(Pictures)This 54-year-old just graduated from the school he worked as a night cleaner

In 1982, 54-year-old Michael Vaudreuil received an associate’s degree in aeronautical engineering, but couldn't pursue his chosen career in the struggling airline industry.

To provide for his family he started work as a plasterer. When he lost his business in 2007 and took a college custodial job, he thought his professional life was over. That is until he found purpose in academia.

It was 2008, the year of the American economic downturn, when Vaudreuil filed for bankruptcy, his house was foreclosed on and his car repossessed. His thriving 24-year plastering business closed down.

Months earlier, in May 2007, a typically busy time for construction work, he sat home for two weeks without any jobs lined up, the first time that had ever happened in all the years he’d been an independent contractor. It was an early indication that hard times were ahead. 

By fall, he tried to find a steady job with a construction company but by then no one was hiring. And now he no longer had the extra income to support his wife’s coffee vending machine business — so that went under too.

The only work he could find was as a night custodian at a local college. It was about a 50 percent pay cut, the work wasn’t stimulating, but the benefits were good. He decided he would take advantage of every free benefit the school offered so it would feel like he was making more money.

He did schoolwork in the early mornings and after class in the afternoons before he started his 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift cleaning the academic building bathrooms and powerscrubing the floors. He rarely saw his wife, who had gone back to school as well to get a teaching degree. She worked days, he worked nights. And when he was home he was studying.

Nearly a decade after his life unraveled, Vaudreuil graduated on May 14 with a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering. 

He wrote “OLD DOG HAS NEW TRICKS” on the top of his mortarboard, and on each corner inscribed a single initial: a “J” for Joyce, his wife; a “P”, for Paul, his son; and an “A” and “N” for Amanda and Nicole, his daughters.

His supervisor, Gary Antinarella, said he noticed a difference in Vaudreuil when he started taking the classes. There was a buoyancy that wasn’t there before.

“He just became a happier person,” Antinarella said. “He’s a very intelligent guy so his mind was always active. He’s a pleasant guy, but it made him a nicer person and employee.”

Other employees had taken advantage of the free classes perk, but none to the extent Vaudreuil did, said Antinarella, who has worked at the school for 20 years. Seeing their colleague succeed was a motivational boost to the whole custodial staff, he said.

Vaudreuil’s wife, Joyce, said they both came from families that instilled the value that when you get knocked down, “you pick yourself up, and dust yourself off and move forward.”

(Courtesy: Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Washington Post)