By the time he retired in 2015, Dr. Randy Refsland had done just about everything a person could do in education.

The 1981 graduate of Bemidji State taught 18 years at the high school and college levels in such subjects as world and U.S. history, psychology, law and geography. He coached three sports. He spent nine years as a principal and finished as a superintendent for seven years.

Somehow, Refsland snuck in a year at an educational foundation in China, helping students prepare for college-level courses in the United States.

His varied resume led to Bahrain, an island nation in the Persian Gulf between Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The Bahrain Bayan School needed a director general for its preschool-through-secondary program.

“I had a wonderful experience in China during the 2012-13 school year,” Refsland said of his motivation to return overseas. “People are people, no matter where they are from, what language they speak, what religion they worship or what clothes they wear.”

He proved a good fit for the school in Bahrain, where students speak Arabic and English. A self-contained facility, it is independent, non-profit and co-educational. Graduating students receive an international baccalaureate diploma, and 75 percent go to college in the United Kingdom, the United States or Canada, with the remainder enrolled at colleges in the Gulf Region.

“China helped me understand that every country is different, and expecting the same conditions as we find in the U.S. is a mistake,” Refsland said. “I learned about being flexible in everything ­— travel, food, living conditions and expectations.”

He is completing the first year of a three-year contract in Bahrain. He and his wife, Jie Fang-Refsland, have five adult children. When not overseas, they reside in Milton, Wis.