Kellie Peters stands outside her real estate office at 29 River Road in Newcastle earlier this month. The Great Salt Bay Schools gifted and talented teacher, Peters is leaving a 27-year career in education at the end of this school year to begin a full-time career as a real estate agent. (Sherwood Olin photo)
When Kellie Peters gets involved, she gets all the way involved. The busier she is and the more complicated the project, the better she likes it.
Currently Peters is working 14-hour days six and seven days a week as she winds down a 27-year career as an educator and cranks up a full-time career as a real estate agent with Newcastle-based Reilly Real Estate Co. Her current schedule is jam-packed as she juggles nearly a dozen real estate clients while working full time as the gifted and talented teacher at Great Salt Bay Community School in Damariscotta, among her other commitments.
“My big passion is being involved with the community, so of course at a school I am always involved the community and in real estate constantly and in a different way,” she said. “How many people are in everyone’s home?”
Although she is ending her education career leading a gifted and talented program, a specialty in which she has spent the majority of her career, Peters actually came to GSB to teach third grade in 2017. She had already had a 20-year tenure as a gifted and talented teacher in the Camden-Rockport school system.
When former GSB gifted and talented teacher Allison McMillan retired two years ago, Peters was encouraged to take the position. She did so with some reluctance because she loved teaching third grade, but it was ultimately a positive move.
“I love teaching and there are some little kids there that are unbelievable,” she said. “I just can’t imagine leaving them behind so I’m sure I’ll be there volunteering a lot or consulting.”
Peters said her decision to leave education now has been in the works for a number of years. Her real estate career began almost six years ago with a simple observation.
“I’ve bought a couple properties and in that process I thought, ‘Wow, that’s interesting, I would like to know more about that,’” she said.
Realtor Sigrid Sproul encouraged Kellie Peters’ interest. Sproul represented Peters and her husband, Eric Peters, when they purchased properties in Nobleboro, where they built their house, and Edgecomb, where the couple established their business, Norumbega Oyster Co.
Starting with a study-at-home course, Kellie Peters eventually obtained her real estate license and went to work for Sproul part time.
“It is very fun,” Kellie Peters said. “It is really rewarding. It is different every day. I love real estate, too – the landscaping, the architecture, meeting all the people, and how exciting it is to help someone to find the perfect place.”
After Sproul retired last summer, her associate, Brandon Reilly, opened Reilly Real Estate Co. at 29 River Road in Newcastle. There he is joined by Kellie Peters, as well as former Sproul associates Bobby Whear and Crystal Trates, composing a four-person office.
Nobleboro resident Kellie Peters said she loves the details involved in real estate transactions. (Courtesy photo)
Peters acknowledged it is a tough time to be a teacher, giving the heated political and cultural debates currently impacting the classroom. However, in Peters’ case, she is leaving the profession because she is ready to make a change, more than anything else. Her children, twins Kate and Sam, are now young adults in their final year of college and Kellie Peters acknowledged her soon-to-be empty nest is a motivating factor.
“I was thinking a year or two ago about this impending change and I thought what is it I really want to do,” she said. “I really want to work on my book more, and then I got my real estate license in Vermont, too, so I thought if it gets slow here I can go over to Vermont and see friends and family there and maybe do a little bit of real estate and go back and forth and travel.”
In the immediate future, Kellie Peters is hoping to indulge her love for travel, which along with writing children’s books, gardening, and community involvement, is one of her loves. Her mother is from Germany and she has traveled to Europe many, many times to see family there.
This summer Kellie Peters plans to return, this time with daughter Kate and one of Kate’s college friends.
It was during a return trip from Germany in January 2020 that Kellie Peters first heard about COVID-19.
“I was sitting in the airport in Munich waiting to fly out and all over the news it was about COVID and people in masks,” she said. “Then I got to Logan Airport, and I had flown to Europe a zillion times, but I had never stood in line with like 200 or 300 people it seemed. None of us knew what was going on, and they were holding all of us back.”
Nobody was allowed through customs until they had their temperature taken, which was perplexing at the time, she said, because nobody knew anything.
“When I came back, I went back to school and carried on as normal,” Kellie Peters said. “Then poof, we were quickly bagging up everything and computers and then parents were pulling in the bus loop and we were handing them a bag of everything from their kid’s cubbies and (saying) ‘We’ll be in touch.’”
