www.heartofcartm.org/repaircafe
And today we want to hold up the work of expert fixer Dick Park with this spotlight!
We have some wonderfully handy people volunteering with the Repair Café every month and have decided that you all need to know more about them! In this newsletter we are highlighting Dick Park, one of our expert fixers who has been offering his cheerful competent repair support since almost the beginning! Dick generously allowed me to interview him and learn more about how he gained his skills. Hopefully through this we can also learn from his experiences!
Dick Park was born on a farm in southern Idaho and was blessed to have a father who was mechanically inclined that he could learn from. Following him around on the farm, Dick learned by watching. His father couldn’t just call someone to come fix his farm equipment – there wasn’t the time or money for that – so he fixed things himself. Fortunately, farm equipment was made to be repaired.
Dick loved to tinker with things as a child, taking things apart and then seeing how they go back together. When he was in 7th grade, he built a tractor out of the parts that were available to him.
Shortly after high school his uncle recruited him to come to the Pacific Northwest to work for Boeing. The company hired him to be a draftsman and then finding that he didn’t yet know how to do the job they enrolled him in a 14-week course. This opportunity gave him the training that he would use his whole adult life.
As a young man Dick served in the Navy, attended the Oregon Institute of Technology, and got married! He worked for the University of Washington in their applied physics lab doing underwater research for the navy. During this time he says he watched the engineers doing mechanical things and learned from them, not just how to do something but also how to approach the problem of making something work.
After his retirement he started doing computer design, always going back to the design before he would make something. He loves wood working. He and his wife Kathy designed and built their home together, and Dick has built many wooden items including boxes and furniture.
At the repair café, Dick specializes in fixing lamps, wooden items, anything electronic and is fearless about taking things apart.
Dick and Kathy are moving away soon, and we will miss them. We will miss Dick’s presence at the repair café!
