Robin Wheelwright and her three daughters celebrating Pride Day.

Wheelwright must mean she loves herself — which is a good thing, of course — because she’s a great storyteller, currently fashioning her own life narrative as well as helping students draft their own as a career coach in the College of Science.

One could argue that every story needs a hero. And Wheelwright has hers: “I am my own hero,” she says. “As a survivor of domestic abuse, I firmly believe that our lives and how we navigate the struggles and hardships are completely up to us. None of it is easy, and I spent many tear-filled nights feeling like I didn’t have it in me to advocate for myself and my kids. But I did. Saving myself and my kids took strength and courage that I didn’t know I had.”

Wheelwright’s path has been a harrowing one toward healing and success, but it has made her not only the editor of her own continuing success story, but the grist for helping others achieve their dreams by drafting their own.  Since her arrival at the College of Science last year, Wheelwright has been tasked with providing personalized career coaching to students guiding them through their career journey to ensure they achieve their professional goals.

Her experiences in the role have proven gratifying. One recent example of that is working with a chemistry student whose goal was to attend a graduate program in Korea so she could study Korean skincare. “We worked together on her resume and her interview skills,” reports Wheelwright. “She was quite nervous going into the interview, but after some coaching and mock interviews, she felt more confident in her ability to articulate her experiences and her motivation. After her interview she said, ‘I must have done better than I thought. I was accepted into not one, but three schools!’ I am so excited for her and this opportunity and the many doors this experience will open for her.”

Wheelwright earned both a bachelor’s degree in biology and a master’s in human resources from Utah State University in Logan. The combined degrees have made her perfectly poised to help students reach their potential as they approach graduation and enter the next phase: their work lives. Career coaching is a little bit of hand-holding and a whole lot of at-your-fingertips resources; a little bit of asking the right questions of your client (and asking them at the right time) and the uncanny ability to help someone see how cool they already are.

Unicorn madness for all ages.

It’s a lot about helping someone find an occupational “fit,” not so that they can rest on their laurels in a static world where everything is customized, but as a stop on the continuum of work that is ever-moving and ever-expanding. In this sense, Wheelwright and her colleagues Laura Cleave and Andrea LeBaron are life coaches, helping individuals develop a skill set that can then be deployed in whatever path they choose.

Wheelwright not only has the training to help students develop this skill set, but also deep, personal experiences that help her to empathize and think innovatively about a person’s options, including those outside the proverbial box.  Those encounters with herself followed by deep self-reflection are threaded through the raising of her three daughters, ages 14, 12 and eight — along with a beagle and two kitties — all of whom have their own developing stories in the works just like Wheelwright’s student clients.

Wheelwright’s tastes and interests are as broad and diverse as the range of students she sees and works with. Not only does she love her kids and her pets, but also “Halloween, drag queens, being outdoors, and all things mythical and mysterious; karaoke, board/card games, and being around people who love and support an authentic and genuine life.”

Little wonder then that when she’s asked who her hero in life is, she offers a self-confident response that her career clients can relate to and that they likely need to hear at this inflection point in their lives: “I have a plaque at my desk that reads ‘She needed a hero, so she became one,'" says Robin Wheelwright. "That’s my mantra and it gets me through tough times.”

Now that’s a storyteller most anyone would pull up a pillow for to give a good listen.

by David Pace