The Galesburg Area Vocational Center isn’t just a place where students learn how to change oil or diagnose electrical faults. For many, it’s the first meaningful doorway into a future they didn’t know was available to them. Averee Lodwick, a junior from United High School, is one of those students—a young woman who walked into the GAVC automotive technology program unsure of her abilities and is now walking out with confidence she never imagined.

Averee wasn’t born into the world of cars. She laughs about being “a girl from Florida,” where she rarely saw classes like this offered in school. She was born in Galesburg, moved to Florida at age three, and returned to Illinois in eighth grade. When she landed at United, she had no intention of taking Automotive Technology. Her interest in skilled trades didn’t awaken until a field trip to Carl Sandburg College, where a friend insisted she tag along to look at welding. That visit introduced her to the very existence of GAVC—and the choice between welding and auto technology.

She chose auto. But she walked into the classroom with a certain amount of doubt.

“I really didn’t know anything when I first came in,” she says. “I literally had no clue what I was doing.” She worried that her dyslexia would stand in the way of understanding complicated systems—engines, tires, motors, the intricate web of sensors and electronic controls that define modern vehicles. She doubted her ability to keep up.

Then came the hands-on work.

Once she started turning wrenches, studying systems, and putting her hands directly into the heart of the machines, something clicked. “The more that I figured out what I was doing,” she says, “the more I realized I can really comprehend this stuff.” She discovered she did understand how systems interact. She learned that her brain, which tends to think in tactile, physical ways, is actually well-suited to automotive problem-solving. And she learned it in a classroom where her instructor, Jeff Gardner, insisted she could do more than she believed.

“He pushes me to do stuff that I think that I’m not able to do,” she says. “Then, when I get the hands-on and start doing it, I’m like—wow. I really can do it.”

Gardner has been teaching Automotive Technology at GAVC for nine years, after a 32-year career as a professional technician. He got into the field the hard way: “When I was 16, my first car quit running,” he recalls. “My mom had it towed and fixed, then handed me the bill.” In 1980, a $100 repair hit like a punch. “I decided I wasn’t going to pay anybody anymore,” he says. So he taught himself—first with friends, then at Carl Sandburg College—until eventually he was hired at Galesburg Lincoln Mercury and later transitioned to a Nissan dealership. By the time he stepped into teaching, he’d spent three decades mastering the craft.

His classroom blends patience, expectation, and realism. Students begin with fundamentals—safety, tools, shop practices—before moving quickly into basic electrical systems. “Every system on the car is in some way controlled by a computer,” he says. Understanding electricity is no longer optional; it’s the new foundation. From there, the class digs into diagnostics, maintenance, and system interactions. And as vehicles evolve, Gardner teaches students to evolve with them.

But not every student chooses the same path. Jason Peterson, a junior at Galesburg High School, came to Auto Tech because he grew up working on cars with his father, who spent years at Dave’s Collision Repair. Jason’s goal is clear: he wants to go into collision repair after high school. He plans to attend a trade school—either Blackhawk or Lincoln Tech—and start his career working for someone else before even considering a shop of his own. His sister is going into teaching. He jokes that both careers involve fixing things—just different kinds.

Averee’s future points in a different direction. While she plans to take Automotive II next year as a senior, her heart belongs to welding. Last year, she discovered she loved it—really loved it. “It was like a spark came on,” she says. “I was like, this is totally what I want to do.” She even approached the Galesburg principal about securing a second-semester welding internship through GAVC. Gardner, far from being disappointed, supports her completely. “I like to see them go do what they want to do,” he says.

That mindset is the spirit of GAVC: possibility over prescription. Students from Galesburg, United, Abingdon-Avon, Williamsfield, Knoxville, West Central, Monmouth-Roseville, and others come here because they want something real—skills, clarity, direction, a sense of their own capability. Gardner doesn’t just teach them how to work on vehicles. He teaches them confidence. He shows them that their future can be built with their own hands—and that the trades aren’t a fallback, but a foundation.

For Averee, Jason, and countless others, that foundation begins right here, under the hood, learning how the world works one system at a time. And discovering—perhaps for the first time—that they can shape their own futures with sparks, tools, and determination.