After a near-fatal accident forced him to reconsider his future, Rockford Career College graduate Logan McMullen found his purpose in the operating room, and challenged the Class of 2026 to meet adversity with resilience, gratitude, and collective strength.
Four years before addressing the Rockford Career College graduating class, Logan McMullen moved to Rockford to work as a union pipefitter. The work was demanding and often uncertain, but it provided a living, until a serious car accident nearly took his life.
After recovering, Logan was laid off with no immediate opportunity to return to work. His financial situation became dire. He surrendered his truck to the bank, and his home was at risk of foreclosure.
Logan faced a decision: Wait for the union to find him another job or pursue a future better suited to the life he wanted.
He chose a new direction.
After researching healthcare careers, Logan enrolled in the Surgical Technology Associate Degree program at Rockford Career College. His instructors helped him translate complex concepts into practical skills, while extensive lab experience prepared him to enter the operating room with confidence.
Logan also became deeply involved in the RCC community, serving as student council president and veterans club president and participating on the program advisory committee.
Logan currently works in surgical technology at UnityPoint Health–Trinity. He has also decided to continue his education in medicine, with the goal of eventually becoming a cardiothoracic surgeon.
In June 2026, Logan was asked to be the graduate speaker at the commencement ceremony. Blending humor, gratitude, and hard-earned perspective, he reminded his fellow graduates that success is rarely achieved alone, and that graduation is not simply the end of one victory, but the beginning of the next.
Logan McMullen’s Graduation Address
Thank you all for coming to support your graduates today, as you have undoubtedly done throughout their educational journeys.
A little over four years ago, I bought a house and moved to Rockford to be closer to the areas where I would work as a union pipefitter.
It was difficult and often thankless work. If I’m honest, it was never what I imagined for my future when I was young and indulging in the age-old fantasy of finding a career I could love while still affording the necessities: a roof over my head, a reliable vehicle, and a 36-pack of Dr Pepper from Sam’s Club. You know—only the essentials.
Things went well for roughly a year, until I was involved in a car accident at work that nearly claimed my life and landed me in the unemployment line.
For those of you who don’t know, if you are laid off, the union will search for another job for you. Despite the rather bleak situation in which I found myself, I still had a choice: I could wait for my union to find another job for me, or I could pursue something better suited to the kind of life I wanted to live.
Regardless of our circumstances, I firmly believe that people are ultimately presented with only one decision. In all our lives—no matter how long, short, exciting, or mundane—there is just one. I’ll come back to that in a moment.
I attended the Associate of Science in Surgical Technology program at RCC. During that time, I had the privilege of meeting some of the most dedicated and hardworking individuals I have ever met.
I was blessed to watch the young women in my class grow into exceptional surgical technologists with a deep understanding of the surgical setting and their roles within it.
Despite our steadfast work ethic, there was still plenty of play mingled among our toilsome work.
I remember one morning when we heard Lil Jon playing in the hallway. Nellie came dancing through the door, singing, “Shots, shots, shots, shots, shots!” About half of us joined her without asking any questions—not knowing it was her birthday—and the other half were too stunned to say or do much of anything because it was just after eight in the morning.
I’ll let you decide which half I fell in with. Everybody!
Then there was the time Lynette corrected Linda during a lecture. Without thinking, Linda gave a quiet, exasperated response in Spanish, assuming it would be ignored—or at least not understood—until we heard Lynette respond, “¿Qué dijiste?”
In English: “What did you say?”
Don’t worry, Linda. We didn’t forget!
Memories like these make the sacrifices of college a little more manageable—things such as staying up a few extra hours to complete assignments that were absolutely not put off until the last minute.
College is hard, regardless of your circumstances. The support we received from faculty, staff, colleagues, family, and friends was often what made the difference for many of the graduates before you.
However, I must give credit where it is due. At the end of the day, the individuals in this graduating class have shown a kind of mental toughness and resilience that I haven’t seen since my time in the Army.
Speaking of which, the single most important concept that military service will teach a person is the value of collective effort. This idea of all the participants in an endeavor working together in a sort of poetically chaotic harmony is a common theme at RCC.
I would see classmates and instructors helping each other learn in every class I attended. After all, Nothing in life ever truly reaches its full potential if people don’t work together to improve it. Surgery would be a uniquely frightening prospect if the only people involved were the surgeon and the patient. Infrastructure such as natural gas, water, and electricity would be impossible to provide to everyone if only one person were to install and maintain it all. The point is that collaboration and a solid support system can make all the difference between putting up a tent and building a brick house. This collaboration helped to amplify the stellar instruction we all received from our gifted instructors.
For us surgical technologists, those gifted instructors would have been Cari Halverson and Lynette Thorpe. Know that I, along with my colleagues, hold you in the highest regard. I personally watched the two of you sacrifice your time and often your own sanity to provide the highest level of education you could to us, even when it would have been so much easier to just quit on us. I would not be half the tech I am were it not for the passion and dedication with which the two of you taught us. When it comes to caring for the well-being -both personal and academic- of every student on this campus, our dean of students, Patty Delhotal, does not exceed the standard… because Ms. Patty IS the standard.
I will never forget the lessons we learned and the memories we made while we built the student council when you were the student services director. Memories like when we secured a meeting with a local mental health advocacy organization. I embraced you, and I wept at the thought that the work you and I were doing could save a life
in the way I could have used many years ago.
I know that I, nor any other student, ever has to thank you for the things you’ve done and continue to do, but I will never refrain from showing gratitude for the blessing that you are to this school and the people in it.
Among many others, these individuals helped all of us make that singular decision I mentioned earlier. So, as we move from this adventure into the next, I would like to pose a thought to everyone here, especially my fellow graduates. Don’t think of this graduation ceremony as an ending after a hard-fought victory… Decide to see it as the beginning of your next one instead. None of us knows for certain what we will face following today. The only thing we can be certain of is that each of us will face adversity in some form. When it comes, and it will, I would ask that all of you remember a quote that has guided me for several years, written by J.R.R. Tolkien, in his book The Lord of the Rings. : “I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” Said Gandalf. “And so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
Congratulations, graduates. You have earned this victory. Now decide to make it the beginning of your next one.
