Walla Walla overcomes language and education barriers to realize his dream
Juan C. Gaytán didn’t consider going to college until he was in his 30s, already married and working a grueling minimum wage job at an onion-packing facility.
He wanted something better for him and for his family and he saw education as a way to get there. Still, Gaytán didn’t know whether he could make it in college. He spoke no English. He’d never attended high school and would be the first in his family to pursue higher education.
Growing up in central Mexico, Gaytán was always fascinated by mechanical and electrical devices. He remained fascinated, even as an adult and after he’d become a U.S. resident and moved to Walla Walla. He was both curious and excited when he heard Walla Walla Community College offered a degree in Energy Systems Technology.
At age 33, Gaytán took the leap, enrolling in WWCC’s English Language Acquisition (ELA) program. The college’s ELA program serves approximately 50 students each quarter, helping them to learn to read, write, speak, and understand English better, whether their goal is simply to engage local community members or go on to earn a college degree.
“Our ELA program provides students with space to build connections and self-esteem, and guidance toward, in their words, ‘A better life’. Students generally take up to four morning classes that vary in level in Communications, Reading, Writing and Computer Skills, with both morning and evening courses available winter quarter,” said WWCC instructor Courtney Kress Van Slyke.
She describes Gaytán as a “motivated” student and a “joy to teach.”
Gaytán remembers “not being able to keep a conversation in English for more than five minutes” when he began at WWCC.
“It was a totally new world for me,” he says. “But the only thing I had in my mind was that I had to get out of my comfort zone and start learning English so I could find a better job.”
After just one quarter as an ELA student, Gaytán enrolled in the pre-college level classes he needed to become an Energy Systems Technology student. At the time, his goal was to become a wind turbine technician, joining one of the area’s fastest growing industries. Just two years later, in 2015, Gaytán had successfully earned two different associate degrees – Wind Energy Technology and Electrical Technology.
Gaytán leveraged his WWCC degrees into work at a local wind energy production company, performing maintenance on Vestas V47 wind turbines.
“It was an exciting stage in my life. My dream had become a reality,” he says.
Then he started dreaming even bigger.
Gaytán decided to pursue an electrical engineering degree from a four-year university. He returned to WWCC, where he took classes necessary to earn the associate degree in science. Fulfilling these general education requirements made it possible for him to be accepted as a junior-level transfer student at Washington State University Tri-Cities. In May 2021, Gaytán received a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and a minor in Mathematics.
Between 2018 and 2020, 32% of all first-time students who started in the fall in an academic transfer program at WWCC graduated with an AA transfer degree within three years. Of those graduates, 60% went on to transfer to a four-year college or university within four years of their start at WWCC.
Gaytán credits his wife, Roxana, and a group of WWCC advisors and faculty who made his college journey possible.
“I received a lot of support from my advisors and from the excellent professors, who were patient with my questions and always available for conversation,” he says.
Gaytán quickly found that WWCC welcomes many older students who are married and working or pursuing a different career. He earned money working nights as a custodian while he was at WWCC but also discovered multiple ways in which he could offset his college costs through federal Pell Grants and scholarships from the WWCC Foundation and the Blue Mountain Community Foundation.
Today, at age 45, Gaytán is employed as an electrical design engineer for the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, Walla Walla District. He often serves as the lead electrical designer on many critical projects focused on upgrading the existing and aging electrical infrastructure on hydropower dams on the Lower Snake River.
“This is just the perfect job for me,” he says. “A job in a community where I feel I belong and within a society I feel that I need to contribute to.”
