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By Maria Borri

William Komarek is retiring at the end of this semester after teaching economics at IVCC for 25 years.

In the fall of 1976 he started teaching Introduction to Business, Business Math, Business Statistics, Fundamentals of Economics, Principles of Microeconomics and Principles of Macroeconomics.

Komarek has a bachelor's degree in natural science and social studies from ISUI. He started teaching at Dwight High School in 1965, and taught science there for five years.

At ISU he earned a master's degree in economics and taught there for two years.

What led Komarek to teaching?

"I have always enjoyed working with people, and there are not many occupations where you can get paid to read books," he said.

"I have thoroughly enjoyed working at IVCC," he continued. "It is a joy to work with the good group of students here."

Thinking back to IVCC in the late-1970s, Komarek said he has observed significant changes.

"In 1976 most of the students were predominantly transferring to a four-year university; now they are career-type students," he said, adding that today's students are also older on average.

"When I started, manual typewriters were in," he said. "Now the computer rules."

Komarek and his wife live in Peru. They have two children, William, an engineer in Dallas and Becky, studying engineering at the U of I.

When he retires, he and his wife plan to travel to see parts of the country they have never seen before.

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