As it was across the entire world, the next year or so was a uniquely challenging time. Yet, for Kellie Peters it was also a rewarding time professionally, as the technology that allowed her to deliver lessons to her homebound students brought them closer in ways she hadn’t expected.
“That first spring of it, that was very hard,” she said. “I got to know those kids so well. Sometimes they would have trouble. They would be at home trying to get onto Zoom to do school work and their computer wouldn’t work. So I would jump in my car and drive over to their house and sit out in their yard, 10 feet away, trying to fix their computer. My son, who knows a lot about computers, was trying to fix it. Then I would give it back to this girl and she would take it inside and ‘OK, I’ll see you in an hour,’ and I would race home and get back online.”
The entire 2020-2021 school year was really hard, Kellie Peters said. It was not so much a lost year academically, but the students missed out on social interaction and learning social skills along with dedicated class time.
“The one plus I took away from it was when else could a teacher spend time in student’s houses with them on Zoom,” she said. “I mean I was on Zoom from seven in the morning until eight at night.
“I was helping kids who were home alone. They would send me a message, ‘Can we FaceTime? I am home alone and I am trying to make dinner.’ ‘I need to do laundry and wash something. Can you help me?’” Kellie Peters said. “So I saw the insides of their houses. I saw their families and pets, and what they were eating for dinner and when they got to go outside to play. It was amazing. It was exhausting. I was absolutely mentally and emotionally drained that whole year.”
As she navigates this transition between professions, Kellie Peters continues to make time for a number of commitments, such as her volunteer service on the board of directors for Stepping Stone Housing Inc., which she has served on since 2018. Stepping Stone is a volunteer-run grassroots program dedicated to providing affordable, transitional, and permanent housing for individuals and families in Lincoln County.
“There is an enormous, enormous need for housing in this area,” she said. “So many people are homeless, and kids living on people’s couches, and people living in cars, and people don’t realize that. We are in the process of trying to build … apartments … just because we have a waiting list. We have 28 families who are homeless, asking us for help, desperately needing a place to sleep.”
Housing is in such short supply in Lincoln County that she has advised her husband to make sure it’s one of the questions he asks of a prospective employee.
“Before you say yes, or they say yes, ask them if they have housing in Lincoln County,” she said.
Whatever changes she is making in her professional life, Kellie Peters said her love for her Nobleboro community will likely remain undimmed. She is a big believer in community service. She is a former member of the Nobleboro School Committee and she has served for more than 15 years on the Nobleboro Budget Committee.
“I do have trouble saying no, but I do also just love the involvement with the community and civic duty and meeting people and so I think that’s a piece I am passionate about,” she said. “I am also a little heated (that) people should be involved in their town government. If they have issues or if they want to complain, go to town meeting. Go there, your voice can be heard and it makes a difference.”
She is particularly fond of her service on the Nobleboro Budget Committee. Each year the budget committee convenes in December and spends Monday nights over the course of the next three months pouring over the town’s finances. Kellie Peters said her time on the committee is enjoyable work, made all the more so by her fellow members.
“I am probably the only one on the budget committee who is not from here,” Peters said. “I’ve been here for 25 years but I feel like I have learned so much being on the budget committee about how the town is run. The town owns the school. It’s paid off. Nobleboro is such a fiscally responsible town and so it’s enjoyable being on the budget committee. We make really good choices. We keep an eye on not raising our taxes too much, but we still take care of our school. I have had a blast.”
Peters still has five years before she truly reaches “retirement age,” but she doesn’t see herself stopping any time soon. In fact, her love for gardening could conceivably launch a third career in the years ahead.
Members of the Great Salt Bay Pearls toboggan team who once competed in the world championships at the Camden Snow Bowl. From left: Tracy Sitarski, Jen Wright, Janet Dempsey, and Kellie Peters. Peters has helped Sitarski buy a house and Wright buy and sell a house, two of the six of her GSB colleagues she has represented in real estate transactions. We joke that Im GSBs personal real estate broker, Peters said. (Photo courtesy Kellie Peters)
“I love gardening, and plants, and nature,” she said. “If I had my way, I would have a huge flower garden and be a person who goes to farmers markets and sells flowers. I could not imagine myself just sitting at home.”
For more information about Stepping Stone Housing Inc., go to steppingstonehousing.org or call 563-6297.
For more information about Reilly Real Estate, go to reillyrealestateco.com or call 563-6963.
To contact Kellie Peters, email kellie.peters5@gmail.com or call 380-7735.
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