Retiree likes CLC so much he’s been student for 20 years

Lester congratulated welding instructor Russ Jenkins upon his retirement as the Central Lakes College spring semester wrapped up. The two met as co-workers at a Fridley ordnance production plant before Lester retired in 1988.

By Steve Waller, CLC Public Information Specialist
When he turns 86 in June, Lester Netley of rural Pine River will have been a student at Central Lakes College in Brainerd for 20 years.
He never intends to graduate. He doesn’t keep track of credits, because he’s here for the joy of machining and enrichment.
College Registrar Nick Heisserer reports Lester has completed 160 credits, the equivalent of more than two associate degrees.
The retired machinist last worked a real job in 1988, leaving after 36 years with Northern Pump Co, a Naval ordnance factory in Fridley. By 1991 he had found his way to family property near Whitefish Lake in Cass County and also found the college.
Within a year he registered for the first in a string of open welding labs. He splits his time nowadays between welding and a small-engine lab.
“They sent me a circular,” he said. “It had some interesting classes and programs, so I took a closer look.” His last college experience had been through the U.S. Navy, when he attended machinist school at the Henry Ford plant in Dearborn, Mich.
During nearly three years of active duty in WWII, Lester learned much of what would lead him to his career. His training evolved into work as an aviation machinist.
Machines have always been part of his life, starting with his childhood near Sioux City, Iowa, where he tinkered and learned by trial and error. “I also tried an accounting school in Omaha for about two years, but it just didn’t work for me. I learned a lot anyway and got to know some high-caliber people.”
His tinkering continues to this day on equipment of various sizes, from a tractor to a one-cylinder Maytag washing machine engine. The 1930-vintage “one-lunger” has a fresh coat of green paint and may be long-gone from original purpose but has been mounted on other platforms to power such things as go-carts.
“My folks bought it in the 1930s. I still have it and it runs great,” he said. Not made for a long time now, since everything’s Briggs and Stratton, Tecumseh, Honda, and such.”
Lester has disposed of his impressive collection of outboard boat motors, but he has kept a functional snow blower, snowmobile, and four-wheeler. “They get me around the place a lot better than walking,” he said of his eight-acre parcel called home.
His commutes to the college campus are about as mechanically efficient as a tinkerer would want. The red Volkswagen Beetle is a diesel rig that once provided about 55 miles per gallon. “I still get about 45, which isn’t too bad for 270,000 miles,” he said.
What does he do at CLC? He helps younger students who are unfamiliar with some of the older, enduring machines showing up for repair. He learns about the new world of technology, up to a point.
“I enjoyed seeing how a motorcycle is put together,” he said of a project in the Marine and Small Engine program. He’s never owned nor has he ridden one.
He also learned more about maintaining his vehicle through the college’s automotive technology program.
When not tinkering with motors or operating a lathe to rebuild older machines, Lester can be found probing landscapes. He is a rock hound. As a member of the Cuyuna Rock, Gem, and Mineral Society of Crosby he takes outings along Lake Superior’s north shore as far as Thunder Bay, Ontario for geological gems such as amethyst and agates.
He occasionally follows his curiosity into other classes at CLC. Minnesota Geology is one that really spoke to him. “Instructor Dave Kobilka took us all over the state,” he recalled. He would never have thought cactus is a natural plant in Minnesota, but in the south “we found where they grow. They’re tiny.”
Students and instructors know Lester to be helpful and willing to work on most any problem. But when it comes to women, the bachelor admits, “I’m bull-headed.” He’s had female friends but nobody in the marriage loop. He jokes, “No woman deserves a nice guy like me.”
Lester counts among family four brothers and a sister, as well as his 60-year-old, four-wheeling nephews who make use of Lester’s trails and the machines that can be ridden there.
He’s had other hobbies, such as collecting coins (“The only hobby I made any money on.”)
He likes attending what he calls “a highly rated college” and finds the younger students to be likable and willing to let a grandfatherly figure hang out with them. “I don’t weld any more, but I do quite a bit on the lathe,” he said.
He said CLC is a “good place to spend my time -- better than the casino or the bar.”
Signed up for the fall term, Lester has enlisted welding instructor Mike Reeser and others to help with a unique project: a scale model of a Henry Ford-designed 1920s snow machine.
“This was a wild machine,” said Reeser, who has viewed archival footage of a tank-like creation. Lester is assembling critical parts, such as an engine and lawn mower frame. Old water heater tanks are rumored to be in the mix.
On campus at least three days per week, he has decided to play it safe next winter. He has rented an apartment in Brainerd to avoid those difficult commutes in bad weather.
“Lester is always looking for projects, always thinking,” Reeser said. ‘If our nine-month students could be as dedicated it would be phenomenal.”
Such dedication warranted designating a portion of the welding lab as “Les’s Machine Room.”
College administration is looking at an appropriate way to bestow broader recognition for the enduring, endearing octogenarian.