Presidential Inauguration 2009:

Ara Najarian remembers him as a gifted person, one who didn’t ruffle feathers but clearly had superior skills. Others recall him as a calm, cool, brilliant student with small traces of what the world would see nearly three decades later.

Today, the world calls him United States President Barack Obama. He crossed paths with Najarian and others during his two-year stint at Occidental College. But in the early 1980s, most called the leather jacket-wearing, afro-sporting student, Barry. Obama spent two years at Occidental, a small liberal-arts college in Eagle Rock, from 1979 to 1981. There, he crossed paths with Najarian via two classes, including one the Glendale City Councilman believes was a formative step in Obama’s rise from student to community organizer and senator to popular global figure.

The two took a world affairs culture class in 1980, part of what Najarian, 48, remembered as the school’s emphasis on studying and understanding global trends and peoples.

“Those two years at Occidental, with the emphasis on multiculturalism, made an impression on Barry,” Najarian said. “I see that through his campaign and some of his speeches. He became very popular worldwide. Part of that is his sensitivity and understanding to different cultures. That is something he honed at Occidental.”

Much of the world welcomed Obama’s election Nov. 4, heralding the ascension of the son of a Kenyan father and white Kansas mother as a historic moment.

Even before the election, Obama, 47, warmed himself to the world, most notably in a July speech in Berlin that attracted an audience of about 215,000. In November, billions cheered Obama’s win over Republican Sen. John McCain, with scenes of adulation replayed on worldwide media outlets and printed in newspapers across the globe.

Back in 1981, however, Obama was very different from the globe-trotting soon-to-be president most have come to know.

“He was a very quiet guy,” Najarian said. “He was not the bombastic orator that he is today. He was a skinny guy, he had an afro and he seemed like a serious student.”

Obama also had a casual side, Najarian said.

“He enjoyed the social life,” he said. “I don’t want to say he was a big partyer, but he enjoyed the kind of socializing that goes on in big dorm rooms in Los Angeles at night. But that wasn’t his focus.”