Then and Now

I started taking concurrent enrollment classes at SLCC when I was a sophomore in high school. I didn't necessarily like school; my mindset was: "the sooner I get this done, the less miserable I'll be." Plus, I would be paying for my own education, so the money I was saving by taking these free classes was a big motivator.

My parents didn't go to college, but they really impressed upon me how important it was to earn a degree, and I did see the value in it to get to where I wanted to be in life. I started working at 14, cleaning the local junior high school, and I've always worked full-time since I was 16—though I took a break while at SLCC to serve an LDS mission in Guatemala. When I started at SLCC, I didn't know what I wanted to do; I went from wanting to be a dentist to a lawyer to a pilot, and ultimately ended up in business.

"You don't need to have all the answers right now"

I have wonderful memories from my time at SLCC, like riding my motorcycle to the Jordan campus, and some of the professors, like my biology teacher who took time at the end of each class for students to ask anything they wanted connected to biology. Of course, my most fond memory is meeting my wife while attending SLCC—she later enrolled in the Dental Hygiene program.

I went on to the U of U, where I felt really prepared and earned a degree in International Business. I eventually earned an MBA from Western Governors University.

I'm now the Associate Director of Development & Marketing at Hale Centre Theatre and absolutely love it—did you know it's one of the highest-attended regional theaters in the world, with nearly 600k patrons a year? I get to wear different hats and am always meeting smart and talented people. I see myself retiring here one day!

Advice

You don't need to have all the answers right now or totally have life figured out—just keep going and focus on living a happy life. My sense of identity was getting too tied into "What am I going to do?", and the pressure I was putting on myself, rather than just being happy in the moment.