NECB Alumni Association

My name is Debra Ferencz, my husband Bob Warecke and I live in MilfordConnecticut.  We have four adult children and one granddaughter.  About nine years ago Bob and I purchase a ChemDry Carpet Cleaning franchise where Bob is owner operator, and I handle closing out the books at the end of each month and prepare for the year end tax return.  For the past eleven years I have been employed at Océ North America as a Sales and Use Tax Manager, and I love what I do.  My husband and I love to travel, each weekend we try to take road trips to the surrounding towns and states.

As a young girl in high school I was allowed the opportunity to be an intern for R.C. Bigelow Tea Company until graduation, which taught many important lessons about work and life.  My mother did not want me to go to college, so I worked very hard and long hours to advance. It wasn’t until my daughter was seven or eight that I was able to make enough to take some college classes.  My daughter has since finished college, obtained her degree, my son is in college and I’m still working on my degree.  I was very lucky that each position that I held helped me to learn more to advance to a better position.  However, I realize now that the disadvantage of advancing without a degree is that if you are ever out of a job you can be passed up for job interviews because you do not have a degree.

So a year ago I found NECB through our company’s website and I transferred my grades from all of the other colleges.  The previous online courses I have taken were not like NECB because the structure was not very good.  NECB offers such great structure with excellent course material, the use of the Epic system and other programs.  They also are very good at communicating with the students to help and ensure nothing gets missed.  My plan for the future is to stick with NECB and obtain my Associates Degree and continue on to my Bachelors Degree.  Attending NECB has been the best decision I ever made regarding my education.

Hello my name is Laura O’Brien. I am 28 years old, and am in the midst of planning my wedding to my fiancé of three years for next October. Before I met my fiancé I graduated from Porter and Chester Institute in 2004 with a certification in Architectural Drafting and Autocad Design, where I went onto work as a draftsman for the next four years until the recession hit in 2008. It was always my dream to design homes and be involved in the renovations/restorations of older buildings.

It was around 2008 when I was laid off, that I made some major life changing decisions which included moving back to where I grew up. At the end of 2009 I was able to find a full time job at a bank and went back to school again. I entered the Marketing program at NECB. I love the freedom that online courses give me so that I can work full time and still have some time for social activities and work.

I now have been working at a job that I love, Waterworks Kitchen & Bath, for one year as the Product Support Coordinator. It makes me happy to still be close to the field of creativity and design, plus, there is always more to learn with the ever-changing technology.

What I have been doing for fun lately has mostly been my wedding preparations. However, we love to be outside hiking with our dog, Remy. Truth be-told I wasn’t a sports fan until I met Chris, but now I sort of am. We enjoy spending our free time with our friends on the weekends watching games/races, movies and just relaxing. We enjoy random day trips to races and cities in the area as well. We try to take trips to places neither of us have been, we like to take little adventures.