Roland “Swede” Olson, a loving father who worked for Northwestern for 45 years, died Wednesday morning at Evanston Hospital after a long fight with brain cancer. He was 75.
Olson began working for NU as an electrician in 1952 and rose through the ranks to become director of Physical Plant, the office in charge of buildings and grounds.
“I’d probably have more fun if I picked up tools and went out and worked,” Olson told The Daily in 1997 when he retired. “I like to get my hands dirty.”
Olson oversaw some of the biggest changes in the makeup of NU’s Evanston Campus, including moving The Rock from the center of the plaza in front of Harris Hall to its current position and installing The Arch at the corner of Sheridan Road and Chicago Avenue.
“His whole life was Northwestern and his family,” said Jenny Hill, his daughter. “We’d go see the games, the fireworks. We spent a lot of time there.”
Olson also took charge of damage control when some of Chicago’s biggest natural disasters hit NU during the past 50 years.
When a 1969 blizzard stacked five feet of snow on Sheridan Road, Olson and his crew led the cleanup efforts, clearing out snow so students missed only a day of school. When a series of thunderstorms ravaged the Evanston Campus and cut off all electricity in 1986, Olson traveled to Wisconsin to get generators – nearby the Des Plaines River flooded and couldn’t be crossed.
“He enjoyed it when a crisis came up because he really could shine,” said Jeff Olson, his son. “He and his team would work together to overcome a problem, and it would look so fluid on the surface that people would rarely see the work that went on behind the scenes. That’s what he liked most – just to say, ‘We’ll take care of it,’ and then bang, boom, it was done.”
Jeff Olsen said his father loved NU and his job. He often would work weekends, bringing the family along as sidekicks to work on various projects on campus.
“We’d get dragged out when there were fires on campus,” he said. “We’d be sitting in the car waiting for dad to finish up. … We lived our lives at Northwestern.”
Olson was born in Chicago on Jan. 31, 1927. His father died when Olson was three, and he spent his childhood with other relatives in Milwaukee and Minnesota before attending Lane Technical High School in Chicago. He served with the Navy and worked at the Oscar Mayer meat plant in Chicago before answering an NU advertisement seeking an electrician.
Olson quickly moved up to chief electrician, shop superintendent for plumbing, heating and electricity, and then associate director before becoming director of Physical Plant.
When Olson began his career at NU, the school had about 8,500 students, 80 buildings and tuition was $600.
When he retired in 1997, NU enrolled more than 17,500 students, had 158 buildings, and tuition was $18,108.
After retiring, Olson stayed close to his colleagues, dining and talking with them regularly. He also spent a lot of time working with his computer.
“He would write his own programs,” said Jenny Hill, Weinberg ’84. “He wrote a word processing program. I guess he didn’t know you could buy it.”
In addition to his two children, Olson is survived by his wife, Lou Joyce. Visitation will be held from 3 to 8 p.m. today at William H. Scott Funeral Home, 1100 Greenleaf Ave., in Wilmette. A service is planned for 10 a.m. Friday at the same location.
