SNHU trustee and finance graduate Bob Decolfmacker ’78 has enjoyed many successes in life, both personal and professional. He lived through Vietnam, an experience that fostered enormous personal growth. He rose through the ranks at McIntosh College, starting as a tutor and eventually guiding the institution through unprecedented expansion as its president. Most recently he took a two-year sabbatical from his position as an educational consultant to earn a degree from Harvard University.

Bob and his wife, Trish, moved to Cambridge, Mass., during his studies to soak in the full campus experience and to reflect on what life in their 50s means.

“My personal view is that we spend a lot of time concentrating on careers and our families when we’re young,” he says. “I think you have to spend as much time thinking about what your next steps are in your 50s as you did in your 20s.”

Bob is approaching facing his 50s much the way he has in years past – with study and reflection. His latest read  is “Passion, Risk and Adventure in the Twenty-five Years After 50” by Harvard profess Sarah Lawrence-Lightfoot.

“I heard once that someone who went to Vietnam had gotten into trouble and he was threatened by a superior officer. He said, ‘Well, what’s the worst that you can do to me? Send me to Vietnam and make me work nights?” Bob recalls “I remember that so vividly.  It gave me a lot of perspective moving forward and I learned not to take things so seriously.”