew, Mom extended her visit. The bottom line
is that they remarried,” Nelson recalled, noting the
misgivings of other family members. “It was a bit odd.
We had reconnected to where we had left off; where we all
had been before they divorced. So here I was, 6 years old
again. I mean, I had never been treated as an adult by them.”
After her parents’ remarriage,
they held a family meeting where her father asked if there
was something she had not yet in her life that she would still
like to do. Nelson’s ready response was to earn a Ph.D.
Her father agreed to cover the expense if she could find the
appropriate program.
One of Nelson’s requirements
was that the program would accept a part-time student. At
the time, most universities in the area, including USC, UCLA,
UCR, UCI and Claremont, were not accepting part-time doctoral
students.
“I discovered Fielding
Graduate University in Santa Barbara. I fell in love with
its way of teaching; you’re really in charge of your
own curriculum and what you want to learn,” Nelson said.
“So I started my work on a degree in human
and organizational systems. It took a long time—12
years. But that time of my life. I knew that getting a Ph.D.
would change my perception of the world, and it really did
in all ways: personal, professional, everything. It was an
awesome experience.”
Fielding’s curriculum and teaching
structure is geared to working professionals, allowing them
to work at their own pace. Fielding’s structure accommodated
writing her dissertation “The Determinants of Grief
Duration” while she was still completing her coursework.
“My research interest is how
people respond to stress. When I worked with Tony Bell during
my master’s work, I had the opportunity to examine that
in the lives of people whose loved one had died in the past
year,” she explained. “And so, I used the same
database as the one I used in my thesis, because I was an
integral part of the interviews. I’d interviewed about
100 of 250 people. And each interview lasted 2 to 4 hours.”
Nelson’s research showed that
subjects who have been through previous loss, or stressful
experience in their lives, are bettered prepared for subsequent
events of loss, whether it is the loss of a loved one, a job,
an idealization—essentially the loss of anything that
one loves or holds closely.
“My ideal job would be to write
dissertations,” she laughed. “I love to take data
and to make sense out of them, and that’s just so much
fun. It’s like a puzzle, and I like to do jigsaw puzzles.”
Nelson was awarded her Ph.D. by her
Fielding mentor and advisor at a gathering of friends, family
and colleagues at a celebration held on the CSUF campus. When
the presentation was made, her husband Lorin pushed a button
on a boom-box and the room was filled with Handel’s
Hallelujah Chorus
and the applause and admiration of all.
When asked about her motivation during
those 12 years, Nelson replied “The rewards were so
significant. It was very personal. My motivation was not to
get a better job, my motivation for getting a Ph.D. was that
I knew it would change me; it changes the way you see yourself,
the way you see others, the way you see the world. And that
kept me going. My family was so positive, and so were my Cal
State Fullerton colleagues. And I think that made the difference.”
Reflecting on her twenty-plus years
on campus, Nelson values most the relationships she has forged.
“I love the people that I work with. IT is the greatest
place to work,” she said. “Why would I go anywhere
else?”
Indeed, she is valued by Information
Technology in ways far beyond her technical expertise. For
Nelson, who has valued relationships throughout her life,
it is still about the people.
“She has an uncanny knack of
recognizing when people are not feeling good about things
and cannot express their concerns effectively, and their supervisor
is too involved with ‘getting the work done’ to
notice,” observed Dick Bednar. “Carlene has averted
major disasters time after time by getting things addressed
before they got out of hand. Seeing that Carlene is calm,
warm, and trustworthy has allowed people to share concerns
with her that they are unable to share with others.”
Nelson’s thirst for knowledge
continues with her lifelong love and reading, one of the values
she is imparting to her grandchildren. “I don’t
read books by authors I normally agree with. I want to see
their perspective and expand my horizons,” she explained,
noting that she gives her grandson books to read and offers
$5 for every oral book report he gives her. “I told
him that he didn’t always have to like the book to get
the $5. I just wanted to encourage independent thought.”
Learning—it’s a life-long
experience. But the rewards are great; just ask Carlene Nelson.
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Meet
the Help Desk’s Newest Consultants
Five new staff members joined the Help
Desk over the past few months to help meet the growing technology
needs of the campus.
Warren Sasahara grew up in Rowland Heights with his three
siblings; an identical twin brother, an older brother and
a younger sister. Being a twin, he says, “is great.
You have someone with you all the time growing up, sharing
the likes and dislikes. Having a twin is having someone you
can always depend on,” he explained.
But sharing likes, dislikes and interests
may have influenced his career, though his interest in technology
began as a purely financial move. His job at McDonald’s
wasn’t paying enough, and he knew his twin brother was
earning a bigger salary as a computer technician at a local
“mom and pop” shop that built and serviced computers
for the Los Angeles Community College District.
“I convinced my brother to get
me a job there building computers,” he recalled. “I
was in it for the money, but after working on a few computers
I soon developed a fascination with technology, especially
how things worked, and I’ve been hooked ever since.”
