Mike remembers the day an adult visitor at the Center asked, “Are any of these things real?” Questions like this add to his enjoyment as a docent and PIC (Person in Charge) at ORHC. Mike appreciates the curiosity and engagement of visitors from every continent and loves trying to share something worthwhile with each one.

He came upon ORHC organically. He saw the 4449 up close as it pulled the American Freedom Train. Later, in the 1990s, Mike’s dad knew someone on either the 700 or 4449 crew, and the two of them occasionally ventured down to the Brooklyn roundhouse to check out the locomotives. In fact, their original neighbor in Vancouver was a long-retired SP&S engineer and likely ran the 700. Many years later, while driving past, Mike heard a steam whistle and wandered into the brand new Center. Al Baker gave him a tour, signed him up to volunteer, and the rest is history. After years of volunteering in the museum, Jim Vanderbeck finally convinced him to join the 700 crew. Mike jokes that he knows just enough about mechanical stuff to stay out of trouble!

Growing up in Torrance, California, Mike loved the outdoor life it afforded a kid—like bicycling to the beach with his snorkel gear. Once a commercial fisherman in Warrenton, Oregon, before WWII, Mike’s dad longed to get back to the Pacific Northwest and brought the family to Vancouver in 1975. Mike graduated from Fort Vancouver High School and went on to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in geology from Portland State University. That fit well with his habit of spending every spare moment in the mountains or on the rivers of Washington. Some early impromptu speech competition experience helped him greatly in his career, which included a lot of public education work. He says that such experience also helps him tailor a docent interaction at the Center to the audience, whether they are grade school students or senior citizens.

Mike began his career as a firefighter/EMT for the Vancouver Fire Department at age 21. Working through the ranks, he retired as a Battalion Chief in 2010. As a BC, Mike supervised company officers and served as incident commander for complex emergencies. Until recently, he played the bagpipes as a member of the Vancouver Firefighters’ Pipes & Drums. They performed at firefighter memorials and other special events.

Mike and Jan, his wife of 33 years and a lifelong registered nurse, have two sons who both now live in California. Peter is an astrophysicist, and Greg is a firefighter/EMT for Cal Fire. In the 1980s, Mike and other firefighters developed a volunteer salmon hatchery in his neighborhood. Each year, the project hatched 90,000 Coho eggs, in an effort to boost Coho populations in Salmon Creek. Each winter, two 3rd or 4th grade classes from the nearby elementary school were introduced to the Coho salmon life cycle, and they used stream data to predict when the smolt (1” long baby Coho) would be ready to go into the river. At that point, an official school field trip brought the students to the hatchery site, where they formed a “bucket brigade” to release the smolt into the stream. There are now many more Coho returning upriver into his neighborhood each fall, and hundreds of local kids have grown up with greater knowledge of, and respect for, their neighborhood stream environment.

Mike and Jan look forward to returning to the tiny village in the Swiss Alps where Jan’s mother was born, on the route of the Glacier Express in Canton Valais. They especially want to visit the nearby Dampfbahn Furka-Bergstreke railway, which was not yet operational during their last visit. This volunteer-operated steam heritage railway offers summertime excursions on the original narrow gauge cog railway route over the Furka pass. The Furka Oberalp (now MGB) railway bypassed this route with a base tunnel in 1982. The volunteers found the line’s original steam locomotives rusting away in Vietnam, then raised the funds to return and restore them. The route is so rugged that volunteers have to fold up and remove a bridge every autumn so winter avalanches don’t destroy it.

Mike has a pretty busy life. He and Jan live on acreage in the Cascade foothills. Jan is an avid gardener and Mike works to keep the deer out of the garden. He also builds and maintains trails, and pretends to be a forester and rancher. He finally got the Jeep Wrangler he’s wanted since high school, and he likes European and Quebecois folk music. He is an avid beer and wine maker, brewing mostly IPAs, plus a few Hefeweizens each summer.