Leo Ruvolis: A man of many lives.

At 89, Leo Ruvolis describes himself as a man who has led three full lives: service in the military, a career in computing at York College and years of travel during retirement. 

Ruvolis came to the College in 1962 as director of the computer center, the first person at York and one of only a few in the entire state to serve in such a position. What made him the right guy for such a big job? A look at his other "lives" may provide an answer. 

The youngest of four children in an anthracite coal mining family, Ruvolis was the son of Lithuanian immigrants who settled in the Wilkes-Barre, Pa., area. After graduating from high school in 1938 (a luxury at the time), he entered  the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's government programs designed to lift the country out of the depression. His high school education allowed him to move from outdoor work on the Blue Ridge Parkway to an office job as assistant company clerk.  He also worked as editor on the camp newspaper and took some courses in civil engineering and surveying.

After leaving the CCC, Ruvolis enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1939 and eventually trained as a bomber pilot in the Eighth Air Force. He served two tours of duty, the first "in the North Atlantic chasing subs" and the second in Europe, just weeks after marrying Margaret, his wife of 65 years. "We met in Idaho on Groundhog Day," Ruvolis said. "She liked my military uniform. Our courtship was six weeks long, then we got married, and six weeks later I was in Europe fighting the war."

Ruvolis eventually headed a bomber crew that helped to soften up the D-day beaches, and his plane was later shot down over central Germany. He spent the last ten months of the war in a prison camp, returning from Germany in 1945. His military life was not over, however, as he remained in the Air Force Reserves for 14 more years, retiring as a major in 1961. 

Upon his return to the states, Ruvolis followed up on his earlier interest in engineering and earned a bachelor's degree from Iowa State University on the G.I. Bill. He worked in photogrammetric engineering (making topographical maps from aerial photos) for several companies; a position with a group called Keystone Mapping brought him to York and to his "second life" at York College. 

President Ray Miller had purchased an IBM computer for the campus in the fall of 1961. At that time, the College's computer system was one of only three in the entire county of York and among a few on college campuses throughout Pennsylvania. Having made such a bold purchase, Miller next took on the challenging task of finding someone to run the computer. 

"No one in the county or state could run this thing because nobody knew anything about it," Ruvolis said. "Computers were few and far between." He saw an ad for the position and applied, figuring he "knew just about enough to make a case for himself." Ruvolis and two others Miller had chosen were tested by IBM, and Ruvolis was selected as the best candidate. 

Miller got the unit from IBM at a discounted price – half of the original price of $250,000, according to Ruvolis – with several conditions attached. IBM agreed to train whoever was chosen to run the computer, and York College would allow IBM to bring customers to campus for a sales pitch. "IBM cut the College quite a deal," Ruvolis said, "but because they had no other presence in the area at that time, they brought potential clients to campus to see the computer. That was part of the deal." 

As promised, IBM trained Ruvolis at its schools for about six months. When he returned, he hit the ground running and wrote the College's first program. "Me and the IBM guy in York wrote the first program – a student billing program – together," he said. "Dr. Miller wanted that first, which makes sense. You have to keep track of who owes what."

Ruvolis then went out to "build all the other administrative programs" at the College. He also began teaching courses like Introduction to Computers and Fortan Programming part-time in the Business Department. Offering such courses again put York on the cutting edge, according to Ruvolis, as one of the first colleges in the area to teach computer science. 

In 1965, President Miller sent him to Millersville College for a master's degree in education. In addition to helping him improve as an instructor, Ruvolis' educational experience there provided another valuable benefit to the College, whose leadership was at that time contemplating expansion from a two-year to a four-year college. 

"My master's thesis at Millersville was a survey on whether York County would support a four-year college offering bachelor degree programs," Ruvolis said. "I surveyed lots of York Countians and then used the College's computer system to collect my data." 

Ruvolis distributed questionnaires to more than 15,000 residents of the county: 24 high school administrators, 43 business and industrial leaders, 10,276 high school students, 2,525 parents of high school students and 3,014 employees of business and industry. "No one else in the county could've done this, because they didn't have the system that we did," he said. "They would've had no way of collecting and storing that amount of data."

Did York County support the College's expansion? You bet, according to Ruvolis' thesis, which he can still produce. "The findings of this study show that there is a definite community interest and need for a four-year baccalaureate degree granting college in York County, and that such a college would be enthusiastically supported by the groups studied," it reads. 

Ruvolis continued as director of the computer center and as a part-time instructor in the Business Department until 1980, when he shifted his work to teaching full time. "By that time, we had a complete computer curriculum and major," he said. He officially retired from York College in 1984, but stayed on for six more months working on special projects for the new president, Robert Iosue. 

Post-retirement marks Ruvolis' "third life." For 20 or so years, he and his wife traveled every summer in their motor home, visiting all of the lower 48 states.  They also visited every Canadian province that touches the United States and traveled once "across the bridge to Mexico." He and Margaret now enjoy visiting with their three daughters, who all live close by his home in Dover, Pa. Two of his daughters, Cheryl Ruvolis O'Brien '73 and Kathleen Ruvolis Knisely '76, earned degrees from York College.  

During a recent visit back to the administrative computing center at York College, Ruvolis caught up with three employees he hired during his tenure as director of the computer center: Brian Smeltzer, who eventually replaced him as director of administrative computing; Sallie Reigart, data entry clerk and Deb Davis, payroll specialist. He fondly recalled his many years of work at the College. "Since very few folks I know are still there, I guess I represent echoes of the past now," he said.