GSBC faculty members hail from across the country to come to Boulder each July. They help shape community bankers’ careers and futures, and make lasting impacts on every student they teach. It takes a village to teach the vast array of courses offered at GSBC and, just as the course topics vary, so do the people’s interests who teach them.
In fact, GSBC instructors have quite the variety of interests outside their professions:
Bob Slade, also known as “Slammin’ Bobby Slade,” has been a faculty member at GSBC for the last 20 years. Besides being an Organizational Business Consultant, Bob is also a professional drummer. He began jazz drumming lessons at age 14 and played in numerous bands throughout high school. After Bob moved to Colorado and studied at Colorado State University, he continued his drumming career. Recently, he has played in two bands, one being blues and the other country rock.
Slammin’ Bobby Slade
Wes Brown serves as a field active member of Alpine Rescue Team. The team conducts search and rescue missions for stranded and fallen climbers, lost hikers, skiers, mountaineers, avalanche victims and recoveries of bodies from accidental deaths and suicides. Wes’s team serves Jefferson, Gilpin and Clear Creek Counties. Last year, Wes went on 27 missions and 42 trainings! Wes states, “My mission stories can keep a group in a bar spell-bound for hours!”
Wes and his team rescued the above young man and his father by bringing them down a steep cliff, roped up, in the dark. Wes was responsible for this boy who, he reports, “was remarkably brave.”
David Peterson is passionate about the fly fishing scene here in Colorado. He states, “Summertime where I live in South Georgia is really hot and humid, so the opportunity to take two weeks in July and go to Colorado is an amazing respite.” Colorado has some of the best places in the world to catch a rainbow or brown trout, and Peterson makes the distinction between fishing and fly fishing: it’s more like fish hunting. Every trip he takes, he notes the beautiful scenery he’s engulfed in, noting, “Sometimes, I just hold my fly and gaze at the beautiful vistas, with frequent sightings of eagles, beaver and even an occasional moose.”
“The fish stays in the water until you are ready to take a quick picture and then is released back into the river.”
In the rare instances when Dr. David Kohl is not speaking in front of an ag group, he’s spending time on his farm, fixing fences to keep the beef cattle in, baling hay with one of his sons or neighbors, or shooting some hoops. In addition to feeding their own herd, they sell a large amount of round and square bales of hay to neighbors and livestock operations in the New River Valley of Virginia and beyond.
Given his lifelong love for dairy cows, you may also find Dr. Kohl working with a dairy creamery, where he is a part-owner and business coach. Now in its 19th year, Homestead Creamery processes milk from five local dairy farms in the Blue Ridge Mountains and sells it in glass bottles to several high-end grocery chains, as well as operating a retail store and home delivery business. The creamery offers 58 flavors of premium ice cream, and has found there is quite a market for eggnog and custard during the holiday season. All of these ag experiences feed into the stories and practical lessons Dr. Kohl brings to the classroom at GSBC each summer.
GSBC’s “Celebrate 70” campaign aims to engage the school’s students, alumni, faculty and supporters in a year-long commemoration of its history, accomplishments and traditions.
