John Greenawalt SY’12

John Greenawalt’s oldest memory is dancing in his living room as a two-year-old to his dad’s collection of Grunge music. When he came to​ Yale, John heard the YPMB play Smells Like Teen Spirit and knew that he had to join immediately. This turned out to be one of the best choices he has ever made, as the band continues to be a constant source of joy in his life.

In high school, John’s friends made fun of him for deciding to go to college down the street. This is to say that he has lived in Hamden, CT all his life and loves his Townie/Yalie double status. Still a rocker at heart, John served as Strings Section Leader for the ‘09 sports seasons on bass guitar. After getting a taste of band music, John joined the Yale Concert Band as a contrabassist and managed to become Social Chair in the fall of ‘10. As YPMB manager, John checked his email every ten minutes, talked to athletics, got the band pizza, made sure everyone was happy, and held up a white board that said what songs we were playing. He sometimes liked to still play bass while he managed and is worked out a system to do that.

John loves to build things, as in he is an ABET track Mechanical Engineering major. This is probably because he played with a lot of LEGOs as a child and generally doesn’t look at directions. This has come in handy when John built a backpack guitar amplifier, a glockenspiel harness and several parts of this years Uberprop. Besides building, John likes to study modern Japanese culture and once got Yale to give him a fellowship where he spent two months in Tokyo going to Japanese indie band concerts. These Japanese bands make up a portion of his ipod with 14,000 songs on it because John really enjoys listening to music, and going to concerts and music festivals.

John’s life goal is to bring happiness to others in any way he is capable of. If he can somehow make that involve robots, then everyone wins. You are also more likely to hear him called by his nick-name “Greeno.” He has been called this by his friends since high school. He also feels weird writing in the third person.