Originally from Bradford, Penn., he came to Rensselaer to study aeronautical engineering but switched to architecture during his freshman year. “I’m a flyer, and I’ve always been interested in airplanes, but it turned out that architecture and construction was something I was also interested in ... it was the right thing to do,” said Heffner. “I came to Rensselaer in 1952, and I got out in 1957. [Rensselaer] was totally different,” he recalled. “The basic core campus was bounded on the north side by Sage Avenue and to the south by the Pittsburgh Building. There was an athletic field where the Union now sits, and none of the dormitories were there.”

After graduation, Heffner fulfilled his ROTC obligation by serving in the Air Force. Although he had already signed an agreement to receive pilot training and serve a three-year tour, the government stated that he would need to serve four years if he expected to be trained. “I elected not to go to pilot training even though I was dying to do that,” recalled Heffner.

He feels it was the right decision for the government to make the change, citing that flight training takes up a majority of a three-year commitment. Eventually Heffner took a remote assignment in Alaska. “It was an early warning site. In the mid-’50s, we were in the middle of the Cold War with the Russians and everybody fully expected the Russians to be coming,” mentioned Heffner. “It was a great year. ... I got to meet the Eskimo people, and I learned a lot. I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything.”

Heffner was married in 1960 when he left the service and returned to Bradford, where he picked up temporary work. “Of course there was a recession [then], so it took a while to get a job. I wound up working for US Steel, in Pittsburgh,” remembered Heffner. He was one of two architects at the corporation and remained there for two years. “It was stable. It was fine—they treated me well…but it wasn’t very exciting, so I told them I was looking for a job outside of sitting at a drafting table. It was at that point that I decided I didn’t want to be a practicing architect and that I wanted to be in the building business,” he remarked.

Eventually, Heffner became involved with a developing industrial park in Baltimore. “When they were checking resumes, they had a fellow working for [them] by the name of Tom Barnes, who was an RPI graduate. One of the reasons they pulled my application was because I was another RPI graduate. It was one of those lucky breaks,” he remembered.

He is a founding member of his firm (which started with 15 acres and now owns over 300), and he has bought all of the other partners out.

Almost 20 years after his graduation Heffner returned to Rensselaer after receiving a call from a student during a donation phone-a-thon. His involvement as an alumnus snowballed from there. Eventually President George Low offered him a seat on the Board of Trustees.

“We had a dynamic leader then as we do today; it was exciting and fun to be around. [President Low] had a vision much like [President Jackson], where he wanted to take the university and what he could do with a track record as a stunning administrator from the Apollo program,” recalled Heffner. He has served on the Board of Trustees since 1977.

Satisfaction for Heffner, as chairman, comes at commencement, “Seeing the student product, seeing Rensselaer turn out some of the brightest kids in the world; and I mean that.

They are just extremely bright young people,” he remarked. “Rensselaer at the moment … this is probably going to be recognized as one of the eras of dynamic change. If you interview the next chairman twenty years from now, he could say that this was a point when Rensselaer really made a ‘bend in the road.’ I believe we are on the verge of real greatness,” stated Heffner.