Sean Ahmad was nearly burned out. He’d been in the restaurant industry since he was a teenager, at times juggling two jobs and regularly putting in long hours and demanding shifts.
“One day it was like, ‘Why am I doing this? It’s not worth it,’” he recalled.
For years, Ahmad wanted to be a firefighter; he’d earned the necessary credentials but couldn’t afford to put in the years of volunteer work required to land a job.
Unsure of what he wanted to do next, Ahmad joined a temporary staffing agency.
“I tried a couple of different jobs. My second or third job was at Germanna helping the maintenance department clean up earthquake damage—taking things off the wall, putting it in storage,” he said.
Garland Fenwick, then Germanna’s facility manager, “kept asking me to come back every day. Then he asked me if I wanted a job. I said yes.”
After a year in a temporary role—and more months of waiting because of a hiring freeze—Ahmad officially joined Germanna full-time in 2013 as a groundskeeper.
He spent most of his time outdoors, working through extreme heat, frigid cold, and everything in between.
“I always envied the facility guys inside. They were making way more money and I felt like they didn’t work as hard,” Ahmad said—albeit a thought he would later amend. “I kept asking what I need to do to get a job on the inside with the rest of these guys.”
The facilities manager told him to start helping indoors during his down time. On rainy days, Ahmad began taking on on maintenance tasks, asking questions, and learning as much as he could.
Ahmad had always been a curious, hands-on learner, even if he didn’t always look like one in the classroom. He has ADHD and remembers playing games on his calculator while his teachers lectured. But he was listening, too—taking in more than his teachers probably realized.
That curiosity started at home. His mother would bring home old computers from Goodwill, and Ahmad would take them apart just to see how they worked.
It’s part of what he loves about Germanna: There is always something new to learn, something to fix, or another skill to explore.
When he learned that as a Germanna employee he could take advantage of the college’s classes and trade courses, he signed up for the Heating, Ventilation, Air Condition, and Refrigerant training program. With classes and hands-on training available in the evenings and on weekends, Ahmad worked full-time at Germanna while pursuing the certification.
He had just finished three years of the four-year program when he learned that the fourth year wouldn’t be offered at the time.
Ahmad would have to take a break—at least from HVAC. He enrolled in Germanna’s electrical program, where students can build their skills through progressive levels of hands-on training.
“When things don’t go according to plan,” he said, “I try to look for the opportunities that come with the change rather than focus on the setback. I was actually excited about the opportunity to get more in-depth experience on the electrical side.”
Then he hit another speedbump: the pandemic. He’d just completed his second year when classes shifted from in-person to online. Ahmad decided to put that track on hold, too.
But there was a bright spot: He’d landed a job as a general trades technician working inside Germanna. (He decided that they didn’t work less hard than the groundskeeper. It was just a different kind of hard.)
He and his wife were also expecting a baby. Ahmad decided to take time to focus on his family.
Not long after, Tina Lance, Germanna’s Dean of Professional and Technical Studies and Workforce Development, approached him.
“She said, ‘You know, you’ve only got a year left of HVAC. There’s availability in the program.’”
He signed up, took the final course, and earned his certification.
At last.
Today, he is working as Germanna’s lead HVAC technician. No day is the same. And he’s never exactly sure what he’s walking into each morning. It’s the kind of work he loves—the chance to stay busy and tackle ever-changing challenges.
“HVAC wasn’t something I had a yearning to do. I saw a need and an opportunity. I’d like to take all the trades. I think having that broader knowledge makes you more well-rounded,” he said.
Ahmad’s best advice from his lived experience: “Don’t automatically look at being thrown off course as a setback. Sometimes the path you didn’t plan on taking gives you knowledge or experience that ends up being valuable later.”