Check out line: Paul Lazaro was second in command at Macy’s Northlake

As more and more big companies pare their workforces, more mid-career workers are looking for new lines of work. Sometimes they’re entirely different from the first 10 or 20 years of their careers, not to mention entirely different from what their education trained them to do.

For Paul Lazaro, losing his job at Macy’s — after 21 years in retailing — was the cause for some soul-searching.

The Harrisburg resident helped open the Macy’s store in Northlake Mall and ran day-to-day operations as assistant general manager.

He pulled down $70,000-plus a year as the No. 2 at Macy’s Northlake. As a nurse, he’ll make $35,000 to $40,000 a year, at least to start. He’s studying at CMC-Mercy School of Nursing.

Lazaro loves the opportunity to help sick people. He said he enjoyed retailing, but never truly loved it. Many people say doing what you love to do in and of itself brings financial rewards.

Getting “severanced out” by the big retailer gave the 41-year-old family man enough time to think through what he really “wanted to do with the second half of my life.”

“I wanted to make it count, it was an opportunity to do something I really wanted to do. Retail was something I enjoyed, but I was not in love with it. It was not a passion for me,” Lazaro said. “My question to myself was ‘what can I do that will light my fire?’”

“I was able to pull my head out and get it screwed back on. The more I looked at it, the more I realized retail will not come back the way it used to…I looked at what will be an opportunity in the future,” Lazaro said.

Lazaro is in a class of 25 Mercy students where he’s among the oldest. The severance package from Macy’s — as well as unemployment and his wife’s income — gave him time to reflect and look at new careers.

He opted for a career as a nurse after a chance encounter with a nurse at an emergency room who had left the construction industry for a new career in healthcare. “A lightbulb went on in my head — a guy who changed careers,” Lazaro remembered.

Lazaro says the new college experience 20 years after his first one — he graduated from Framingham State University in Massachusetts — has been different. Besides embracing all the new technology, Lazaro said he’s also more comfortable about himself and absolutely fearless about asking questions.

Jeanie Moore, vice president of college advancement and continuing education at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College, said community colleges are a perfect setting for people changing careers in their 30s, 40s and 50s.

One recent graduate was 69 years old.

“Community colleges like Rowan-Cabarrus are ideal learning spaces for adult learners. Our faculty understand the lives, schedules and demands of working professionals because many are working in the field in the careers they are teaching,” she said.

Community colleges are also affordable, making it easy to go back to school.

“It is absolutely possible to change careers in midlife and we have students do it every year. Truly, it is never too late,” Moore said.

Richard Zollinger, vice president for learning at Central Piedmont Community College, said even though dislocated workers are looking for new jobs, they often have skills that can be transferred to new industries.

When the motorsports industry let so many workers go because sponsorships dried up, CPCC found that 85 percent of their skills could be transferred to new jobs at Duke Energy.

Zollinger calls it re-careering. By also consulting with employers, community colleges can craft a curriculum that leads to a degree, license or certificate that gets people back to work. “We look at the gaps and determine what we can provide to get that person into a meaningful position,” he said. “There is a great chance that some of your skill sets will transfer.”