CUBA'S - techlife magazine

pEOpLE
Above from left, during
his hands-on orientation
to NAIT, Dr. glenn Feltham
undergoes vO 2 max testing
with personal Fitness
Trainer staff; operates a
digital video camera under
the guidance of Digital
media and IT instructor Jaro
malanowski; and learns to
crack a lobster claw with
Culinary Arts students.
42 techlifemag.ca
less than an hour into his first day as NAIT’s
sixth president, Dr. Glenn Feltham stands in a
training room in NAIT’s fitness centre, waiting
to see what’s going to happen to him next. It’s early
morning, and he’s well into his first order of business:
a complete physical assessment by Personal Fitness
Trainer chair Leanne Telford and her staff. He’s wearing
decade-old but near-mint Adidas sneakers, shiny blue
shorts to the knee and a NAIT T-shirt crinkled with
newness and bearing the year of the school’s
beginnings, 1960.
“NAIT and I were born at the same time,” he quips
to Telford. “NAIT has stood up far better.”
It’s an unusual introduction to a workplace, but it’s
exactly what Feltham wanted. It’s come to be known as
Project President. Telford has promised to evaluate his
strength, flexibility, posture, cardiovascular fitness and
diet. She’s also interested in his long-term health goals.
“We joke in our program that we have the magic pill for
lifelong health,” says Telford. “Well, we do.”
Feltham has the spirit, if not the body, of a jock,
eager for challenge and competition. He loves sports,
especially collegiate, played football in high school and
rec hockey until he was 35. But careers like his take over:
schedules and stress can take their toll. During the
seven years previous as dean of the Asper School of
Business at the University of Manitoba, he put on 30
pounds. Over the years, he’s lost 50 yards on his golf
swing. Naturally, he’d like to lose the former and regain
the latter. Mostly, though, at this point of transition,
he’d like to establish habits his three children and wife
Tammi need him to adopt – for his sake and theirs.
As Feltham remembers, “My wife pulled me aside
and said, ‘Glenn, the last seven years haven’t been kind
to you. What are you going to do to live through being
the president of NAIT?’”
But that isn’t the only reason Feltham is subjecting
himself to stretches, pushups, sit-ups and analysis of
his vital signs (“So, there is a pulse?” he asks as Telford
takes his resting heart rate). During his first weeks at
NAIT, Feltham intends to tackle hands-on activities
throughout an institute marked by what he sees as a
near-dizzying array of programming, participating in
cooking to crane operating and everything between.
His physical assessment is a key part of his quest.