For North Haven resident and former full-time college professor John Tibor, education really is a timeless voyage. Within the last year, Tibor retired – and graduated – from Bridgeport’s Housatonic Community College (HCC), part of an ongoing, 44-year academic journey which included stops in New Haven, Bridgeport, Florida and Iceland.

Already holding bachelor’s and master’s degrees, Tibor received his associate’s degree at HCC’s May 27 graduation ceremonies.

“I was very happy to complete that,” Tibor said with a laugh. “It only took 40-plus years.”

Even as Tibor found work as a teletype repairman, deli shop owner and hospital accountant, learning and teaching remained constant interests.

After high school graduation, Tibor began pursuing his associate’s degree at Housatonic Community College in 1966. “I had no intention of going there,” he said. “I had my whole life planned out: I was going to go career in the Navy. But my parents convinced me I should go to college, so I figured I’d try it out.”

Two weeks before the end of Tibor’s fifth semester, representing two-and-a-half years in college, he dropped out, never having achieved an associate’s degree. Instead, he joined the U.S. Navy, originally for a four-year tour. However, if Tibor agreed to extend enlistment two additional years, the Navy agreed to send him to school for a year.

“I was already planning to go career, so I thought two more years didn’t sound that bad,” he laughed.

In 1969, Tibor was shipped to Florida, where he studied electronics. After graduation, he remained in the Sunshine State, fixing naval teletype machines. On his own time, he restarted his formal studies.

“I continued going to school part-time in Pensacola, Florida at a local, junior college,” Tibor said. “I just took whatever classes I wanted to.”

Tibor’s Pensacola learning was formative. “That’s what finally started me in business,” he said. “I took classes on economics. I was fascinated by Keynesian economics.”

Despite accruing 90 course credits in Connecticut and Florida – 60 are necessary for an associate’s degree – nothing fit together for a program. “When I sat down with my counselor, he said ‘you can’t graduate – you just have random classes all over the place,” Tibor said.

Around this time, the Navy relocated Tibor to Iceland. “It’s not the place most people think,” he said. “It’s a beautiful place. It’s very peaceful, and the weather is really not as bad as people think.”

Volcanic lava stone dominated the country’s landscape, blackening some beaches’ sand while limiting vegetation. “It was pretty barren, but it gave a very peaceful quality,” Tibor said.

In Iceland Tibor realized he no longer desired a Navy career. “That’s when I decided I had better get serious about school,” he said. “Because of my interest in economics, I knew I wanted to do something in business, and I was attracted to accounting.”

Returning to America in 1975 after a year in Iceland, Tibor began classes at the University of West Florida, his tuition partially covered by the G.I. Bill. An accounting degree took 15 months. Officially considered a Florida resident, he remained to pay state college rates. Disliking humidity and seasonal consistency, however, Tibor longed for his home state.

“The day I took my last final exam, I went home, picked up my truck, and by 11 p.m. I was on my way back to Connecticut,” he said.

For the next 24 years, Tibor found work in healthcare accounting, working for Bridgeport, Waterbury and Park City Hospitals, as well as a company that managed nursing facilities. He also briefly opened a Fairfield deli. “It was an absolutely a fun time,” he said of his shop. “But it didn’t make any money.”

During these years, Tibor pursued and finally attained his Masters of Business Administration. “The driving force was that I knew I wanted to teach,” he said.

Tibor’s passion actually stemmed from an eighth grade experience. “There was this boy in the second grade who repeated the first grade and repeated the second grade,” he said. “He couldn’t read or write.”

“A teacher asked if I was willing to tutor him at lunchtime,” Tibor continued. “By the end of the year, I had him reading at a first grade level. That really stayed with me all my life. I found I had an ability to teach.”

With an MBA, Tibor searched for an educational position, and in 1985, began working as an adjunct professor at HCC, the college from which he never graduated.

“To me, it was pure fun,” he said of teaching. “It wasn’t a job – it was just something I wanted to do.”

Tibor taught two accounting classes per semester while continuing work as a professional accountant, leaving him little downtime. “There was a lot of grading at home,” he said. “I spent my weekends doing all the prep work.”

Finally, in 1999, a fulltime position at HCC presented itself. “I got a call from the department chair telling me that if I was interested, I had better work fast and get my application in,” Tibor said. “They hired me.”

“Ultimately, it resulted in a 55 percent pay cut, going from the corporate business world to full-time instructor,” he added. “I try to get that across to students through the years, that you should do what makes you happy. Lots of students are looking for the best paying job. I try to get them to understand the other side, the importance of being happy with what you’re doing.”

Tibor thanked his wife for making his career change possible. “My wife made it possible,” he said. “I give her a lot of credit. She’s very frugal with spending.”

Tibor was fulltime at HCC for 10 years, until participating last year in the state’s early retirement program. “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to teach,” he said. “I just decided it was the right time in life to retire. I get to spend a lot of time with my granddaughter.”

A teacher at heart, Tibor continues to work as an HCC adjunct professor. As if offering a reward for a lifetime of such passion and loyalty, the educational system had a retirement surprise.

“Last summer I got a letter from the Housatonic Community College registrar’s office,” Tibor said. “They were reviewing my transcripts very closely. If I could transfer some courses from other schools, I could graduate.”

Further investigation revealed that a few Pensacola courses could transfer, allowing Tibor to finish the associate’s degree program he begun 44 years prior.

“I applied for graduation kind of quietly,” Tibor said. “I surprised a lot of my colleagues when I showed up for graduation in student garb.”

“To a lot of people I probably looked like somebody who had come back to school after many years,” he added. “But in fact, I’ve never been out of it.”

And so Tibor’s educational career reached a fitting, cyclical occasion, though, unsurprisingly, one he sees as far from culmination.

“I have never been out of school from my first day of kindergarten,” he said. “Either I have been a teacher or a student.”

“They say that education is a lifetime experience,” Tibor continued. “It really is, I really believe that, and I can’t see myself not being connected somehow to school.”