When Kip Turner applied to work at AT&T in 1973, he didn’t expect to spend his whole career there.
He was 18 years old and had just dropped out of Arkansas State University. His lumber truck driver gig wasn’t cutting it, so he drove to Little Rock, Arkansas, for an interview and joined AT&T as a station installer.
Turner, now 68, has spent the last 50 years with the company, holding “right around eight” different roles, and will likely retire in the next few years, he tells CNBC Make It.
His one regret: Not using his employer’s education benefits to go back to college. “I would have loved to have completed an engineering degree,” he says.
Currently, AT&T offers eligible employees up to $30,000 in tuition reimbursement, and partners with schools like Notre Dame and North Carolina A&T to help employees complete degrees at $30,000 or less. Courses are 100% online, the company says.
Turner advises younger professionals to “take advantage of all of the training and education opportunities” a company offers, “whether it’s internal, whether it’s a tuition reimbursement, whether it’s allowing you time to go back to school.”
“It makes me wish that I had availed myself of all those [benefits] years ago,” he says.
