By Katy Savage
Steve Schild, a longtime Rutland Regional Planning Commission GIS planner who loved the outdoors, died of a heart attack at work on Oct. 18. He was 59.
Schild, who was supposed to be at a 7 p.m. meeting on Oct. 18, was found by a coworker near his desk, according to his sister Kathy Stone.
“Everybody loved my brother,” Stone said. “He loved to make people laugh.”
Schild grew up in Illinois and moved to Vermont for his love of the outdoors. He lived in a log cabin in Chittenden where he could be found hiking, kayaking, fishing and cycling on the Chittenden Reservoir just about everyday. In the winter, he was an avid snowboarder.
“He took the first chair up and left before everyone else got there,” Stone said.
Schild celebrated his 30-year anniversary at the Rutland Regional Planning Commission in September. He was responsible for making various maps, such as wetland and soil maps, for towns in Rutland county.
“It’s been a tough couple weeks,” said Devon Neary, the executive director of the Rutland Regional Planning Commission. Neary said he’s received dozens of responses from other planners in the state — all with stories to share about Schild.
“Everyone that worked with Steve has said the same thing — that he is so down to earth and easy to work with,” Neary said.
Schild’s decades of experience in planning made him a resource.
“He became kind of a walking encyclopedia,” Neary said. “He could tell you anecdotes and stories about every corner of the Rutland region for people who have been around for decades. He was a really bright light in the planning world.”
Joe Zingale, the former longtime town administrator in Rutland Town, met Schild in 1990.
“He was the one who gave me the training I needed,” he said.
Back then, planners got to know each other by traveling to meetings around the state together. Zingale quickly became friends with Schild outside the office.
“If I ever had any issues at my house or needed to do a little bit of carpentry work, Steve was always willing to help,” Zingale said.
Schild introduced many friends to a new sport — croquet golf. Schild built his own croquet golf course in his yard after getting into the sport in college.
“He had friends who came every year from Connecticut and had an annual croquet game with oversized mallets like the Flinstones might use,” Zignale said. “They would play game after game.”
Jim Henderson, a GIS senior planner in Brattleboro, who knew Schild for 30 years, said Schild was a man of few words, but “you should listen when he spoke.
“Outside the office, he was always telling a story or looking for a new story.” Henderson added. “He worked hard and played hard.”
Schild spent as much time as he could outside.
“He didn’t look very athletic but he certainly was,” Henderson said.
Schild was one of the early snowboarders. He was introduced by his friend Jake Burton Carpenter, the founder of Burton Snowboards and “grandfather” of snowboarding.
Schild briefly worked for Burton and spent a few winters riding across the country in a van with him to promote snowboarding back when it was prohibited in some areas. Schild and Burton showed up at mountains and “rode until people kicked them off or until people were in awe of them,” Henderson said.
Burton and Schild remained close until Burton’s death in 2019. Burton even sent Schild a new snowboard and new boots every year, Henderson said.
“He didn’t bring a lot of attention to himself, yet he deserved it,” Henderson said.
In the office, Schild was straight to the point and incredibly honest. He was always looking for ways to do things better and more efficient.
“He was not very political, even though the job can be a political job,” Henderson said. “He was as non political as you could get. He wouldn’t chime in until the meeting was done and then he would go though his notes. That’s what I always liked about Steve.”
More recently, Schild became an avid gardener and tended to his dahlias — a gift from Henderson — as well as his vegetables and berry varietes.
“He liked gardening a lot,” Henderson said.
Pete Fellows, a planner at Two Rivers Ottauquechee Regional Planning Commission, remembered Schild’s laid back attitude.
During a recent conversation, Schild told Fellows his dog started digging his berry bushes, but Schild wasn’t bothered by it.
“Steve said, ‘oh he’s just doing his thing. I’ve got a lot of berry bushes. Could afford to have a few less,’” Fellows said. “And that was just how Steve rolled.”
Schild loved his dogs and his Chicago Cubs. Schild named one of dogs Zimmer, after Don Zimmer, his favorite Cubs player. He had another dog named Wrigley, after Wrigley Field and a third dog named Doppler, after the famous Austrian physicist Christian Doppler.
Schild also loved nature photography.
“Steve was the consummate GIS guy working in the field staring up culverts but also working on some of the first 3D GIS stuff with the multipatch shapefile,” Fellows said.
Schild was often found in the field or in a ditch conducting culvert inventories. He also had a sweet tooth.
“He also made sure that the secret candy stash was well-stocked,” according the Rutland Regional Plannning Commission’s website.
Rutland Regional recently placed an ad for a new GIS planner.
“We hope to find somebody as well-rounded as Steve to fill that position,” Neary said.
