As part of our ongoing series that highlights NHTI alumni, the following blog post is written by Rob Kleiner, NHTI class of 2000. He is a board member of Kimball Jenkins, a quality auditor for Northeast Delta Dental, on the finance committee for the Concord Coalition to End Homelessness, and on the grant review team for Granite United Way.
After I finished high school, I was not sure what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I attended UNH for Computer Science and realized quickly that I might not want to code computers every day. Changing my major midstream seemed like an expensive and timely option to consider. I knew I wanted to change, but change to what? I had worked at the UNH radio station, and loved it. I thought perhaps a radio career was in my future. I left UNH and got a job as a radio DJ in my home town of Concord NH. While being on the radio was fun, I knew I wanted to complete my college degree. I still did not know what I wanted to do. That is when NHTI entered the picture.
My dad had attended NHTI and in 1965 was the first alumni to letter in three sports. Soccer, baseball and basketball. Seeing how my father had succeeded in work after attending NHTI, I followed in his footsteps and quickly completed a certificate in accounting. Although numbers and math excite me, I wanted more education at NHTI, so I completed an associate’s degree in business management in the year 2000.
All this time I was working a day job as a radio DJ for Oldies 99. NHTI gave me the flexibility in schedule to pursue my dream of being a DJ while still preparing for a business future. After graduation, I attended Franklin Pierce University. The University accepted most, if not all, of the credits I had earned, making the transition to a bachelors in Marketing simple. After graduation, I transitioned from behind a soundboard of a radio station to behind a desk in an office as an auditor.
NHTI set the foundation and also served as a capstone to my education. I continue to take classes at NHTI, most recently a class in SQL and another on data analytics later this month. I have come full circle to my original love of computers. The flexibility, cost and location has made partnering with NHTI for my lifelong pursuit of education simple and easy.
