“I got out of the Marine Corps and got a divorce. My son was five, my daughter was two. It was dark, but I dug myself out and started going to community college. I learned how to code. I liked it and was good at it.

I got associate’s degrees in programming and was going for my bachelor's degree. My kids were happy, bills were paid, but five classes short of my bachelor's degree, I ran out of financial aid. Then my son got sick. And my oldest daughter, who graduates this year, wants to go to school in Colorado. It’s $40,000 a year. Lambda was my only chance to help her and it was powerful motivation. I quit my job on a Friday, started the pre-course work on Monday, finished it on Friday, and started Web20 the following Monday.

"I almost had my bachelor's degree, so I thought Lambda would be a refresher. I got it, but I didn’t really understand it. I've always been blue collar. I know how to work hard. But this was a different kind of hard. The payoff was so far away. But if you're not struggling, you're not pushing yourself. I wanted to quit a thousand times, but I sat down 1,001 times and didn't give up."

I made a LinkedIn post about the best job rejection I ever received. The VP of the company that hired me saw that post and said, ‘I like your attitude and grit.’ Now I’m a Service Developer for CCMSI. I got my Colorado, I got my remote job, I got my $33 an hour. I'm 40 years old. It's never too late to go after what you want.”