Meet Joe Sendek, our Indomitable Facilities Steward

This week we continue our series to introduce the Whidbey Institute Staff. The Whidbey Institute runs on the fuel and the love of a very dedicated and not-large group (24) of hardworking and whole-hearted people, almost all of whom work part time.
We're so excited for you to meet more of us here!

Joe is our much-loved facilities steward here at Whidbey Institute.

Born in Pennsylvania, Joe has lived on Whidbey for about 15 years he says - maybe 16. He counts years by summers so it could vary a year out, he tells me, smiling. 
Joe has 5 children, 4 of whom are adults - and one of whom, Taylor, works here too -  and a 12-year old son with his wife, Annastasia, a family physician in Langley.
Onsite, Joe takes care of a whopping 38 buildings at the Whidbey Institute.
It feels to me like Joe’s been around here forever. He hasn’t. In fact he’s only been here for four years.

Joe was trained first in materials engineering at university in Indiana, then worked in a co-op position in the hot glass industry in Los Angeles for three years, and after that went back to school in Colorado for an MA, learning, as Joe says, the craft of the pot, of the potter. To teach at university level Joe then studied for an MFA in Arizona. After that he moved to Pennsylvania and taught at a small liberal arts college for twelve years, making his living as an artist and teacher. 

After moving to Whidbey Joe continued his own pottery and worked as a pottery teacher and general contractor. The pandemic shut down his online pottery classes. But he’s been a fixer, forever. “I've always fixed up. I mean, that's pretty much how I put myself through college. I learned all the trades by holding a ladder for my grandfather. It's just something that I've always, always done.”

Joe was already familiar with the Whidbey Institute, having been a participant in a program here and through both walking the labyrinth and sitting quietly in the Sanctuary many mornings while his son was in Kindergarten at the Waldorf School next door.

Joe likes the working culture here - he works both independently and within a team. No day is ever the same, he says, and he will never run out of things to do. “I start every day with a deep breath and go, oh, what do I need to focus on? Like, just today, the exhaust fan in the greenhouse fried, so I pulled the old one out, took the fan out of the kitchen, temporarily hooked it up to the greenhouse. Yesterday, one of the locks on one of the cabins just quit working. Today I'm cleaning the pine needles and gutters on the Commons. There’s electrical, plumbing, construction, roofing, decks, windows. I mean, everything.”

Joe is instrumental to who and what the Institute is. He literally fixes us everyday. But for him, the work goes far deeper. “Every day I come down the drive to here. As I crest past the Waldorf school, start down the hill, I put my window down. Doesn't matter if it's raining, whatever the weather. I'm like, okay, I'm here today. What do you want me to do?”

Joe’s talking about the larger question. How can I, we, truly help and make a difference  today.

“I used to teach at a place called Touchstone Center for Crafts in Pittsburgh, which was very similar to the Whidbey Institute in feel and mission, but it was all crafts based. I had a student that was from Italy. They were there working as a nanny and there wasn't much language between us. I was helping her with this piece and she finally got it. And usually when I help my students, my eyes are closed because I'm just working with them. And I open my eyes and there's tears of joy just streaming down her face. Like something clicked that was beyond language. It really was more about personal transformation.”

That level of awe and connection is something Joe continuously strives for today. 

"Just to see the wonder in people's eyes. Someone will come here and they're from New York or they're from Illinois or Wisconsin. And they're looking up at the trees. Like, ‘what are these?’ It's like the biggest trees you've ever seen. Just the energy of this place, the team, the people that work here, the people that trust us enough to come here and do their work.”

Joe, I think, speaks for all of us working at the Whidbey Institute when he talks about the deep beauty that is here.  Both the seen and the unseen world around us: the plants, insects, birds, people and the deeper beauty meaning of it all, of us, alone and together. 

“It’s all part of the larger mystery,” says Joe. “That sense that there's more than meets the eye is something that's real important.” We both pause for a moment.
“Yeah”,  he says quietly, to himself, to me, and perhaps to someone or something else listening too. “It really feeds something deep in me.”