Chester N

Chester Bio

Chester didn't ever plan on going into education; in fact, he began as a business student that struggled through courses such as accounting, finance, economics, and business calculus. He did, however, love his composition course as well as his part-time job tutoring mainly ESL students. Nonetheless, Chester continued through his studies while tutoring and participating as a member of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse wrestling team. Upon graduating in 1999, Chester began working for a general contracting firm where he worked for three years until he decided to follow his heart and return to education. In 2006, Chester graduated with a Master's degree in English Literature with a minor in Linguistics from the University of Minnesota Duluth. Facing a grim job market at the time, Chester and his wife Valery decided to move their two and four year-old daughters overseas to South Korea where they lived and worked for the next four years: two years at an international school in Jeonju, and two years at Yeungnam University near Daegu.

After four years in South Korea, Chester and his family moved to New Zealand where they experienced a new kind of lifestyle for three years. Chester worked as a recruiter specializing in finding work for educated immigrants from countries such as South Africa, Fiji, India, China, Samoa, Tonga, and the U.K. After two years as a recruiter, Chester himself was recruited as a General Manager for an upstart eco-village in rural Hawkes Bay, New Zealand, called Kotare Village. In May of 2013, after seven years overseas, Chester and his family decided it was time to return to the U.S.A. to family and friends.

Upon arriving, Chester began working as an adjunct English instructor at the College of Southern Nevada where he taught for two semesters before landing a full-time, tenure track position at Pellissippi State Community College in Knoxville. Chester is a member of the English Department specializing in ESL instruction, and was recently promoted as the Program Coordinator for the ESL division of the English Department.

In his spare time, Chester enjoys playing stringed instruments such as the guitar and mandolin, writing fiction, hiking the Smoky Mountains, cooking, yoga, and most recently, mountain biking. After moving so much during the last ten years, Chester and his family look forward to settling in the Knoxville area while continuing to practice sustainable living methodologies they learned while living and working at Kotare Village in New Zealand.