Today marks the beginning of my 22nd year teaching at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. I still pinch myself that I landed this marvellous gig. Nowadays I am the most senior person in the department in terms of both age and in the number of years “on campus.” The fine folk who hired and then mentored me have retired and gone off to various happy adventures.

In early 2003 my business – Basil Communications Inc. – was not bringing in a lot of dough. My main clients were still recovering from the economic fall-out after 9-11 in the investment community. (Traditionally communications are the first expenses to be cut in hard times.) I was running on fumes. It was hard to think.

A friend gave me some money to make sure I made it through that spring. The instant I deposited the money, my mind cleared, and I went home and applied for jobs at three local universities. Kwantlen set up an interview. It was gruelling but I thought I did well. After a couple of weeks went by without me hearing anything, though, I guessed that I hadn’t gotten the position; I know I shed a tear or two the night I accepted that.

Just as I walked into my Scotia Tower office the next day, my late friend John Fraser asked me whether I’d been hired. As I was telling him I hadn’t been, the phone rang at the front desk. The receptionist said the call was for me. The job, it turned out, was mine.

I still think, thankfully, of those tears that fell the night before I received this news. I’ve never forgotten how much I wanted this job teaching undergraduate students. I’ve also never forgotten that it was a friend’s generosity that cleared my head.

The fellow on the phone that day mentored me through my first several years at Kwantlen. We ended up coauthoring a textbook together.