Thomas Krabacher may not sound familiar to those who have never enrolled in one of his geography courses or decided not to attend the Livingston lecture he gave on Monday.

Nonetheless, some people said Krabacher has lived up to the Livingston Award’s criteria of positively affecting the university through teaching, service, creative and scholarly activities.

“I am on the CSU Academic Senate,” Krabacher said. “The other half of my time is tied up with that. At the moment, I chair the Fiscal and Governmental Affairs Committee and monitor legislation downtown.”

Krabacher said this semester he has been guiding introductory students through ideas and skills in geography as well as an upper division course on climate.

“I worked closely with him when he was a department chair for geography,” said Dave Evans, geology department chair. “He was a great mentor to me as a new department chair. He is a committed teacher who believes strongly in the CSUS mission and serves through service to the university and his profession.”

Originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, Krabacher received his master’s degree in geography from Michigan State University before heading off to UC Davis for his doctorate.

Throughout four years in the late 1980s into the early 1990s, Krabacher taught introductory Earth science and physical geography to inmates at Folsom Prison through the Los Rios Community College District.

“Initially, I was curious,” Krabacher said. “It was a fascinating experience. I had never seen the inside of a prison and I found quite few inmates surprisingly easy to talk to about what they were in for and why. One guy knocked over 23 convenient stores while another complained it was unfair that killing a fireman counted the same as killing a cop.”

Krabacher began his research work for his doctorate after he started teaching at Sac State.

“My dissertation work is based on about a year and a half of field work in Sierra Leone, Africa,” Krabacher said. “I looked at the role of small-scale, village-based fishing and the local food economy.”

Geography professor and chair Robin Datel said since Krabacher started at Sac State in 1988, he has taught ten different courses and his quantity, quality and diversity of service to the university would be difficult to rival.

Even with traveling, teaching and taking part in research studies Krabacher still had time to start a family and has been married to his wife for 35 years.

“I have two kids,” Krabacher said. “My son is in the Navy – he’s a nuclear petty officer – and my daughter is in her senior year looking to go to college for history, creative writing or maybe journalism.”

Krabacher said it has been more than a decade since his last visit to Africa and he wants to continue his fieldwork while also focusing on agricultural change in Yolo County.

Benjamin Dewey can be reached at [email protected].