Freshman Profile: Pete Rondeau (CA’26)

When Assistant Dean Travis Cooper called upon members of the Class of 2026 to sign the College’s student registry at the California Matriculation in August, one name drew thunderous applause and a standing ovation from the assembled students — and for good reason. Peter Rondeau (CA’26) is beginning his time at Thomas Aquinas College at the age of 61, recently retired from globe-spanning military and civilian careers.

That Mr. Rondeau would enrich his retirement by pursuing Catholic liberal education would have surprised his younger self. “I’m the first in my family to be accepted to a four-year school,” he says. Born and raised in Florida, his early years were not marked by academic rigor. “I was a horrible student!” he admits. “After graduating high school in 1979, I said, ‘Great! I’ll never have to go to school again in my life!’” Yet within three months he was enrolled in a local community college, studying electronics.

Two years later, Mr. Rondeau changed careers by enlisting in the United States Marine Corps — whereupon he found himself in school once again. “I studied Russian in Monterey, California, to become a Russian linguist,” he explains. With the Cold War still chilling the globe, his knowledge of Russian made him an especially valuable asset. During the late 1980s, when the United States and the Soviet Union began pursuing nuclear arms reduction, his credentials qualified him to serve as a nuclear arms control inspector.

“We would go into the Soviet Union and inspect missile bases, airbases, and that type of thing, counting the number of bombers that they had, or missiles, or submarines.”

When he left the Marines in 1993, Mr. Rondeau cast about for how to spend his civilian days. “I ended up going back to school to learn computer drafting,” he recalls. “I taught as an adjunct instructor for maybe a year while I was also working in the field.” He spent some time designing and installing security systems for museums before embarking on a decades-long career in construction management. He helped to plan large construction projects for a university in his native Florida, as well as for the Grand Canyon, and even for the Department of Defense arm in South Korea.

Mr. Rondeau retired in November 2021, but he was resolved not to be passive. “I'm from Florida, so I had already seen all of the things that I didn't want to do in retirement,” he says. “When I had daydreamed about, ‘What would I do if I won the lottery?’, the answer had always been, ‘I’d go back to school.’ Well, now it was time to put up or shut up.”

Alongside this desire, he also found himself reconnecting with the faith of his youth. “I’m Catholic by birth, but like many young men, I drifted away from the strict observance of it,” he notes. “I wanted to get back into that community and learn what I had forgotten over the years.”

His quest ultimately brought him to Thomas Aquinas College in search of some “brain-stretching” — which he has found in abundance. “Freshmen study the Bible, the dialogues of Plato, seminal papers of modern biology, Aristotle’s treatises on logic, Euclid’s Elements, the epics of Homer, classical histories by Herodotus and Thucydides, as well Latin grammar — to name a few. But Mr. Rondeau has enjoyed the challenges. “Euclid is beating me up,” he smiles. “I came in and thought, ‘I got this nailed. I can draw a circle, I can draw a triangle, I can draw a line.’ It’s been a struggle for me, to forget everything that I learned in that regard.”

“My options were either to hang around a bunch of disillusioned old guys, talking about blood-pressure medication and government conspiracy theories, or hang around a bunch of bright, inquisitive young minds and have them force me to talk about and explore stuff that I wouldn't have come across otherwise.”

The Discussion Method has also come as a pleasant surprise. “I would go into class with a very clear idea of where I stood on a topic, and what it meant, and my understanding,” he says. “Then one of my fellow students just blows me out of the water. He says something, and I’m thinking, ‘I never really thought about it like that.’”

For all the challenges, however, Mr. Rondeau has no regrets about beginning retirement as a Thomas Aquinas College freshman. “When I boil it down,” he laughs, “my options were either to hang around a bunch of disillusioned old guys, talking about blood-pressure medication and government conspiracy theories, or hang around a bunch of bright, inquisitive young minds and have them force me to talk about and explore stuff that I wouldn't have come across otherwise.”

As evidenced by the applause Mr. Rondeau received at Matriculation, his fellow students are glad to count him among their own. “I was inspired by him choosing to do this for his retirement,” says Carrie Armstrong (’25). “Whenever I get bogged down with so many assignments, I try to remind myself that he’s doing this as something that’s not work; this is actually leisure. He’s doing it as something good.”