Here’s the story of where Myron’s name comes from.

Myron Rosander

We took the name Myron from the late Myron Rosander, the heart and soul behind the Santa Clara Vanguard Drum and Bugle Corps from the 1980s through the mid 2000s and, through those who remember him, a major influence on the corps today. It’s impossible to sum up Myron Rosander in a short blurb, but this photo I took in my first year with the Vanguard (2001) is perhaps the most characteristic representation I have of him. Most of our interactions with him were like this: he would observe the corps from afar and then drop in periodically to deliver a message when we needed it and when he knew what to say. He didn’t speak to us every day, but when he did, the members hung on every word. Often, he would walk into the gym floor the corps was sleeping on any given night and just start speaking his mind, and those who were out of earshot would huddle around, forming rings around where he stood.

There are many things I learned from Myron that I carry with me every day. Here are two that come to mind. First is the idea that it’s easy to seek external validation of success: grades in school, praise from a supervisor at work, or in our case, a score or placement given by judges in a drum corps competition, but what Myron encouraged us to do was to rely on ourselves for validation – to know from our own perspective where we succeeded (or where we fell short) was more reliable. The second is integrity, which he talked about as much as he embodied – he was always true to what he believed, and as he said, he lived from the inside out. He was undeniably the same person regardless of context or audience.

Joe Ustach

Joseph is from Em’s dad and Myron’s dziadziu (Polish for grandfather, pronounced “ja-ju”)! He is an awesome dad and dziadziu, and we are lucky to have him and Grandma Nancy visiting and helping us out this week. The two of them gave me a father-to-be kit to take to the hospital for delivery – it included crossword puzzles and sudoku to keep me entertained and Tic Tac breath mints to freshen my breath. The story behind the latter is that Joe’s coffee breath was getting on Nancy’s nerves while she was delivering Em.

We wanted to combine names that had personal connections to both of us, and Em couldn’t think of a better fit than her father. Also, we found that Joseph works well with Myron and Eng.