(Photo by: Jasmine Mills)

It may seem that the only place to turn to for role models and inspiration would be professors, but plenty of inspirational students like Jose Lopez roam JCCC’s halls. Jose Lopez, a Kansas City native, began his JCCC journey in the summer of 2025 when he enrolled in the EMR program, followed by the EMT program.

“This is my third time going to college. I am a medical assistant [and] a massage therapist. I am trying to get back into more of a consistent career, so I decided to come back to college to see if I could get some emergency experience,” Lopez said.

Lopez hopes to get into the respiratory care program at JCCC, and plans on looking into a career as a pulmonologist. However, he hopes to get more experience in other settings. Currently, he works as a CNA doing in-home care, and he runs his own mobile massage business.

His interest in these fields began in high school, though he originally planned on entering a career in firefighting. He soon began an EMT program, which he ended up not completing. Later, he got into the medical assistant field, where he stayed for 10 years. He worked in pediatrics, orthopedics and emergency.

“I got into massage therapy because I just love to learn about anatomy, and anatomy pushes me forward to actually gain more knowledge,” Lopez said. “I’m always in the field where I’m able to provide a service and provide that assistance whenever I’m needed.”

Throughout his career, being a massage therapist has been his favorite part of it all. For the last 10 years, Lopez has been able to learn many different business skills, but he’s also been able to help heal many people.

“Results help me kind of move forward into doing what I do,” Lopez said. I do the basics first, and then the results really do speak for themselves.”

When he’s providing help to clients, he always tries to teach them during their service so they don’t have to rely on someone else to help them. Now, he hopes to continue helping people in his future career after JCCC. But while he’s still here learning, the structure has been one of his favorite parts of the program.

“He was always [in] class, always engaged, focused, taking notes,” Assistant Professor Tammy Osborn said. “He went on to pass both of his national certification exams [on his first try], which is very impressive. Those are very difficult exams to pass, and he did both [the] first time.”

Lopez describes himself as down to earth and as someone who is always there to help others. While balancing school, work and fatherhood, he enjoys spending his free time on home improvement projects, drawing, cooking, mechanic work and family time.