Gig Harbor man celebrates lifetime of learning

College degree earned 25 years after high school

Paige Richmond

of the Gateway

When David Brown began looking for a job in the corporate world in 2004, he came to a quick realization: He wasn’t going to get far without a college degree.

It wasn’t a situation Brown had predicted.

For one, he’d already managed to build a career for himself, having spent 21 years in the United States Coast Guard. When he retired in 2004, Brown was a Chief Warrants Officer specializing in information systems security and managing a global incident response team — in plain terms, he kept the Coast Guard’s computer systems safe from hackers, viruses or any other security threat.

Not long after he retired in November that year and moved to Gig Harbor, Brown found a job in Bellevue. It was a decent job, and he was qualified for it, but it wasn’t exactly what he wanted: He was consulting a large company on risk and advisory services.

He would have rather been working with technology again.

So, Brown decided to enroll in college — nearly 25 years after he graduated from high school.

“Degrees are really important in the corporate sector, as I found out,” said Brown, 43. “It’s a lot easier to get a job with a degree.”

Just three months after leaving the U.S. Coast Guard, Brown enrolled at the University of Phoenix, an online university established in 1976 with a mission statement to “make higher education highly accessible for working students.”

This past May, he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Business and Information Systems.

Getting a college degree was never in Brown’s original plan for life. After graduating from high school, he said he joined the U.S. Coast Guard because he “wanted to serve his country.”

There were other reasons, as well.

“And until I figured out what I wanted to do with respect to college,” he added, “I didn’t want to waste my time or my parents’ money.”

He also never thought of himself as a model student. He struggled in high school, partially because he had a learning disorder which caused him difficulty with reading and comprehension.

In the U.S. Coast Guard, Brown worked hard to overcome that disorder through perseverance. He remembers reading the dictionary on his ship and practicing his reading, writing and communication skills.

That level of discipline and dedication is what helped him succeed in college. Between commuting to Bellevue to work, spending time with his wife and maintaining his 1.3 acres of land in Gig Harbor, Brown had to put aside a few hours each night to study and participate in online classes.

“Really, it comes down to my core,” he said. “If someone said to me, ‘You can’t get a degree,’ I’d say, ‘Well, let me prove you wrong.’ ”

Brown credits his mother for motivating him to go back to school — and to become the first member of his family to receive a bachelor’s degree. After his graduation ceremony at KeyArena in Seattle in May, he gave her the honors sash he wore from his cap and gown.

“It was more important for me to give it to her than to keep it,” he said. “I think she was exceptionally proud.”

Now, Brown works for a consulting firm in Tacoma, improving information technology services for small businesses and protecting their security.

Even though it’s exactly the kind of work he enjoys doing, Brown has higher goals: He recently enrolled in an online Masters of Science degree program at Colorado Technical University.

Next year, he’ll have his graduate degree in management, with a concentration in Information Systems Security.

“I’ve still got the energy to go on,” he said about why he re-enrolled in school. “Education has become very important to me. The personal educational aspect of all this is unbelievable.”

About University of Phoenix

University of Phoenix, founded in 1976, provides more than 100 degree programs at the associate’s, bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral levels for adult learners, like Dave Brown.

The school offers evening classes, flexible scheduling, continuous enrollment, a student-centered environment, practitioner faculty, online classes, online library, e-books and computer simulations.

There are 200 University of Phoenix locations nationwide.

Reach Reporter and Columnist Paige Richmond at 253-853-9243 or by e-mail at paige.richmond@gateline.com.