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Meet Coreen Demers of South Hadley, Massachusetts. She started as a Directory Assistance operator in 1991, with the hopes of advancing her career through hard work and dedication. One major goal she always had was to obtain a college degree. Twenty-four years later, she is now a senior analyst for Verizon and holds a bachelor’s degree, thanks to Verizon’s Employee Tuition Assistance Program.
As an operator, Demers also served on the Database committee, offering recommendations for improving the site. An active volunteer, she put together a management presentation, providing fellow operators with ways to cope with stress by improving customer-contact skills and learning new stress-reduction techniques.
A few years later, Demers became a splice service technician serving the greater Springfield, Massachusetts area. Working in the Installation and Repair Department, she was responsible for placing drop wires from the pole to the home, and repairing and placing connections in the cable between the central office and the customer location. She quickly advanced to construction, removal and maintenance splice service technician, responsible for placing service terminals on poles, splicing wires, testing cable pairs for different digital services and more. She was also responsible for maintaining crossbox terminals, splicing fiber optic cables and placing fiber optic terminals for FiOS.
But despite her success and accomplishments, Demers always knew she wanted to go back to school.
“I loved splicing but, I was looking at my future and wanted to create more options for myself.”
Demers was able to obtain her associate’s degree in applied science for free as a part of Next Step, an education program available to all qualified Verizon employees. This past summer, she earned her bachelor’s degree from Pace University’s Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Telecommunications through Verizon’s Tuition Assistance Program. That led to a promotion to her current management position.
The Tuition Assistance Program pays up to $8,000 per year per employee for continuing education. Whether an employee is interested in pursuing a bachelor’s or master’s degree, a certificate or continuing education courses, the assistance is available. Verizon recognizes the value of investing in our employees’ development and the impact education has on the vitality and growth not only on the business, but on our employees’ careers as well.
About Tuition Assistance at Verizon
Verizon offers all employees’ across the company access to Tuition Assistance through a program which pay’s up to $8,000 per year for continuing education no matter what level of education. Whether an employee is interested in pursuing a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree, certificate or continuing education courses, the assistance is available for each and every employee to take advantage of. As a company, we recognize the value of investing in our employee’s development and the impact education has on the vitality and growth not only on the business but, on our employee’s careers as well.
Tuition Assistance benefits vary by position, location and business unit.
