Matthew Gilling felt the magic had faded after more than a dozen years in the trucking business. So the Simi Valley man decided in March 2007 to quit his job in freight forwarding and transportation marketing and find a morefulfilling vocation. Within weeks, Gilling learned about OPEN (Outstanding Professionals Employment Network), a networking group serving professionals in Ventura County and the San Fernando Valley. He signed up for the group's "Strategies for a Successful Job Search Workshop" and completed a career selfassessment for the first time since college. Throwing himself into volunteering while seeking work, Gilling became a disaster relief supervisor for the American Red Cross and spent three weeks in Oklahoma last summer to assist victims of devastating flooding. He said 12-hour shifts on the blacktop parking lot of the disaster center in 90-degree heat and 95 percent humidity "was the greatest experience of my life. . . . I decided I needed to get a job with a nonprofit and be part of the solution." It took about nine months before Gilling secured his current post as volunteer coordinator for the Ventura County chapter of Habitat for Humanity, but he said it's a job he loves so much that he volunteers to show up at work sites on Saturdays. "I've been here for a little over six months, and every day my boss thanks me," he said. "I'm having a blast. I can't believe I'm having so much fun, and this job is so meaningful; I should have done this years ago." Gilling credits OPEN, which is sponsored by the state Employment Development Department, with giving him tools to find his passion in life and confidence to pursue a new career.

DAVE ALTON/Special to the Acorn SHARING PRAISE- Matthew Gilling, volunteer coordinator for Habitat for Humanity of Ventura County, thanks everyone for their help at a recent wall-raising ceremony in Simi Valley. Gillig found his job through a new networking group. For fellow OPEN alumnus, Joseph Herman, a career change he made put him back where he always meant to be.

Herman had been for more than a decade the executive editor of the nation's oldest and largest journal on kidney diseases. A lifelong medical journalist, he was displaced in an organizational restructuring and found himself jobless for the first time.

"It was interesting to see there were other people in my position, people faced with the reality that employment after the age of 50 wasn't necessarily a given. It was comforting to see there were other people in my situation," said the Moorpark resident.

OPEN helped the veteran writer rebuild his self-esteem and encouraged him to try new things, he said.

"Support is a word that's thrown around a lot, but the support I received not only from the guys leading the program, but from the other workshop participants, was invaluable in helping me stay focused and moving forward," he said.

For Herman, that meant enrolling in the veterinary medicine program at Pierce College, which ties into his days at Ohio University where he received his bachelor's degree in zoology and majored in pre-veterinary medicine. After securing a job as a vet tech at an emergency animal hospital in Thousand Oaks, Herman found his writing talents called upon at the first of the year when he was tapped to assist the company's new marketing director. "It was kind of ironic I had to leave journalism to find a job in journalism," Herman said. "And 30 years later, it all came full circle. Not only am I a (writer) but it's also in the area that I originally studied for. It's really been an interesting ride." Tom Henderson, OPEN president, said the nonprofit volunteer organization's services are equally valuable to area employers. Nocost access to the OPEN roster of members, who include former chief operating officers, vice presidents, human resource managers, IT engineers and sales directors, can potentially save tens of thousands of dollars in fees to executive recruiters.

OPEN holds its next "Strategies for a Successful Job Search" workshop from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., Mon., June 2 through Fri., June 6 at the East County Job and Career Center, 980 Enchanted Way, in Simi Valley, CA 93065. Register at www.eu-open .org, or call (805) 526-6349.