Dixie Budke decided in her mid-30’s to start a new kind of life. After nine years of leading the college’s Hotel Management program, she’s now ready to start over again.

 “Relocate, rejuvenate, reflect and redirect,” said Budke, who retires later this month. These are the four words her husband told her to focus on, she says, now that she’ll have more time on her hands.

 “He’s very sweet, and he knows that I don’t like the word ‘retirement,'” Budke said. “So he told me to think about those words instead.”

Budke’s career at City College began in 2000. Her own career as a college student, however, didn’t start until she was married and busy raising her six children.

“I consider myself to be like a poster child for community college because I didn’t start my college education until I was 35,” she said.

“I started at Cuesta College at the same time I was being a wife, mother, and working full-time. So I was really busy,” she added.

When her children started their college years, Budke didn’t want them to graduate before she did. So she went from being a housewife to a college student. She earned her associate’s degree, then started working on her bachelor’s in business administration at the University of Redlands.

“After that I took a deep breath and went in to my master’s program,” she said, with a laugh.

She earned a master’s in human development and a doctorate in human organization systems at Fielding Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, a choice she doesn’t regret.

Budke was hired here in 2002 when City College administrators wanted to modify what was then called the Hospitality Program.

“They asked me if I was interested, and I said yes, of course,” she said.

At that time the hotel management program was very small, and administrators weren’t sure they wanted to keep it as a full program. But Budke said she believed a lot of local potential was going untapped.

“Think about it,” she said. “Santa Barbara has so many hotels, so it’s the perfect place to have a hospitality program.”

Budke said that something she learned when she took her doctorate is something she finds useful today as a teacher.

“I can take all of those human things I learned and translate them to community college students, who probably are in the same situation I was,” she said.

“Hopefully I am some kind of a role model to some of them.”

Budke’s students praise her energy and dedication.

“She’s the fairy godmother of the program,” said culinary arts student Carrie Diec.

“She is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, ” added student Melissa Pontecorvo. “She wants all her students to succeed.”

Budke and her husband have a permanent home on Lopez Island, off the coast of Seattle, and she is headed there again in May when she retires.

She plans to spend time completing a book she has worked on for two years called “The Well-Lived Life.” She also wants to pursue her newly found interest for science.

“I think I might become a neuroscientist,” she said. “The human brain fascinates me. I’m not done yet.”