If you”™ve ever been to a planning board public hearing, you know how heated the debate over changes to the familiar landscape can be. Planners, architects, engineers and the public can go head-to-head through the wee morning hours. Such was life for Laura Mosher, a technician for the Orange County engineering and surveying firm Lanc & Tully.
Mosher graduated with an Associate of Applied Science degree in forestry from the State University of New York”™s College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse. She put her academic training to use working in a land-surveying company in Middletown alongside Ray Heinsman.
Down the road, Art Lanc and John Tully left the Circleville planning, engineering and surveying firm Eustance & Horowitz to form their own engineering firm in April 1985. Heinsman joined the new company six months after it opened and Mosher followed, spending the next 18 years working for the Goshen-based business.
“Since I had a surveying background, I started out drawing maps and was given basic engineering duties,” said Mosher.
By the early 1990s, Mosher was managing small projects, which required attending evening planning board meetings: “If you”™ve ever been to a meeting you know they can run until midnight ”“ sometimes even later.” Mosher had a great deal of public contact, not just with firms that needed approvals, but with private ”“ and often irate ”“ residents. “Anyone who has tried to get a project built knows how long it can take to get final approval,” she said. One project Mosher worked on took 15 years to earn formal approval.
By 1999, Mosher had technically gone as far as she could go with the engineering firm. “It was decision time,” said the former civil engineering technician. “In order to advance professionally, I needed a specific engineering degree. I started working toward it, taking math classes at SUNY Orange and other required classes at Marist College”™s extension in Goshen.”
Two years into her schooling, Mosher started having second thoughts about a career in planning and engineering: “I found myself at meetings where I would encounter people who couldn”™t or wouldn”™t be satisfied. It was not a ”˜feel good”™ job; I felt it really wasn”™t how I wanted to spend my entire working life. It can be great for others, but it wasn”™t working for me.”
That was when Mosher decided to start taking a serious look at where she wanted to be. “I had a ”˜What do I want to be when I grow up?”™ moment ”¦ then I went back over my life and picked out what was most important to me and where I felt I contributed the most.”
A convenience-store job during high school turned out to be one of the most rewarding job experiences Mosher could recall. “Working with the public, being able to help them easily, it was very satisfying to help people quickly and get them on their way without a fuss.” The other part of the equation for her was sharing learning experiences, noting, “I”™m a ”˜go-to person”™ at every social occasion if someone needs an answer to a trivia question.”
Preferring positive interaction over what had become time-consuming, negative head-butting with the public, Mosher narrowed her focus on a career as a librarian. “It offered positive interaction, the ability to use my researching skills and quench my love for learning at the same time.”
The first link in the newly created changeover came with achieving a bachelor”™s degree at SUNY New Paltz. Step one completed, Mosher applied for, and was accepted into, Syracuse University”™s online program in 2001 to earn a Master of Library Science degree. “For me, there was no better school at the time to study online ”¦ they consistently have a top-notch reputation.” Once accepted, Mosher combined her studies with her full-time job at Lanc & Tully, letting her employers know that she was making a decision eventually to leave the company.
At one point, Mosher was studying through the Syracuse online program, taking her vacation time to travel to Syracuse for required campus projects, working part time at the Cornwall Library and putting in her regular hours at the job. “Not anything I”™d recommend to the faint of heart,” she said. “But once I graduated Syracuse in 2003, I started seriously looking for a librarian”™s position all over the country.”
Mosher didn”™t have to go far to find what she feels is the best of both worlds. She applied for a part-time librarian position at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, gradually pulling out of Lanc & Tully to give the company time to replace her and train a new person. Now a full-time reference librarian at the Cadet Library, Mosher not only does what she loves best, but has a great feeling about helping the young men and women who will one day lead America”™s army.
“It”™s a unique environment,” said Mosher of West Point. “Not only do we have a different collection and research emphasis than a traditional academic library offers, but I am working with our future military leaders.” Mosher takes her job seriously, but still finds time to cheer cadets at Michie Stadium or on West Point”™s tennis courts. Â
With nearly two decades of engineering design experience under her librarian”™s belt, Mosher”™s special niche at the West Point library is ”“ you guessed it ”“ helping civil engineering students and faculty staff with their research.
The current library building soon will be transformed into additional classrooms for future scientists and engineers. While being an engineer wasn”™t the career for her, Mosher”™s experiences in the field are a plus for the army”™s future engineers who now visit the new librarian.    Â
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