He arrived on the Island in a flurry of controversy just over two years ago as the second non-Bermudian President of Bermuda College.

Since then, Vietnam veteran Dr. Charles Green says he has been making quiet but steady progress to improve the educational facility. He tells why he?ll be happy to hand over the reins to a Bermudian next year.

Lesser men than Dr. Charles Green might have trembled at the prospect of taking on the job of President of Bermuda College two years ago.

The decision to give the position to a non-Bermudian for the second time in a row was greeted with an outpouring of anger from sections of the community.

Before he even got to Bermuda, numerous headlines had appeared in the Press about Islanders losing out on top jobs to foreigners.

But Dr. Green, an imposing figure of a man with a wonderful Midwestern twang, was not in the least bit fazed.

The Vietnam veteran and former US Army colonel says he had ?been around the world two-and-a-half times? and knew a thing or two about gaining acceptance in far-flung places?.

Not just that; he positively radiates a steely, unshakeable self-confidence which leaves one in no doubt that he will get a job done and done well.

?It was not an unexpected thing for me,? he says of the negative press.

?I knew what the outcome would ?I knew what the outcome would be because I know who I am. There is absolutely nothing anyone can do that can change what I am. I am the master of my fate and I?m the captain of my ship.?

It?s not hard to believe. Dr. Green certainly appears to have steered the college into calmer waters than three years ago, when bad publicity seemed to dog the place.

?We had in your newspapers a very bad reputation,? he admits. ?Every day there was something negative about our college.

?That was one of my remits ? to get out of the newspapers negatively. We hope we have had some degree of success there. We have a relationship with all of the newspapers that causes them to be open to the good things the college does.?

But negotiating a turnaround in the college?s public relations is not all that the doctor set out to achieve. ? or the most important thing.

His main role, as he sees it, was to ensure the college was best serving its community and offering the widest range of educational opportunities possible.

That means that the college is now in talks with a number of US universities ? including Boston University and Drexel ? about offering masters degrees on the Island. It has already done so as part of a scheme with Webster University, which ended this month. College students have graduated with Mount Saint Vincent University baccalaureate degrees for the past two years.

The next logical step will be PhDs, which Dr. Green claims could be on the college syllabus anytime soon.

?This is part of the unique thing that a community college does in its community,? he says. ?If we don?t already do it, we will broker it if there is a need.?

Journalism and teaching degrees are also on the cards, if there is a desire for them on the Island.

Dr. Green says the college has been carrying out surveys to ascertain what courses are needed and wanted.

?We have had people say in numbers, fairly reasonable size numbers, that they want one in education or in teaching. We are working with schools that will work with us to set this up.?

One survey which asked respondents if they were interested in studying for a masters degree on the Island got 150 affirmative responses.

But Dr. Green says the subjects people wanted to study were ?all over the place?, so the college must now decide where the majority of interest lies.

?We will never be able to offer or get somebody in for a one-on-one,? he says. ?It has to be a collective group.?

The possibility of nurses being trained on the Island is edging closer. Dr. Green reveals that the college is in talks with King Edward VII Memorial Hospital about collaboration on a course.

The 66-year-old has worked in community colleges in America which have offered nursing and other medical qualifications.

?I have done this before at other places,? he says. ?It just hasn?t been done here.

?We can do it very well. Community colleges in the US do it better than four-year institutions because they are teaching institutions not research institutions.?

He says he would want his nurses as ?near-perfect? as can be and cites as the reason a car crash in which he felt asleep at the wheel and almost died 25 years ago in Scottsdale, Arizona.

The ambulance crew and nurses who saved his life all trained at his college. ?Anywhere along the line, failure of any of them to know 100 percent of their procedures could have meant the difference between life and death for me. That?s how critical it is.?

The photographer who takes Dr. Green?s picture for this piece describes him as ?like a preacher, at times? and it?s true.

When he is talking about community colleges, which he passionately supports and has a wealth of experience in, he gets seriously animated.

?Where we are going is no different from anywhere else in the world,? he says. ?We just happen to, in Bermuda, have decided in recent years that that?s what we want to do.

