ST. GEORGE, Utah — At Tech Ridge above St. George, sits a complex where the old airport used to be, and is now designed to boost local tech jobs. But is there room for a mother of six?
Tanya Seegmiller is raising her six children, ages 2 to 13, including one with special needs. Her husband said Tanya has always put her career ambitions aside for her kids.
"When I met Tanya, she was going to college, had big plans, but then I came along and ruined that. We got married, had a family, and she decided to stay home with our kids," Brian Seegmiller explained.
Tanya herself said she never in a million years would have seen herself as a coder.
"But it was so much like crafting and so much like a puzzle, where as you add each new line of code, it's like putting each new piece in a puzzle, and you start to see this picture emerge. And I felt absolutely in love with it," she said.
Two years ago, Seegmiller heard about a nonprofit educational program designed to help women, particularly mothers, enter the tech workforce. Even though all Tech-Moms classes were up north, Tanya managed to get into an online program that had a massive wait list.
"What holds a lot of people back is that they're afraid that they aren't smart enough, like that they won't be able to learn it, and you really can," she insisted. "Just spend a few times a week playing around with it, getting comfortable with it, and then you'll get excited about it."
That waiting list in southern Utah is no more.
In partnership with Utah Tech University, Tech-Moms is booting up its first live program in St. George on Sept. 6. Robbyn Scribner co-founded Tech-Moms five years ago and said Saturday classes provide training hardware if needed and child care, since 40% of those who take part are single mothers.
"Who's going to watch my kids? We've taken care of that. I don't have a computer. We've taken care of that. We want to make sure that a woman who wants to do this program... can do it without any barriers," explained Scribner.
Seegmiller now works from home on a three-screen setup, organizing customer files and databases for a health company.
"Tech is exciting, but it's also very, very family-friendly, especially as a mom," she said. "Having a job that helps you be able to do both, to be able to have a good career that pays well for your family and also be able to balance the responsibilities of a parent."
