ROCKLAND — Steve Doyle has been a contractor, he's fished on his grandfather's boat out of Gloucester, and he has been a successful software developer for the game industry (after first teaching himself about computers on the Tandy 1000). He owned a pet store, has been married, divorced, and now has custody of three children. He has seen stuff — with a durable Eastern Massachusetts accent he will tell that he played high school football; "progressed through youth trouble," without elaborating about it; and fathered his first child at age 19. Now, at age 40, he has zeroed in on his life passion: To work with troubled youth.

"I have always wanted to work with troubled teens," he said. "They are going down the tubes and no one is looking. I started four years ago working with homeless youth. I can make a difference through my own experiences."

And, as he walks to the podium on May 11 at the University College of Rockland (URock) to receive his bachelor's of science diploma in mental health services, that is just step one in his pursuit of higher education. He intends to pursue his master's degree, and then a Ph.D.

"I want to make a bigger change in the world," he said, sitting around a table with three of his classmates — Garrett Alley, Peg Junge and Owen Casas — all of them nontraditional students who will be graduating with him. His dark eyes focus intently into space, on the future. "I am going to be a youth therapist. They are our future government, and our future people."

Garrett Alley, likewise, has seen a good chunk of life. He grew up in Union, had a child when he was 21, worked in construction for years, and knew well how carpenters and construction workers live hard and work hard. He also knew their bodies give out at relatively younger ages, and faced health issues himself. In 2009, he decided to change career course. Working still a full 40-hour week in construction, and getting out of work at 3:30 p.m., he would head to college classes at URock, just down the road from where he lived.

Four years later, and he has traded in his construction job Carhartts for Carhartts scrubs to wear in his new line of work, in the medical laboratory at Central Maine Medical Center in Augusta, in hematology.

Like Doyle, he is not stopping there. After receiving an associate's degree in medical laboratory technology, he plans to pursue a bachelor's degree in biology, and "shoot for a physician's assistant," maybe at the University of New England. Right now, he is fulfilling a 40-hour practicum requirement in Augusta to complete his degree.

"Every day is different," he said. It's very interesting, and it's challenging. Your job is very important."

Alley and Doyle, along with Casas and Junge, are all at various stages well into adult life. Casas is a veteran of the Marine Corps; Junge spent a year at Cornell in the 1970s and returned to school 30 years later. They all found their way to the top floor of the Breakwater Building, in the North End of Rockland, where a phenomenal college community has been establishing strong roots since 2007. Prior to that, the campus was in Thomaston, in an old school building there. Now it is a nest of meeting rooms and classrooms, where conversations take place on sofas or in chairs around tables and blackboards.

The years don't matter

Old wisdom and new

thoughts waltz

In this gray-haired head.

— Peg Junge

The college enrolls 600, serving students from across the Midcoast, ages 16 to 72. Between them, they have registered for 1,500 courses. URock is considered a repository of academic excellence, with outstanding professors coming from a variety of backgrounds, like David Farmer, of Cushing, who holds an MFA in art history from Princeton, and teaches art appreciation history, as well as John Shattuck, of Newcastle, former Commissioner of the Deaf and who teaches the Foundations of Vocational Rehabilitation. It is also a place that opens its arms to anyone who has the enthusiasm and curiosity to learn, and wants to shape a future.

"This is not a campus of faceless mobs," said Casas. "The college is open to communicating, and a place to interact with people you would not normally have experiences with."

"The students kind of gather around when you are struggling," said Doyle. "It's very comforting. I did a full life transformation here. I had to accept a lot of things about myself. School was easy before, but I never applied myself. I was a closet geek, and I came out of that closet in the mid-1980s."

The conversation among the four soon-to-be graduates was animated, and introspective. In life, they acknowledged, you can comfortably move sideways, or you can recognize opportunities, and move forward into uncharted waters, feeding your mind, and discovering even more opportunities.

Junge arrived in the Midcoast after living in Ireland. She had been living here for eight years.

"I think I read about URock," she said. "I had a year of college, at Cornell. I dropped out. It forces you to think on your feet."

At that point in her life, she wanted to work, not study. For decades, she ran businesses for others, and was self-employed.

"Business, it's what I know," she said.

But something inside nudged her back to the door of higher education in 2009.

"I just walked up and said, 'I'm thinking about this.'"

