Julie Mackin becomes a hero - trades nuclear medicine for career with kids

As a young woman in the 1970s, Julie Mackin wanted to make it in a man’s world and make lots of money doing it.

“I wanted to do it all; I wasn’t going to let anything stop me,” she said. “I was running marathons back when women weren’t.”

A radical change to her career path, though, and the lives she’s changed since earned Mackin the title of 2008 Green Bay Press-Gazette Everyday Hero in the category of education. Everyday Heroes are people whose deeds make Northeastern Wisconsin a better place to live.

Mackin was a nuclear medicine technologist at St. Vincent Hospital and said she was succeeding in a male-dominated career.

She was never one to ooh and ahh about babies, but when a little girl with Down syndrome came in for tests, Mackin felt at home working with her when another tech hesitated.

Mackin believes that event foreshadowed the midlife change in her career path. Today, she teaches special needs students at Franklin Middle School in Green Bay, and her focus shifted from making cash to making a difference.

The transformation began when Mackin married her husband, Mike, and had children. After her first child was born, she went back to work, and intended to do so after the second.

“Our second (Marnie) was special needs, and I thought I’d be able to go back to work, but after three months I realized that wouldn’t work,” Mackin said. Marnie, now 21, had health problems and needed to be in a full body cast for about eight months. Mackin left the hospital to care for her daughters, and then had a son and another daughter. Ten years later she went back to the hospital, but found her heart wasn’t in it.

“I wanted to do something with kids,” she said. “I found myself wanting to do something to make a difference.”

So she became a part-time paraprofessional working with special education students for the Green Bay School District. Two years later, she signed up for education courses at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

“It’s hard to make a change,” she said. “I was terribly afraid.”

Completing undergrad courses and achieving a master’s degree took about 10 years, she said. She’s now certified to teach special education.

Now she wouldn’t have it any other way. She considers her students her family, and admits she spends a lot of home time thinking about her second set of “kids.”

Full Story