By Sarah Freedman, Contributing Writer
Region – Ron Goodenow knows how to capture the moment. An avid photographer, he takes pictures for Westborough Rotary Club events and owns a small photography business called RKG Digital Photography Services.
“My mother tells me I was born with a lens in my forehead,” he said.
Goodenow, who is a Northborough resident of 25 years, attended the University of California at Berkeley and holds a Ph.D. in history and education. He also has a master's degree from the University of Wyoming and a bachelor's degree from Grinnell College.
After teaching and researching at several universities in the United States, United Kingdom and Africa for 30 years, he now uses his skills and knowledge to help the global community. He accomplishes this as a member of the Westborough Rotary Club, which he joined after five years in the Northborough Rotary Club “documenting club, district and civic events” and presiding as president from 2007 to 2008.
The biggest role he plays now in the rotary club is his work on the website for the Global Emergency Medicine Initiative (GEMINI).
“My current involvement in the program is to build and manage its website,” he said, “which supports projects and promotes GEMINI, and to serve on its board of directors and steering committee, where I am always pitching more effective uses of technology.”
Paul Gallagher, who is a fellow rotarian in the Westborough club and the owner of a Northborough commercial real estate company, founded GEMINI in 1992. The program “provides training, expertise and equipment to developing countries in the areas of disaster preparedness and response, basic life support, and advanced cardiac life support.”
GEMINI began in the Westborough Rotary Club and has expanded to the Rotary District 7910, which includes Westborough, Northborough, Gardner, Milford, Southborough and other towns. The program is also associated with UMass. Medical Center, which offers training and program directors. As for the rotary's contribution, Goodenow said, “Rotarians are responsible for managing and funding projects.”
Gallagher, the founder, is the president of the Board of Directors and the International Service co-director. He co-directs with Jorge Yarzebski, M.D., a staff member at UMass Medical Center and a member of the Westborough Rotary Club.
According to Goodenow, the program is active in countries such as Guatemala, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Armenia and Nicaragua. He said a new project is underway in the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, where a team of volunteers will be providing training for first responders in early 2012.
Goodenow called the leaders of GEMINI “extremely energetic and creative” and said they are constantly planning projects and implementing them.
“Many of these countries have few first responders and extremely limited supplies, ambulances, etc., and so GEMINI makes a great difference,” he said.
“Rotary has led the way, with the support of the many international agencies and Bill Gates, in the fight to end polio,” he added. “Many individuals, such as myself, join rotary because of its international work.”
When he is not documenting rotary events, Goodenow manages Ron Goodenow's Attic (www.rkgprojects.com/rkgdigiphoto.htm), an online site dedicated to train stations past and present and to his many travels from America to Africa and Russia.
Goodenow had a job out of college that required travel. He took the opportunity to photograph and document the railroad systems he visited in America and abroad. He said he has photographed the “history of American passenger railroading,” as well as passenger trains in Western Europe and Latin America.
“Back in those days one could ride wonderful trains almost everywhere in America, and so my railroad photography hobby, which I practiced when I rode the trains to college in the Midwest, was reborn big time.”
With the advent of digital imaging, Goodenow was able to complete a scanning project to share “50 years of work” in photography. A couple hundred of his best photos are available on the Friends of Amtrak website at www.trainweb.org/crocon/amtrak.html.
He is “saddened” by the general state of American passenger railroading, which “lags seriously behind virtually all industrialized countries, whether they have state-run or primarily private railroads.”
Goodenow continues to photograph train stations and travel sites, like the British Rail System. He has published four books, including “The City and Education in Four Nations,” which explores the role of urban education in Australia, Canada, United Kingdom and the United States. Currently, he is working with a former business partner on a new project.
Whether it is promoting charities like GEMINI or chronicling his travels, Goodenow continually finds new ways to educate and help others.
For some of us, there is never real retirement,” he said.