Northwood University Student Spotlight - Noemi Castro

Education for Working Adults

The automotive industry is often considered a male trade. However, this was not the case for Noemi Castro, an automotive marketing major at Northwood University at Cerritos College.

“My parents were always supportive…even though the automotive industry wasn’t a typical field for a girl,” Castro laughed.NU Grad Serves as Chrysler Tech Trainer

Noemi Castro graduated a year ago with an automotive marketing major from Northwood University at Cerritos College.

Born in Mexico, Castro grew up in the small town of Janesville, north of Sacramento, where her parents worked in a strawberry field.

When Castro was a sophomore, she joined the SkillsUSA automotive program, a high school program that helps students to develop their knowledge and skills in trade, technical and skilled service occupations. She became very involved in the program and she served as a state and national officer for the program. Castro received a scholarship and enrolled in the Chrysler Automotive Program at Miramar College in San Diego. She received her associate degree in automotive technology in 2005, and worked as a Chrysler certified automotive technician for five years.

Castro found out about the Northwood University program at Cerritos College from a teacher at Chrysler's annual training session. He knew that Castro was interested in getting her bachelor's degree in the automotive field and showed her a flyer of the Northwood program. In 2007, she moved to Norwalk to attend Northwood University at Cerritos College. It was a perfect fit for Castro. The accelerated six-week classes helped her reach her academic goal quickly, the teachers who brought in real life experiences were valuable, and, most importantly, the convenience of taking all necessary classes at Cerritos College and paying only community college tuition until the third year was a significant savings.

She graduated in December 2009 with a bachelor's degree in business/automotive marketing. After graduation, Castro worked as a lead research analyst for Polk in Long Beach, where she researched prices and specifications for new cars. Recently, Castro began working for Chrysler Group, LLC as a technical training instructor.

It has been very busy," she reports. "I am starting to teach some classes within the curriculum, such as Cam In Block and Cam In Head. So far it has been almost two months and it has gone by very quickly!"

Castro works out of Livermore, Calif., which is the San Francisco training center within the network. Several other professionals work alongside Castro and help form part of the West/Denver training area.

"Training technicians has been great," Castro says. "It's an important part of dealership operations. Not only does it help the dealer meet their standards, but ultimately it trickles back to the customer and their vehicles. Trained technicians help the dealer help the customers and at the same time can keep up with technology, as it is constantly changing!"