Craig Tate: Great Place to Learn and be Enlightened

Why CMC? Because my high school counselor said with my GPA, I wouldn’t make it at any other college in Colorado. So, I arrived at the Spring Valley Campus in the fall of 1978.

I came to CMC with the anticipation that I would raise my GPA and get into a music engineering school. A funny thing happened on my way to being a music engineer.

A teacher by the name of Gene Minor taught a philosophy class. In that class, we did not harp on the mechanics of the great thinkers and what they espoused. Gene emphasized learning to think for ourselves. I took that lesson to heart. I realized that the world needed some good answers. I wanted to be a part of solving the problems rather than making great music records.

It was like someone turned the light on for the first time in my education. I was introduced to the idea of sustainability, which included solar energy, rooftop gardening, energy efficiency and new ways of transportation.

CMC became a staging ground for all sorts of ideas and people who were making a difference. I thrived at CMC. No longer was I uninterested in scholastics, I craved it.  My first semester I achieved a 3.8 grade point average and eventually graduated Phi Theta Kapa (top 1% of my class). I was awarded a scholastic scholarship for my achievements in my second year. I took on special projects in the area of sustainability and reopened the campus greenhouse as a learning lab.

Because of CMC, I pursued renewable energy and energy efficiency. I came back to CMC several years after getting my associates degree to be one of the first students to participate in CMC’s new solar energy vocational program.

Since then, I have worked in the energy efficiency field for over 35 years. I was able to settle in Glenwood Springs and find a career at Holy Cross Energy as an energy auditor and member service representative. I owe it all to Colorado Mountain College. What a great place to learn and be enlightened.