When Bruce Hupe was an undergraduate ROTC student at UC Davis, he believed that "nothing good ever happened to me in Mrak Hall."

Back then, Hupe said, he and most students only visited the building to handle class scheduling changes in the Office of the Registrar in the building's basement. To Hupe, Mrak Hall represented two negative aspects of the college experience — signing checks and signing up for class.

Twenty-five years after earning a bachelor's degree in history, Hupe is back at UC Davis working as the university's investigations coordinator. While he has an office on Mrak's fifth floor that boasts a lush view of the arboretum, the real spice to his job is working closely with campus leadership to examine, as he puts it, "potential improper governmental activities." Though most cases turn out innocuous, Hupe believes that the campus community benefits from having an investigatory function. After all, he noted, UC Davis is as large as many small towns, and thus has its share of incidents.

"We have almost 30,000 employees between here and the medical center," Hupe said. "Anytime you have an organization that big, you can have these issues come up. We want all of our staff and faculty to feel that there is an outlet by which they can bring concerns to the attention of the leadership of the university and know it will get looked at."

Climbing the ladder

The irony of moving from Mrak's basement to the coveted top floor has not been lost on Hupe.

"It was really a neat experience to come back in a business suit and ride the elevator up to the fifth floor for a job interview," Hupe said.

His return to UC Davis in 2004 after a stint at California State University, Fresno, was not just a return to his alma mater — it was a true homecoming for the Davis native. His family has lived in the town for four generations. His immediate family (a wife, two daughters, and a beloved Harley Davidson) is the most recent generation.

A retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, Hupe's career has taken him around the world, including to Iran. His experiences include working with tanks in Europe, serving as an inspector general and teaching in college. Hupe, who has a master's in military history from the Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth, Kan., taught classes on terrorism and modern warfare at UC Santa Barbara and classes on military history at Fresno State. He also was ROTC commander at Fresno State and ran the school's investigations division, which prepared him well for his current UC Davis post. Hupe retired just 10 days before Sept. 11, 2001. "Or I would have been called back, probably to some desk job."

What is something that most people don't know about you?

I'm an accomplished backyard astronomer. I also love Egyptology. I remember when I was a child, we went to London and to the British Museum. As you walk into this one hallway they've got the Rosetta Stone on display, and at the time you could go up and touch it. It was just absolutely fascinating to me. Then the more I read about ancient Egypt, the more I found it absolutely intriguing. When I had a chance to actually go to Egypt for several weeks I spent time crawling through pyramids. Going inside the pyramids is fascinating but not for the claustrophobic. And there is still so much that we don't know. My house is kind of a monument to Egyptian relics and artifacts.

What do you like most about your job?

My favorite part of the job is that I get to see the entire campus, across the whole spectrum. I get to learn about what's going on in all of the different colleges and departments and research units that we have. And not just in academic departments. For example, everybody sees the facilities and grounds, but when you really see how that stuff works, that's fascinating.

I also get to spend a lot of time in the medical center, and that's a whole other world over there. High stakes, high pressure. The things they do there really matter. It's interesting to see that operation.

What do you like least?

The paperwork. The things I do require writing reports, and that's not as fun as talking to people and meeting people. But it's challenging to synthesize it and put it all together. In the end, we are producing a product that decision makers can use to make their decisions.

Where is your favorite campus spot?

The Memorial Union and Freeborn Hall areas. It's vibrant and it's where I hung out when I was a student. It's where all of the activity is. I love our bookstore, I love the quirky college food, I like sitting out in the sun, watching all of the folks walk outside.

What inspires you?

It's all about the people you work with. That's kind of a milquetoast answer, but that's the truth. That, and I've got a pretty good view.

Allison Leung is a student writing intern for Dateline.