Eagle Scout Receives Recognition for a Lifetime of Service
I have had the pleasure of talking to many young men from Crownsville completing their Eagles Scout projects. They are focused on two things: individual accomplishment and community contribution through their projects. I have often wondered where they’d go after their Eagle days.
Another Crownsville resident shed light on that Eagle future through his Eagle past. John Erickson attributes his Eagle Scout experience to his choice on life’s path to individual accomplishment and community contribution.
On November 5, he was recognized as a Distinguished Eagle Scout at the first annual “Gathering of Eagles” in Baltimore. One of scouting’s highest, most prestigious awards, it is bestowed for 25 years or more of community service after becoming an Eagle Scout. Mr. Erickson has abundant credentials in that area.
As a rare prerequisite, this award threads from a young person’s scouting to adult accomplishment. Here, pulling on this thread unravels an interesting and inspiring story for new, old, and non- Eagle Scouts.
John Erickson is Chairman and CEO of Erickson Retirement Communities. With communities in fourteen states and plans for more, he has informed his career through his scouting experience..
Young men ages 12 to 16 may pursue the Eagle Scout award. The process combines individual achievement with community service. It’s not just about the individual but about doing for others.
As number four of 14 children, perhaps young John got the message of doing for others early. Scouting was in his family. Three older brothers were all scouts. What one achieved, the next one would, too.
He achieved well though he still remembers his fear and trepidation in going off to scout camp. It was his first time away from home. Would he be able to eat? Peanut butter saved him. As part of a family of 14 kids, he was used to doing everything as a family.
Scouting gave him the chance to be with his peers and the opportunity for individual activity and achievement. He was a short little kid. Scouting levels all differences. Everyone can achieve, and it offered him a chance.
He could have taken his new found independence and opportunity to develop a stellar career measured by how much he could get out of society – as he characterizes it, like “Lex Luther.”
He credits scouting as well as his religious upbringing with helping him form an attitude in the opposite direction: it’s the difference that you make that is important. Making a difference became his focus post-scouting.
As an undergraduate and graduate student at a Catholic seminary he developed this world view. When he entered the workplace, he went with the intention of making a difference around him.
Before he was a CEO, as he puts it, he “had a regular career.’ He was a computer scientist in the 1960′s when computers took up an entire buildings and needed tons of air conditioning. He taught computer science at RCA headquarters helping new college graduate analysts make the transition to business world computing.
Making a difference started here, and one young woman in his class made a big difference him. Nancy and he courted enduring other romances and a San Francisco to Boston commute. By 1970 they were married. By 1971 RCA was out of the computer business and so was John.
He pursued a real estate career. Los Angeles acquaintances introduced him to real estate investing. Ultimately he spent eight years developing leisure communities in Florida and other places. He moved into commercial properties, but another concept was developing in the back of his mind
He saw that people really wanted to retire at home but they needed a social structure and base. He would build retirement communities for the last years of retirement rather than for the golfers.
In 1981, he approached a religious order about developing their abandoned Catholic seminary in Catonsville into a retirement community. With this start he grew the concept over fifteen years and made it successful: a better way for America to age. In the last 28 years, Erickson Retirement Communities have reached into major U.S. cities taking care of our aging population.
Mr. Erickson realized, too, that demographics clearly point to a continuing need to understand aging and create the policies needed to manage its requirements. He worked with the University of Maryland to create the Erickson School of Aging Studies. Its goal is a 1000 undergraduate majors with 100-200 graduate students. Taught by a prestigious faculty, these graduates will work as leaders in the Social Security Administration and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid and deal with the impending demographic shift.
He has made a difference for children, too. A $40 million dollar camp project in northern Maryland takes 10000-20000 students from Maryland’s poorer school systems camping for a week. They engage in programs in environmental science and about character choices.
John Erickson has maintained his focused on making a difference that began with his Eagle Scout days. He doesn’t remember his project. He does remember a 20 mile hike that nearly killed him. He’s an example of “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” He is grateful for all he learned in scouting and encourages young men to become part of an elite group making a difference.
Nancy had helped the Scouting Council start the award process by bringing out his Eagle medal and his scouting sash. Mr. Erickson received his award in front of 100 guests, including Barbara Kurz, a resident of Erickson’s community Charlestown. In 1939, Ms. Kurz was one of the last recipients of the Golden Eaglet Award, the Girl Scouts’ equivalent. In the group were newly awarded Eagle Scouts and many scouting alumni from all over Maryland. Author Alvin Townley delivered the keynote speech.
Mr. Erickson was deeply honored. He joins 1777 others who received the rank of Distinguished Eagle Scout joining the late President Gerald Ford, astronaut Neil Armstrong, and director Steven Spielberg. Congratulations.