Two, Who are Retiring at Williams, Gave a Total of 68 Years of Service

Media contact: Noelle Lemoine, communications assistant; tele: (413) 597-4277; email: [email protected]

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., June 27, 2001 — Two long-time administrators at Williams College are stepping down. Director of Dining Services James Hodgkins and the Director of Facilities Management Winthrop Wassenar will retire on June 30.

Hodgkins came to Williams in 1970 as assistant director of food services and was promoted to director of food services in 1982. He has supervised the preparation and serving of more than 31 million meals in the college’s five dining halls, Faculty House, and Baxter Snack Bar, over the course of his 31 years, as well as catering about 1,000 special functions each year. The Williams College dining halls employ a full-time staff of 120 and more than 200 student workers.

“It’s marvelous when one is surrounded by spirited and creative people like I’ve been,” he told the student newspaper, The Williams Record. “Dining Services often simultaneously caters dinners for up to 700 people while providing meals for 2,000 students. This would be impossible without a great staff.”

A 1965 graduate of the University of New Hampshire, where he majored in hotel and restaurant administration, he first worked for the Saga Administrative Corporation, one of the largest food service firms in the nation. As an employee of Saga, Hodgkins worked at a number of colleges and universities, including Ithaca, Babson, Clark, and Regis.

He is a member of the National Association of College and University Food Services and served as its regional president from 1993 to 1995, vice president from 1981 to 1993, and as national chair of its Professional Standards and Visitation Committee. He is also a member of the Association of Food Services Research and the National Association of College Auxiliary Services.

His most recent community service is as vice president of Willinet and previously as chair of the Williams Cable Commission, and as a member of the boards of the Berkshire Community College and the Berkshire Food Project.

For 37 years, Wassenar has been responsible for its physical plant, managing the Buildings and Grounds department with its 155 employees, and for Williams College enjoying a national reputation as one of the best maintained colleges in the country. The secret of his success, he says, “I appreciate good architecture and enjoy working with good architects. I’ve had the good fortune to work with world-class architects such as Charles Moore, Ben Thompson, Harry Weese, Bob Frasca, Bill Rawn, and others. But I can’t rank building projects, I’ve liked working on all of them.”

Major building and renovation projects completed during Wassenar’s tenure include the college’s art museum, Sawyer Library, Mission Park, Chandler Gym, Hopkins and Griffin Halls’ renovation, an addition to the Faculty House, Simon Squash Courts, Bronfman Science Center, and most recently the unified Science Center.

Wassenar received a B.S. degree in civil engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1959, and a M.S. degree from the same institution in 1960. He was an instructor in engineering mechanics for thee years before joining the Williams staff in 1964 as assistant director of physical plant, and was named director in January 1983.

He was the first facilities director to be awarded a Fulbright Scholarship Fellowship for Academic Administrations in 1989 and, in 1991, also received the Association of Higher Education Facilities Officers’ President’s Award.

Active in local civic activities, he served on the Williamstown School Committee, on the board of corporators of the North Adams Regional Hospital and the South Adams Saving Bank, and on the board of directors of the Williamstown Community Chest and the Williamstown Board of Trade. He presently serves on the advisory council of the Trustees of the Reservations, the nation’s oldest land trust founded in 1891.

END

Published June 27, 2001