“Dr. Blehm was absolutely committed to the success and well-being of the students,” Perryman said. “He wasn’t popular because he was easy, he was popular because he pushed them hard so they were ready for success.”

His insistence on asking more of undergrads, and the professors who teach them, paid off. In the first four years after Blehm began directing the undergraduate program, the students’ cumulative GPA rose nearly a whole grade point. Perryman also credits Blehm with increasing student diversity in undergrad and graduate ranks.

“In typical Ken fashion, he mother-henned those students, you know – get those chicks beneath the wings. He didn’t tell them things to make them feel good, he was telling them things to make them successful,” Perryman said.

In addition to his focus on education, Blehm viewed college work as preparation for professional work. He called students “colleagues” because he truly viewed them as potential co-workers. Dean Mark Stetter admires his work ethic and his dedication to student success.

“Ken has been an incredible advocate for students, individually and in clubs, for graduates and alums in industry. He worked tirelessly to ensure their success while they were here and as they move on into the work world,” Stetter said.

Like Stetter and Blehm’s current colleagues, former dean Perryman knew he could count on Blehm’s bluntness. “Sometimes people won’t be honest with the dean, but he was always honest with me. He would tell me what I needed to know, and 99 times out of 100 it was precisely what I needed to know.”

Janice Brown worked for three deans, including Perryman, as an executive assistant. She has taken reams of minutes in committee meetings and has seen several generations of academic leadership come and go.

“To me, Ken is the vision of the perfect professor. He is so driven by what he believes in, and he’s such a good mentor for students. He has a way with students that is almost like tough love,” she said. “I remember one time he was frustrated with an undergraduate, and he was very blunt with the student. The tact went away and he said, ‘I think I finally got through to that blockhead.’ He’s very engaged and involved with them. He will not give up on any kid.”

Can’t keep him down on the farm

Blehm grew up on a farm in Greeley, raised by parents who valued learning but didn’t have the chance to complete 12^th grade. “When I graduated from high school, I already had twice the formal education of both my parents together,” he said.

After earning a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Northern Colorado in 1973, Blehm worked as a feed lot operator and as a sanitarian for Larimer County, where he discovered the field of environmental health, the study of the chemical, biological and physical factors in our environment that affect human health. He came to CSU for a master’s degree in industrial hygiene and took a job with Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corp. in Baton Rouge, La.

When his wife, Barbara, took a job in northern Colorado, Blehm returned to CSU in 1979 as a research associate. From 1980 to ’82, he took a break to earn his Ph.D. in industrial hygiene from the University of Oklahoma, and returned to CSU as a research scientist and faculty member in 1983.

By 1990, he had become director of the Environmental Health undergraduate program in the Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences.

Blehm has received the CVMBS Outstanding Academic Advising Award for Undergraduate Education; the Environmental Health Student Association Outstanding Professor Award; the Milton M. Miller Award for Outstanding Environmental Health from the Colorado Environmental Health Association; and was appointed as a fellow of the American Industrial Hygiene Association.

Looking ahead

“His leadership was a role model for the whole campus, not only in advising but in outreach to students,” said Gaye Golter DiGregorio, executive director of the Center for Advising and Student Achievement. “Ken had a vision, and he was willing to do the work. He has made CSU a better place.”

As passionate and involved as he was in the college, Blehm isn’t looking back. He has spent the past year helping Sandra Quackenbush ease into her new role as associate dean. “He’s been really generous to me with his time in the transition, and I’m seeing the results of how he impacted things. He’s precise. He expects a lot of people because he expects a lot of himself,” she said.

In addition to his fondness for vocabulary words and blunt speech, Blehm’s sartorial style is a favorite memory of his students. In a tongue-in-cheek tribute, his colleagues on the college leadership team dressed in black turtlenecks, Blehm’s signature garment, for a recent meeting.

“I loved his turtlenecks! I always think of him when I see any turtleneck sweaters or shirts,” said Aleigha Mazeh, who works as an environmental health consultant in Walnut Creek, Calif.

Blehm was reluctant to celebrate his departure. He told his Environmental Health and Waste Management class that he “had hoped to sneak out like a cat after a mouse,” but he has embraced the idea that his colleagues want to mark his transition.

“I don’t want to spend the time celebrating what was. I am what was. I want people to take that energy and pay it forward. I’m not going to practice drive-by old-fartism,” he said. “I’m going to take the same advice I’ve been giving to freshmen for the last 35 years: Start slowly. My objective is to figure out how to run the rest of my life.”