By: Molly Menchen, University Communications and Marketing Intern
Wayne Taylor, director of the USF Office of Veteran Success, woke up one morning and decided he didn’t want to go to work. That was after serving 20 years in the military and subsequently spending seven years working in the corporate sector.
“It was time to shift my focus and find a sense of purpose again,” Taylor said.
Taylor enlisted in the U.S. Army after high school in 1992 to obtain the GI Bill to attend college. As a warrant officer, Taylor worked alongside combat leaders and technical experts as an area intelligence officer and counterintelligence officer.
Taylor in Afghanistan
He was deployed to Afghanistan twice, where he served with Joint Special Operations Command to support intelligence efforts and retired in 2012 as a chief warrant officer three.
“Since 9/11, I was constantly deploying and traveling for the military,” he said. “I chose to retire so my children could finish high school here in Florida and I could have the opportunity to spend more time with them.”
After retiring, Taylor enrolled at USF to pursue his Doctor of Education in program development with a desire to gain an in-person classroom experience that he missed during his time serving overseas. Not long after, Taylor’s devotion to education and helping students, particularly veterans, led him to a new career at the Office of Veteran Success on the USF St. Petersburg campus.
Now he uses his own experiences as a student veteran to help students. “I thought the transition would be easy to civilian life and the classroom, but I soon discovered I was wrong. What I soon discovered is that 99 percent of the country can’t relate to my time in the military and I felt alone without a community.”
“We're post-traditional students,” Taylor said. “We're coming back to the classroom and exploring with a different perspective. We bring different experiences, different values to USF that allows us to be great contributors to the community.”
Taylor’s efforts have inspired a more veteran inclusive campus, which has led to a significant increase in student veterans using the Office of Veteran Success and its resources. Since completing his Doctor of Education, Taylor is now pursuing a doctoral degree in philosophy in interdisciplinary education to further expand the framework he’s begun to develop.
“With a more open-minded student and faculty perspective, I know it will foster an increase in success for student veterans at USF and beyond,” Taylor said. He hopes the USF Office of Veteran Success can be a hub for student veterans and families that can eventually serve as a model for other Florida universities.
Read more about the Office of Veteran Success and Taylor’s efforts to create a more veteran inclusive campus