Kelsie Condon
Faculty, Construction Trades
PCC Southwest
What’s one key to being a good teacher? Being a lifelong learner.
Kelsie Condon is an instructor with the Construction Trades program at the PCC Southwest campus in Mancos. She developed her teaching skills thanks to a diverse career path.
“I worked doing clinical trials for veterinary research at CSU Fort Collins,” she said. “I absolutely loved that job, but decided I was going to move to the East Coast during Covid. I decided to go into the trades just for fun and fell in love with it.”
Condon didn’t start small with her career change: She began working at Bath Iron Works, a large shipyard in Maine that builds vessels for the U.S. Navy, among other entities.
“I had lived off the grid and built things (so I’ve) always been interested in tools in general. I love working with my hands,” she said.
After working at the company for four years – the final one as frontline supervisor of a 20-person crew – she decided to return to Colorado. When she saw that PCC Southwest was looking for someone with teaching and trades experience, she applied even though her skills weren’t all earned in the construction industry.
No matter. Condon was so impressive she got the job and immersed herself in more training, reaching out to local industry partners like electricians and contractors to teach her how to do everything the right way.
“I want to expand my own knowledge of these things and get better,” she said. “I like to continue to learn.”
One aspect of the program, project supervision, allows her to share all her skills with students.
“That has been a blast because I have experience in that (with) multimillion-dollar industrial jobs. This is back to stuff I feel comfortable around.”
Condon appreciates the tight-knit community at PCC Southwest and is excited about the prospect of bringing new opportunities to students and the region.
“It’s really cool to go from when you first see somebody and they’re struggling to do even simple tasks or use simple tools or read a (simple) blueprint … to two semesters later, (when) these kids are standing outside an actual house that they physically built,” she said.
