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How It All Began

Have you ever reached the frustrating conclusion that your dream vacation was just too expensive? If your list of "corners to cut" is bulkier than your travel itinerary, you are one of the people Norm & Hazel Smith dreamt of assisting when they retired from teaching careers to found an affordable travel network for educators.

The idea for the "Educators Bed & Breakfast Travel Network" originated from the way Norm and Hazel actually traveled. They belonged to a group of educators who would travel somewhere every year to play tennis. One year, sixteen members of the group went to Oxford. A local professor allowed three couples to stay in his home while he was on vacation, and Norm and Hazel got to experience life as a "local." They enjoyed becoming acquainted with the corner grocer and dining at the neighborhood restaurants. This experience was the foundation on which Educators B&B Travel Network was built. They had such a wonderful time - staying inexpensively in the home of the a fellow educator and getting to see the side of the country that most tourists don't - that they decided to make it possible for other educators to do the same and founded the organization in 1986.

Shown above is Norm, Hazel, their daughter Sylvia, and friend Jester.

From the beginning, education and travel have surrounded Norm and Hazel's lives together. Originally from a small town in Canada, Norm grew up going to the Calgary Stampede and to Sunday picnics at Banff National Park. After high school, he earned his wings in the Royal Canadian Air Force, and was based at the University of Alberta. Hazel grew up as the daughter of Norwegian farmers, attending a two-room school house. At age seventeen she began attending Normal School (for her teaching certificate), and shortly after her eighteenth birthday, she taught for three months during the winter in a a one-room country schoolhouse located 30 miles beyond the end of the railroad tracks. The only transportation to and from the town was by horse-drawn cutter. After she completed Normal School, Hazel decided to attend the University of Alberta.

How Norm and Hazel actually met is subject to controversy. He maintains that she picked him up at a freshman dance. Ask Hazel, and you'll learn that Norm actually crashed the dance and picked her up. Either way, the rest is history. Over the next several years, both got their bachelor's degrees and moved to the US to obtain their master's degrees at Michigan State University. Norm also received his Ph.D. Missing the mountains, they moved to Eugene, Oregon and began teaching and raising their family. Hazel taught math at the University of Oregon while taking her Ph.D. When Lane Community College opened, she was asked to help start the Math Department, and she taught at LCC until retirement. Norm taught business and marketing classes at the University of Oregon.

Norm and Hazel find the true reward in running Educators B&B Travel Network comes from member feedback. More often than not, this commentary demonstrates that the mission of the organization - to enhance communication and camaraderie among educators worldwide - is being fulfilled. See the rave reviews they get from members.

Why do they still do it? It's not for the money (of which they make very little) but for the satisfaction of watching their dream grow and prosper. The same satisfaction that they knew as educators. In 1997, they brought the business on-line and it has continued to grow quickly ever since - about 20% per year.

Their staff includes Annie, Tiffany, Olivia, Rachael, and Chantel who are your Member Service Representatives. Brian, shown beside enjoying an EBBN beach house on the Oregon Coast, has designed the format of this website. Of course they couldn't operate without their computer support. Staci and Michael have been their programmers for over 10 years and now their internet providers.

Parts of the above information is from an article published in the InterActive Teacher Magazine by Katherine Johnson.

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