Career Center Resources

The rumors had been circulating for months. But when the news finally hit, it hit hard.

Michael Gribble and several hundred other employees at an automotive parts plant in Tennessee were called into a meeting and told that they were out of a job. The plant was closing, they were informed, and their jobs would be filled by cheaper laborers in Mexico.

“I really had no idea what I would do to help support the family,” recalls Gribble, a 40-year-old married father of two at the time. “The first couple of months were scary because we weren’t sure we would be able to make the bills.”

Thanks to federal retraining assistance and a program at Cleveland State University, Gribble bounced back and ultimately into a biomedical services job at Blount Memorial Hospital in Tennessee.

Gribble is one of a growing number of workers who have entered the biomedical field as a second or third career in recent years, according to educators and employment recruiters.

“The number of older, ‘second career’ students is definitely increasing. I would say over half of our students are ‘second career’ students,” says Roger A. Bowles, associate professor of Biomedical Equipment Technology at Texas State Technical College.

Switching Fields

Many of these newcomers to the field had been laid-off as engineers and mechanics from industries — such as information technology, telecom, and semiconductor manufacturing.

In North Carolina, “we have seen a big influx of students from the cabling industry and from manufacturers of fiber optic cable and coax,” adds John Noblitt, BMET Program Director at Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute.

These second career students have been attracted to the biomedical field by the career security and growth of the healthcare industry. As Lee Propst — one newcomer to the field — notes, “the jobs in the medical industry seem to be the most stable and least susceptible to recessions.”

A 39-year-old North Carolina native, Propst began his career in plumbing and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning industries, before becoming a technician at a company that manufactured optical fiber and cable. He survived several layoffs, but wondered when his “time would come.” So in 2002, Propst took voluntary layoff and enrolled at Caldwell.

“I was attracted to the biomed field because it seemed to be closely related to the skills that I possessed and it would be difficult to outsource the jobs,” Propst says. “I had experience repairing complex electro-mechanical equipment and the biomed field seemed to be a natural fit with those skills. Chasing electrons is the same no matter what type of electronic equipment you are working on.”

Rick MacDonald of Dallas, TX experienced a similar career-changing situation, when he was laid off from a software application development position at Tandy Corp. in 1994. MacDonald decided to start his own multimedia/software company, which was successful until his customers were hard hit by the .com bust.

“I had to look for a more secure field while I was still young enough to acquire any skills needed,” MacDonald says. “I looked at several fields, and because so many technical jobs are being taken off shore including software development and support, biomedical seemed to be one of the few not yet impacted.” Propst now works for Siemens Medical in Cary, NC.

Since biomedical had always interested him and he was trained as an electronics technician, MacDonald enrolled into Texas State Technical College. Like others who have switched fields, MacDonald found that his educational background and past job experiences were a perfect fit for a career as a biomedical equipment technician (BMET). In MacDonald’s case, he was able to complete his education in a year, since many of his courses that he had previously taken in electronics applied to biomedical. Last month, he began an internship at the Methodist Dallas Medical Center.

Chris Correll’s career was also reshaped after he was laid off from Nortel Networks, where he had installed and commissioned telecommunications equipment. Today, Correll works at Haywood Regional Medical Center in North Carolina after earning his A.A.S. degree from Caldwell Community College.

“So far it’s been great and I am continuously learning something. It looks like I made an excellent career move at the age of 39,” Correll says.

A Stable Future

While transitions can create anxiety, these newcomers say that the biomedical profession has offered them a chance to work in a growing, rewarding, and exciting field.

“Occasionally, we perform some small service that is particularly rewarding,” says Gribble. “Once, when a surgical table was malfunctioning I got called in to troubleshoot during the surgical procedure. Fortunately, I only had to swap out the remote control for the table but it still felt nice to know that I was able to help keep things running smoothly during surgery.”

Moreover, Gribble and others note, it’s a career that provides job stability at a time when so many other professions lack that benefit.

“I only see the opportunities in biomed expanding in the future,” says Gribble. “As the population grows and ages, there will be a need for more workers in all aspects of healthcare. I certainly would recommend biomed as a profession.”