Caitlin Condon, Portland Adult Education Class of 2008, started life in her 30s, she says. That’s when she took a microbiology class and everything changed.

“My brain just exploded,” she said. “This stuff is so cool!”

The world of microorganisms—mostly bacteria, but viruses too—fascinated her. She wanted to learn all she could about treatments to antibiotic-resistant bacteria, about manipulating viruses to attack bacteria, about the HIV virus, and more. She thought about a career in biotech, but decided that that lab work wasn’t for her because it lacked the “human element.” Instead, she decided to go into nursing.

Condon’s path to nursing wasn’t a straightforward one. For her determination and commitment to helping others, the faculty and staff at Portland Adult Education will present Condon with the 2026 Distinguished Alumni Award.

Caitlin Condon, Portland Adult Education Class of 2008

She attended Portland Adult Education to get her GED, having dropped out of Deering High School her senior year.

“I wasn’t a bad student, but had a very challenging home life,” she said. “I got my first job at 16 and worked 20 hours a week until I was able to get an exception from the principal when I was 17. Then I was able to work more while still going to school. I was mostly going to get my assignments. My grades were excellent, but I ended up leaving.”

Condon had a lot going on outside of work and school. Her home life was unstable, the mother of her then-girlfriend died, and Condon was supporting her brother at the same time.

“I made the right choices for other people, but not myself,” she said. “I just wanted to take care of other people.”

Deciding she needed to finish school, she met with Anja Hanson at Portland Adult Education to figure out what she needed to do. She worked full time while finishing her GED. She went back to see Anja again years later, when she wanted to continue her education further. She took an English class at Southern Maine Community College (SMCC), which she called “fantastic,” but then life intervened again. She was working full time at McDonald’s when she started at SMCC. Her manager there was diagnosed with breast cancer soon after Condon signed up for a second class. She wanted Condon to take over for her.

“This was a person who had become my second mom,” Condon said. “We had been working together for seven or eight years at that point. I wanted to do whatever I could for her.”

Condon set college aside to manage the store. She thought, since she was only taking one class at a time, that she could postpone her studies for a short time, but years passed before she returned.

“I was in management for a while and actually the money was pretty good,” she said. “It was just working six or seven days a week. I wanted to change my circumstances, but was really tired. But I never gave up in my mind.”

She left McDonald’s, where she had worked for 13 years, for Whole Foods. She was still unhappy. She knew something needed to change. Something did, dramatically, when she was in a car crash.

“I was sitting on the side of the road sobbing,” she said. “No one was hurt, but I totaled my girlfriend’s car. And that was it. It was that breaking point. The next day, I emailed Anja.”

Condon wanted to go back to school and thought she needed help getting ready. She had missed the fall semester and wanted to be fully prepared for the spring. That’s when she took the science class that blew her mind and led her to the nursing program.

“And then, my life actually started, at almost 40,” she said. Then, after a pause, she laughed and said, “Sounds like a sob story.”

A nursing career just makes sense for her, though. She said she’s always nurtured people and that nursing gives her the chance to do that in a way that affects real change in people’s lives. She already has a job for after graduation, in the unit specializing in wound care—burns, gunshots, amputations, and the like.

“It’s a heavy floor,” she said. “But it’s good.”

As for the long and winding road that got her to nursing school, she laughed again.

“Let it not be said that I'm not determined.”