It's clear Blanca Martinez Gomez has the recipe for success.
The American Career College graduate owns a catering business, serving her family’s traditional Mexican food to people from Palm Springs to Ventura County and Long Beach for more than a decade.
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HSE stands for High School Equivalency, and is a nationally recognized certificate of high school equivalency. The High School Equivalency (HSE) exam consists of five tests over two days: Writing, Social Studies, Science, Mathematics, and Reading.
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“Wherever they call me from, I’ll go,” Martinez Gomez said, adding that her business’ sole advertising is its food. To place an order, potential customers usually get her name and phone number — or sometimes address — from former clients.
“It’s kind of cute because you never know who’s going to be at my door,” she said, laughing.
Martinez Gomez first came to ACC-Long Beach for its High School Equivalency (HSE) Prep Program because she hadn't completed her education.
“I was told it was going to take me three months to get the HSE done and I did it in half of the time. That was great and that was probably one of the things that motivated me to keep on going,” she said. “I ended up taking a course as a business specialist and now I'm a graduate.”
Martinez Gomez took evening classes and in six months completed the business specialist certificate program, which is no longer offered at ACC.
“At the beginning it was kind of hard, because I had to leave my family at night,” she said. “After they got home, I was ready to go to class, but it motivated me to get it done as soon as possible.”
Martinez Gomez said the program’s focused business training exposed her to new marketing, management and funding resources.
“It opened some doors that were closed to me, especially on the financial side,” she said.
The married, mother of two teenage children said her family cheered her along the entire time, something she was especially grateful for because she wasn’t going back to school just for herself.
“They’re my life. One of the things that motivated me was encouraging them and letting them know if I can do it, they can do it,” she said. “Right now, the unity that we have, it’s tighter than it’s ever been so I think my inspiration has always been and always will be my family.”
After dropping out of school and raising a family, Martinez Gomez said graduating with 1,100 other ACC students this February was an almost indescribable event.
“When you walk out there and you hear all this clapping and yelling and the music and you see the stage and everything, there’s an emotion that goes through you and you get like — your skin crawls and your throat gets tight and you just want to cry,” she said. “It’s never too late to start and if you want to do it, you can do it. As long as you want to, you can do anything.”
