Todd

They're working long before any students arrive in school, and they'll be there long after the last one has left. They spend their days elbow deep in bleach, brooms, mops, and that crazy powder they pour on the ground whenever that sick kid throws up all over the place. They are the unsung heroes of the education system.

They are the custodians.

Todd has been hard at work as a custodian in the public school system for eight years. He's been bounced between the elementary and the junior high schools in his district because, as he put's it, "one of the worst parts of the job is that they can put you in a new position whenever they damn well please.”

For a long while, from the time he left home at 18 until about 2005, Todd made his own way in the world. He worked dozens of odd jobs in addition to cleaning up the buckets of finger paint and juice stains that are so prevalent in elementary school classrooms. He's been a delivery driver, stock boy, clerk, cashier, and, of course, the guy you call when your computer is doing the weird thing again. He spent the time in between jobs at several local colleges, trying to earn enough credits to attain his degree in IT.

In 2009, realizing that although he had a good job he wanted more, Todd signed up to join the U.S. Military as an airman. He began basic training in October of 2009, eager to begin a new chapter in his life. Unfortunately here too, he met with plain bad luck. An injury sustained during basic training revealed an underlying medical problem that forbade him from serving. He was let go from the Air Force and returned to his job in the school.


With rent, food, tuition, gas, and the lost months given to the Air Force, there wasn't much room to save up for a future. But Todd was always thinking ahead. He dreamed about flipping houses in another state with his brother, or opening a dojo somewhere in the Hudson Valley. He was and remains a dedicated man, having the work ethic and drive to do whatever he put his mind too.

All of that changed in 2011, when he married the love of his life, a beautiful artist. Things for the pair changed even more several months later when they welcomed their son into the world.

Todd is a family man now, and has begun to look beyond his work in the schools to pursuing a career in the corporate world as an IT specialist. Although his background in computers is sound and his ability with them extensive, companies are reluctant to hire someone who doesn't have that lovely slip of paper with a B.A. or B.S. on it that most of us are still paying for.

Todd stays positive throughout it all. "I see both sides to the degree thing, as far as employment is concerned. But a degree doesn't actually show how much knowledge someone has or even how smart some one is. It just evidence that shows how much work someone is willing to put in to attain something. Not having a degree doesn't mean not having work ethic. It just means you don't have that evidence, that proof of work ethic.”

 He's determined, he's got the know how and he has that ethic. Now it's only a matter of time.