This week on our Employee Spotlight, we will get to know Nick Tesi, who has lived quite an interesting life!
From working as a Wilderness Search and Rescue, Search Dog Trainer and Handler for Boulder and Gilpin Counties to being a competitive swimmer, and competing in Jousting competitions, Nick is an outdoor enthusiast, to say the least. Nick raced in local cross country mountain and cyclocross bike races for over a decade during the time that he lived in Colorado’s Central Rockies in Summit and Eagle Counties. He has competed in a yearly skiercross event called Lord of the Boards and has an advanced level certification as a professional Telemark ski instructor. He has also volunteered 15 winter seasons with the Colorado Special Olympics as a race coach.
Originally, Nick is from Washington, DC and Boulder, CO and received his Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Maryland, College Park, MD. Before working at PRN, Nick worked in IT but also had his own business producing high-performance V-Twin motorcycle engines. Nick has worked for PRN for one year as a Technical Account Manager, ensuring that PRNs clients are well served and that PRN is successful and profitable in their service delivery for that client. His favorite part is when he’s strategically engaged with clients in ways that create positive growth. Furthermore, he loves that Platte River has a strong culture of community engagement and promotes a community model of doing business.
Nick is an obvious animal lover and has a household full of furry friends including three German Shepherd Dogs – Lupo, Questor and Choo-Choo, one Shetland Sheepdog – Oy, and one Yellow Naped Amazon Parrot – Gomez. If he could be anything in the world, he would want to be a sea turtle and swim around in tropical regions. Who wouldn’t want that?
His parents are both immigrants from Florence, Italy. His dad, Giorgio, was a soldier in the Italian Army during WWII; was captured by the Germans and then escaped. He earned his Chemistry PhD in Italy and was then recruited by the US Government to build weapons. His mom, Patricia, spent her summers growing up in California and returning to Florence at summer’s end for schooling. She graduated with honors from the Art Academy of Florence. When WWII started, she was in the US with her mom. They were denied permission to travel back to Italy for 6 years, until the war’s end. His mom is also the person he admires most because she is super talented, kind and the protector of all stray animals. What’s not to admire?
He grew as a family of six with two younger brothers and an older sister. They lived together in a peculiar community called The Moyaone Reserve. There are no paved roads, just dirt roads. There’s no hunting, fishing or clearing of land without written permission from the NPS. There’s no utility infrastructure except for electric and phone. The Moyaone is where you’ll find the National Colonial Farm and The Alice Ferguson Foundation, an outdoor experiential learning organization for underserved minorities that teaches how life was lived during our nation’s colonial times.
They also spent a lot of time intermittently in Boulder, CO as his dad was frequently involved with the National Center of Atmospheric Research and the University Center of Atmospheric Research. The time that he spent as a kid in Boulder during the 70s and 80s definitely had everything to do with him moving to Colorado in 1986. That and his passion for snow skiing.
Nick is clearly a positive person who strives to leave an impact on the world. His hero is the everyday man who brings happiness to their world and the world of those they touch with acts of compassion. There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up, is the motto that he lives by. We are so lucky to have such a positive and interesting person on our team at PRN.
