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COVER STORY
T H E
L I F E L O N G
BRAD
PETERSON ‘14 U . S .
N A V Y
Originally from White Bear Lake, Minn., Brad Peterson’s journey has involved more miles than most of us will ever experience. As someone who has “been around the world a couple of times” during his twenty-four years in the military, when he arrived at the College in 2011, he was ready for a change. “I joined the military right after high school,” he says. “I didn’t plan on a career, it just turned into it. That’s all I knew after high school. So when I retired, and we came here, I was in my transition time.” Straight from service to the life of a traditional college student, Peterson began his Web Design & Development major one month after he retired.
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L E A R N E R
He and his wife had moved their family to Wisconsin, to be closer to her family, and he says there’s “nothing specific” about what attracted him to the College, at least at first. “Once I got here as a student and started, what kept me here was the people,” he says. “Kathleen Kelm – an excellent professor. She was my advisor for my first two or three years here. And it’s not just Kathleen. There are other professors that really liked me being in their classroom environment.” The simple passage of time probably presented the biggest hurdle for Peterson in this new environment. “Maybe the challenge of the age difference,” he says. “It was never really negativity, I think, but at the beginning of the semester when I walked into class, most students thought I was the instructor coming in.”
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Peterson again credits the people and the relationships – especially with faculty – for a meaningful educational experience. “They enjoyed having that older student in there,” he says. “To join in on those in-depth conversations, and bring a whole new level to the conversations in the classrooms. It was a great experience.” Today, he serves the entire campus community as the Service Desk Manager in the Technology Assistance Center. His son Bruce is a freshman, on a ‘more traditional’ path than his father. “Education continues no matter what you’re in,” Peterson says. “If you’re in a job, in the military, you’re always learning.”