He continued his interest in college;
he’s a recent graduate of San Diego State University
where he earned a bachelor’s degree in business with
an emphasis in Information and Decision Systems.
After graduation he worked for SDSU’s
Office of Housing Administration assisting residents and staff
with computer issues. He also worked on desktop support for
EDS’s Naval Marine Corps Intranet project.
When he’s not working, Sasahara
is a self-confessed TV junkie. When he’s not glued to
the tube, he can be found at the beach on a boogie board,
or snowboarding in the mountains. He also enjoys Laker basketball,
computer games, and the occasional “impulsive trip to
Las Vegas.”
George McCalmon was born and raised in Georgetown, Guyana
in South America, the youngest of four children. The family
moved to Long Beach when McCalmon was 16 years old.
McCalmon attended Cal State Long Beach
and earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration
with an emphasis in management information systems. He credits
his parents as being “the principal motivators”
in his decision to pursue a business degree. “They felt
this field would give me a solid foundation upon which to
build and provide many opportunities for employment,”
he recalled.
His interest in technology was piqued
by a friend who ran a business designing and hosting websites.
“He encouraged me to consider a career working with
computers and introduced me to a friend of his who built computers,”
he recalled. “I spent some weekends and evenings working
with these two knowledgeable gentlemen learning more about
computers.”
Prior to coming to CSUF, McCalmon worked
as a part-time computer technician in CSULB’s Facilities
Management Department. Next, he was a quality assurance specialist
with FAMIS Software, Inc. in Irvine. FAMIS develops facilities
management software that is used by many universities, including
Cal State Fullerton. While there, he tested software and wrote
release notes.
When he’s not at work, McCalmon
enjoys video games, reading mysteries and participating in
outdoor activities such as camping—he’s a member
of the Boy Scouts and is an Assistant Scout master for Troop
25 in Long Beach.
 Lorenzo
Armas, the first of five siblings, was born in West Plains,
Missouri, but “I should have been born somewhere in
Nigeria (Africa) but my Mother didn’t have her malaria
shots so she stayed with her family in Missouri while my father
continued to work at his job in Africa,” Armas recalled.
Soon after he was born, his father returned from his foreign
assignment and the family settled in on a 200-acre farm in
Arkansas.
“We raised baby pigs to sell at
auction for about five years before the business went south.
Or, as we pig farmers like to say, ‘we went belly up,’”
he said.
After the pig farming venture, Armas’s
mother joined the Army and “my brother and I became
Army brats,” he recalled. “Two more brothers later
my mother decided that she’d had enough of moving every
six months, so we moved and settled in my father’s home
town of Lompoc, California.”
Armas attended UC Irvine where he studied
biology with the goal of attending medical school and becoming
a doctor. After earning his bachelor’s degree in biology,
however, the thought of another four years in college no longer
appealed to him. “The one great thing that did come
out of UC Irvine was finding my wonderful wife, Lien,”
he said.
After graduation, he worked as a Crystal
Report Developer for a software company that made food service
software.
When he’s not working, Armas enjoys
tennis, swimming and family gatherings. “My father likes
to barbecue,” he said.
Mark Thomas was born in Los Angeles and raised in Long Beach.
His first computer was a Commodore 64 and “had every
version from there on up,” he explained. “I used
to fix computers belonging to my friends as well as to my
parents’ friends for fun. Then one day when I was about
to graduate from high school someone asked me what were my
favorite things to do as a hobby, and I said working with
computers. And so I turned my hobby into my career.”
Thomas ran track and played football
in high school and continued his track career in college.
He graduated from UC Riverside with a degree in liberal studies,
citing his motivation as “my parents breathing down
my neck.”
Following graduation, Thomas worked
in Riverside to develop a web design/hosting business and
served as a web development consultant for several private
companies. In addition, he worked in the UCR Computing and
Communications department’s help desk and then as web
developer/programmer for the department’s Center for
Visual Computing. He also worked as a web programmer at UC
Riverside for the UCR Alumni Association and African Student
Programs.
When he’s not at work, Thomas
is working out in an attempt “to see if I can return
to the body I once had.” He also enjoys sailing, golf,
running, and plays craps in Las Vegas. He also confesses to
an occasional interest in conspiracy theories.
 John
Mothershed was born in the Philippines and raised in Colorado.
He has one younger brother who he “tortured a lot when
we were kids.” When Mothershed was in the 8th grade,
the family moved to Escondido where he attended Escondido
High School. While there, he joined the cross country and
track and field teams. It was during this time that his family
returned to Colorado, but Mothershed stayed behind to live
with his coach and continue competing with the team.
Mothershed attended Palomar Community College and then transferred
to Cal State San Marcos where he minored in mathematics and
earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration
with an emphasis in high technology management. Following
graduation, he worked for Polestar Labs, a company specializing
in physicians’ office laboratories.
Mothershed still lives in San Diego
County and commutes to Cal State Fullerton by train. In his
spare time, he enjoys paintball and snow boarding. He now
prefers mountain biking to running because “it’s
easier on the legs.”
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