Day in the life

Horak Photo: UVic Photo Services

By Brad Michelson

A DAY IN THE LIFE of Stephen Horak is often spent fixing things. As a technician for the Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, he and his colleagues provide scientific tech support that helps keep the equipment running.

“When I say I’m an electronics tech, people often assume I work on computers all day,” says Horak. “But we largely work where science happens in the physical world. There’s electronics, but then there is a lot of mechanical as well.”

Horak and his co-workers help save the university hundreds of thousands of dollars through their maintenance work on scientific equipment. He spends a lot of his time reverse engineering things because often manufacturers don’t provide enough information on how to fix their products.

“A lot of the things that we fix will be 30 years old that, normally, people would throw out. At the end of the day, we do save a lot of money by just doing what anybody should do: fixing the thing you bought and making sure that it gives you a good lifetime of service.”

Horak grew up playing music in Calgary. In his 20s, he, like many others his age, began to realize that music just wasn’t paying the rent. He decided to take up electronics. That way he could fix his amp if it broke.

Horak moved to Victoria in 1992 and landed his current job at UVic.

Now, 12 years later, Horak has a wife, two kids, and a successful rock group called The Laundronauts. The band has been featured as 91.3 The Zone’s band of the month, has toured California and most of Canada, and has a music video rotating on Much Music.

“The band and my job do two different things that satisfy two different parts of my personality,” says Horak. “There’s something about being creative that’s important to me. There’s also something about being able to accomplish very concrete tasks that is rewarding.”

Last year, The Laundronauts set up a mini BC tour with a California band called The Love Me Nots, who are also Horak’s daughter’s favourite band.

“If you can imagine being six years old, and your favourite band is staying in your house, that’s pretty cool.”

You can listen to some Laundronauts tracks on their MySpace page:

http://www.myspace.com/thelaundronauts