What's New

Paul Haack, the outdoor Challenge Course instructor at the Clark County Skills Center, is retiring at the end of the current school year. Hired by the Evergreen District in 1993, Haack built, taught and improved upon the Skills Center Challenge Course showing students, teachers, staff and Clark County businesses the values of problem solving, teamwork and communication through a series of innovative and hands-on outdoor experiences.

 

Every year, students from each Skills Center class participate. They are tasked with solving unique problems that require such team skills as support, sharing ideas, goal setting and leadership. Relying on each other, student teams can be solving problems on the ground or as high as 50 feet in the air. It is done within a safe, challenging outdoor environment that unleashes the spirit of adventure and reveals the exhilaration of personal achievement. The program expands yearly adding new elements and creating new ways for participants to work together as cohesive teams.

 

Skills Center Director Dennis Kampe explains how Haack’s Challenge Course has been a key ingredient in the success of the Skills Center Professionalism (Soft Skills) Curriculum:

"Paul has had a positive impact on every Skills Center graduate in developing his/her professional and character growth – which is what our employing community wants."

 

Before spending the last 20 years with the Skills Center and the Evergreen School District at the Challenge Course, Haack served both from 1984 to 1993 as a Drug and Alcohol Prevention Specialist. Prior to that he was a school nurse and staff nurse in various Northwest locations as well as a Big Brother/Big Sister Program Director in Michigan. He received his Bachelor of Science in Sociology and Psychology from Central Michigan University and his Bachelor of Nursing degree from the University of Portland where he was named Outstanding Student Nurse in Pediatrics.