Why boarding schools are like fire stations...

I am settling into a week of vacation in Maine, which gives me time to think about all that we prepare for at Winchendon. Summertime may be the busiest time of year as it is the time that we work to make sure that we are well prepared.

I used to keep a quote from Andy Grove pasted over my desk, but now I can't find it. Grove, one of the founders and former CEO's of Intel, had been asked how he had been so successful at building Intel His response was that he worked to keep his team prepared in the same way that the best fire station crews are. As in fighting fires, Intel could never fully predict what the opportunities or challenges would be as they pioneered the micro-processor business. Grove argued that a fire fighting team could never anticipate every possible scenario but were best prepared if they were able to work closely together to solve problems as they confronted them.

Success in boarding school is much the same. Our schools are in some respects living organisms that need to be adaptable and have teams of faculty and administrators prepared to work closely together to tackle challenges and opportunities. We are very fortunate to have just such a team at Winchendon. Who would have thought that we would face an ice storm, the H1N1 influenza, a crumbling economy, and $140 oil and $50 oil all within the same twelve months? Yet we navigated all of those and have continued to move our School forward in amazing ways, with many campus and program improvements, continued faculty development and impressive accomplishments by our students in so many facets of their Winchendon experience. And 2009/2010 is poised to be more exciting and successful despite the obvious challenges on the horizon.

I've always appreciated Andy Grove's wisdom. Grove would be impressed by the Winchendon team. It's a group who are especially wonderful teachers in part because they would also make good firefighters and would even likely rise to the challenge of figuring out the next generation of chips if that would help our students be more successful.

In case I have not said it often enough, "thank you" again Winchendon faculty and staff.