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Humans of Fort Lewis College: Elizabeth Bussian
Background: What's your title, and what do you do on your job? And how many years have you been at FLC?
My titles are: Business Manager, Interim Director of Community Relations, and Licensing Coordinator.
For community relations, I help build our relationships with community through sponsorship and engagement. Fort Lewis College is actively involved with the Chamber of Commerce, Trails 2000, BID, Iron Horse Bicycle Classic, DATO, Science Fair, Devo and area schools. In addition to these partnerships, I manage FLC’s part of the Durango Welcome Center where we have up to 12 student and alumni workers and ongoing events. I am out in the community on a daily basis, attending meetings, stocking swag at the Welcome Center, planning events and supporting our community partners. I have other responsibilities like airport advertising, collegiate licensing, and "other duties as assigned," which is my favorite. It’s a dream job where the goal is to actively partake in the symbiotic relationship between ‘town and gown’ which helps us all achieve our goals.
I'm in my 6th year of service.
What do you like best about working at FLC, and why?
I love the people most of all. I like that we do good work and help people grow. This is the longest I have stayed in one place.
Where are you from, and how did you get from there to here?
Los Gatos, California. I wanted to leave California so I went to CU-Boulder (with a junior year in France). I graduated from CU and went back to California to cook for a year and then to grad school at the Thunderbird School of Global Management. Then, I was lucky enough to live in San Francisco for two years and then Munich, Germany for another two years. I took an early first retirement and fished the West for a year and then settled in Boulder to start a family. We decided we wanted something smaller. I had a good meal at Season’s and decided we could live here because I could find nice things to eat.
What's your favorite thing to do outside of work, and why do you love it?
I like to cook, eat, swim and ride my bike. Swimming and cycling feel like flying. I love flavors, smells, textures and composition. Eating three times a day is legal, so why not cultivate it and get the most out of it?
What's an interesting thing about you that most people don't know?
I love to bodysurf. I spent a lot of my youth at the beach, playing in the waves. Later in life, I found out about wetsuits and fins and my life changed. I can now stay in the ocean as long as I want and I’m protected from all things that can eat me including jellyfish, small fish that nibble toes, and sharks that just make a mess of everything. I have shoulder issues so I have a different style than most people, with my arms at my sides - no room for error because if I blow it, my face takes it. Someday, I would like to have a really good bodysurfer show me how to take it to the next level. That is one of my dreams.
Please share one bit of advice or a favorite quote you can offer about ... anything.
Some of the benefits of getting older are acceptance and memory loss and the diminishing space for suffering. I’m pretty happy post 50.