She walked up to the right place, and URock found a scholarship for her in an endowment for students who want to try a course or two of college. From there, she propelled herself to earn a bachelor's degree in business administration. Management is her concentration and she is now applying for jobs with nonprofits.

"I want to work someplace where I can help people, organize," she said. "I love process."

She also wants to run businesses so they succeed.

"I would like to run it because I see how everybody is not running it," she said.

Casas grew up in Washington, and spent 4.5 years in the Marine Corps. When he got out of the military, he returned to masonry, a profession he has known since infancy. He also went scalloping with commercial fishermen, and the "pay was really good."

"But I kept hurting myself," he said. "I had crushed hands. And I was always reading. I was reading the back of fire extinguishers on the boats, just to read. Then we got hit by a 1,000-foot freighter."

That's when he, like Alley, decided to shift course. However, he had no SAT scores and his high school record carried a record 1.83 GPA — not so good for getting into college.

His passion for alternative energy production, in particular, offshore wind, was the spark that drove him. He found a welcome in staff both at the Augusta university system campus and at URock.

"'Sure, we'll take a chance on you,' they told me," he said. "They were willing to go out on a limb."

He was able to use the Post 9.11 GI bill to help finance his education. Casas sees veterans as one of the saviors of the U.S. economy.

"Veterans are often viewed as somewhat of a drag on the economy," he said. "But, they are a group of capably proven young people. We have worked in teams. We have worked with our hands, but not with paper and books. Shoving education in their head, and watch the stuff that comes out of their heads! The first semester is most critical. You need that confidence boost."

URock Director Deb Meehan said, "Students with all kinds of personal and academic backgrounds come to URock and our job is to help them meet the goal of finishing a college degree."

Doyle is currently completing an internship at Penquis, a Rockland-based nonprofit whose mission is to help low-income families become self sufficient and improve the quality of life. He fills a variety of roles, and said the academic experience and internship have "prepared me 100 percent. I am absolutely ready to step into a fire in the field."

He turned to Meehan and grinned, and said simply, "Deb pulled me out of the cesspool."

Graduating!

Garrett Alley, of Rockland, A.A., medical laboratory science.

Owen Casas, of Rockport, B.S., applied science.

Steve Doyle, of Rockland, B.S., mental health services.

Peg Junge, of Thomaston, B.S., business administration.


AA Liberal Studies
Wanda Bailey
Phoebe Carlson
Katrina Coakley*      
Hillary Conary*          
Athena Ettlinger       
Frederick Fruehan II*
Sally Fuller*
Marta Gaines           
Sandra Lawrence
Jocelyn Mclean        
Denise Stone*
Shannon Stone       
Jessica White*          
AS Business Administration
Craig MacIntosh*      
AS Computer Information Systems
Anthony Dean*        
AS Justice Studies
Jacob Grinnell
Erika Von Saltza
AS Medical Laboratory Technology
Garrett Alley
AS Nursing
Michael Cox
Margaret Flanagan
Evelyn Fuller
Amy Power
Rochelle Reardon*   
Vanessa Reed-Chapman
Brooklynn Rose        
Donna Scully*
Angela Severy
Eric Verite
AS Public Administration
Brittany Willis*           
BA Architecture
Brenton Dinsmore    
Justin Morgan*
BA Biology            
Frank Pavalkis*
BA Applied Science
Owen Casas*

BA Liberal Studies
Sean Ames*
Tammy Ancira
Elaine Baxley           
Lori Beaucage         
Alison Bramhall*       
Chelsea Cates         
Kayla Dumond*        
Jaime Edwarda
Andrew Frederick*    
Steven Lewicki*        
Taylor Lorenzen
Stacy Nightingale*    
Jamacan Penney-Vassey*
Ingrid Perry              
Melody Sherrick
Cassandra Silvia
Paula Stillings*
Teresa Verrill*
BS Business Administration
Monica Bowen
Margaret Junge*
Katie Orff
Roland Robitaille*     
BS Information & Library Services
Ann Filley*                
BS Justice Studies
Sally Ingram*
Jason Yates*           
Olaf Sigaud*
Steven Summers
AS Mental Health & Human Services
Cherri Merrifield*
BS Mental Health & Human Services
Marcus Carter
Evelyn Donnelly
Steve Doyle
Haley Drisko
Susanna Norwood-Burns*
BA Social Sciences
Diane Rankin*

* graduating with honors

 

Editorial Director Lynda Clancy can be reached at lyndaclancy@penbaypilot.com; 706-6657.