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Alumni Stories

After 31 years and 5 overseas assignments, John Toppel made the decision to retire from the Hewlett Packard Company. Several years earlier, he knew this situation would eventually come and he decided to make some plans for re-invention well in advance.

On a parent's weekend visit to Villanova in 2000 when John's son, John was a freshman, he had the opportunity to talk to a number of students who were struggling in the job market. With some research he began to realize that many of the career counseling professionals had the degree (Counseling) but not the experience in the working world. A combination of the education and experience would be an excellent place for a re-invention.

In May of 2001, John finally got around to making an appointment to talk to Dr. Xiaolu Hu to talk about the idea of starting in the Counselor Education program at San Jose State. It happened to be the first day of class for the summer session and she said, why not start today! He did and three years later received his master's degree.

During the three year period, in an unrelated circumstance, John began guest lecturing in the Business School at Villanova University in Philadelphia. John and his family had participated in a training film about working and living overseas. (They had lived in Hong Kong, Australia, Mexico, Switzerland and Korea with Hewlett Packard). Turns out that one of the classes at Villanova used the film. A friend of John' son took the class and wondered if the person in the film was his fiend's father.

On thing lead to another ... John spoke to the professor who was using the film and she invited John to speak to the class. This first guest lecture was done over video conference and with that success was invited back. Over the next 2 years, at each semester John spoke at Villanova. In doing so he got to know several faculty members who were interested in having John work at the Business School as part of a special one year program of Business Fellowship.

With a freshly minted master's degree, retirement looming ahead, John leaped at the chance to participate. In the fall of 2004, he will be co-teaching a course in Internal Business Management and working in the Business School Office of Student Development to to offer career counseling to students.

While commuting 2500 miles from John's home in Los Altos may not be the ideal situation, the opportunity to gain this experience is too good an opportunity to pass up. Hopefully he will be in a position to return in one year to find a similar opportunity in a Bay Area University, maybe even San Jose State. John's wife Margaret will stay in California where she is employed at the Addison Avenue Credit Union.

Re-invention, taking the opportunity, being tenacious in pursing goals have all come together at the completion of the Counselor Education program.