Tim Sunquist:
CLASS OF 1973
Sheldon Williams High SchoolClass of 1973
Regina, SK
U of ReginaClass of 1981
Regina, SK
Argyle Elementary SchoolClass of 1969
Regina, SK
Tim's Story
The Story of Tim
Hello everyone. Many of you may not known much about me, as I did not mix in with many people at school. The following is a chronological story of myself since Sheldon Williams. I’m sorry it is a little long, but I’ve never been accused of being brief.
As you may know, I taught figure skating during my last years at Sheldon. I continued for several years after high school, while taking classes at the University of Regina. When I quit teaching skating, I transitioned to working as a legal land surveyor.
1976 was the most wonderful year of my life. I married my soul mate and is still married to me. Susan is also from Regina, but a Miller graduate.
My most enjoyable part of surveying was the drafting end (hated the outdoor work in the frigged winter and baking sun of the prairie summers), so I went to Sask Tel as a draftsman. While there I took evening classes towards personnel administration at the U of R. Eventually, I was offered a job in the Human Resources department where I spent the next 8 years in various positions.
Life continued on in the 80’s and we had two wonderful sons.
In 1988, I moved to Calgary to a position with Mount Royal College where I was responsible the HR systems management.
Meanwhile in my family life, I coached soccer and little league baseball for my sons’ teams, as well as a Wolf Cub leader. Our family traveled several times to Hawaii in winters, Twin Lakes Idaho during summers and some cruises. I continued to take evening courses at Mount Royal primarily in the areas of entrepreneurship. To say the least, kept busy.
1996 my personal and work life was torn apart. My health was a constant blur of migraine headaches, the inability to concentrate, dizziness, mood swings and the list goes on. That is when I learnt about clinical depression. Through years of self-reflection and my lived experience with depression, I was able to look back to my childhood and recognize that this had impacted me for years.
In 2000, my life took ...Expand for more
a 90-degree turn. I left Mount Royal and worked as a self-employed consultant. That didn’t work well for me, so I found employment in the mental health field. I went to Opportunity Works that was a peer-to-peer mental health and small business development not-for-profit program. There I worked as a peer coach and later the Executive Director.
When the pressures of fundraising and managing a charitable organization became too much, I went to Potential Place Clubhouse. There are more than 300 clubhouses around the world, in 23 countries, on every continent, serving more than 100,000 mental health consumers a day. I worked for them as a mental health worker. I was trained in the international clubhouse model, presented at several Canadian and International conferences, and eventually became a Faculty member of Clubhouse International. In this role, travel to Clubhouses throughout the world to ensure they are following the model properly. So far I’ve been for accreditation visits throughout the United States, Cape Breton, Australia and South Korea. I retired from Potential Place last April, but still maintain my Faculty position. In July, I will be travelling to China and then California for the Faculty.
Over the past 15 years, Susan and I have travelled a lot. We’ve continued cruising, done many “all inclusive” vacations in Mexico, Cuba and Dominican Republic. We also have been to Northern Europe, Scandinavia, Russia, and Greece. We both are retired … sore of, and have quite a bucket list of where we still want to go. Let’s hope the World settles down so we can see much more of this planet we live on.
Both my sons are married and I have two wonderful grandsons, 10 and 13. My youngest son lives in Okotoks and travels a lot with his work. My oldest son and family just moved to Lethbridge. Susan and I are really missing our grandsons, and who knows we may make the move there sometime soon.
My biggest regret is not having connected with you or remaining in touch with all of you!
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