Thirty-three-year-old Joseph V. Geiser stayed in his midsized sedan – and more recently, in his roomier ambulance – while pursuing for three years an associate degree in Butler County Community College’s (BC3) registered nursing program.
Geiser rents a home near Meadville, Pennsylvania, where he works weekend nights as an emergency room technician at Meadville Medical Center. He bought the 21-year-old decommissioned ambulance in August from an Erie County volunteer fire company to replace the 2011 Subaru Legacy in which he lived three nights a week while attending his first two academic years at the Pennsylvania college.
“I live an hour and a half away,” Geiser said. “So instead of driving back and forth, especially in the winter, I wanted to stay down here.”
BC3 maintenance employee Jay Motko, who lives about a mile from the college’s main campus, let Geiser park his vehicle overnight at his place.
“I told him a couple of the other guys in maintenance had made me aware of his situation, and I told him, ‘Hey, you are welcomed at my place anytime. I have plenty of space, plenty of parking, plenty of room for you. Come and go as you need to,’” Motko said.
Roomier than in a Subaru
Geiser had already earned an associate degree in collision repair technology in 2010 from Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology in Lancaster when he decided on a new career in healthcare. It came after he was in a 2011 motorcycle crash that resulted in head injuries and hospitalization for several months.
Geiser began to work as an emergency medical technician with Meadville Area Ambulance Service in 2015 and soon after bought the ambulance from the Mill Village Volunteer Fire Company.
“It was awfully cramped trying to sleep in the Subaru,” he said. “In the ambulance, I have a twin-sized bed that I attached to the floor.”
Geiser studied subjects such as nursing care for patients with complex health problems, pharmacology for nurses and general microbiology on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at BC3’s Heaton Family Learning Commons until the academic and community library would close.
He’d walk to the nearby BC3 Field House to shower, then to a classroom building to resume his studies until 9:30 p.m. Later, he would travel to a convenience store, order a steak or pork quesadilla and a large soda, have his meal in the parking lot as he listened to the radio, then drive to Motko’s property.
Inside the approximately 50-square-foot ambulance compartment, Geiser kept a duffel bag with “on average, probably six” changes of clothing – “Scrubs. A couple pairs of jeans. Couple pairs of shorts if the weather was going to be nice” – and fall atop the twin-sized bed he secured to the floor with zip ties. He would use the light from his cell phone to illuminate the pages he read from his textbooks.
A commitment that paid off
Geiser was named to BC3’s president’s list – a recognition for those who attain a grade-point average of 3.75 or higher while earning at least 12 credit hours in a semester – and, in taking required prerequisite courses, completed the college’s two-year registered nursing career program in three years. He was among the record 74 graduates who earned an associate in applied science degree in registered nursing from BC3 in 2023.
Geiser drove his ambulance away from Motko’s property on Bean Street for the last time as a student in May. On June 5, Geiser began the highest-paying job he has had – as a general nurse at Meadville Medical Center – exactly three weeks after graduating from BC3.
“It will be more than double what I was making as a tech,” Geiser said. “It really hasn’t sunk in yet.”
