Then and Now

It's a miracle I finished high school; the only reason I went was to see my friends. My parents were pretty much absent, and I was essentially on my own. The only one that would see my report card was me.

After high school, I ended up serving a short hitch in the U.S. Navy aboard submarines. I didn't know what else to do at the time, and I'm grateful for how this experience grew me up.

When I got out, I started at SLCC because I knew I could attend despite my past grades, and it was an affordable option. At first, I just did okay in some classes, and not so well in others—I was distracted, mostly by my interest in girls. Then, I met the love of my life, married, and became much more focused. The reception for our wedding was actually in the Oak Room on the Taylorsville campus.

I was interested in engineering, but then took some sociology-related-classes at SLCC and found them compelling. At the U of U, I landed on studying Urban Planning because it felt like a bridge between sociology and engineering—there were hands-on projects, plus it involved working with a variety of people.

"Education is worth your time."

With no experience, it was tough breaking into the urban planning field, but I did end up landing a job as an environmental planner in the Lake Tahoe area. That was the beginning of a long career that ultimately led to specializing in the environmental aspects around electrical infrastructure. Along the way, I earned an MBA at Benedictine University, Mesa.

I'm now a Senior Siting Consultant at Arizona Public Service and have been there more than a decade. Even though it is not exactly what I originally envisioned for a career, I'm happy with how things turned—it still has all the elements that interested me in the first place.

Advice

Stick with it. Don't stop. There is value in completing your degree, there is value in finishing. Even struggling as a student at SLCC, I stuck with it and eventually got to my goals, and that's because I didn't give up. Education is worth your time.