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     Bill Spence has seen it all. Now retired from the Office of University Graphics as a production specialist, he began working for the University in 1965. He started out at the now defunct Television Department on the Downtown Campus in Richardson Hall. “I was hired as a producer/director. One of the projects I remember was taping a promo film for the University using a 16mm silent camera. We had pieces of 16mm film stuck to the wall with scotch tape and we had to synchronize it all with the sound,” Spence said.
     Back then, there were no large lecture halls, so professors would teach a class, which was then closed-circuited to other classrooms. There were also television classrooms with remote-controlled cameras where student teachers could come in and tape themselves teaching.
     Among the projects he worked on was a series of videotapes on learning Hebrew, building a set for Robert Reno and his groundbreaking Man and His Environment series, taping concerts, and building programs to better teach in the lecture centers. “There was also a graphics/photography department at that time but they had no 35mm camera so they rented mine for quite a while until they had money to buy a camera of their own,” he said.
     In 1967, the University began hiring people from Channel 6 and the department quickly expanded to 45 people and was moved to the new Uptown Campus. “We didn't like it because on the Downtown Campus, we had windows and parking spaces about 17 feet from the door,” Spence said. There were also problems with design. For example, the television studio had four huge concrete pillars right in the middle of the studio.
     Nevertheless, Spence always makes the best out of any situation. One of the best examples of this was during the time he worked in the Lecture Centers. “Our offices were behind the lecture centers between two projection rooms,” he said. “A few of us drilled a hole in the wall to the projection room, set up a projector there and put up a screen over one of the desks. I had the remote control to the camera at my desk. We would get films from the students' film service, such as The Magnificent Seven. We would turn off the lights, pull down the screen and watch the movie. When we heard someone coming down the hall, the lights would come on, the screen would go up, I turned off the projector, and we were ready to assist whoever walked in. When they were gone, we would continue watching the movie.”
     Spence then began doing audio, where he did everything from recording Findlay Cockrell playing the school's alma mater to relaxation tapes for the Psychology Department. “Once we finally moved to where graphics is now located in the sub basement of the Lecture Center, we had approximately 15 graphic artists alone, as well as two cinematographers and a full film studio.” However, soon, the funds began to dry up and it came down to a choice of either spending a lot of money to renovate the studios or close down the whole television studio operation, which is what happened. He then moved over to graphics because he knew about photography, where he did darkroom work and typesetting on the mainframe computers. When PCs started being used, he learned how to do typesetting and simple design. He worked at learning more and more about computers and the rest, as they say, is history.
     “I've always been lucky to have survived various cuts and downsizing by being able to easily slip into another job or area,” Spence said. “This job supports all my hobbies. Even when I was doing something I didn't enjoy, it still left me free to play music on the weekends.”
     The University has Richard Wilkie to thank for bringing Spence to Albany. “I knew Richard from Iowa State University, when he was a professor and I was a student studying television. I got a part playing the banjo between acts of a melodrama being performed and he saw me. Richard, who played guitar and sang, invited me to his house to play the banjo and have a few drinks,” he said.
     Wilkie came here to Albany and Spence went into the Army after graduation from Iowa State in 1962. While in the Army, he was stationed in Pakistan where he listened to Russian and Chinese nuclear test conversations. “When I got out, Richard asked Bob Roe to hire me.” Spence said the secret to his longevity at the University was always having fun people to work with. “People in the creative fields are always interesting and sometimes a little off the wall,” he said.
     His colleagues in Graphics enjoy having him around as well. He is the person they turn to when they have computer problems. He has also shaped the image of the graphics office as being a fun place to work. “He is a kid at heart. Where else can you go and be serenaded when you walk in the door or be greeted by strange sounds from a computer,” they said. 
     Spence said his attitudes about life were shaped partly by his family. “I grew up in a psychology professor's house. My dad was head of the Psychology Department at the University of Iowa. My sister is also a psychologist and so is her husband. So I was always around a lot of wacky people. I was always encouraged to do the things that interested me, without much interference from my parents,” he said.
     When asked about retirement, Spence said, “Everyday is Saturday, except Sunday.” He and his wife Andy are working on a genealogy project on their families. We are planning to travel more and do things around the house. They still work with Old Songs, which is a not-for-profit corporation dedicated to preserving traditional music and dance. Spence teaches a six-week class for Old Songs instructing people on how to play the Hammered Dulcimer. “I am sort of single-handedly responsible for the revival of the instrument. When I started playing in 1972, no one was playing except for some old timers in Michigan and West Virginia. Some friends and I made an album and our music was used for WGBH's Crocket's Victory Garden. He also plays for dances throughout the area. Linda Wheeler, director of marketing and public relations for the School of Business, is taking lessons to learn to play the Hammered Dulcimer and was in a class taught by Spence. “He gave me a Hammered Dulcimer that he built so that I could take lessons. Bill is such a wonderful musician. He tells us not to just read the music but to 'put a little lilt into it`. That's the way he approaches music and he makes it fun,” she said. 
    He and his wife also have a mail-order business, which started in their front hall as a craft shop and is called Andy's Front Hall. They sell books, recordings, and some instruments. “I keep the computers going and do odd jobs for her but that is the extent of my involvement,” Spence says.
     As for his career at the University, Spence said, “I don't consider myself a graphics person. I'm a jack-of-all-trades. He added, “The most important thing to remember for anyone who wants to do anything is not to focus on any one thing. I think the key to my being happy here is that no matter what I had to do, I'd always find some way to enjoy doing it.”

     The first time Marty Pottenger descended into the shaft leading to New York City's Water Tunnel #3, she met a miner. “Girls. Girls. Hi girls,” he said, glancing at them with a worried look. “You need masks. We got silicosis down here. Like asbestosis. You need masks. We got any masks? We got any masks for these girls? I'll go get 'em, you girls stay right here.” 
     When Pottenger suggested that he needed a mask himself, he responded, “Me? My mask? Oh, I'm so old, but you're still young. I'm dead already.”
     Today, he is featured as one of 18 characters in Marty Pottenger's Obie-winning solo theatrical production, City Water Tunnel #3. The production weaves together interviews with tunnel workers, personal observations, images, video, artifacts, and an original score by Steve Elson to tell the story of the planning, building and financing of New York's City Water Tunnel #3. 
     On Thursday, Oct. 7, at 8 p.m. Marty Pottenger will perform City Water Tunnel #3 at Page Hall. The production, a celebration of work, is a giant undertaking of oral and labor history. “It's about labor worth loving, labor worth dying for,” says Pottenger, referring to the 25 people who have died since construction began in 1970. “Everyone works,” she says. “We all instill and distill meaning from our jobs every day.”
     One of Pottenger's goals has been to encourage pride among the individuals who have worked on the tunnel for the last 25 years. More than a hundred miners attended her first performance. “They were laughing hysterically, crying, glowing,” says Pottenger. “Nobody expected to see their lives so honestly portrayed with humor, love and wit. I tease them, too. [I want to portray] the harshness and integrity with which they work.” 
     The production is presented by the History and Media Committee of the  Department of History. The committee, headed by Professor Gerald Zahavi, promotes diverse undertakings that integrate traditional media, new technology, and historical research in the production of a variety of documentary, multimedia and public history projects. The committee and the New York State Writers Institute are presenting City Water Tunnel #3 as an example of the innovative use of oral history in theater. The play is also sponsored by the Affirmative Action Office, the Theatre and Women's Studies departments, and the Graduate Student Organization; and by United University Professions, Friends of WRPI, the Solidarity Committee of the Capital District, and the National Association of Women in Construction.
 

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