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While growing up, Ken Paulin kept out of trouble by parking himself under the hood of a car with his brothers and tinkering with the engine.

"Ken's mom said she never worried about where the boys were. They were always in the garage working on something," said Gail Paulin, Ken's wife of nearly 37 years.

Born to a father who was a construction contractor and a mechanic, and a mother who was a teacher, Paulin combined his interest in their professions to build a career for himself.

Paulin worked as a vocational education teacher at Tucson middle schools and high schools for 33 years, keeping young gear-heads engaged in school and out of trouble.

"He cared so much about the kids. He cared what directions the kids were going in. He put his all into teaching and sharing every bit of knowledge he had about cars," said Paulin friend Jacqui Harry, owner of JayBees Auto Service. "He was one of those guys who was staying in it until the end, and he did until his health wouldn't let him stay."

Paulin spent most of his career teaching auto shop at Palo Verde High School and finished at Sahuaro High before he and Gail — also a teacher — retired in 2003. Paulin continued building, rebuilding and restoring vehicles at his home auto shop until an aggressive cancer took over his body and made it impossible to work in his garage.

Paulin died Sept. 29. He was 63. A memorial service is planned for later this year.

Paulin's parents moved the family moved to Tucson from Michigan in 1958. His first car, which he found abandoned in a ditch when he was a teen, was a battered 1935 Chevy coupe. Paulin hauled it home, restored it with all stock parts and drove it to high school every day, Gail Paulin said. The cream-color car is still in pristine condition, parked in the garage next to a souped-up metallic blue Cobra replica kit car Paulin built.

His personal collection also includes a 1941 Ford truck, a sleek, antique wooden Century Centurion motorboat he and his wife used at their summer cabin on Donner Lake in California, and his last project, a 1935 Chevy sedan that he finished rebuilding in July.

"Ken liked big projects. He has every tool known to mankind," Gail Paulin said, including a lift he had installed in his home garage. "He could just make anything, fix anything, do anything."

Construction skills he learned from his father kept Paulin busy outside the auto shop.

He built several homes, including his own, and after the devastating 2003 Aspen Fire he rebuilt the Mount Lemmon cabin he and and his wife owned. Paulin also helped friends and co-workers with their home-improvement projects.

He and Gail — who met during a summer break from college when they both worked at Yosemite National Park — traveled to exotic locales during their marriage, learning about other cultures. Yet even on trips to Malaysia, Borneo, Rwanda, Nicaragua, Morocco and other countries, Ken Paulin was always anxious to return home and get back to his auto shop or drafting table.

"Over 30 years he always had a house project," Gail Paulin said. "Not just our house. Every teacher at school who needed a shop enlarged or bricks laid," Ken offered his services. "This man never sat still. He always had multiple things going on."

Knowing how fulfilling it was to build something with his own hands, Paulin wanted his auto shop students to acquire the same confidence and sense of accomplishment that comes from seeing a project through from start to successful finish.

"When you visited his class, kids were rarely seated," Gail Paulin said. "They were up and moving and working on several cars at once. He was very interested in giving students skills so they could get a job."

Paulin, who did not have children of his own, spent long days with his students in the auto shop, often staying after school for a few hours to continue working with the young would-be mechanics. With his guidance, many of his students have gone on to successful careers in the automotive industry.

Eddie McPheeters, owner of Eddie's Inboard Marine Equipment in Tucson, took four years of Paulin's auto shop classes.

"He was awesome," the '97 Palo Verde grad saidsaid. "If you showed you really wanted to learn what he was showing you, he'd take the time to teach you, no matter how long it took. He'd stay after school for many, many hours for different after-school programs we had in auto shop. We'd be there to six o'clock every night, and we'd be there on weekends to work in the auto shop."

Aaron Larez, a master technician for Royal Jaguar in Tucson, was in Paulin's auto shop classes for three years.

"He was a fantastic guy," the '99 Palo Verde grad said. "He had a kind of a patience about him when dealing with rowdy gear-head kids. He had an authority that was respect-based rather than fear-based.

"He led by example as far as learning was concerned. If he was learning new things, he'd impart them to us, and we'd all be learning together. It was really cool.

"I think one of the biggest compliments he ever gave to me … was that I'd make a good shop teacher," Larez said.

Paulin taught students to think outside the gas tank when he initiated an electric vehicle program at Palo Verde High in the early 1990s. The students successfully competed against other teams in the Western states and on the East Coast.

"Ken was ahead of his time," Harry said. "He got the kids to do electric cars and race the electric cars. This was his love and passion, and the neat part was he shared it with everyone. He made sure auto classes stayed going in the high school. He took pride in everything, and he taught that to his kids."