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Stan Larsen spent 37 years teaching engineering at SIT. Last Wednesday, his colleagues finally said goodbye.
Larsen, who is "comfortably into my 80s", was farewelled at a staff morning tea on June 10 after retiring from the Southern Institute of Technology, where he has taught pre-trade engineering, apprentices and advanced trade students — and for the last 15 years, solely the New Zealand Diploma in Engineering programme.
His path to SIT was anything but direct. He served 20 years in the Royal New Zealand Air Force as a specialist machinist, ran a motorcycle business, worked as a machinist and briefly tried real estate. Teaching found him first in 1980 while he was still in the Air Force, working as a technical instructor at Hobsonville Air Base.
"I think teaching is something that obviously suits me; I never bothered to look for anything else," he says. There was some family precedent — an aunt was principal of Whangarei Girls' High School and an uncle headed Dannevirke High School. Larsen is Taumarunui-born with Scandinavian roots; his father was born in Norway.
After a part-time role at Manukau Institute of Technology from 1985, he was offered full-time work there four years later. He turned it down. He and his wife Gaye had been eyeing the South Island for years, and a SIT job advertisement arrived at the right moment.
"I spent a lot of time in the South Island while in the Air Force - Wigram (Christchurch) and Woodbourne Air Base (Blenheim)... the South Island is still a little bit like the way New Zealand used to be and that appeals to me."
He joined SIT in 1989 on a three-year contract. Thirty-seven years followed.
"A big attraction of SIT were the students and the staff, they were like a large extended family," he says. Some of those first students he is still in contact with. "I've even had some become work colleagues" — including SIT's engineering technician, a former student who has just turned 60.
The longevity brought its own rewards. Long friendships with colleagues, several of whom have also clocked more than 25 years at the institute. "There's something about the atmosphere here," he says.
Retirement will not mean slowing down. There is a live steam model locomotive, started a few years ago, waiting to be finished. "Once an engineer always an engineer," he says. He still has a couple of motorcycles. "...there's one in particular I'll keep even if I can't ride it anymore."
"My head thinks I'm a bit younger, but my body tells me something different when I start rushing around."