Profile: Ash Barton—he’s been
kept busy

In 1973 when the Lynnmour campus was first
opened, Ash Barton left Comfort Furnace, a foundry
in Vancouver that he'd been with for 23 years, and
came to work at Capilano College.

When he first came to the campus all that was here
were the C-1 to C-5 portables and the B building and
he wondered how he was going to be kept busy,
since it didn’t seem as if there would be a lot of
work. Ken Hughes, who hired him, said “Don’t worry
about it,” and, says Ash, he hasn't asked since then
about finding enough work.

Ash works at the College from 7 am to 2:30 pm
Sunday to Thursday. Describing himself as “a jack
of all trades,” he supervises eleven maintenance
staffers and various contractors on campus,
including electricians, carpenters and plumbers, and
it is his responsibility to make sure that the job is
done, and done correctly. The job hasn't changed a
lot since he started here, he says, noting that he also
spends a lot of time helping out people with such
problems as having locked their keys in their car or
having a dead battery .

Six years ago Ash and his wife moved to the North
Shore, and he now lives six minutes away from
work. He and his wife have four children— two boys
and two girls, and five grandchildren (four boys and
a girl). His daughter Karen works in the Library. It’s
a close family—’we do a lot of things together’, he
says—and they get together in the summer for
holidays in their cabin at Point Roberts, and in the
winter for poker games once a week. In his 18' boat,
which he sold last year, Ash and family used to do a
lot of salmon fishing up around Pender Harbour,
Howe Sound and Gibsons.

The Bartons are also avid gardeners and have put in
streams, fountains, a pond and an automatic
sprinkler system in their garden. Last summer they
travelled to England to see relations and spent five
weeks touring England and Scotland, a major
highlight of which was the English rose gardens.

Among his favourite memories of the “early” days on
the Lynnmour campus is the wildlife that used to
come to college. “We actually had a deer and a
couple of fawns that put their head through the
window of Humanities (the Library now),” he recalls.
Raccoons, coyotes, bears and deer were a regular

sight around here.

“I've seen it grow like crazy—you used to know
everyone here,” said Barton. But he still enjoys the
job. “I haven't run into such a nice bunch of people
in my life,” he asserts, noting that he has a great
boss and maintenance crew . He considers the
college a very pleasant place to work—"I love my job
and | look forward to coming to work,” he said.

New off the press: Coast to Coast

Joan Acosta, English as a Second Language
instructor and editor of the award-winning ESL ~
publication The West Coast Reader, has just had a
book published by Douglas and Mcintyre. Coast to
Coast, a softcover book targeted at ESL and Adult
Basic Education learners, was published in mid-
October and 10,000 copies are now being marketed
across Canada.

Coast to Coast (available for $6.95 through the
publishers) contains human interest stories drawn
from the West Coast Reader, a section on Canada
written at a very easy reading level, and articles on
daily life covering such topics as cooking, banking,
and computers. Acosta says that it is primarily
intended for pleasure reading, but can be used in
class with exercises. This book is also notable for
being the first ever published for the adult literacy
market by Douglas & Mcintyre.