CMS:Don Ostrand

Don at the helm on Bainbridge Island

Don Ostrand

Overview

Don Ostrand was the founding curator of what is now Connections Museum Seattle. Don's involvement with the museum began in 1984 when plans for the museum were first formulated by Herb Warrick. By 1986, when the museum opened, Don was fully involved even before his retirement from Pacific Northwest Bell. Outside of the world of telephones, Don had many other interests and activities, many of them involving his extended family and salmon fishing.

Early life

Don was born on 7 August 1937 to Ernest and Martha Ostrand and was raised on his great-grandfather's 1883 homestead on Manzanita Bay on Bainbridge Island (just across Puget Sound from Seattle). All four of Don's grandparents spoke Swedish and were from the western coast of Finland. Don maintained a lifelong interest in the unique history of Swede-Finns and was a member of the Seattle-based Swedish Finn Historical Society since its founding in 1990.

Career at Pacific Northwest Bell

Don was a 34-year employee of the former Pacific Northwest Bell. He worked many jobs throughout his long career, starting in 1956 with what was then Pacific Bell Telephone until his retirement in 1990 as a second-level manager.

Don and our museum

Don was a constant presence here at our museum. He was involved in nearly every aspect of museum operations and served as its founding curator when we opened as The Vintage Telephone Equipment Museum in July 1988. From the beginning, Don worked closely with Herb Warrick (then Pacific Northwest Bell Director, Network Engineering), who first promoted the idea of a museum dedicated to telephone switching back in 1984.

Don was instrumental in coordinating the large team of early volunteers (mostly drawn from the Charles B. Hopkins No. 30 Telephone Pioneers of America chapter here in Seattle) to begin building our museum. And for many years, Don coordinated with Washington Talking Book & Braille Library to manage the many museum volunteers who repaired their special cassette players at our museum.

Other activities

Don was also associated with the Boy Scouts for many years. Along with fellow museum volunteer John Berkman, Don used considerable telco expertise to install telephone systems at various scout camps here in Washington State. Many of these systems used retired Crossbar PBXs donated by Pacific Northwest Bell.

Don and his wife Sandra were active community volunteers. For many years, they were weekly volunteers at the Carl S. English Jr. Botanical Gardens at the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks in Seattle (commonly known as The Ballard Locks).

Death

Don died in January 2014 at the age of 76.

Personal recollections

The following are selected personal recollections of Don by those that volunteered with Don at the museum:

Don was, by all accounts, one of the hardest-working volunteers ever. Our initial estimates were that Don put in more than 25,000 volunteer hours over 26 years at the museum but we now think it was likely twice that—or possibly even more. Don built many of our museum displays and coordinated with many people (some of whom were former coworkers) to assist us as we continued to build our museum. Don was also responsible for so many of the unheralded and behind-the-scenes tasks that, in any organization, are never obvious but are always vitally important. 

We were always impressed with Don’s technical expertise and his uncanny ability to size up a situation and find useful workarounds when they ran into unexpected trouble—one might say Don was the consummate “crew chief” as well as an incredibly resourceful and hardworking leader. Likely much of Don’s resourcefulness stemmed from his youth on the family homestead where he learned to make do with what was available at hand.

Don was “old school” in the very best sense of the phrase. He treated all people fairly and was diplomatic and helpful even when dealing with difficult situations. Don never talked much about his many skills—he just used them as needed and generously shared them as he helped others.

Don was the hardest-working fellow most of us had ever met.  It wasn’t always easy for us to keep up with Don.