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Education and Your Desired Career

Why one avionic technician left college to pursue his dream job

An avionic technician builds a career path through certifications before pursuing a college degree

Today, February 17, is My Way Day, a day in which people are encouraged to do what they want, however they want to.

WorkingNation is commemorating it by celebrating Isaac Gonzalez, an avionic technician from Oxnard, California, who left the traditional college path to travel the world and ultimately pursue his passion in avionics by entering trade school.

His decision to drop out of college and study at a trade school is demonstrative of an emerging attitude that the importance of a college education is weakening.

Curricula can’t adjust quickly enough to keep up with the changes in the job market, and the price is no longer always justifiable in many people’s minds. Gonzalez is doing things “his way”, and finding the education that matched his interest gave him the opportunity to follow his dream without falling into debt.

Most of the fastest-growing jobs in the U.S. won’t require a bachelor’s degree—such as wind turbine service technicians, home health aides, and bike repairers. Options such as apprenticeships, trade schools, online colleges, and boot camps are coming forward as strong alternatives.

Gonzalez has gained an FAA Airframe & Powerplant certificate as well as a Radio Repairman Certificate during his time at Dreamline Aviation and SoCal Jets in Van Nuys, California. He is now an Avionics Shop Manager at Aspen Helicopters, an FAA approved repair station with fixed wing, helicopter, as well as instrument and radio capabilities in Oxnard.

Now that he has established himself in the avionics world and has a clearer idea of what his next steps should be, he is enrolling at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to get an Aeronautical Engineering degree.

Gonzalez gained insight into what he wanted as a career when he left school and spent some time traveling. Entering trade school when he returned opened up opportunities for him and gave him the chance to figure out which direction he wanted to go in without investing too much money.

Now he has a solid income and feels he can afford to invest in a college degree. Not everyone needs the same education to be successful. It’s important for people entering the workforce today to find the best fit for them.

Additional Videos is our signature digital series that shines the spotlight on the most innovative initiatives helping to train and re-skill Americans for the most in-demand jobs now and in the future.

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Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.