Vern & Carol Wedeven ’60

Vern says that he fell in love with Carol back in junior high at Holland Christian Schools, but that they didn’t date each other until they were both seniors. Probably because Carol was so busy running the Echoes as yearbook editor for all four years, playing lead roles in the school plays, and with her nose in a book in general, since according to them, she was “the academic one” of the pair.

Vern kept pretty busy himself playing basketball—his real passion in high school, and though he did enjoy science classes, he never considered himself very academic.

Which is kind of crazy—and hopeful for current parents of “non-academic students”—since after graduating from Holland Christian and Calvin College—where he majored in engineering and played both basketball and tennis—Vern went on to University of Michigan where he completed his MA. He finished his PhD at Imperial College in the early 1970s because they were the only college then with a program in tribology—Vern’s lifelong passion outside of Carol, and that is also his profession.

“The privilege we have to be able to do something worthwhile for mankind, to be using the physical world God has given us to be able to do wonderful things!” Vern exclaimed. “The way the science works out is absolutely remarkable when understood—physics goes on to do things you’d think would be utterly impossible!”

While at University of Michigan, Vern discovered tribology, or the “science of friction, lubrication and wear for interacting surfaces in relative motion,” (thanks Wikipedia) largely thanks to a U-M mechanical engineering professor, Kenneth Luddema. “Christ has a way of putting people in your lives that make a difference,” Vern said, explaining that Luddema also was a Calvin grad specializing in the friction and wear of materials. “He got me into the business I’m in. God puts these people and events into life to change the path where you are going.”

So thanks to Luddema, instead of heading off to the Peace Corps, which was their other option, Vern and Carol moved to London for Vern to complete his PhD at University of London’s Imperial College, where he was the only American in the program. Carol, who had completed her elementary education degree at Calvin, taught in the primary school near their neighborhood of Clapham Junction, “not the best area at the time, though the school was very good,” Carol said.

“It was a wonderful experience—I learned a lot. You just take things for granted, growing up in the Christian school in Holland,” Carol added. Clapham Junction was famously depicted for its poverty in the 1968 British movie, Up the Junction, but “the children were wonderful!” Carol insisted, exclaiming how a “student even made me a maternity dress” when she became pregnant with their first child, a daughter.

When Vern finished his PhD, he began working for NASA, and the family moved to Cleveland in April of 1970, so Vern could work on the lubrication of the mechanical systems of rocket engines. “I started the same week of Apollo 13!” he said.

Carol and Vern had three more children while in Cleveland, and besides caring for the family, Carol started writing children’s books, many of them at her kitchen table. She joined editing groups as well, helping other writers improve their writing skills—often at their kitchen table as well. Eventually she wrote and published over a dozen books, many of which are still available on Amazon. She wrote Bible stories in rhyme for the delight of young children, a book on Acts at the request of a Christian evangelist, and stories about Christian missionaries. With titles like “The Easter Cave,” “Just in Time Esther,” “The Story of Baby Moses,” and “Noah’s 2-by-2 Adventure,” they are delightful rhyming Bible stories currently still found in church nurseries, or read by nursery school teachers to their classes on YouTube. A few are currently out of print, though her editor is working to bring them back, with new pictures.

“Her bringing up at Holland Christian Schools equipped her mind and heart for Jesus Christ, and gave her the skills, so she could realize her passion for art and particularly for writing,” Vern said.

“I was a mother and writing,” Carol said. “We still have people coming to my house to read and critique their writing. We sit at our kitchen table, and we stay with our job and we just help each other. The outcome has been surprisingly fruitful,” she adds.

Once she had several books published, Carol was regularly invited into schools as a visiting author—”even public,” she said—to read her books aloud to classes, and talk about the writing and publishing process. “It’s very enjoyable to put children in a position where they can discover what they can do by just writing a few words!”

While Vern boasts easily about Carol’s accomplishments, he’s quieter about his own, so you have to go to his online biography to get details: After working for NASA for years, he started Wedeven Associates, Inc. (WAI), in Edgmont, PA, in 1987, taking out a mortgage on their house just down the street to do so, he admitted. According to LinkedIn, Wedeven Associates is “a small high tech business devoted to tribology research and development. Since 1987 he and his associates have developed specialized tribology test machines and test methods that link fundamental principles of tribology to service applications…” According to Vern, Wedeven Associates “has tested every single oil that flies in the Western world… It’s been a lifetime journey—we revolutionized the way this is done, found new horizons.”

Plus Vern has authored over 60 technical papers on tribology, wrote chapters in three books, holds three patents, and won several awards from the Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers (STLE).

Another amazing thing? They’re both 82 and Vern still works almost full time—”And still married!” he adds enthusiastically, after celebrating their 60th anniversary in August. Pretty much every morning he still walks the few blocks down to his Wedeven Associates office to complete the complex tribology research they have worked on for over three decades.

“This is not easy, and it takes time,” Vern wrote of his tribology work. “It is an honor to be able to creatively engineer God-given materials and sciences into mechanical systems for the good of mankind—e.g. aerospace propulsion, machines that operate efficiently and preserve natural resources, along with safety and health technologies.”

But that’s not all: “Jesus wants us to be aligned with His teachings and, we can add, engaged within His world of physical sciences,” Vern concluded. “If we yoke ourselves to Him our challenging journey becomes refreshed as we bear the load together to achieve fulfillment. Bearing each other’s burdens is a life-long occupation for purposeful work. I get my strength to complete this journey through Matthew 11:28-30: ‘Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’”