Dale Thuftedal earned his bachelor’s degree in geography from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities in 1966. This spring, about six decades to the date later, he’s adding another degree to his resume — a master’s in geography from his alma mater.
Although in this case, “adding another degree to his resume” is a mere figure of speech. Thuftedal retired 15 years ago and has no designs on climbing any corporate ladders. His views from the ground suit him just fine.
The degree that served him well in the Army
Sitting at one of his favorite restaurants in south Minneapolis — and fresh off a volunteer shift at the VA hospital nearby — Thuftedal is asked what led up to this latest academic aspiration. And that open-ended question unlocks a lifetime’s worth of memorable experiences and stories.
He was born in Minneapolis and moved all around the country as a child, finally returning to his home state just in time to graduate from Robbinsdale (Minnesota) High School — his fourth high school in three years.
Thuftedal then studied geography at the University of Minnesota for four years, and upon graduating in 1966 “pretty much immediately joined the Army” during the Vietnam War. He completed basic training, went on to advanced infantry training in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and then Officer Training School at Fort Benning, Georgia.
Less than two weeks from completing that training, a lieutenant colonel from the Pentagon came down to interview a few people from his company who had “special skills.” They included Thuftedal, who had taken a cartography course and an air photo interpretation course while at the University of Minnesota.
The lieutenant colonel’s offer to Thuftedal: Graduate with his infantry class and go to Vietnam as an infantry lieutenant, or remain an enlisted man and put his special skills to use for the Army — and be guaranteed to never leave the continental U.S. during his service.
“That was an easy decision; it was a no-brainer to tell you the truth,” Thuftedal says.
Given that fortuitous option, he figures his University of Minnesota education might have saved his life.
Expertise for the Army; work in private industry
Thuftedal did topographic surveying for the Army in two drastically different environments. The first was southeastern Alabama, which he described as practically a different country due to its lingering and visible segregation. The largely forested terrain around Fort Rucker was a flight training ground for helicopter pilots bound for Vietnam. He was then transferred to far southern Arizona — a desert landscape where helicopter pilots training at Fort Huachuca could focus on tactics and communication.
When Thuftedal left the Army, he returned to Minnesota to begin a master’s degree in geography. Over the span of four quarters (before the University switched to semesters) he completed all his classroom work for the degree and wrote one of two required Plan B papers. Then he abruptly changed course.
“I decided, wait a minute, I’ve been in the Army and school for too long,” he says. “I’m gonna get married and get a real job.”
So he went to work in the computer business for Control Data. There, as a contracts manager, he worked with technical teams who were modifying supercomputers for government purposes. He worked with NASA Houston, Edwards Air Force Base, Livermore Labs and the Naval Surface Warfare Center.
At Edwards Air Force base he got to eat lunch with the astronauts and the test pilots. “Honestly, you could darn near smell the testosterone,” he laughs.
After almost 25 years at Control Data, he went to work for BAE Systems (British Aerospace and Engineering) for 17 years before retiring.
Class of '66, Class of '26
So why finish the master’s degree now, with nothing much to prove to anyone?
“Every two or three years I’d think about going back, and I never did it. And it’s just kind of haunted me my whole life,” Thuftedal says. “I was so close to getting the deed done and I never got it done. Then I finally just decided to pull the trigger.”
He’s grateful to staff in the geography department for all the work they did to get him readmitted, including switching his credits from quarter- to semester-based.
Midway through the fall semester, he found himself under the guidance of a new advisor, Bob McMaster, who served as the University’s vice provost and dean of undergraduate education before recently returning to the geography department
“I think it’s just terrific,” McMaster says of Thuftedal’s efforts. “He wants to tell his story as part of his Plan B, about not only some of the logistics of the topographic mapping he was doing, but also of the social milieu that he encountered both in Alabama and in Arizona … two completely different geographical environments.”
If you need to know anymore, just ask Thuftedal, who has an endless cache of stories. And soon he’ll be able to recount the tale of tying up what, for him, was a gigantic loose end.
Says Thuftedal: “I’ve had a great life, and I’d just like to finish my education and get my degree!”
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