Suzanne Smith

Whether Suzanne Smith is traveling the globe working on communications and navigation for the U.S. Air Force, keeping busy raising a family or attending classes to become a registered nurse, Smith is a self-dubbed “do-er,” and she’s found her fit at Central Ohio Technical College.

Born and raised in California, Smith enlisted in the Air Force after high school with an aim to “travel and see the world,” she says. “I’ve always loved aircraft and I basically just like being challenged. So, I went and read the book at the recruiter’s office about all the jobs that are in the Air Force and I picked the one I wanted.” 

That job — in the field known as avionics — took Smith everywhere from North Dakota to Alabama to Portugal to Germany over the course of her six-year military career. When she and her husband returned to civilian life after his retirement from the military, the couple and their two sons settled in central Ohio; that’s when Smith discovered COTC.