Brianna Wilburn did everything she was told to do. She earned a master’s degree in economics. She worked hard, and yet, back home in Lancaster, she found herself rotating through nearly every retail job in the city.
“Any place I’d go by on the freeway, I can say I work there, I work there, I work there,” she remembers. “Anywhere in the mall, same situation.”
Despite her degree, Brianna was, in her words, “extremely overqualified for a lot of my positions.” The aerospace jobs at Northrop and Lockheed that once defined the Antelope Valley were gone. She was struggling with health issues. At her lowest point, she faced homelessness.
“I couldn’t keep a job, especially one that I liked,” she shares. “Personally, I didn’t know where to go.”
When she walked into a WorkSource Center in Palmdale, JVS SoCal was, as she puts it, her “last hope.”
She enrolled in MediWork$ (formerly known as CareerWork$ Medical) as part of Cohort 14. Without a car of her own, she made the long commute from Lancaster to Los Angeles every single day — by bus, by train, and by rides from friends. The days were long, and so was the doubt. But something began to shift.
“It was the gentle communication from a staffer that inspired me to give it a try,” Brianna says. “It was the kindness of Karina that kept me encouraged. It was the support that the staff had in each of the students that fueled my motivation.”
She earned her medical terminology certification and was hired at RadNet, a leading medical imaging firm and JVS SoCal employer partner, as a Patient Service Representative. A year later, when JVS SoCal launched ImagingWorks in partnership with RadNet, Brianna was the first one through the door.
This time, the road was harder. She was working full time and training at the same time. A Women’s Leadership Network Impact Grant helped cover a month of rent during one of the toughest stretches. In April 2025, she earned her DEXA license.
“I really can’t look back to any other type of program where I can say that moment. That situation, that program made a difference,” she reflects. “JVS kind of creates that experience for me.”
Today, Brianna works as a DEXA Technician at RadNet’s Marina del Rey facility, where the wait list for a bone density appointment that once stretched over a month has shrunk to a matter of days — a difference one trained technician makes for an entire community. She plans to continue imaging, pursue research, and someday earn a PhD.
But what changed most, she says, isn’t the job title. It’s the way she sees herself.
“The world is mine,” she says. “I was so limited to what I thought I was capable of.”
Brianna now uses her story to encourage others who feel stuck where she once stood.
“JVS SoCal is an opportunity for change, an opportunity for discovery, and an opportunity for success,” she says. “You get a chance to try something that maybe you told yourself you couldn’t do, wouldn’t do, were too late in life to do. Once you get here, it’s like a clean slate, and you get to start all over again.”
If you’re inspired by Brianna’s story and would like to help someone else achieve their dream, please donate today.
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