“Form lifelong relationships at school. Have fun. Fun is important; it energizes us.”
Lt. Col Erik Tisher is quick to give advice to share with UMA cadets.
Cadets may recognize the new JROTC Senior Airforce Science Instructor (SASI) from his warm welcomes at the front door during the first week of school. However, 11th and 12th graders will know him from their JROTC class, where Lt. Col Tisher now teaches alongside MSGT Jimenez.
While Lt. Col Tisher never really planned on teaching high school students, his first
time being in the position of a teacher was when he was a senior in high school. This
opportunity came to him when his youth pastor wasn’t feeling well and encouraged him to take over. “He called me at school and asked me to cover for him that night at a nursing home. I asked him what he wanted me to talk about, and he said, ‘I don’t know…just talk about something.’ And so I got out a Bible and pointed out a verse and talked about it.”
He joined the military because his father had been in the Air Force, and he had been around the military most of his life. “In my late 20’s I began to miss the military. So I joined the Air Force and it felt like a homecoming.”
Lt. Col Tisher spent twenty-two years in the Air Force as a chaplain. He was stationed in nine different locations and four combat deployments. “Places as diverse as Texas, Afghanistan and Korea and Georgia. Yeah that’s pretty diverse.”
Before Utah Military Academy, Lt.Col Tisher was a chaplain at Ogden Regional Hospital and has also been a pastor at a church in California.
Lt. Col Tisher heard about UMA through UMA’s former SASI, Lt. Col Woodbrey. He was interested in the UMA position because of “the culture, the students, the high quality staff here, and the concept of a military school.”
Even though Lt. Col Tisher has only been at the school for a few weeks , he has already
been able to experience the wide range of UMA’s culture. According to Lt.Col Tisher his
favorite thing about the school so far is, ‘the interaction with students.”
Since Lt. Col Tisher has never taught high schoolers before, he has also been facing challenges. He clarifies that with, “It’s a lot to learn.”
Lt.Col Tisher’s goals for UMA this year are “to set the bar, serve one another, and stretch
excellence.”
