Ken Hood
Facilities Planning and Management Officer
University at Buffalo Libraries
“It's not a planned path, but rather an adventure.”
'72 - German Major Minor: History
After studying German throughout high school, I entered Houghton College in 1968 as a German major. At the end of my sophomore year, I spent the summer of 1970 at the Dolmetscher Institut in Radolfzell, Germany, under the Study Abroad Program of Christian Colleges. The following academic year, I studied in the Germanistik Department at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. I returned to Houghton as a Language Lab Instructor and graduated in 1972 with Honors in German.
Upon graduation, I entered the U.S. Air Force and was trained as both a Chinese Mandarin Linguist and Cryptanalyst. My language training was at the Defense Language Institute, West Coast Branch, in Monterey, California. Those with skills in learning foreign languages were - and still are - highly prized by the military and the National Security Agency to which we reported. Cryptanalysis uses some of the same brain functions as language learning, apparently!
Upon discharge from the Air Force, I entered the MA program in German Philology at the University at Buffalo in 1978. I continued with studies toward the doctorate in German Languages and Literatures but switched to library and information science along the way. During my German studies at UB, I served as a Teaching Assistant in German and as administrative assistant to the Director of the Center for Critical Languages where up to twenty-five less commonly studied languages were offered on a tutorial basis by native speakers of those languages.
I earned the Master of Library Science degree in 1981 and was appointed within a month of graduation as the bibliographer and reference librarian for German languages and literatures, linguistics, religious studies, philosophy, and Judaic Studies in the University at Buffalo Libraries. It was an ideal use of both master’s degrees!
The end of the following year, I entered library administration as Assistant to the Director of University Libraries for Administrative Affairs. Subsequent positions include Interim Director (for four years!) of the UB Science and Engineering Libraries and the Director of Human Resources for sixteen years. I am now Facilities Planning and Management Officer for the University Libraries as we transform the concept and notion of libraries in the twenty-first century and as we create the new UB, as outlined in the UB2020 Plan.
I believe language learning fosters all sorts of interests, and that is why a career such as mine has gone in so many different yet rewarding directions. I would encourage those who like language studies to develop the skills necessary for that sort of learning and apply them to all aspects of your life! It does have its rewards.
