(MARSHALL, Texas) – Long before he was an Industrial Systems instructor at Texas State Technical College, Clifton Woodgate was a Marine Corps aviation maintenance technician with Marine Helicopter Squadron One during the Reagan administration.
Woodgate’s high score on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test had resulted in an offer for him to work on helicopters.
“It was a fun thing to be doing when you’re 19 or 20 years old,” he said.
Woodgate said he would regularly maintain or fly in Marine One.
“There would be a lot of times when I would be flying around Washington, D.C., sitting in the president’s chair, looking out the window waving at people,” he said. “And they just assumed it was Reagan, but it was me.”
After his time in the military, Woodgate continued to work in industrial maintenance, mostly for automotive companies. His experiences in Marine Helicopter Squadron One continued to benefit him throughout his 40-year career.
“It seemed like that gave me a lot of confidence because I was picked from a select group of people to do something even cooler than I was planning on doing,” he said. “So when I got out, I didn’t shy away from choices.”
Despite being eligible to retire, Woodgate became a TSTC Industrial Systems instructor when he and his wife moved to Jefferson in 2023.
John Fondren is one of Woodgate’s fellow instructors.
“Cliff is a great asset to the program,” Fondren said. “He brings extensive knowledge from his background and has a great way of sharing his thinking.”
Woodgate’s professional experiences have taught him to take advantage of all opportunities, and he hopes to encourage his students to do the same.
“The experience that I had in the Marines set the direction for my life,” Woodgate said. “I found that teachers all teach differently. Some (teaching techniques) work for some people and some work for other people. I think it’s recognizing that that’s probably what I use the most.”
For more information on TSTC, go to tstc.edu.
