Gwendolin “Gwen” Foley doesn’t have a college degree. She does have something just as valuable – a certificate in industrial machine maintenance from Yavapai College that earned her a high-paying job  with Flagstaff medical device manufacturer, WL Gore.

She also has job satisfaction, four proud children who are in or bound for college themselves, and a new motorhome to replace the “camper” that once was her family’s home.

The college credential and the significant salary boost, Gwen said, “have been huge for our family. For the first time in our lives, we’re not trying to figure out how to rearrange money so we have more money for things like dental bills. For the first time, we’ve actually been able to relax about money. It’s a really good feeling.”

Gwen and her husband, Benjamin, recently invested in a new motorhome for annual family trips to their home state of Michigan. It was motorhome living that brought the family to Arizona after 2.5 years of Benjamin working as a traveling wind farm technician. Cramped quarters, travel fatigue, and the desire to give their children a permanent home led them to Williams, where Benjamin landed a permanent job at a windfarm near the Grand Canyon.

All was well until Benjamin was laid off, forcing Gwen to take a minimum-wage job as a maid at a Williams hotel. “I didn’t have any skills,” Gwen said, explaining that she started college right out of high school in Michigan, but youthful distractions, a job at Ford Motor Co., and raising a family kept her from finishing.

After working in the motel industry for a year, Gwen secured first a custodial then a manufacturing position at WL Gore. In the latter job,  she took an interest in and began learning how the machines she operated worked, even doing some troubleshooting and repair from time to time.

“After about three years of doing that, I was sitting in the office and told my friend in maintenance, “I want to do what you do – all the time.” The friend told her she needed to go back to school.

Gwen, now 46, recalled thinking at the time that she was too old to go back to school. She recalls also wondering if she would be happy working in manufacturing for 20 more years, or longer. The answer: “That’s a long time. In two years I could have the job I want and work until I retire doing what I want and making more money.”

That self-reflection, her family’s support, and her employer’s tuition reimbursement program combined to convince Gwen to enroll in YC’s Advanced Manufacturing Program at the Career and Technical Education Center in Prescott. The program offered Gwen exactly what she needed for the job at WL Gore that she had set her sights on – courses like electronics, welding and hydraulics – without requiring English and other undergraduate classes she didn’t need. YC instructors would direct Gwen to scholarships when she couldn’t afford needed supplies, or would teach her during their office hours when a class conflicted with her work schedule. “They were very accommodating,” Gwen said of her YC instructors. “If you ask, they will  help you get through.”

Gwen’s work ethic and drive to succeed twice earned her the Advanced Manufacturing Program’s Outstanding Student award. CTEC Professor Charles Allmon described Gwen as a “natural leader” who was always organized and prepared for class. “She shouldered a leadership role with her fellow students as a true leader does. A true leader also brings everyone around him/her along with them. Gwen has this quality.”

The 70-minute, one-way commute from Williams to Prescott, family and work commitments kept Gwen at YC a year longer than she planned, but she said the time and gas money paid off in regular promotions and pay increases even before she earned her certificate in May.

Perhaps more importantly, Gwen said, she thoroughly enjoys fixing machines. Whereas with a manufacturing job, you may do the same thing all day, in maintenance you solve problems, she said. “That gives me a lot more sense of accomplishment – a lot more sense of success.”

Gwen acknowledged her career-training journey was rough on her family. She said she did a lot of crockpot cooking, relied on her husband and children, Arianna, Carissa, Elaina and Thor for help with household chores and regularly communicated her end goal, both the tangibles and intangibles.

“It was Important for them (my children) to see that and people to know that just because you’re getting older, you can do more. You can get the job you want. It’s not written in stone that it’s too late.”

Understandably, Gwen is a champion of the life-lifting power of education. She passed that value onto her children while homeschooling them in the camper on the road. If one of them would grouse about doing school work, Gwen would say, “What I’m hearing is you want a camper of your own when you’re older.”