The Cupertino Courier
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Dad, daughter find prescription for success
By Erin Hussey
As a teenager, Raquel Montoya used to complain about working at her father's business. She and her sisters hated it when he would make them roll sections of carpet until the edges aligned perfectly. Little did she know that one day she and her dad would be working in the same profession and in the same place, or that she might someday be his boss.
The Montoyas are the only father-daughter team on the nursing staff at Kaiser Permanente's Santa Clara Medical Center. Both graduated in 2005 from the licensed vocational nursing program at De Anza College in Cupertino.
Nursing is a second career for Mark, who owned the San Jose-based M and M Furniture store for 23 years. "I started the business pretty much right out of high school.''
During the first 15 years of the store's history, he sold handmade, customized bed frames. But as time went on and the import competition continued to rise, it became a strictly buying and selling store.
"I continued for another eight years, but found that a little part of me had died because what I really loved was working with my hands and making my products," Mark remembers. "So I started thinking about doing something different."
Around that same time, Raquel was contemplating similar questions.
"I was pregnant and about to graduate high school," she says.
Raquel's original plan was to graduate, have her baby and then attend interior design school. While she did graduate from Cupertino High School, the birth of her son Nathaniel changed her career choice.
"My son was in the neonatal intensive care unit as a baby," Raquel says. "I ended up talking with a lot of the nurses and through my experience, I decided that that was what I wanted to do."
While the nurses advised her to start school the same year her son started kindergarten so they would have similar schedules, Raquel couldn't wait to get acquainted with the medical world.
"I went to medical assistant school first, loved it and said, 'I'm going to keep going.' "
Raquel enrolled in the vocational nursing program at De Anza College and encouraged her father to do the same.
"She would tell me, 'Papa, why don't you try this? I think you would be really good at it,' " says Mark. Despite being somewhat hesitant at first, Mark enrolled in two courses with his daughter.
"We took a psychology and a sociology class together and I loved it," says Mark. "It was great, I started using my mind again and said 'I want more of this.' "
Mark and Raquel continued to take courses together and eventually signed up for the LVN program at De Anza.
"He's the super-study, read every single word on the page twice kind of guy," Raquel laughs. "He records the lectures and listens to them in the car while he's driving. My books are still in the plastic."
Although they did not share study habits, both Mark and Raquel graduated with extremely high marks. Following her graduation, Raquel was accepted into the registered nursing program at De Anza, where she was the president of the Student Nurse Organization. She graduated from the RN program last December.
Mark, on the other hand, worked for the past two years in Kaiser's Emergency Department. He's now enrolled in the RN program at Gavilan College in Gilroy.
Today, both Mark and Raquel work at the new Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Santa Clara, love their jobs and note that their past experiences make them better nurses.
"It does have its similarities," says Mark, comparing retail and nursing. "People come in and they have a problem or a goal that they want to achieve and you help them get through it. Working with customers for so long, you can sense what they are thinking even if they don't always communicate it verbally."
Raquel agrees and adds that her personal history in the NICU makes her more passionate.
"I feel like it's my duty to sit down with the parent and really explain to them what is going on," she says. Their fluency in Spanish also helps them calm patients who would otherwise not know what was going on.
"That is one of the most rewarding things for me," says Mark.
Because Raquel works the night shift and Mark works mainly during the day, they don't see much of each other at work, but enjoy each other's company at home.
"It's nice to come home and have someone to talk to and understands the trials and tribulations," says Raquel. Raquel and her son, who is now 7, live with her parents. She adds that she is very fortunate to have their help.
"It's been a challenge but I got through school and I got here," she says. "I think working the night shift is the best way to go because then I don't miss too much of my son's life. I can walk him to school, then go home and go to bed for five hours and then pick him up and help him with his homework."
"Did I mention that Raquel makes $20 more than I do?" asks Mark.
Raquel laughs and says that working in the same department and possibly being her father's boss are on her lists of things to do.
"I'd love for her to be my boss," says Mark. "I would love to take all of the responsibility and hand it to her and say, 'Just tell me what to do.' But in all honesty, I'm happy for her. She's really been a real inspiration for me."
