Coming from the sandy beaches in Guam to the snow-filled streets of the Northeastern United States, this recent newcomer to Chenango County says moving here was meant to be.
Stephen Winter, originally from Queens county, says although people assume he grew up a “city boy,” he explains there was more to it than that. Winter says he and his family lived where he had the opportunity to explore the woods, learn to sail and row boat along with explore nature and the environment. “I was a city boy with a good association with water and woodlands,” he said.
Winter explains he went to college to study what every other young man wanted to study in the 1950s: fast cars. Winter studied mechanical engineering at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and then headed to Rutgers University in New Jersey before getting a masters and Ph.D. in mechanical/civil engineering.
While working towards his doctorate degree, Winter taught engineering at Layfette College in Easton, Pa., and this he says, is where his adventures began.
In 1972 while still at Lafayette, Winter learned he was not going to be tenured due to the fact there were so many senior professors already on staff. He explains he loved the water, wanted to continue to study under the American flag and live somewhere warm. Winter packed up and headed to Guam to study at a school there that was developing an engineering training program. “The program was more hands-on instead of research-oriented; it fit my needs better,” he said. “The locals there were great as well. They were very enthusiastic about me coming there.”
After arrival on the island, Winter says the politics of it all changed a bit. “After I got there, the program I went there for moved to the technical school.” This did not please him. “Here I was in my dream location and then the job I was hired for changed,” he said.
In time, Winter says he learned a water research grant became available to the university and they were in need of someone to run the water research center. Winter says he was begged to stay and soon agreed to give it a try on the agreement that his time spent doing research only would be limited.
Over the course of the years as the head of the department, Winter and his crew traveled to several of the Micronesia islands. As part of his research he would allocate funding to aid efforts in the smaller islands where conditions were undesirable at best. “I would allocate money to research some more practical projects along the island,” he said. He also explains he became an expert traveler in the area and learned more and more about the islands, their culture and the way of life of the people there.
During his years in Guam, Winter married and had two children with a woman from an island of Chuuk. Winter was offered early retirement and the couple decided to follow their dream of living the idyllic island life and to build their dream home there. But the marriage ended and Winter went on to another adventure. This time he started his own spinoff of what he did on the water before and started addressing the severe water problems people on the island were facing. “They was no clean water, no drinking water, no electricity and they were getting ill from the poor conditions,” he said.
By the 1990s Winter remarried and the couple lived on the main island until 1998. Following the dream of the perfect island life again, the couple had two children of their own and moved to Unanu to build their home.
Unlike the locals on the island, the couple built a home with electricity and drinkable water.
After five years the couple decided to move back to the main island. “After 30 years I decided it was time to come back to the United States,” says Winter. After close research of crime rates, affordable housing and other statistics and writing letters to people in the area, the Winter family moved to Norwich just five months ago.
Winter is currently working as an algebra professor for Morrisville State College and recently had his first book published called “The KISS Fitness Program,” designed to teach people why to work out, healthy eating habits and how to focus on target areas and feel better about themselves. “I was always interested in fitness,” he said. Winter himself is a distance runner, a certified physical fitness trainer and a weight lifter. He is currently planning his second book and says fitness is really his focus of his work while in retirement. “My heart is in fitness,” he said.

Editor’s Note: “Chenango Stories” puts the spotlight on those people whose compelling stories you might not otherwise hear. If you know someone who is interested in telling their “Chenango Story,” contact Jill Osterhout at 337-3075 or e-mail: josterhout@evesun.com.