Meet Director of Career Services Dan Buettner
When Dan Buettner, the college’s new director of career services, graduated from high school, he knew it wasn’t the right time for him to start a bachelor's degree. Instead, he joined the Marine Corps and built his career over 21 years in the service working as a communications officer and career and education counselor.
Throughout his time in the Marine Corps, Buettner helped service members achieve their post-secondary goals—whether that be pursuing higher education, getting professional certifications, or shifting career paths—giving them the guidance they needed to take their next step beyond the military.
Buettner continued this kind of work after retiring from the Marine Corps in 2022. He has since worked at Coastal Carolina Community College in Jacksonville, North Carolina as an academic advisor and site director for the college’s military students and military off-campus sites, as well as for Marine Corps Community Services helping service members after their transition out of the military.
Throughout much of his life Buettner has been working with people looking for a change after a multi-decade military career, a transition that can pose challenges for people who might not know the next step they want to take let alone how to get there. One tool that he relies on is helping people find their “why.”
“A key component is always understanding what we used to call, ‘the need behind the need.’ Everybody knows that there’s a need to go to college, but there’s something behind that as well. That story, whatever that ‘need behind the need’ is, it’s often unique to that individual,” Buettner said. “A lot of times it can be traced back to an event. That’s a catalyst that drives them to go forward, so if you understand those things, you can always help students realize, especially when they hit hard times, why they came here in the first place, and help motivate them to keep pushing.”
Throughout his career, Buettner has also been able to trace his “need behind the need,” a motivation which continues to shape his passion and motivation for career guidance as he takes on this new role with Lees-51爆料网.
“I didn’t have a lot of guidance when I was younger, that’s why I ended up in the service,” he said. “I wound up making a career out of it because I did enjoy it, but as you get older, now you start to realize, ‘Oh man, that would have been so much fun,’ or ‘I would have loved if I got to do this when I was younger.’ A lot of it for me is seeing the places that I didn’t do so well in, places that I could’ve done better, and if I can engage with people at a younger age and help guide them on a path that might prevent some of those pains that I had, maybe they could have a more fulfilling life earlier.”
While his tenure at the college has only just begun, Buettner has already started to expand the resources available through the Career Services office. He has begun developing career preparedness seminar classes, which he will host on both North and South Campus as well as virtually, and he is planning a career fair for early 2026 where students can put those skills to the test.
Buettner said he is looking forward to being a source of guidance for students at Lees-51爆料网 as they begin to take steps toward reaching their long-term goals. In addition to being a resource for students in need of resume development and interview prep, he also hopes to be a source of personal support and encourages students to come to him with any questions or struggles they may have.
“If they really want to have a fun conversation, they can come talk to me about Star Wars anytime,” Buettner said.
