This is a man who lived with his wife in a mud hut for two years – so remote in the eastern Congo that they needed to fly there in a small plane over a tree canopy as thick as broccoli heads packed together.

This is a man who got into a grad program at Duke University almost immediately after applying – far past any published deadlines, just a month before classes began. An intellectually provocative paper won him admission.

This is a man who made the world-renowned Rosetta Stone language-learning system possible through his computer know-how and vision.

The life of John Fairfield ’70 could read like novel, if he chose to write it up.

Fairfield’s introduction to computers occurred during his 1968-69 year abroad at 400-year-old University of Marburg, where he was asked to use Fortran to do a linguistic analysis of Italian poetry. He would walk into Marburg’s computer center – with its massive mainframe attended by people in white lab coats – and hand in his punch cards for processing, then later retrieve reams of resulting printouts.

Back at Eastern Mennonite College in 1969-70, Fairfield presented his eclectic array of coursework to the dean, Ira Miller, and asked, “How do I graduate?” Fairfield didn’t have enough chemistry courses to be a chemistry major – he had tested out of some of them. He knew German fluently, but needed another language to be a language major (French would be learned the following year). So he and Miller settled on “natural science” as his major.

Jumping to Duke University, Fairfield continued to be an unorthodox student while working full-time. (He and wife Kathryn Stoltzfus ’70, who eventually became a Duke law student, had two children while they were both in grad school.) Duke’s fledgling computer science program relied heavily on faculty drawn from other fields – as was common during the birthing stage of computer academia. No Duke professor was involved in machine perception, the topic Fairfield decided to pursue, with or without their support.

“They kept saying, ‘Why don’t you do this or that?’ And I kept doing what interested me,” recalls Fairfield. “They didn’t know how to evaluate my work.”

Upon completing his not-understood dissertation, Fairfield had no assurance that the Duke faculty was going to grant him his PhD. He sent it to David Waltz, a renowned computer vision pioneer then at the University of Illinois, Urbana -Champaign, who grasped its importance. Waltz sent word back to Duke that he had granted PhDs for much less than what he saw in Fairfield’s work, and Fairfield got his doctorate.

Next came faculty appointments at James Madison University, where Fairfield remained for nearly 20 years, teaching all kinds of computer science courses, but especially relishing the 400-level research courses.

In 1992, Fairfield added his energy and talents to those of brother-in-laws Allen ’65 and Eugene ’72 Stoltzfus, plus Greg Keim, to give birth to a worldwide business now known simply as Rosetta Stone.

They built a team which created and integrated three forms of software: human interface code for language learning via browsers; speech recognition code; and code running the servers on the backend. As vice president of research and development Fairfield was a hands-on boss. “There were more keystrokes of mine in the software we were selling than anyone else’s.”

Fairfield retired in 2006 when the company was sold to financial investors. Fairfield then shifted his focus to envisioning and establishing 91¶ÌÊÓƔ’s Center for Interfaith Engagement, where he remains active as a research fellow. He is the author of The Healer Messiah: Turning Enemies Into Trustworthy Opponents (April 2014, available at rruuaacchh.org).

But the clients who nominated him for the “10 Under 40” and invest in his works, which includes the entrance to Eastern Mennonite High School — an 18Âœ-foot piece featuring a starry night version of Midtowne Market’s logo — and glasswork for at least two dozen private establishments in the downtown Harrisonburg area, disagree.

Nafziger has more than 1,400 followers on Facebook, and he’s only been in business for eight months.

“I claim to not be a good businessman, but I’ve come up with sort of a price structure that’s extremely reasonable for one-of-a-kind regional art,” said the artisan who came to Harrisonburg by way of Morris, Minn. “It was shocking to see my Facebook page — suddenly everyone’s like, ‘Hey, you’re really good.’”

Nafziger’s success, however, did not come overnight.

After he graduated from EMHS in 1994, Nafziger followed his passion for art to the Savannah College of Art in Savannah, Ga. He remained in the port city for the next two years, before taking time to travel.

After that point, Nafziger decided he wanted focus in his life: He moved back to Harrisonburg, enrolled in and graduated from 91¶ÌÊÓƔ’s art program in 2002, and found stability as a photographer with Rosetta Stone.

“It was my first real and only job ever,” he said.

Nafziger held that position until Rosetta began cutting payroll and, eventually, employees. His layoff was a trying moment.

“I sat around for about three or four days, feeling sorry for myself,” he said. “It was weird to get dumped by something I was so connected to for 12 years. I watched the company grow and take over the entire language-learning world.”

Throughout his tenure with Rosetta Stone, Nafziger made glass part time and, at the urging of a fellow local artist, moved his home studio to The Gladys Burke Studio in Larkin Arts on Court Square, where others would have access to his works.

He signed a year lease in March and business has increased since.

“At this point, word-of-mouth has helped me so much,” he said. “People aren’t just looking for any glass; they’re looking specifically for me. When I’m meeting clients, I’m not selling something that already exists — I’m selling myself and what I can do for them.

“I want whatever I make for them to be permanent.”

Courtesy Daily News Record, Dec. 2013