Carl Curtis’s soft-spoken courtesy and unflappability belie his incisive mind and leadership talents. For the past decade he has been everywhere at OLLI. His activism and wise decision-making have shaped the organization as we know it today.
Under Carl’s tutelage since 2007, OLLI has significantly increased its membership, expanded and improved its facilities and curriculum and implemented a plan of action for the future. As he passes the mantle to our incoming President Malcolm Green, Carl, ever the realist—and optimist, welcomes the fresh perspective of new leadership.
Carl is well-schooled in making successful transitions. After graduating from Western High School in his hometown Silver City, New Mexico, he enrolled as a chemical engineering major at the University of Colorado but felt “bushwhacked by the mathematics.” So he switched to literature, graduating with a B.A. in literature and minors in philosophy and psychology.
Next he decided to be a Methodist minister and enrolled at Claremont School of Theology in California. After three years of study and part-time work as a youth minister, Carl realized that his thinking he
ad shifted into the “theological left-field.” He left the seminary and took a “temporary” job as a probation officer in the Los Angeles County Probation Department. He retired thirty-five years later.
During his career Carl worked 19 different assignments, mostly middle management such as the training and supervision of probation officers and running probation camps for juveniles. One job he found profoundly rewarding was directing a fire camp in San Fernando Valley where he oversaw the training of 75 court wards as a handcrew to fight brush fires. They were equipped with shovels, Pulaskis* and chain saws to clear away brush and create a fire line. Motorists on the roadway near the fire line stopped to give the handcrew thumbs up. They were doing heroic work and they were proud of it. Carl was proud too, of them.
Carl’s two sons and three grandsons are another great source of pride. His sons were in their teens when Carl found himself a single parent, leaving him to raise them to adulthood. Both are married; one is a deputy sheriff in Missouri. He is the reason Carl first became enamored with astronomy, by reading his son’s college textbook. The younger son earned his M.B.A. from CSULB, works in banking and lives in Nevada.
Carl has found yet more rewards at OLLI. He began in 2002 as a student in Fran Harding’s BACH, BEETHOVEN AND BEYOND. That “hooked” him, he says. He took many more courses, coached and taught in our computer lab, 
taught astronomy classes, served as class liaison, formed the Planetary Science Club at OLLI and served as vice-president from 2005 to 2007. Then came the presidency—for Carl, a full time job, a job with everything, including a minimum of 40 hours weekly — excluding salary, benefits and vacation time. Carl is a man who thrives on giving.
He gives his utmost because he believes that when something needs to be righted, someone needs to get out there and do something. Accepting the status quo when it can be improved is nonproductive, Carl says. By means of work and study, we can improve our world.
Thank you, Carl, for giving OLLI the best of yourself. Your example will inspire us to continue to work at making OLLI the best it can be.
*Combination axe and adze
