Release_1974-1975_1974-477

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Part of (1974-1975) Bink Schmidt Feature

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Release_1974-1975_1974-477

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1.

Bink Schmidt feature

What do The Evergreen State College and the Olympia Brewing Company have in
common?

A number of things when you think about it.

Both are located in Thurston

County, both are nationally known, both were born anew within the past four decades.
And, both have grown and p~ospered with the hel~ of Bink (Trueman L.) Schmidt, who
serves on the board of directors (or trustees) of each.
Unknown to many in Thurston County, the Olympia Brewery was completely out of
business from 1916, the year prohibition began, until 1933.

The company produced soft

drinks for awhile, but finally, most of the Schmidt family had become invo1~ed in other
l
'enterpr Lsesn-e-e- hotels2,"l'treamer<iest:'1-and
bus lines.

Those were the years Bink Schmidt was growing up.

Completely a hometown product,

Bink arrived 61 years ago on the site of the brewery's present administrative offices.
At that time, the corner of Custer Way and Schmidt Place was graced by Adolph Schmidt's
family home where Winifred Lang Schmidt delivered the first four of her five children
(The fifth child, Philip (Skip) was born at 202 W. 14th).
Their second son, Bink attended Lincoln Grade School and graduated from Olympia
High School in 1932.

He promptly enrolled at Oregon State University.

Then, as he

says, "The bottom fell out around here."
That was in the midst of the depression, so Bink and his older brother, Bump
(Adolph Jr.) ran the Governor Garage until the Spring of 1933.
"We were all really scratching around," Bink recalls.

"The family was in the

hotel business,i:ib.ut
when the repeal of prbhibition was passed, Uncle Peter and Dad
began reorganizing the Brewery."
He, Bump and Bobby (Robert) served as part of the construction crew for the new
plant, built where their house once stood (the house was moved and still stands by the
Brewery parking lot, serving as offices for 0 BEE Credit Union).
was ready, Bink became the Brewery's first night shift engineer.
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When the building

2.
serving as offices for 0 BEE Credit Union).

When the building was ready, Bink became

the Brewery's first night shift engineer •.
In the fall of 1935 he returned to college, this time to Washington State University to continue his studies in architectural engineering.

He later attended the Univer-

sity of Washington Winter Quarter of 1939.
"I never finished," he says.

"I got the flu during finals week,

and then Dad

invited me to go with him, Mom and Skip to Europe.
"What he really said," Bink smiles, "is that if he paid my way over, I could pay
my way back."
He spent four months in Europe, visiting relatives in Germany and traveling from
Naples to Stockholm, before he returned to the plant.
Not long after that (1941), Bink took his bride,

Virginia Aetzel, "a girl I've

known almost all my life."
By then the war was heating up and, in December of 1942, he was shipped to Port
Althorp, Alaska as a warrant officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve.

His wife of 18

months returned to the home of her parents (the late George and Helen Aetzel) on 201
East Union, the house in which she was born.

She bore their first child, Nick, the

following June and six months later Bink returned on leave to meet him.
The young father was transferred to Corpus Christi, Texas in July of 1944,
where his wife and son joined him until the war was over.

Their daughter, Judie, arrived

there in March of 1945.
Bink returned to the Brewery as a construction engineer in January of 1946 and has
been there continuously ever since.

Elected to the Board of Directors in 1950, Bink

became a vice president in 1953, and Administrative Vice President a decade later, a post
he still holds.
"I'll get my forty-year pin next September," he says with pride.

But, his

success as a brewery administrator is not Bink Schmidt's only source of pride.
September 30 he was beaming over the birth of his second grandchild, Ellen
Pearsall, born to Judie and her husband, Roger

Pearsall, now residing in Fountain

Valley, Calfironia, with Ellen's three-year-old brother, Marc.
Bink also points with pride to his Silver Beaver Badge from the Boy Scouts,

recognition of

his accomplishments and nearly 30 years of service to youngsters in

3.

the Olympia-Tumwater community, and to service on the_Evergreen
Board of Trustees.
,..
"When Governor (Daniel J.) Evans asked if I would serve on the board, I said yes,
because my family has always been interested in community affairs and because I thought
I could help," Bink says.

The appointment brought the brewer into a "whole new territory."

"I had minimal knowledge of the workings in higher education," he says.
gone to college.

"I had

But like some students, I never worried about what made a college run."

His expertise in architectural engineering was what Bink hoped to contribute to
Evergreen, which did not yet have a site, much less any buildings.
'~I

wanted to contribute to the construction efforts," he says.

"And, let me tell

you, it's been a real thrill watching that college take shape."
Bink has not confined his contribution to engineering expertise, however.

He's

also contributed more than his share to shaping the institution's philosophy.
The trustees' role, as he sees it, is not to serve as a rubber stamp.
policy," he says emphatically.

"We make

"And, we also feel responsible to the citizens for what

we do."
What Evergreen's trustees and administrators did was to design an alternative kind
of higher education for Washington students.
"We were asked to generate an innovative school --- deliberately intended to be
something different," he says.

"The problem was how different we could make it and

still be practical and successful."
He feels the citizens of Thurston County have been "pretty darn patient with
Evergreen," but admits at times he has to take a defensive position on the college's
behalf.
"There are times I feel that some of us.make the mistake of comparing present day
colleges and universities with what we recall of the schools we attended," he says.

"In-

stead, we should compare them with other present day colleges and universities ':"
But, Bink points out, Evergreen IS different --- and he thinks that difference
is a bonus.
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4.
"I feel that its interdisciplinary academic structure is really something," he
says.

"It helps the kids get right to the meat of the coconut."
The Olympia trustee also gives high marks to Evergreen's faculty members for their

close contact with students and to the college's built-in flexibility.
"That flexibility is a beautiful thing," he says.

"There's no chance for stagnation.

Things do keep moving around out there."
He admits to having a few worries about the Cooper Point college.
"I keep hoping and wanting Evergreen to progress successfully --- to really
illustrate that this is a good way to educate," he says.

"I want it to become

an out-

standing college on the premise on which it was built."
"But," he adds,"I worry once in awhile, and hope we won't do anything that would
sink Evergreen's ship."
The father of two grown children (Judie and Nick, a marketing analyst for Warn
Industries, Seattle), Bink assures parents of college-age youngsters that Evergreen
offers "a good undergraduate education."

"It gives kids a chance to sort things out," he says.

"They find out ilIla hurry

at Evergreen that you've got to dig to get anywhere."
"And," he adds, "I think digging out the right answer for yourself --- like

you

have to at Evergreen --- is really an effective way of learning."
Bink says he's proud of the fact that Evergreen has achieved its accreditation
so quickly.

"It speaks highly of the program Evergreen has embarked upon," he comment s .

"Now," he adds, "ft's up to us to make sure we do not falter."
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