Vern Mesler, 88, will retire from Lansing Community College at the end of the fall semester after 50 years as an adjunct welding instructor.

LCC honored Mesler at its Aug. 17 Service Awards, according to an LCC news article published Sept. 8. He started at the college in 1976. Mesler spent 34 years as a steel fabricator at Douglas Steel Fabricating Corporation in Lansing, where he helped build highway bridges and steel trusses for structures including the Breslin Center, according to a Lansing Rotary Club biography.

Mesler's mark on LCC is visible across campus. He helped fabricate several sculptures, including the colorful "Sail" outside the Gannon Building StarZone entrance and the gears outside West Campus' main entrance. His favorite is a 1989 Capitol Dome sculpture that hangs in a Gannon Building stairwell. That piece grew from an inspection of the interior metal framework of architect Elijah Myers's dome at the Michigan State Capitol, according to Mesler's personal website.

Off campus, Mesler led a team that restored five historic metal-truss bridges at Historic Bridge Park in Calhoun County between 1997 and 2007. The decade-long project involved learning wrought-iron repair and riveting techniques to honor the bridges' original craftsmanship, according to LCC.

"I want [park visitors] to look at the parts. I want them to look at the pieces … Every part has a story. Every bridge here has a story," Mesler said in a 2023 interview with WCMU's "Destination Michigan" program.

That bridge work sparked a national preservation effort. Mesler launched the Iron & Steel Preservation Chronicle newsletter and built the Iron & Steel Preservation Conference & Workshop at LCC's West Campus. The workshop drew bridge designers, state transportation officials, conservators and engineers from across the country and Canada, funded by a grant from the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT), according to a National Park Service podcast featuring Mesler.

The sixth conference is scheduled for Nov. 5-6, 2027, at West Campus, according to the June 2026 edition of Mesler's newsletter.

His work has earned national recognition. The Society for Industrial Archeology gave him its General Tools Award in 2021, described as the organization's highest honor. He also received the American Institute of Steel Construction's Educator Special Achievement Award in 2016.

After the recognition event, Mesler thanked Technical Careers Dean Shon'ta Dwyer and his colleagues on Facebook for decades of support. He said what he will miss most is interacting with faculty and students, according to the LCC article.

"As I look back over my 88 years, I got up every morning and did the best I could," Mesler wrote on Facebook. "Some approved, some disapproved, but at the end of the day, I was determined to do better the next day."

When he leaves, Mesler will clean out his welding lab locker and turn in his building keys.