2017 Update
Ed Tickles (EET '60) , SAIT Manager of Campus Operations and Maintenance, retired
"I started working at SAIT on Aug. 30 of 1965 and I retired on Aug. 30 of 2000. I started instructing, then moved into a senior instructing position in the electrical department. Then I got the director of trades and technology position, then I looked after apprenticeships and marketing, and then into the alumni department. One day, I got called into Operations and Maintenance, so I moved into another career in 1989.
We were small enough and close enough that we looked at each other like family. It didn't matter what department or role you had, you saw yourself as something that was growing and blossoming and recognized by the community as being very valuable. Our graduates — they hit the road with their wheels spinning.
It wasn't all work, though. For an April Fool's joke one year, we told everyone on campus to come into the Ops office and pick up a plastic bag and rubber band. They were to put it over the receiver on their telephone because we were going to blow static out of the lines. We had everyone coming over! And then we had a little answering machine rigged up so that when they called on April 1, it played, 'What Kind of Fool am I?'
But the field for success was cultivated so well, you could do that stuff. We had the attitude of 'this is the place to be.' We were always so proud to wear a shirt or a jacket that had SAIT on it."
After graduating from SAIT's Electrical Engineering Technology program in 1960, Ed Tickles worked for Calgary Power (now TransAlta) for five years before returning to his alma mater as an instructor for the program. From August 30, 1965 to August 30, 2000, Ed held a variety of positions at SAIT, including Director of Trades and Technology and Manager of Campus Operations and Maintenance. He and his family fund the E.J. Tickles Family Student Award, which goes to a student enrolled in a diploma or apprentice program at SAIT.