Thanks to Pat Cochran-Campbell, a native of northern California’s San Joaquin Valley, a new healthcare career training school – A.C.I. Career College – is now ready to address the shortage of well-trained, competent healthcare support staff in the Valley.
At its McHenry Avenue campus in Modesto, A.C.I. Career College offers six accredited programs: Health Information Specialist, Medical Clinical Assistant, Medical-Dental Administrative Assistant, Pharmacy Technician and Massage Therapist, all 36 weeks in duration, along with a 15-week program -- Medical-Dental Receptionist. Each of the six healthcare programs combines lecture/demonstration, hands-on laboratory procedures and a clinical externship.
Two factors led Cochran-Campbell to establish A.C.I. Career College.
First, Cochran-Campbell wanted to add Massage Therapy to the curriculum of the highly successful, 51-year old cosmetology school, Adrian’s Beauty College, started by her husband Adrian Cochran, where she has been President and CEO since 1999. However, both the Modesto and Turlock campuses are at capacity and the Turlock campus has a waiting list.
The second factor is the pervasive demand for trained healthcare professionals to provide quality medical and dental services to the aging U.S. population (there are 78 million baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964). With major expansions in three of the largest hospitals in the San Joaquin Valley, a veteran entrepreneur and educator like Cochran-Campbell quickly recognized the supply-demand imbalance.
A Passion for Lifelong Learning
Pat Cochran-Campbell’s adult life has been characterized by a heartfelt commitment and dedication to learning and education, especially as the most crucial resource to help women in desperate need. She strongly believes that women in difficult circumstances have a chance to gain a step up to a more promising future by ending the cycle of hardship through career training and lifelong learning.
Cochran-Campbell’s career journey began with working in the home raising two daughters. Added to her full-time domestic duties and responsibilities was a dedication to volunteer work as a Brownie and Girl Scout leader, a young women’s baseball and basketball coach and a single-minded commitment to help women in extreme need, many of whom were fighting back against domestic violence.
When her daughters entered high school, Cochran-Campbell officially entered the business world, beginning in the accounting department of Adrian’s Beauty College.
Along the way, Cochran-Campbell’s personal commitment to lifelong learning is evidenced by the partial list of more than 40 workshops, seminars, classes and advanced skills training she has attended since 1984 – covering every aspect of running a business, as well as continuing to “stay at the top of her game” with advanced skills training in the cosmetology field, e.g., 22+ years as a licensed Cosmetologist and 20+ years as a licensed Cosmetology Instructor. In her “spare time” she received a Teaching Certificate from the University of California at Berkeley.
There doesn’t seem to be an area of business she hasn’t been involved in – from accounting, finance, staff recruitment and training, marketing, customer service, payroll, clerical, purchasing, sales and research, cost analysis, budgeting – to skills specific to operating an accredited career school – approval applications with government agencies, curriculum development, site acquisition and design, course catalog development, policies and procedures, implementation of a job placement program, counseling prospective students…to name just a few of the functional areas she has mastered.
Cochran-Campbell exhibits the talents of a true entrepreneur -- extroverted and multi-talented, with an enviable blend of creative and administrative abilities. And, there’s living proof of her role model status, as both daughters have followed in her footsteps. Rebecca Abinales runs the Modesto campus of Adrian’s Beauty College and Sherri Cytanovich runs the Turlock campus.
With over 26 years in private college management and more than 24 years as owner of five private colleges, Pat’s life philosophy – learning never ends and change is constant -- has encouraged and inspired countless women to choose education as the means to empowerment in their personal and work lives.
To request free information from A.C.I. Career College, visit our featured schools and click on request information.
Return
to Beauty College Directory Beauty
Industry Articles and News
