{"id":1312154,"date":"2019-07-06T15:40:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-06T21:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/sunday-profile-life-experiences-are-the-best-teaching-tools-for-eric-pedersen\/"},"modified":"2019-07-06T15:40:00","modified_gmt":"2019-07-06T21:40:00","slug":"sunday-profile-life-experiences-are-the-best-teaching-tools-for-eric-pedersen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/sunday-profile-life-experiences-are-the-best-teaching-tools-for-eric-pedersen\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunday profile: Life experiences are the best teaching tools for Eric Pedersen"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Eric Pedersen talks with passengers before their California Zephyr train arrives at the Glenwood Springs train station one busy morning.<\/strong>
Chelsea Self \/ Post Independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Lessons taught in life are often better explained from experience. For Eric Pedersen, the lessons he taught as a vocational teacher for many years were simply gained by multiple work experiences earlier in his life.<\/p>\n

Pedersen spent around 23 years teaching at the Vocational Center for the Roaring Fork School District.<\/p>\n

As a teenager he took a summer job working at the Number 4 Mine near Redstone. Alongside many other young men, he spent the warm summer months cutting down trees and stacking logs.<\/p>\n

Not long after that, he went to work at Elmer\u2019s Glass and learned to become a glass glazer. He spent a short time as a sales supervisor for Budweiser, then went on to learn concrete work and the art of reading blue prints for a different company.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

\u201cThere are so many lessons you learn from a good man about how things ought to be done.\u201d\u2014 Eric Pedersen<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

He was a man of many trades.<\/p>\n

Pedersen\u2019s knowledge and love for the vocational arts really kicked into gear when he met and worked for Bill Slattery as a cabinet maker at his Modern Cabinet Shop in Glenwood.<\/p>\n

He was full of ambition and persistence, and after two weeks of showing up with a prepared lunch and ready to work, Slattery gave Pedersen a two-week test run.<\/p>\n

\u201cBill said, \u2018Well, we will give you a job for two weeks and we will see how it works out,\u2019\u201d Pedersen said.<\/p>\n

He worked there for 18 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cBill Slattery was an absolute fine, fine man,\u201d Pedersen said. \u201cThere are so many lessons you learn from a good man about how things ought to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

TEACHing trades<\/p>\n

In the early 1990s Pedersen found himself on a school accountability committee with a friend, who was running the vocational department for the Roaring Fork School District. The committee dealt with how the program was running and brainstormed ways it could improve.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a sounding board committee to promote and encourage vocational education in general and with different programs in particular,\u201d Pedersen added.<\/p>\n

One day, he noticed an ad in the paper that said they were looking for a teacher.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve wanted to be a teacher since I was about 13, probably because of the teachers that I had,\u201d Pedersen said. \u201cBut dad said I had to be an engineer, and in those days what dad said, you did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pedersen walked into his interview with a lesson plan and a rough idea of how he was going to teach the classes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny of us know way too much,\u201d Pedersen said. \u201cIt\u2019s not the knowledge, it\u2019s how to handle kids and how to take them from scratch and systematically bring them up so that they are being prepared for vocational education for the future,\u201d Pedersen said.<\/p>\n

Not long after that, Pedersen was hired as the newest construction technologies instructor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey (the kids) ate me alive my first year,\u201d he said. \u201cThey were kids that principals did not want to see back in their schools; the problem children,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Pedersen grew up attending private English schools in East Asia due to his father\u2019s job as a riding instructor in the last U.S. Contingent Horse Cavalry.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was used to strict discipline and a high level of order. It took me three years to figure this one out,\u201d Pedersen said of the kids in his classes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went to a friend who said, \u2018You have to remember, Eric, for every one of these kids that you keep in class you are saving the taxpayer $40,000.\u2019\u2019 Pedersen said. \u201cI didn\u2019t understand that at first and he said, \u2018Half of them would be in jail.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Through trial and error came triumph.<\/p>\n

\u201cI ended up with valedictorians in my class, when I started out with boys having trouble growing up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

scout leader<\/p>\n

Pedersen also found himself leading young men as a scout leader and has done so since 1977.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always firmly believed that the values we teach in scouting are critical to life, to citizenship, to being a productive member of your community,\u201d Pedersen said.<\/p>\n

With an unfortunate end to the vocational education department in the school district and personal family matters, Pedersen went on to work for a friend who owned a small Christian school for a short time.<\/p>\n

During the Grand Avenue Bridge project, Pedersen took great interest in the engineering and structural process of the new marvel being placed in the heart of Glenwood Springs.<\/p>\n

He spent many months taking photos of the process from the Glenwood Springs Amtrak Station. While doing so, he grew a friendship with Sandy Brown, who has been the lead station agent for many years, though he already knew her husband through Boy Scouts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just got to talking and she said there might be a job here,\u201d Pedersen said.<\/p>\n

oh, the stories<\/p>\n

He applied for the position and not long after was hired.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always had trains as a hobby ever since I was a kid,\u201d he said. \u201cThe train is the last civilized form of travel; the flying sardine can, not so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis job is just pure fun because you get to help people all day long,\u201d Pedersen said. \u201cEvery day I go home and sit at the dinner table and I\u2019ve got a story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Pedersen is technically a station agent with Amtrak, he also spends much of his time simply listening to people and their stories.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes you get to play counselor,\u201d he said. \u201cWe hear heartbreaking stories, frustrating stories, amazing stories, you name it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoy working for Amtrak, and I will probably work here until I decide to retire,\u201d Pedersen said.<\/p>\n

cself@postindependent.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Pedersen talks with passengers before their California Zephyr train arrives at the Glenwood Springs train station one busy morning.Chelsea Self \/ Post Independent Lessons taught in life are often better explained from experience. For Eric Pedersen, the lessons he taught as a vocational teacher for many years were simply gained by multiple work experiences […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1312154","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-20 05:59:44","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1312154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1312154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1312154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1312154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}