Rob Swinton

Background

About Rob Swinton

My new students regularly ask me why I became a Driving Instructor. And I always respond with the fact that I didn’t choose this career; it chose me. My teachers have always been my role models. The influence that a teacher has on the life of a young person is astounding, and I’m living proof of that. As time progressed, the entrepreneurial bug bit me, and I began my own business at 18. At the height of my time as a tutor, I was working with over 20 students each week while working part-time at my alma mater and taking a full course load of college classes. Moving to Scranton may have changed my location but not my drive. Student leadership became my focus. By 2017, I had explored and served in myriad capacities in higher education without having truly found my home institution, despite my best efforts at connecting with students, staff, and faculty. Many small colleges and universities are lost, focusing entirely too much on recruitment and retention while focusing less on increasing the quality of the student experience. Some institutions are simply speechless when it comes to addressing the concerns of its students proactively, namely the majority issues of their minority students. Considering some of the amazing newer professionals I had the chance to know as student staff members, I do still have hope. My Driving Instructor career is part of the typical millennial story. One full time job wasn’t enough to pay the bills. Applying for part time positions where I had the chance to work with students in a different capacity offered an opportunity to positively affect my new Cleveland home and to broaden my skillset. Changing careers was terrifying, to say the very least, but with my wife as the supportive partner I work everyday to deserve and a supervisor who had big dreams and the drive to make them a reality, I jumped in feet first. Since 2016, I have been blessed to serve some of the most interesting and talented young teens that the greater Cleveland area has to offer. I am thankful for their trust and that of their families in being a part of one of the most meaningful journeys of their lives – that which brings them closer to independence and self-reliance. I am at the point in my life where I have more questions than answers. Others would say I’m honest, loyal, and annoying to a fault about making ethical decisions. My chief mission continues to be to positively affect the world around me. Let’s start talking about how we can do that together. Tea for me, please. And if you don’t like cats or Apple, that’s ok. Pobody’s nerfect.