As a lifelong North County resident, MiraCosta College has played a big role for Randy Thill and his family. Now he is giving back to the college so that others can have the opportunity to pursue a higher education.
Five members of Thill’s family attended MiraCosta College. His mother attended when the school was known as Oceanside Carlsbad Junior College. Thill attended MiraCosta College before transferring to UC San Diego. His wife, Karen, is a MiraCosta alum and his two daughters also attended MiraCosta College.
After graduating from Oceanside High School, Thill said MiraCosta College was a convenient alternative to a university.
“I wasn’t quite ready to go to a four-year college,” he said. “I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do or what I wanted to be.”
After two years at MiraCosta, Thill transferred to UC San Diego and later to UC Santa Barbara, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in anthropology. Thill said his father wanted him to work at his insurance agency, and he started as an insurance agent trainee within days after he graduated.
He then held numerous jobs in audio-visual and eventually became the audio-video manager at Gemco in Oceanside. When Gemco closed, he worked as an insurance investigator for 15 years, investigating worker’s compensation claims from injured employees. He later became a financial advisor for the San Diego Office of Education until he retired seven years ago.
Thill said that although both he and his wife attended MiraCosta, they didn’t pressure their daughters to attend there.
“We left it up to them and took them around to a couple of colleges,” he said. “They both decided that they wanted to go to MiraCosta.”
Thill’s daughter Kristina Alarcon now works as a special education teacher in Oceanside and his other daughter, Andrea Thill, works in marketing in Valley Center. Both attended CSU San Marcos after completing their studies at MiraCosta.
Thill has volunteered at the Salvation Army and as a tutor at the Carlsbad City Library since he retired, and creating an endowment to fund scholarships at MiraCosta College was another way to contribute to his community. He said the endowment will be in perpetuity so that generations of students will benefit.
“This is a way to leave a positive legacy,” he said. “Not only am I proud to do it, but my children will be and maybe my great-grandchildren. I’m helping people in the future when I won’t be here.”