In Memoriam

Timothy G. Schwab '05 A natural leader, he put family first By Anne Downey '95G

Tim Schwab's father died in 2007 after falling off a roof at his dairy farm in western New York. Tim's mother told him and his brother, Jason, "We're never going to get over this, but we'll get used to it."

Tim had moved back to the farm after he graduated in 2005. When his father died, he and his brother agreed that "either you were all in [the farm] or you weren't in it at all," Jason says. They made the farm more productive and won numerous industry awards. Tim Schwab was the herdsman but was also good at managing their 17 employees. "He never criticized anybody," Jason says. "He recognized people's talents and brought out the best in them."

Schwab was the third of three siblings in a close-knit family that lived on the farm and shared the same philosophy: family first, work hard, play hard. "Growing up, we were all about high speeds and football," says Jason. Their father was a race-car driver; Jason played football, and Tim, too, had a competitive athletic streak. But he was also even tempered, gentle spirited and respectful, a kid who had all sorts of friends. Too big to qualify for Little League football, he raced go carts and found a way to win despite his weight disadvantage. He excelled at football in high school and was a championship wrestler; he won the Senior of the Year award.

At UNH, Schwab majored in dairy management and played football. He was a dedicated student. For one course, he helped manage a small herd of cows, doing the 3:30 a.m. milkings while balancing his other classes and football practice. "The class dynamics can be complicated because it combines pre-vet majors with dairy management students," professor Drew Conroy '86, '01G says. "Tim joined the class midyear but he was still elected co-president by his classmates. He was a natural leader."

The last year of his NCAA eligibility, coach Sean McDonnell '78 offered Schwab a full scholarship, but he turned it down. "He had finished his academics, had proven everything he needed to prove, and was ready to go home to the farm," McDonnell says. "I don't think I recognized how smart he was until he told me he was leaving, and it was for all the right reasons."

Schwab married his high school sweetheart in 2007, and last fall, they were anticipating the birth of their first child. On Nov. 9, an employee was spreading manure from a tanker trailer when a clog developed. He climbed into the tank to release the blockage and passed out from the methane fumes. Schwab went into the tank to rescue him and was overcome by the fumes as well. In the ambulance, medics were unsuccessful in reviving him. The employee he was trying to save recovered.

His son, Nolan Timothy Schwab, was born on Dec. 29, and his family says he looks just like his dad. "Tim said to me once, when we were talking about what we would do if something happened to one of us, 'You'll keep going, you'll be fine?this is what we do,'" Jason says. "We're trying to do that. But it's a lonely, lonely place without him."

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