He stands before them, with only a 3-foot-high wall protecting him from the panic-stricken ravings of the students who rush up to his window every few seconds. Behind him loom ceiling-high metal shelves holding the keys to these students' problems.

"What's wrong with this?" "What am I supposed to do with this?" or "Can you help me?" are the incessant pleas thrown at him. And in the span of a few seconds, Jeff Brooks offers a solution from the rows of chemicals and assorted apparatuses and wipes away their barely concealed tears of frustration with a joke and a smile.

"It seems like I know what I'm doing, but I don't -- I've just answered the same question 900 times," said Brooks, senior preparation technician for the chemistry department.

Brooks takes care of setting up equipment and chemicals for various chemistry laboratory classes.

"The most important thing I do for the kids is to have everything where it is supposed to be and working so they can get on with their lives," he said, adding that working with students is the part of the job he loves most.

And although the students' problems and attitudes have remained consistent during the seven years he has held this position, Brooks said students keep the job far from boring.

"What do you kids do, drink this stuff?" he asks a nervous, goggled student returning with an empty bottle. Another goggled woman expectantly hands him some goldish-orange powder, precariously wrapped in a piece of paper.

"What is that?" he asks in response to the plea in her eyes telling him that she wasn't sure, but she'd like him to tell her and get rid of it.

"That is why I don't have kids," he laughed as he rolled his eyes to the ceiling and answered her unspoken questions.

In this manner, Brooks always has a ready grin for students and is always happy to poke a little fun at them in their distress over experiments that often take more than three hours.

"I think he's cool. He helps the students a lot, and he picks on the students a lot, and some like it and some don't," said Lisa Odell (graduate-chemistry), a teaching assistant. And this jolly, robust man can look a little threatening when he puts on an overacted scowl -- but he is always joking.

Suzy Ciccotto (sophomore-biology) said Brooks is sometimes more helpful than her TA.

"Overall, he's really helpful. He gives you hints to make sure you don't make mistakes," she said.

But Brooks said although he can help with techniques, he leaves the chemistry up to the graduate assistants.

His knowledge stems almost exclusively from experience, with his only formal training coming from a freshman chemistry course that he had during his brief stint as a business major at the University.

After a few semesters, he decided college wasn't for him, and that he didn't like Pennsylvania, so he became the advance man for the James Brother Circus, traveling 6 months ahead of the show to arrange for locations and sponsors.

"In 5 years I was always so far ahead of the circus, I never saw a circus," he said.

Brooks quit that job after it took him to the pleasing climate of San Diego. He got a job as an ice cream truck driver to pay the bills until he got a regular job, but he loved driving around and talking to people so much that he bought his own truck.

And on one of his trips to Florida to visit his parents, he met his wife. Rosalie Bloom worked with Brooks' mom when his parents lived in State College and happened to be visiting his parents at the same time. His wife said that even then, he was cheerful.

"We had a long-distance romance --until the phone bills got too high," he said. And when there were no job openings for his wife in San Diego, he came to State College and got a job at the Office of Housing and Food Services' bakery "just to get my foot in the door," he said.

After working there for 6 years, he got a job in a laboratory testing soil samples, until he got his present job.

"The human contact has always been exceedingly important to him," said Rosalie Brooks, explaining her husband's diverse occupational background.

Wandering around the country has given him an eye for detail, and he describes himself as a compulsive collector. He and his wife collect antiques, specifically baskets. Their collection now includes more than 200 baskets from all over the country.

"I enjoy studying things and looking at them in detail," he said, explaining his compulsion. And this joy for knowledge and eye for detail, coupled with his love of people, has made him famous in his job. And while everyone may not know his name, anyone who takes a chemistry lab will know him as "that guy behind the counter."