To his colleagues at Gateway Community and Technical College, Alan C. Hall, an associate professor of history, was a man who seemed to do it all. During his 20 years at the college, Mr. Hall, who died on July 8 in a lawn-mowing accident at his home in Falmouth, Ky., moved from teaching electronics to information technology to history.

He held numerous leadership roles at the college and earned three degrees while on the faculty. When Kentucky's community colleges and vocational schools underwent a big merger, Mr. Hall was considered a pioneer in leading the transition at Gateway, in northern Kentucky.

And somewhere among all those commitments, Mr. Hall, who was 48, gained the reputation for being extremely generous with his time, his colleagues say, each of them eager to offer a story of him lending a hand at just the right time.

"That's the kind of person we lost," says G. Edward Hughes, Gateway's president. "It's a big hole in a little school."

Mr. Hall loved Star Trek and history, and had action figures from the show peppered among the books in his office. He was a hands-on type of guy, his colleagues say, knowing how to work all kinds of equipment and fix just about anything. On his childhood farm, 40 minutes from the college, he built a house for his wife and two children where he had pledged to spend the rest of his life.