About FVDES

Pat Gerlach

I was born in New Westminster, BC and lived on the BC Coast for the first part of my life. My teen years were spent in Kelowna where I developed a life long love of water and all that it offers.  After graduating from UBC I chose to teach in Kelowna for 14 years.

My passion for water eventually took me to the coast for the summers where I worked as a Resource Person and Wilderness Guide on sailboats along the BC coast, in the Queen Charlotte Islands, and Southeast Alaska. My interest in History, First Nations Culture, and Art led to a full time position for an educationally focused adventure travel company where, for 12 years, I worked as Marketing Manager in the office and Resource Person aboard ship. I designed, illustrated and wrote promotional materials, traveled to trade shows in Canada and the US to market adult programs, developed multi-day shipboard marine biology programs for high school students and coordinated adult trips.

I have taught ESL to students on the island of Rodos, Greece where on a clear day I could see Turkey! My love of travel has taken me up and down and across Canada and the US, Mexico, Costa Rica, Fiji, Samoa, Australia, Egypt, and Europe. Traveling has made me truly appreciative of living in Canada and has given me a great appreciation and respect for other cultures.

I am an artist. I paint with watercolour and I am experimenting with other mediums. My work is varied and has been shown at Galleries and Museums in BC and Alberta. I I love to ski, kayak, weave cedar bark baskets, paint and create stained glass works.

Even though I chose to work in other fields for a time for my own personal development I was always involved in education. In 2001 I made a decision to return to teaching and Chilliwack seemed like a great place with access to the coast and the Okanagan Valley. I am very happy to live and work in such a beautiful part of the world. I love the adventure and excitement of working at FVDES where there are so many opportunities to learn from my incredibly gifted colleagues.

My varied experiences have given me a “wide-angled” view of the world, which I feel is an asset in this complex and changing world. I am passionate about my own learning and I want to share that excitement with my students.

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