Meet Robert Betts ONE OF BEHREND’S FIRST STUDENTS
Betts describes his life as the “embodiment of the American Dream.”
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oday’s college students might not think they would have anything in common with a 90-year-old man, a member of the first class to study at Penn State Behrend in 1948, but here’s something many young people in their first years at college might relate to: By his own recollection, he “had a little too much fun at first.” First, some history: When Robert Betts ’57 attended college, The Behrend Center, as it was known then, did not offer four-year degrees. Every student who attended Behrend went to University Park for their second two years to complete their bachelor’s degree. It was there that Betts, an engineering major, found himself fully involved in college life but, as he acknowledged, not so immersed in his schoolwork. “A new world opened up to me, different lifestyles, people, scenery, intensity,” he said. “I joined the Blue Band, the orchestra, the chapel choir, and a fraternity—Phi Kappa Sigma—and I was an honorary Phi Mu Alpha. It was a lot of fun.” With all the distractions, Betts’ grades slipped and he was “discredited,” the term then used for his failing to meet the standards for engineering students. “All the music rehearsals and fraternity social life activities diluted my attention to the rigors of study,” Betts said. He dropped out, which turned out to be a helpful decision as his father, the family breadwinner, contracted polio that same summer. Betts went to work at GE Refrigeration to help support the family and entered an apprentice training program for 24
locomotive and powerline component metal casting. After nearly four years, he completed the program with top honors. By then, his father had recovered enough to return to work, so Betts decided to go back to school. He used the high marks earned in his apprenticeship to appeal to Penn State and was reinstated as a Metallurgy major in the School of Mineral Industries. He graduated in 1957, almost ten years after he had started his college career at Behrend. He then embarked on a long career, beginning in 1957 with GE’s Jet Engine Division in Cincinnati, Ohio. There he met his wife, Alene. Married for more than sixty years, they have four children, four grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. Betts describes his life as the “embodiment of the American Dream,” from his early years living in the newly built Franklin Terrace housing development of Erie and his childhood spent splashing in Wintergreen Gorge’s Fourmile Creek to his enrollment at Behrend and his golden years running a tech consulting company and traveling the world with his wife. Behrend Magazine recently chatted with Betts, by email, from his home in Bentonville, Arkansas, to learn more about one of the college’s native sons. He is a member of the Silent Generation by virtue of his age only: He was more than happy to talk. (By the way, he’d love to talk to you, too. See the note at the top of the next page.) Born in desperate times: I was born in February 1931 and lived through the Great Depression with an extended maternal
