Erik Holmberg, growing up in small-town upstate New York

Erik Holmberg tells us that his last name is Swedish, and in Sweden Holmberg is as common as Smith in the U.S. Erik was named for his great, great grandfather…His son’s name Oskar comes from his father’s middle name. Erik is part Dutch, part Swedish and part English.

Erik’s mother met his father at Corning Community College before they began their careers. His father, a Navy veteran of the Vietnam war, serving on a Destroyer class ship in the engine room, later enlisted in the Army Reserves, then New York National Guard Reserves, eventually retiring as a Lt. Colonel, while working as an occupational therapist. His mother became a RN. His parents married and settled down in Ovid, NY, near relatives. After a while, Erik’s parents moved to Sheldrake.

Eventually Erik’s family moved to the Village of Ovid[EH1] , near Willard Psychiatric Center, where both of his parents worked, before the State hospital was closed, and Willard became a shock incarceration facility. Erik grew up about 100 yards, as the crow flies, from the Big M, the very lively, very central small town grocery store, that tragically burned to the ground in January of this year.

Erik attended the South Seneca Elementary School in Interlaken, and then the junior and senior high in Ovid. As a kid, Erik knew everyone in town, and heard all the local news as he rode his bike and delivered the Finger Lakes Times on his paper route. He also worked at the wineries tying grapes.

When he was in early high school, he could walk through his backyard to the Big M, where he was hired to bag groceries, load bags into cars, Amish buggies, and black Mennonite vehicles, even delivering them to nearby homes and apartments on occasion. Erik also stocked the shelves and filled in wherever he was needed.

After years of helping out at the Big M, Erik began doing wine tastings at Plane’s Cayuga Vineyard, which eventually became Cayuga Ridge Estate Vineyard. By then his father and stepmom lived on Elm Beach, in walking distance from Cayuga Ridge.

In high school Erik played basketball, baseball, ran cross-country, and golfed. Between school, work, sports and family and friends, Erik’s days were full.

Around the time Erik graduated from High School he began dating the love of his life, Polly Endreny. Erik headed off to SUNY Oneonta, while Polly finished her senior year between South Seneca and TC3. Polly chose NC State University, so they pulled up stakes and headed to the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill Triangle. First attending Wake Tech Community College, Erik then transferred to NC State, majoring in history.

After Polly and Erik graduated, they lived in Raleigh for a final Southern summer. Erik sold Saabs (another love of his life) and Jeeps, while Polly worked in a corporate lab with her biology degree from UNC Chapel Hill.

Rochester and a stint as a credit counselor was next for Erik, while Polly spent three months in Namibia with the Cheetah Conservation Fund. Polly then worked managing a preserve with the Nature Conservancy, based in Mt. Kisco, NY. After some time and many long drives, Erik landed a job (in the same building!?), with a (then) small boutique wine importer, continuing his history and education in the wine world.

The D.C. Metro area was next, and both found good jobs, and lived in Silver Springs, MD. Polly continued her environmental and science career as a policy-focused marine ecologist with NOAA, while Erik stayed in the wine sphere working as a market manager at the Total Wine & More (Southern chain), corporate offices in Potomac.

But in 2009, Polly and Erik decided to put job, family, and home ownership plans on hold, and applied to the Peace Corps. Erik: “I had three years of French in high school and one in college, and we were assigned to Madagascar. We learned Malagasy, and I immediately forgot most of my French.” While in Madagascar, a large island country off the Eastern coast of Africa, Erik and Polly loved the beautiful highlands, unique wildlife, and the kind people.

“Growing up in a family with a history of service, militarily and professionally, I’ve always felt it’s important and necessary to give back. Peace Corps allowed us to serve our country and our host country with our minds and skillsets, not weapons.”

“Peace Corps was a ‘pause’ in our timeline. We were able to regroup and decide what we really wanted in this life. We agreed that we wanted to live near our families and near water. So, we temporarily moved to Sheldrake into Polly’s parents’ home on Cayuga Lake while we found jobs.”

Polly took a starter job in Plant Science at Cornell, and now brings professionals from all over the world to Ithaca, in the Humprey’s Fellowship program she co-directs. Erik took a re-entry tech job at the Trust Company, where he gained lots of experience walking people through the steps of banking online. Now, and for the past 12 years working at Cornell, Erik has been a ‘technology liaison’, guiding colleagues from all walks of life through simple and complex tech endeavors at the College of Veterinary Medicine. From hardware fixes to custom application training, he loves being able to help others achieve with technology, and he works with compatible colleagues, so life is good.

But nothing is as special as the time Erik spends with Polly and their 10 ½ year old son, Oskar. “During Covid, Polly and I worked from home. Oskar had his kindergarten classes online. We were together 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In many ways those were good years for us. Each of us got to know how the other two people think. We were fortunate to keep our jobs and maintain Oskar’s schooling progress. We love our home in Sheldrake (Purchased from Polly’s family in 2014), and we could take walks around the winery’s vineyards.”

Erik is a classic “can do” guy. “I love to work on my Saab 900, fix things around our quirky house, help family and friends on projects—tech or other, rehabbing an aging computer, installing a wi-fi network, and usually beyond. But, when Oskar is around, I choose to be with him…10 ½ is a golden age…My car and home renovations can wait. Oskar can’t. He’ll be 11, so soon.”

Now that we have a little background on Erik and his family, stay tuned for Erik’s take on why public service matters, now more than ever.