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Contact: Liz Carroll
Phone: 413/775-1420
E-mail: carroll@gcc.mass.edu

Media contact: Liz Carroll
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Release date: December 13, 2004

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

GCC alum pursues dream as he battles health problems

Launches literary career with "witchy” young adult novel

The first class Rodney Robbins ('84) ever took at Greenfield Community College was a writing course that met evenings. "Our first assignment was to go to a bar, talk people up, and then write about it,” he recalls. Robbins never stopped writing. This past Halloween, appropriately, marked the publication of "My Romantic Spell,” the first of a series of young adult novels with a supernatural element (may be ordered through any bookstore, or at www.lulu.com/rodneyrobbins). The setting draws on the Salem, Mass. area where Robbins grew up for its supernatural aura.

Also in the works are a stage version of "My Romantic Spell,” a business-oriented self-help book, and maybe even a musical. That's in his spare time, carved out from his day job as a quality and safety manager. It has all been achieved in the face of tremendous personal health obstacles.

Robbins copes with two genetic diseases: periodic paralysis, characterized by periods of extreme weakness and crushing bone pain, and celiac disease, in which an autoimmune response to grains destroys the lining of the small intestine, resulting in malnutrition. It took eleven years before the diagnoses were confirmed, years during which Robbins taught himself how to "live” with two life-threatening and debilitating conditions. "You don't have any choice,” says Robbins. "This is your life.”

He's making the most of it. After graduating from GCC with a degree in recreation leadership, Robbins went on to earn his bachelor's degree in communications and worked in corporate television, producing training videos and broadcast commercials, followed by his current position as a quality and safety manager. Robbins credits his GCC degree for the leadership skills he uses at work. "I learned a lot at GCC,” says Robbins, "(because) we were trained to work with volunteers, and you have to treat them better than some people think they can treat their employees. If you treat everyone like volunteers, then they try to give you their best effort.”

That workplace savvy inspires a work-in-progress titled, "Wow! 52 ways to impress your boss without kissing up.”

"One of the best ways to impress your boss is to give a really good presentation,” says Robbins, who goes on to reveal a simple method for doing just that. "Another one is to never, ever steal anything—not pencils, not paper, not telephone time—because then you never, ever have to worry when the boss calls you in.” There are fifty more.

Now he has a new goal: to raise a million dollars for charities, including the Muscular Dystrophy Association. "Two years ago I was so sick for so long, and I had finally gotten my diagnosis, when I participated in a fundraising event called ‘Lock-up.' They grab people and put them in jail for a while and let them use the phone to call their friends for pledges to get them out of jail. I helped take pictures. I got through the day and we raised $69,000 and that felt great!”

Robbins has learned to moderate his activities and his stress level. "I write one page a day,” says Robbins. "It is a work habit I learned from the life of novelist Carson McCullers, who had three strokes before she was twenty-nine.”

Robbins credits GCC for its unique, and affordable, education. "What a deal it is!” he says. "I'm still paying for my private college education, and my GCC education I paid as I went. It's an incredible value in every way. You get what you put in.”