New grad's SFCC degree opens door to auto tech career

May 10—Patricia Victor recalled a time in her childhood when she and her best friend were exploring a broken-down vehicle in a neighbor's backyard.

They determined it was doomed by a leak of windshield wiper fluid.

Victor, who grew up on the San Carlos Apache reservation in Arizona, would later learn the problem was a brake fluid leak.

As she was preparing this week to receive her associate degree in automobile technology from Santa Fe Community College, 39-year-old Victor traced her unconventional career path to what she hopes is her next stop — as an emergency vehicle technician with the Santa Fe County Fire Department.

She is now a trainee with the department, mostly doing preventive maintenance work, she said, and expects to advance to a full-fledged position by the end of the year.

Looking forward to Saturday's graduation ceremony, Victor said, "I'm getting very nervous and excited."

Victor, a member of the San Carlos and White Mountain Apache tribes, said she might have pretended to be a mechanic as a child, but it wasn't a career goal back then. She dreamed of being a dentist, then a U.S. Air Force pilot, then a nun.

Instead, she became a firefighter, an Amazon warehouse staffer, a fiber optics worker, an emergency medical services volunteer, a heavy equipment diesel-repair employee at a mining operation and a road crew flagger.

She learned a lot about vehicles and the people who drive them on the latter job, she said. "It takes a lot to stand there and see how many crazy drivers there can be in a day. You come across some interesting characters."

Victor's mother, who is an educator, and other relatives with college degrees helped inspire Victor to pursue her own at a point some might consider "later in life."

But she had no trepidation.

With her varied work experience, she said she knew she could tackle anything she set her mind to.

Victor became a mentor to other students at the college, said Julia Furry, director of the school's automotive technology programs.

"The science of the equipment did not intimidate her," Furry said, noting a time when Victor discovered a forklift at the college was having mechanical problems. She said, "No problem, bring it in."

The other students then "rallied around her" to help repair the vehicle, Furry said.

The associate degree — along with a long list of professional certifications she has earned — has "added a lot more confidence" for Victor as she considers her future career direction, she said.

It could open doors to even more opportunities. She might one day open her own auto shop or even return to to her childhood home to become an educator, like her mother, she said.

The degree has "given me a head start, a knowledge of the importance in every little step it takes in repairing a vehicle," she said.