Spotlight

Garcia styles own career ladder

By Laurie Mellas-Ramirez

Blanca Garcia persisted for almost 20 years to earn a degree at UNM while raising four sons who boast the University as alma mater, too.

At UNM since 1989, Garcia styled her own career ladder providing service to six departments on the way up to her current position, accountant III for Extended University.

The first rung, hard earned after three years of applying to UNM, was as a clerical specialist V in the Testing Center. Eighteen months later she moved up one grade to an accounting clerk position in chemistry and later made a lateral move to Contracts and Grants. Her next flight up was to engineering where she worked for three years as an accounting tech before being lured to Continuing Education.

“Associate Dean Dick Crogan noticed my abilities and offered me more responsibilities,” Garcia says.

When her youngest son graduated from UNM, she seized a chance to go fulltime. “It was taking me so long to finish,” she laments. “I still worked fulltime, but I had support from Dick to work my schedule around day classes.”

She earned her bachelor’s degree in 1999 and eight months later ascended to Accountant II through the Human Resources Career Ladder program.

Craving more knowledge, she made another lateral move to the North Campus Comptrollers. An opportunity arose last December to return to Continuing Education/Extended University and move up to Accountant III.

“I’ve made a lot of friends along the way,” Garcia says of her climb to the top. “Good things never come easily and quickly. If you want to achieve something you have to stick to it.”

“Blanca never stops learning, never gives up and is a great inspiration to me and to the rest of the staff here,” said colleague Kathy Meadows.

A native of Mexico, Garcia’s long journey really began in 1978 when she earned a GED and began to dabble in computer and accounting courses. “I always wanted to have a degree. For my time and my culture it was not open for women to be educated,” she recalls. “I’m a rebel. I always did what everybody told me not to or that I couldn’t do.”

That said, being a wife and mother is dearest to her heart.

“Family is very important to me and that has always been number one,” she says, adding that she made it clear to her sons Fernando, Hector, Victor and Hugo that “they had to go to school.”

“Today, even a bachelor’s degree isn’t enough. Two of my sons have earned a master’s,” she proudly reports.

Will she follow in their footsteps?

“I don’t set a goal until I’m ready,” she insists. “Maybe soon.”