Join the Navy or go to college. That was the decision facing Davey Peguero after high school. Considering that no one in his family had attended college and he didn’t know how he’d pay for it, it was a daunting decision.

It was during a chance conversation while playing basketball with an old friend who attended Naugatuck Valley Community College and sang its praises, that Peguero decided he would choose higher learning. “If it wasn’t for that conversation I don’t know what I’d be doing today,” he says. With the help of a Northwest Regional Investment Board grant, Peguero was soon enrolled at NVCC and regularly spending 14 hours a day on campus.

He did much more than attend classes. “I got involved with clubs; offering my services for the offices here; trying to network, know key people or someone who could support my endeavor being in school; gaining new friends; talking about new things I didn’t talk about in high school; joining book clubs;  just really creating a new life in a way,” Peguero says.

Ask Peguero about his mentors at NVCC and he rattles off a long list without hesitation—from counselors who helped him select the right courses, to professors who helped him develop as a person, to professional staff in Student Services who helped him with work skills.

“Davey is a student who is very persistent and will never say never. If he wants something or wants to do something, he will find a way to be successful at it,” says Sam Johnson, a counselor in NVCC’s Center For Academic Planning and Student Success.  “His work ethic speaks for itself and people gravitate to him because he is hard working and a leader.”

To accelerate his degree, Peguero earned credits at other community colleges, but for him, NVCC is home. “Hands down, it’s the best one and it’s because of the people who work here and how much they care and how much time they’re willing to spend with you after class or the advice they’re going to give you.”

After graduating from NVCC with an associate degree in business management in May 2014, Peguero continued on to Western Connecticut State University (WCSU), where he earned a bachelor’s degree in December—also in business management. He says he used the same recipe for success at Western that worked so well at NVCC.  “If a key person that I wanted to build a relationship with was teaching a class, I took it. I tried to build that student-teacher relationship. And then after that, it would build onto networking.”

Using that formula, Peguero says he was able to connect with the career development director at WCSU and gain an internship at Cartus Corporation, which specializes in corporate relocation. He’s hoping the internship turns into a job now that he has completed his undergraduate work.

But Peguero isn’t done with his studies. He plans to earn an MBA by attending evening classes while working full-time during the day, with the ultimate goal of earning a Ph.D. in finance or economics and starting his own business—but education will come first, he says.

“Instead of monetary richness, I want to get mind richness.”