The University of Winnipeg is a quirky place. Although it is a small campus, many areas remain unknown to the average student. This “Know Your University” series will explore the quirky corners and interesting individuals that make this university unique.

Housed in the parking garage in the basement of Lockhart Hall is one of two technology services offices at the University of Winnipeg. The office isn’t necessarily what one would expect a technology office to look like. There are no gleaming metal instruments or wall-to-wall flat screens portraying unreadable data. Instead, it is a workshop-like space strewn with unidentifiable objects.

At the far end of the office, amid the shelves piled high with gadgets and gizmos, sits Gundars Reinfelds, a senior electronic technologist.

Reinfelds’ job consists of servicing and repairing the university’s scientific technology, mainly in the chemistry department. And after 33 years of working in the university’s technology services department, Reinfelds has gotten pretty good at it.

Like the science professors and students he encounters daily, Reinfelds has a passion for finding out how things work.

“There’s always new things to figure out,” Reinfelds said. “If something went wrong, why did it go wrong? Why did it fail?”

It is his love for new challenges that Reinfelds said has kept his work exciting after all these years.

“[I like] the variety, the new equipment coming in, the new things to play with,” he said.

Ed Segstro, associate chair of the U of W’s chemistry department, has worked with Reinfelds for 26 years. He is grateful for Reinfelds’ skills as a technician.

“He is very insightful and innovative,” Segstro said. “If he sees a particular problem and there isn’t something to fix the problem … he will make what he needs to fix it.”

Doug Edge, director of campus operations, has worked with Reinfelds for 24 years. He has witnessed first-hand what Reinfelds loves about working with scientific technology.

“It’s a whole different field because it is education and research … so you are charting new territory.

“It beats fixing TV sets all day. It is the variety and newness of everything,” he said, adding that Reinfelds is the master of recycling old parts and tweaking them for various uses.

But Edge said there is more to Reinfelds lengthy employment at the university than his love for the thrills of technology.

“He cares about the university, he cares about the science programs and he cares about the students who go through the programs,” he said. “I think that is why he has stayed here so long. He just cares.”

And while the chemistry department would love to see him stick around forever, Reinfelds is thinking about retirement. Though he did not specify when exactly he will retire, he intends to stick around for the opening of the new environment and science complex.

“We have been waiting for this building for 20 years and it will be nice to finally see it happen,” he said. “A lot of things have to be moved and it has to be carefully done.”

When the time to retire finally does come, Reinfelds envisions himself exploring the field of technology further.

“I’ve got a few projects in mind,” he said. “Some ideas for making things … and some wild and crazy experiments.”

Published in Volume 64, Number 3 of The Uniter (September 17, 2009)