Mark Brown was 10 years old when he first came to the University Hospital School for children with disabilities in the early 1970s as a resident student. While there he met Ron Lough, who taught industrial arts—woodworking, graphic arts, metal working—at the school now known as the Center for Disabilities and Development (CDD), located on the University of Iowa Health Care main campus in Iowa City.
Flash forward more than 50 years and the two are now colleagues: Lough, 85, continues to be employed at the CDD, working as a project manager, and Brown, 60, has been working at the center as a clerk since shortly after he graduated from West High School in 1980. Combined, the two represent more than 100 years of service to the CDD.
“It’s really neat and an honor to work with both of these men,” says Karen Hammar, interim director of clinical services at the CDD. “They not only serve our colleagues and our patients here, but our community, too. They have a wealth of knowledge and experience that is very valuable to all of us.”
Lough started working at the school in 1960. At that time, physically disabled students lived in the upper level of the building and attended classes downstairs.
"It’s nice to see how he’s developed over the years and see how he’s doing, what his responsibilities are."
Ron Lough
CDD Project Manager
Brown, whose family lived in Iowa City, became a resident student when he was still in elementary school. Like other students, he would live on campus during the school year and go home for breaks and during the summer. When the school became a day school for students in the Iowa City school district in the 1970s, Brown would split time between the hospital school and public schools until he graduated in 1980.
“I worked with Mark when he attended my classes and through the industrial arts department, from when he was 10 until he was about 15 or 16,” Lough says.
Though the two do not directly work together—Lough now works in project management coordinating contractor schedules and working with environmental services, while Brown is a clerk who does deliveries throughout the center, as well as working in reception and laundry—their paths do cross regularly. Lough says he’s proud of the work Brown does throughout the CDD.
“It’s nice to see how he’s developed over the years and see how he’s doing, what his responsibilities are,” he says.
Brown says he enjoys his work, as well.
“I do cleaning on all three floors and sanitize everything so they’re ready when people get here,” he says. He says it’s important to him that everything is clean and sanitized “because people touch everything.”
Hammar appreciates all the two men bring to the CDD.
“They provide a look into our past and our present,” she says.
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