More than one year after leaving municipal office, former St. Albert Mayor Nolan Crouse is continuing to pursue his passion for serving and helping resolve difficult situations.
Crouse, who served as St. Albert’s mayor for 10 years and served as a councillor for three years, said he is pleased to be helping the public with his current job.
The former mayor is working mostly with municipalities and some corporations and non-profits across the province to help them navigate difficult situations.
“I’ve always been looking for difficult things. That’s always been important to me,” Crouse said.
Some issues the former mayor has helped tackle since his departure from St. Albert council are bullying issues within municipalities, board retreats where the board is having difficulties working together, large annual general meetings with hundreds of people and contentious open houses. Crouse has also done some work with with George Cuff, who is the author of the St. Albert Municipal Inspection.
Along with navigating difficult situations, Crouse has taken up teaching. He taught three courses this past semester and will be tackling two more in the new year.
Four of the classes are through the University of Alberta Faculty of Extension where Crouse teaches change management, which helps students learn how to make changes to things like brands, products or the direction of a company.
One class is a credit course on regional planning for masters students at the University of Alberta.
“I was hired by the university to develop a brand new course to get a planning degree,” Crouse said, adding he developed the course from scratch for the students.
Crouse said he loves teaching and the impact he is able to have on students.
“Standing in front of a class is like being a mayor or being a hockey coach or a manager. You end up having a broader influence on larger groups,” the former hockey coach said.
With his busy schedule occupying his time and energy, Crouse said he really doesn’t miss being the mayor of St. Albert, a position he held for a decade.
And although he has officially departed municipal politics, he still hasn’t completely taken his eye off of running for a provincial seat.
In 2017, he thought he would be venturing into provincial politics when he threw his hat in the ring to run for leader of the Alberta Liberal Party. He withdrew from the race less than a month later, keeping mum on the reason why.
As he wrapped up his term as mayor, Crouse said he was likely done with running for an elected office again, but said he wouldn’t be sure until he had given himself a break.
Now, while the mayor hasn’t completely ruled out running, he said at the moment he has no strong desire to get back into politics.
“There is nothing right now that is burning inside my stomach to want to get back in. Part of it is because nothing has jumped out at me that has appealed to me yet. I keep thinking if I do, it will be an Alberta Party (seat), but the closer I get to the election, I’ve been waiting for my stomach to get excited about it and it hasn’t,” Crouse said.
He said right now nothing is drawing him in, but added that perhaps as the election date draws nearer and if there is an empty nomination he may jump in.
In the meantime, Crouse is pleased with his life outside of politics.
“I’m happy to be helping others doing what I’m doing.”
