Brad Walker’s road to becoming a teacher was far from normal. If fact, he had no dreams to be a teacher at all. Walker had dreams of going into a world of finance, a topic with little correlation to his current job as an English teacher. That raises the question, how did Walker get to this point in his career?
“I went to Rider college and majored in finance,” Walker said in an interview.
This is where his story began. Walker went to Rider College in New Jersey. With a degree in finance, he went into the data management field. He took a data management job in New York City and enjoyed that job for 19 years. A large sum of those years was spent remote managing from Florida; However, Walker’s boss did not like that idea.
“My boss’s boss called me and asked what a manager could being doing in Florida when the job is in New York,” Walker stated.
Although he liked his job, his boss threatened to cut his pay in half. Walker did not like that notion and decided to leave his job in the data management field and decided to stay at his home in Florida.
“I wanted to become a teacher to manage my own classroom, and it ended up being the best decision ever,” Walker said while recounting the story.
Walker stated that his career at Plant began when he became an Exceptional Special Education (ESE) teacher where he taught English. After some time in this position, he eventually graduated to having his own classroom and filling the position as the English teacher he is today. Fortunately, this was not the end of his story.
“I’d buy two boxes of donuts, and I’d have leftover, so I’d always walk down here (upstairs main hall) to try to get rid of them. So, I’d always try to push one on her (Natasha Walker),” Walker said.
Natasha was already a teacher here at Plant for many years when Brad came into the department. After a few years working together, they eventually married and are still happily together with their daughter. Starting from finance, Brad found a happy life in the Plant faculty who we as a school are lucky to have.