Jane Byers has proven mothers are usually right.

Her mom told her many years ago, “You can do anything you put your mind to.”  Byers has succeeded in doing many things she’s set out to accomplish, even though she has faced significant obstacles.  Cancer, fire, moving cross-country and a job loss have not stopped this determined woman.

Today you can find Byers in the Cookeville Career Solutions office, counseling job candidates and working side-by-side with her clients. “So many of the people coming through our office these days are distraught.  I listen to them and try to steer them in the right direction and get them the help they need.”

Byers is uniquely qualified to understand life’s hard knocks and getting back on track.  She moved to Cookeville from California in 1998 and joined the police department as a Humane Officer, a program funded through grants.  When the grant was not renewed Byers was without a job.  That’s when a friend told her about Goodwill.

Timing is everything and when Byers applied for a job at Goodwill, she was hired as a lead sales associate.  Less than a year later she was managing the Cookeville store, a job she held for eight years.  Then Byers made an abrupt career change and applied for, and was hired, as a counselor in the Career Solutions office in 2007.  “I understand my clients’ pain, anxiety and above all, their frustration.”

As with her clients, Byers has had to turn inward, and to others, to help her through life’s challenges.  “I’ve had barriers in my life.  I’ve had to get over a fire which killed my two dogs.  I moved away from my family and friends in California and then I lost my mother, but I wasn’t there with her.”  While many of these personal obstacles would stop others in their tracks, life was still not finished with Byers.

In 2008, Byers was diagnosed with colon cancer.  “I had two choices.  I could lie down and die or fight it and that’s what I’ve done.  I’ve been in remission since October.”  For Jane Byers, the glass is half full.  “I feel blessed because when I had chemotherapy and sat in the infusion room I saw so many other patients who had it a lot worse than I had it.  If they could do it, so could I!”

“Goodwill has shown me I have a family.  I don’t know if I could have done it without Goodwill.”  Byers adds, “I always look for the light in a situation because it’s there.  Goodwill gave me the light when I needed it.”