Walk into Noe Chico's garage, and the first thing you notice is that nothing is out of place. Every socket, every wrench, every driver has a home. 

That's where you'll find him in his free time, sleeves rolled, chasing down whatever problem a car has thrown at him. He doesn't fix cars because he has to; he does it because he loves it, and that love shows up in the details. Every fix gets tested against his own standards first. If it doesn't hold up in his garage, it doesn't get a second chance. He learned that lesson the hard way: A cheap wrench broke mid-turn once, his hand went into the radiator, and the whole assembly had to be replaced..

"Automotive is everything for me," he says. It has been since high school, the one subject Chico truly loved. He planned to keep going after graduation, applied for a scholarship, and watched it go to another student. A culinary program opened up instead, so he took it because the door that opens is the one you walk through.

Then, he became a father, and the choice in front of him was simple.

"I chose her," Chico says. "I'd choose her again, every time."

He does not call the years that followed a detour. He calls them the best work he's ever done. But he never let go of the thing he loved, either. On weekends, he was in his garage running oil changes and repairs for anyone who needed them, and he was good enough at it that people knew to call him. That love never went anywhere. It just waited, patiently, for its turn.

"I didn't want to just be the neighborhood mechanic," he says. "I wanted to do it right, and I wanted to know how to do it right."

That drive is what finally pushed him back to school. When his daughter turned 15, Chico sat her down and asked her permission to go back. He told her about the night classes and the early mornings, about not being around as much as he used to be. He was braced for her to say she needed him home.

She said, "Dad, you deserve this."

He enrolled in the automotive program at Indian River State College, and he has not slowed down since. His days start at 4:30 a.m. He's at work before 6, in class at night, and studying after that. He has since been inducted into the honor societies, and he is chasing everything the program will teach him, because for the first time, the thing he loves and the career he's building are the same thing.

A professor encouraged him to apply for scholarships, and one of them was the Ford Auto Tech Scholarship, awarded in partnership with TechForce Foundation. Chico applied twice, and this past year, the email finally came. He sat with it a while before calling his brother.

"I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “There really are people out here who care whether a stranger makes it.”

“I didn't want to just be the neighborhood mechanic. I wanted to do it right.”

Noe Chico

Getting to campus every night depends on one thing, and that's his 2006 F-150. Chico put part of his scholarship into that truck, and now it runs the way it needs to, class after class.

That's the point of the program. Since 2023, Ford Philanthropy and Ford Dealers have invested $11M to support 2,200 Ford Auto Tech Scholars across the United States. Getting to school, through school, and into a meaningful career takes looking at the whole student journey, so the scholarships go beyond tuition, covering tools, certification fees, and everyday barriers, like a ride to class, that stand between a student and their career.

Chico's daughter is 18 now, old enough to watch her father head out for night class and understand exactly what he's building toward: a shop of his own, someday, with his name on it.

"I'm not willing to settle," he says, "because settling would mean I gave up in front of her."

Kait Leo is a marketing & communications specialist for Ford Philanthropy.