Gaining Altitude with Guadalupe Guzman Ramos – Current WMU Aviation Flight Science Student and Future Professional Pilot
Guadalupe "Lupe" Guzman Ramos has learned a lot from his parents, not the least of which is a willingness to take a risk.
In the early 1980s, Guzman's father surmised that future prospects in his home community of Oaxaca near the southern tip of Mexico were not all that bright.
He dug up his roots and replanted them in southern Florida harvesting bumper crops of tomatoes and watermelons, an occupation the now-U.S. citizen still practices with Guzman's mother, who eventually brought the rest of the family to a new home in Immokalee, Fla.
Now a senior majoring in aviation flight science at the WMU College of Aviation, Guzman had almost no connection to his future career choice while growing up, other than a flight from nearby Fort Myers to Dallas, Texas -- and he was dragged into that 2009 experience almost kicking and screaming.
"The thought of being thousands of feet in the air frightened me," he wrote years later in a scholarship application. "I was very nervous as I boarded the plane with my mother, and I became terrified as we lifted off of the ground. After a few hundred feet in the air, for some reason I became very curious to look out the window.
"The view from the sky changed my life," he said. "I remember feeling so free, happy and inspired." For the first time he pictured a life outside of growing and harvesting tomatoes and watermelons. As over the years he watched those delicious members of the produce world mature, so did his career aspirations grow.
Immokalee is a 25,000-population, mostly Hispanic community in Collier County located in the southwest tip of Florida. Once highly swampy, it was drained to become an agricultural mecca with some drawbacks. A 1960 episode of CBS Reports -- basically what "60 Minutes" is these days -- focused on the harsh lives of migrant workers there.
Guzman sampled a bit of that, recalling his mother's 4 a.m. wake-up orders: "Hurry up, son! The bus is on the way." Not the bus to head for school -- the one taking the 9-year-old and his four siblings to the watermelon and tomato fields. That's how the Guzman kids helped the family raise money for school clothes, shoes, supplies and anything else needed to survive.
With a career as a pilot firmly seeded in his mind, Guzman tackled his studies at Immokalee High School with the same stick-to-it-ness needed in the fields to finish each day. His senior year in 2019 was spent dually enrolled at Florida SouthWestern State College in Fort Myers.
While there, he tailored his higher-education research to identify what university had an aviation program and a College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP). The ideal location? Western Michigan University. And why should somebody from Immokalee not head to a place called Kalamazoo?
CAMP is a federally funded initiative that supports migrant and seasonal farmworkers (plus their dependents) in their pursuit of college degrees by providing academic guidance, career planning, cultural enrichment and financial assistance.
"People tend to ask me why I left my home state," Guzman says. "I tell them I must chase success. You can't be scared to succeed. My parents came to a whole different country not knowing where Immokalee was. I at least knew where Michigan was. I wasn't scared to step out of my comfort zone.
"WMU offered me the best financial-aid package," he says. "It was a no-brainer. When I arrived, CAMP made me feel at home and always made certain I was OK mentally, physically and academically. They had my back and I knew it."
Another supportive resource is the Western chapter of Lambda Theta Phi, a first-of-its-kind social fraternity founded nationally in 1975 to help celebrate the Latin culture in a college environment and promote academic success for members of this ethnic population.
Still relatively new on the Western campus as a student organization, Guzman, who has served as chapter president, was "involved in organizing meetings and communicating its goals to fellow students." He sees it serving "as a voice for the Latino community and providing opportunities for Latinos to be involved on campus as leaders within the university."
Now as its induction officer, Guzman strives to point new members to the organization and become part of a "brotherhood. Coming from Florida," he says, "I didn't know anybody. I didn't know where I was going to stay." He believes such a brotherhood will make risk-taking a little less anxious. Guzman's "blood" brother is a Lambda Theta Phi at the University of South Florida. So it's something like "All in the Family."
Hauling huge watermelons all day can be taxing. So can some aviation classes. "My favorite ones have been the commercial and instrument ground classes," he says. "I struggled, no doubt, but they seemed like the ones I would need to become a better pilot." A good enough pilot to be admitted into the Aviate program, United Airlines' career-development pathway for pilots.
He's also learned that, just like with CAMP and his fraternity, other resources are there to help him achieve his risk-taking mission "Being able to network with many people and creating lifetime relationships -- none of this would have ever happened," he says, "if I didn't decide to come to Western."
More insights have come via courses that might not have come his way if he had decided not to attend a comprehensive university -- such as a class in psychology. "At first," he admits, "I didn't really like it, but the more that the semester went on, I became more interested in how the mind works. The mind is very powerful."
Guzman keeps his body as "powerful" as possible by working out at the gym during the week. He also lettered in soccer in high school so he knows how to run. But his mind has been working out ever since childhood.
"Growing up in a poor migrant community," he says, "empowered me to persevere, build character, be responsible and motivated, and work hard. It has inspired me to excel in my studies, maximize every opportunity, and seek remarkable experiences.
He, according to what he wrote in his scholarship essay, "beat the odds" and promises to "most importantly, bring hope to the small town I call home -- Immokalee, Fla."
And all because of a so-called routine flight from Fort Myers to Dallas.