“You’re like the king of the dipshits, Ernie. And I mean that in a good way.”
That’s one of many memories of Dan Ascheman, a friend and former co-worker who passed away Dec. 4 at the far-too-young age of 49. Many of us who worked with Dan at Metropolitan Community College didn’t hear the news until more than a week after he passed.
As for the “dipshits” comment, it came during a phone call about a project I was working on for the MCC-Business & Technology campus in 2016. To put it mildly, MCC’s marketing approach in those days was fragmented. There was one main office at the downtown campus and several coordinators at the various other campuses. For Dan, the overarching marketing manager, getting a handle on uniform branding was like herding cats.
To be blunt, which Dan would have appreciated, working at MCC was difficult and complicated much of the time. I often was asked to work on projects that did not align with the community college’s brand strategy. I tried the best I could, but it was a struggle. But, after several awkward months, Dan started to warm up to me.
“This is pretty good, I’m not going to lie,” Dan said of a project I sent him to review. “You’re like the king of the dipshits, Ernie. We’ve got all these coordinators, but you’re the best.”
I was on speaker phone, and Dan’s small team at the central office erupted in laughter, as did I. The next week, he invited me to his department. I brought donuts, of course, to kill them with kindness.
From that point on, Dan and I got along great. He became a fierce advocate when departments on my campus asked for something that didn’t make sense and wasn’t going to drive enrollment.
One meeting, in particular, is lodged in my memory. One of the units at MCC-BT repeatedly asked me to deploy an aging marketing strategy that clearly had little to no return on investment. Finally, I asked Dan for help, and he scheduled a meeting with one of the department’s supervisors.
I was thoroughly impressed by his ability to ask critical questions that had to be answered to justify the project. The individual we were meeting with simply could not supply the answers and was getting frustrated, to the point that he actually cussed at both of us.
The meeting didn’t last much longer, though Dan didn’t miss a beat and calmly asked additional important, relevant questions. He called me 15 minutes after leaving campus, laughing so hard he started coughing.
“Yeah, I’m never signing off on that project,” he said. “That’s not drumming up business.”
Months later, when I struggled mightily with Epstein-Barr Virus and had to take several weeks off, Dan was one of the few people from MCC who called to check on my well-being. It was another lesson that many people have another side.
I left MCC in 2017 for my alma mater, less than two years after I started on the BT campus. I’ve never been happier to start a new job. But I missed many of the people, including Dan, and still do.
Dan and I talked several times after he left MCC a few years after my departure. He struggled to find his footing before landing on his feet professionally. Unfortunately, his health also began to suffer, despite an impressive effort to get well. He lost more than 200 pounds and was much happier than he’d been in the MCC days.
His death was a shock to those he worked with at MCC. I received multiple messages within a few hours of finding out. Dan likely didn’t realize how many people would miss him. I, the king of disphits, certainly will.
Rest in peace, my friend.