John Levesque

How did you pick your career? Did you know all along?

My chosen career path was purely an accident. When I was in high school, I wanted to study business and economics and had dreams of working on Wall Street in the financial industry. When I graduated, I went to college to study economics and finance, but found college was not a comfortable fit for me at that time. I left school and went to work for a payroll processing company. I spent my summers working as a whitewater rafting guide and took a Wilderness EMT course one summer so I could be better prepared for any emergencies that occurred on the river. Part of that course was ride-time with a local ambulance service, and the first call I went on with them, the light switch went on and I fell in love with working on an ambulance. I volunteered for a local ambulance service as soon as I had an EMT license, and my passion for it only grew, so I decided to attend Paramedic school. After graduating, I worked for several ambulance services as full time jobs were hard to come by but managed to make a living doing what I loved. After a few years, I grew tired of working 80 hours a week to make ends meet, so I decided to obtain my RN license (which paid double what I was making at the time) and attended a 2-year ADN program. Once I graduated, I had an opportunity to work in an ICU and jumped at it. I spent several years working in the ICU as well as working as a Paramedic on an ambulance because I still loved it. Eventually, when my wife and I decided to start a family, I stopped working as a Paramedic and focused on the role that paid much better. I have worked as a nurse in ICU’s, ER’s, Cardiology offices, and in hospital quality departments. After 20 years of patient care, I decided to change directions and went to work as a consultant in the disability insurance industry where I have been for the last 13 years. I am an advocate for trying things out. I have benefitted greatly from technical / trade school programs which were much lower cost than typical public or private 4-year college programs, and these allowed me to explore different paths that I might not have tried if cost had been higher as that could have been a limiting factor for me. I also believe that when you are young, it’s rare to know what you truly want to do for work or what career you may be well suited to as you continue to grow and mature. I honestly thought I knew, but it turned out that my path was very different from what I was expecting.