Community People Profiles is a series on the Salt Spring Exchange featuring local personalities on our dynamic Gulf Island. Our People Profiles are short interviews, with one answer questions to share with you a little about what each of the people we will feature are thinking about as they go about their lives living on Salt Spring Island.

This weeks featured local people profile is: David Norget

Here's a bit about David;

I first moved to the island 25 years ago and, except for two years spent in Europe, have called Salt Spring home. I now have a great family—my partner Tisha; two kids, Simon age 14 and Amelia age 7; Felix the dog; Tortilla the cat; and a smattering of ducks. My mother and her partner also live active lives on the island.

I’ve had many jobs in the human services realm on Salt Spring: family child support work, special education in the schools, and director of human resources at Salt Spring Coffee (saltspringcoffee.com). In June of 2013, I started a process to come back to the things that were most meaningful to me—family, community, health and wellness—and the establishment of my own counselling and coaching practice.

What brought you to Salt Spring Island?

I first came to the island when my father was dying and needed a family member to look after him. He had moved here three years earlier at the suggestion of my sister who thought he should check it out. One visit, one house later he was committed. My seven months on Salt Spring convinced me that this is a place I would love to live.

What one thing about Salt Spring would you tell someone who has never visited the island?

People watching on the island is fantastic entertainment. Park yourself somewhere in town and watch all the comings and goings. The natives are friendly, so don’t be shy about engaging in conversation. We Salt Springers are an eclectic, quirky and interesting lot. I never cease to feel amazed.

If you had a magic Salt Spring wand, what island thing would you change?

Believing that everyone has a right to feel safe, I would wave my magic wand and eliminate the spectrum of violence on the island. I would give courage to all those who are violent to face their issues and do their work around it. This would make a great place to live that much better.

Which well known person, living or dead, do you think would be a good addition to the island?

I would love to have the Dalai Lama around for a while, being involved in island life and offering weekly talks with time for questions. It would be great to see the impact he might have on the island. Perhaps we would learn to have a more peaceful approach to the discussion of island and personal issues.

Is there a special project, business or initiative you are working on that islanders should know about?

My commitment is to foster and create health and wellness on this island, in all its aspects. In my work life, I have a counselling and coaching practice (see davidnorget.com), which I run from a private and beautiful office only a few minutes from Ganges. A certain number of hours are dedicated to lower-income individuals and couples. In my volunteer life, I am grateful to be part of an expanding SSI Health and Wellness, a community committee, as well as being a member of the Grants Advisory Committee of the Salt Spring Island Foundation, both focusing on island wellbeing.

Is there a really good interview question we should have asked you?

Do you have a fun historical story about Salt Spring that few people know?

How would you have answered your question?

When my father volunteered at the old library in the late eighties, he was asked to paint the skylights white to cut out glare from the sun. When he was doing his job he decided to paint "I love librarians” on the skylights and quickly won over most—if not all—of the library staff.