A man of no surprises

MOSES LAKE — There's nothing surprising about Allan Peterson.

He is quite certain about this.

"No," he said with conviction when asked if there's anything about him he thinks would surprise people. "I don't think so. I'm pretty boring, actually. No, I don't think there's anything anybody would say they would be surprised."

And yet, over the course of an hour, Peterson lets loose all sorts of surprising tidbits about himself: His family's love of the 1970s vampire soap opera "Dark Shadows," his early aspirations to be a pilot, and his attempts to learn to play the guitar, which usually come about once a month.

And later, upon further thought, Peterson sends an e-mail saying most people are surprised to learn he is a big NASCAR fan, specifically of the number 17 and 16 cars in the Nextel Cup series.

"They're my two favorite drivers," he explained. "When I say I like NASCAR, people usually go, 'What?'"

Peterson arrived in Moses Lake in 1988, as the store manager for the then-Pay and Save Drug Store. The location appealed to him because Moses Lake was similar to his hometown, he said.

Originally from North Dakota, Peterson joined Osco Drug Stores after college.

His early aspirations were to become a commercial pilot, flying freight or a corporate jet.

Aviation appealed to Peterson because he was part of the Civil Air Patrol in high school and really liked it. He enrolled during the mid-1970s as many Vietnam veterans were coming home, several of whom served as his instructors, he noted.

"After I got my private license, the $2,000 to finish my commercial license just seemed insurmountable," he said. "Now it's $40,000 to go through the program. How dumb was that?"

So Peterson pursued his business degree instead, graduating in the winter of 1977. He does not appear to harbor any regrets about making the switch.

"There were some jobs that they wanted people in accounting with a pilot degree," he said. "But the companies just didn't appeal to me. And pay for pilots at that time would have been tremendously low."

He lived in Gillette and Cheyenne, Wy.; Great Falls, Havre and Billings, Mont., and Twin Falls, Idaho, while working for Osco.

It was while working for the company Peterson met his wife, fellow Osco employee Cindy, in Big Sky, Mont.

"Attraction at first sight," he said. "She's really smart — she's the whole package: Good-looking, smart and quick with her wit."

They married in 1985, had son Robert in 1988 and daughter McKenzie in 1990.

Peterson eventually planned to quit and go back to school to pursue human resource management, but Cindy was pregnant after two years of trying, so he continued to work for the drug store business, landing positions in Seattle, Issaquah and Bellevue under Pay and Save. He worked in Bellevue for about a year before being offered the job in Moses Lake.

"They asked me if I wanted to come here and it immediately was a big yes," Peterson said. "I'm not a big, big town person, so this is a really good-sized community."

Peterson worked for the store under three different company names from 1988 to 2004.

"Pay And Save, Pay Less and Rite Aid," he listed. "Those are the three name changes; there were like eight other owners in between where you didn't see a name change."

Peterson had always wanted to be associated with small business.

"In fact, my goal was to only work for a chain retail for five years or less and then open up my own store," he said. "I really wanted to open up a nursery or a bicycle shop. Then you just get moved and promoted, so I just stuck with it."

Over the 26 years he was in the business, the duties of a store manager changed so much Peterson felt the control became more centrally driven. Eventually, he became aware of an opening at Big Bend Community College's Center for Business and Industry Services.

"I was going to open up my own small business, and this position became open," he said. "I had known about this position and thought it would be a really neat position to have over the years. So I applied, and was very lucky to get it."

Peterson started out as small business development counselor, and assumed the title of director of the center in December 2005.

"It broadened my scope and I got to interact with even more different varieties of people, and I get a chance to see the community," he said. "You just get to see a cross-section you couldn't see just doing one thing. That's a really, really good part of why I like this job — the variety of things which happen."

Peterson's duties include working as a no-charge advisor for small businesses, contract training and working on continuing education.

"I like that, that's the underwater basket weaving department where we can teach anything anybody wants and we're always thinking of new classes," he said. "We're always looking for input from the community because it really is for the community."

The center offers more contract training as the community experiences growth. The training includes such programs as Workplace Spanish and a leadership series, with a customer service training program on the way.

Amongst other projects, Peterson also hopes to expand the Chamber Day at the Big Bend educational program with the Moses Lake Chamber of Commerce further, reaching out into the community college's service area to offer a networking opportunity.

Peterson hopes to see the center become a partner for significant economic development and a center for training.

"I feel I'm really lucky to be out here doing what I'm doing and I really like it," he said. "I'm really excited to see the community's growth and would like to be part of helping it out if I can here."

When he's not working at the center, Peterson spends time with his family, often sprucing up the yard on weekends, and he likes to fish and golf, and said he's still trying to learn to play the guitar after nearly 30 years.

"I actually made up a little song," he said. "My kids go, 'Oh my gosh, he's not doing that again.' Have you ever seen the movie 'Heaven Can Wait'? Whenever he pulls out that alto clarinet and always plays the same song? That's what I do on the guitar. It drives people nuts. Well, my family anyway."

But Peterson said he never had serious musical inclinations save for high school music.

"I did band and stuff, so I traded in my trumpet in high school and got the guitar," he said. "I play the trumpet much better than I play the guitar."

Jeremy Iverson works for Peterson at the center.

"He's a hard worker, he's always here early in the morning, late in the afternoon," Iverson said. "Easy to work with, real flexible. He's just a good people person, easy to work with. I personally think he's an all-around good guy. He works hard, tries hard."

Many people depend upon Peterson for their business plans and the like, Iverson added.

Shelley Glendenning hired him as small business development counselor when she was director of the center.

"Allan had a very rich background in management and had survived many changes in different stores he worked at," she said. "We had quite a task ahead of us, and we needed somebody committed to the area who had a strong understanding of what it was going to take, and had a broad and deep background."

Glendenning said Peterson is very smart and funny, which sometimes can lead to — of all things — a surprise for people.

"He's very quiet, so a lot of times people underestimate his cleverness and humor, but he had us in stitches very often," she said.

Glendenning proceeded to list Peterson's attributes.

"He is a very smart and gentle person, he is a very kind man. He wants people to do well, he has a good heart, he believes in what he's doing, he loves that town, he's a good family man and a good community member and he's also very, very funny," she said. "He's got this really wry sense of humor and he's so quiet, it comes out of left field. All of a sudden you do a double take and you think 'What? Did he just say that?'"

So it looks like Allan Peterson might just end up being a person of surprises after all.