Kurtis Albers
You’ll probably never catch Sun Country Nissan’s 36-year-old sales manager talking about regret. Never afraid to try new things, Kurtis Albers’ path to a Medicine Hat car dealership has had some pretty interesting stops along the way.
Growing up in Humboldt, Sask., Albers’ first love was football. After a successful high school career, he moved to Saskatoon to play for the Hilltops, the city’s junior football team.
His five-year career included a national championship and All- Canadian safety honours, before being recruited to play with the University of Saskatchewan Huskies. Already attending school there, eventually earning a bachelor of arts and sciences, Albers joined the best team in the country.
“In ’98 we went all the way,” Albers says. “I was pretty lucky to have two (national championships).”
Albers set a CIS record in that Vanier Cup game with three interceptions, a mark that still stands. However, even though he attended a CFL camp with the Roughriders, pro football never panned out.
But ‘what might have been’ never weighed on Albers and he simply moved on to the next adventure, which he discovered on a trip that was supposed to take him through the Gas City.
“My brother was going to the Medicine Hat College, taking the visual communications program,” Albers remembers. “He showed me what he was doing and it really piqued my interest. I ended up applying and two years of my (previous) degree was able to transfer over
to a three-year program. “I went right into the grad year.”
A diploma in multi-media design took him back to Saskatoon to take a job in his field. Meanwhile, as if his young life hadn’t seen every area of the spectrum already, Albers picked up a passion for breakdancing while on a trip to Norway. With a natural strength and athleticism from football, he caught on easily.
So, naturally, he started J-Fish, a dance troupe out of Saskatoon.
“We ran out of this church gym, teaching kids how to breakdance and then we started touring a bit and doing some shows.”
However, less than two years in, the company Albers worked for hit financial trouble and laid him off, to which he responded the only way he knew how. Another adventure.
Albers went back to Medicine Hat to take a job with Medican and immediately restarted J-Fish with new dancers, teaching local youngsters and going back on tour.
He eventually retired from J-Fish but not before heading up the international breakdancing tournament Hat Trick for three years at the Esplanade.
“That was pretty successful and had breakdancers from all over the world coming down to compete. It was pretty amazing.”
Seven years ago, Albers got out of the design business and into yet another new adventure. He took a sales position at Sun Country but three years later, not so oddly enough, switched over to commercial sales and worked for a construction
equipment company.
Even less strange for Albers, two years after that he decided the commercial side wasn’t for him, and it was back to Sun Country Nissan to utilize his marketing and branding skills in the position he holds today.
And yet somehow, through all of that adventure, Albers found time to get married and have three children. So with a family to think about and a job he loves, his ‘adventurous’ days could actually be behind him but when he looks back on all the things he has been a part of, he realizes everything quite perfectly prepared him for where is his today.
“Through all those experiences I really learned a lot about teamwork and team building. That’s what I try to bring to my job here.”
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