Many people begin making career plans in high school or college. For Dr. Lori Weyers, the process began a bit earlier.
“As early as kindergarten I wanted to be in education,” says Weyers, who is retiring as president of Wisconsin’s Northcentral Technical College. “I’ve never wavered from that desire. My first love was being a teacher and that is why, from kindergarten through high school, I never varied from that.”
After serving as president for 15 years and holding positions in the Wisconsin Technical College System for 42 years, Weyers leaves a record of improvements and accomplishments that includes “substantial” enrollment growth, strategic partnerships with local businesses, K-12 school districts and community organizations and establishment of NTC’s nationally acclaimed Virtual College, according to the district board of trustees’ statement on her retirement.
Weyers became interested in students with special needs while growing up with a brother who was stricken with polio, which affected his physical and mental development. “Watching all of the challenges that my older brother went through and the impact on our family led me to get a master’s in rehabilitative counseling, working with families and individuals hit by some kind of a tragedy,” Weyers says.
“My brother was a very healthy kid and then — bam! — he ended with a whole change in personality,” Weyers says. “I watched what he went through in school with the other kids being very cruel.”
That experience and her studies (her bachelor’s degree is in psychology and behavioral disabilities) took her into vocational ed, where she was quite content. But education leaders repeatedly suggested that she should obtain a doctorate and seek a college presidency.
“I went back to school at the ripe old age of 46,” she says with a laugh. Six and a half years later, after earning her Ph.D. in educational leadership and policy analysis from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Weyers became NTC president.