?We are on a track to becoming a comprehensive community college; one that serves all of its people in traditional and non-traditional ways.?

He grins when asked if the college is trying to do too much; be all things to all people and move away from the role for which it was founded.

?I?m smiling because I have heard that question for 30 years,? he says. ?The question continues to be put and community colleges continue to flourish. It is working.

?The community college can and will do most anything that?s appropriate.?

When he first came to Bermuda, Dr. Green was quoted as saying he wanted to attract disillusioned black males to the college.

?If I said blacks I should not have,? he says now. ?It?s men in general. We males have this thing. You ladies are always ahead of us but we think we know it all.

?We sometimes don?t take advantage of all the things that could lead us to better opportunities.?

He knows a thing or two about this as well. ?I was young and dumb,? he says of his youth.

He was raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, and was valedictorian of his elementary school before deciding that an academic path was not for him.

He chose to become a welder until his mother ? a cosmetologist who appears to have been the driving force in his family ? convinced his father, a steel mill worker, to allow him to go to college.

He went to Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, to become an engineer and later saw 16 years active service in the US Army followed by 17 years in the reserves.

He doesn?t say much about his time in Vietnam except that he?s a disabled vet ? ?they pay me for that disability? ? and that recent events in Iraq have disturbed him.

?I saw a guy blown up because of a kid with a hand grenade in Vietnam. War is not pleasant,? he said. ?I get uptight when I think of those young kids out there getting injured in Iraq. It?s not a fun thing and it?s forever. I have friends who are forever scarred from that war.?

He believes young men in Bermuda have a vast array of options to them ? if only they will seize them.

?The dilemma is how to keep young men in school through the boring stuff,? he admits.

One idea at Bermuda College is to provide them with their own discussion group, called Men Speak.

Dr. Green says is ?a forum for them to air issues that are of interest to men so we are not just developing eggheads?.

?We are also developing young men to face the world and be able to carry out their roles as males.

?They are in their second year,? he adds proudly. ?In the beginning it was us running them, now it?s them running the class. It helps them to mature.

?There are a whole lot of lessons going on here and a whole lot of things that stop them running away with boredom from the college. We are answering their questions but some of them are not necessarily in a textbook. It?s about life.?

Recent college statistics show an increase in male students. Last year in the spring semester the college had 59 men and 153 women on training courses. There are now 78 men and 154 women.

Courses offering credits featured 255 men and 570 during last year?s spring semester. There are now 286 men and 614 women.

?We are making progress,? Dr. Green said.

Another success has been to get the college?s candidacy to become an accredited member of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges in the US accepted.

Once a member, the College can show it has reached a recognised educational standard. Credits gained by students will be easily transferable to institutions in North America.

Dr. Green is still working on a plan to ensure the college assumes the role of the long-closed Technical Institute.

He says it is now moving closer to that, with the recent appointment of Llewellyn Trott to lead the technical programmes.

?You can determine the merits of an institution not today but 20 years later when you look at its graduates,? he says.

When the prospect of coming to Bermuda arose, Dr. Green had already retired six times but decided that the country needed him.

?This became an opportunity to be of assistance to a country that I thought I can make a positive contribution to and have a little fun,? he says. ?It?s been fun; this is a beautiful place.?

He has recently been involved in helping those who wish to succeed him as President prepare their applications.

The deadline for entries for the post has now passed and the College board is expected to make an appointment by summer.

Father-of-four Dr. Green will then spend a year mentoring his replacement before heading home to Texas in summer, 2007 to ?get back on my yacht and cruise around the Gulf of Mexico?.

Will he be sad to leave Bermuda?

?Yes and no,? he replies. ?I will be sad to leave a very beautiful place with lovely people. But I will be ready to go. Houston is a lovely place too.?

His proudest moments will perhaps have been watching his students at the college?s annual commencements.

A motto on his wall reads: ?The student is not an interruption in our day or work. They are the reason for it.?

He says: ?Probably the greatest reason I came here is I know what effects a community college has on a student.

?Graduation from a community college is like the farmer doing a harvest. We are harvesting our crop.?