Preparation, curiosity led Tech grad to open new avenues for learning

Environmental engineering was almost unheard of … now it’s a common thread in the curriculum, thanks to Lee Saperstein’s foresight and hard work.

Lee Saperstein, 65, is learning to sail off Nantucket Island on the Atlantic Coast. It’s a long way from the high and dry mountains of Butte in the summertime, but it was his college career in Butte that got him sailing toward a fascinating life as a Rhodes Scholar, a leader in the environ- mental engineering movement and now a deserving retiree.

"We watch the weather really closely here," he told The Montana Standard recently after his morning sail. Just like Montana farmers and ranchers do.

Being an East Coast boy who grew up on West 215th St. in New York City, one would think that Montana would be too far a leap to attend college.

But at the time, when he was about 16, an article in the New York Times caught his eye. The story was about the resurgence of mining and mineral exploration in the West, and Butte was on an economic upswing in the late 1950s and early ’60s after being down a few years.

As luck would have it, all the large mining firms had headquarters in downtown Manhattan.

Not to be put off by foreboding sky-scrapers, Saperstein strode into the impressive lobbies of the Anaconda Co., Kennecott Mining and Asarco on Broadway and asked to see the CEO of the company — or at least some second-in-command engineer.

By Gerard O’Brien

Full Story: http://www.mtstandard.com/articles/2008/09/14/business/hjjbjaighhfaif.txt