Look who we found

The black and white photo intrigued us when we came across it in our archives. Who is that nattily dressed young man clutching textbooks (and a slide rule?) and standing alone at night on the train platform?

“Rapid Station 1959” is all that is written on the back.

We published the photo in the spring Case Alumnus, in a new section we call “Case Memories,” asking readers to alert us if they recognized a face or a scene in the collage.

Soon, Joe Konecsni ’59, MS ’64, emailed to say the mystery student was his classmate, Candido Font.

We reached Candido Font ’59 in Coral Gables, Florida, where he is happily retired. He said he had not seen the photo, but he found his copy of the magazine, flipped to page 22, and called back.

“I don’t know why I was there (on the train platform), but that’s me!” he said.

He speculated he was on his way downtown, or perhaps just posing for a photo for a friend. Font was not a commuter. He came to Case as an international student from Cuba in 1956 and lived on campus.

“I had a good experience,” he said. “It was good school. It was as good as I thought it would be and probably better.”

He had actually come to America to attend MIT, he said. His first stop was a boarding school in Boston, to learn English. Grouped with other Spanish-speaking students, he said, he did not feel he was learning anything. So when a recruiting professor from the Case School of Applied Science visited one day, he accepted his offer to come to Cleveland and begin college immediately.

Font earned his bachelor’s degree in civil engineer, then set off on a globetrotting career. He worked in Venezuela, Puerto Rico and Spain before returning to the U.S. in 1980. At an interview in Miami for a position as a structural engineer, he said, the recruiter saw his Case degree and hired him on the spot. “He said, ‘If you went to that school, you can do this job.’”

Eventually he left private industry and went to work for the Dade County Engineer’s Office, from which he retired about 10 years ago. He’s been married to his wife, Helena, for 49 years.

Every year, he said, they attend a reception that the Alumni Association of Case Western Reserve hosts in conjunction with the Cleveland Orchestra’s appearance in Miami. That springs from another benefit his college offered. "Students got free tickets to Severance Hall," Font said wistfully. “Beautiful Severance Hall, right across Euclid Avenue. I came to love classical music because of Case."

Have a Case recollection you want to share? Write to Robert.Smith@casealum.org