Sometimes you meet someone at exactly the right time. They’re only going to be around for a minute, but they’re going to make a big impact on you. They’ll teach you things. They’ll bring you forward as a person. They change your trajectory.

I was not exactly a great student in my time at Moravian College. I had other priorities, we’ll say. If the class wasn’t something I knew I was interested in, I was only going to do enough to get by. Campaigns, partying, and being young were my priorities. This isn’t to say I was unsuccessful. I just didn’t care about my grades. I was class Vice-President, wrote for the school newspaper, and lead a couple clubs. I was just problematic, wild, and for a while, totally unfocused.

Fortunately, the President of Moravian College was a guy named Erv Rokke. Wikipedia says of Dr. Rokke:

Ervin J. Rokke (December 12, 1939 – September 5, 2025) was a lieutenant general and President of Moravian College. He was a United States Air Force lieutenant general and president of the National Defense University.^[1] During the 1980’s, as a Brigadier General in the United States Air Force, General Rokke served as the Dean of Faculty at the United States Air Force Academy.

That’s a very vanilla version of his career. But it’s the important public facing parts. Moravian goes further in depth:

According to an announcement from the U.S. Air Force Academy, Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Ervin J. Rokke was a distinguished alumnus of the U.S. Air Force Academy Class of 1962 and former Dean of the Faculty at the Academy. He furthered his education at Harvard University, earning both a master’s and a doctorate in international relations. His military career spanned 35 years, during which he held pivotal roles such as Dean of Faculty at the U.S. Air Force Academy, U.S. Air and Defense Attaché to the Soviet Union, Director of Intelligence at U.S. European Command, and President of the National Defense University.

Fortunately, he took an interest in me as a student, as did his right-hand man, a fellow retired military man named Mike Seidl. They regularly invited me to the President’s office and talked politics, the world, and my shitty grades with me. They got through to me, my senior year was a bit better, and I graduated. The quality of my education was wildly enhanced listening to people who had seen the world and lived it for real telling me about it. My professors taught me the nuts and bolts. These two guys really enhanced my thinking. I guess all that time in some of the hot spots of the globe gave them a perspective a kid from Easton didn’t have.

When I graduated in 2006, they both left town too. Dr. Rokke retired to Colorado. According to LinkedIn, so did Mike. For how much I love the west, that’s probably a good choice. I never saw them after my college years. I went on to work for a couple of Presidents, Senators, Governors, Congressmen, and State Legislators. I didn’t get rich, but damn was it a great ride. I had the most enriching, interesting career I think anyone could ever hope for. I never would have done it without them.

Rest easy, Dr. Rokke. Thanks for everything.