Taylor Penny, 29

Taylor Penny was months into her first year of law school when something suddenly dawned on her.

She didn’t want to be a lawyer.

Photo by Mark Wemple

She was a student at Stetson University College of Law at the time and had wanted to become a lawyer her entire life. But early on she realized that “I just didn’t feel as passionate about it as I thought I would.”

Penny, who today is a land development planner for Riverview-based Homes by WestBay and helps pave the way for the company’s projects, initially kept the doubts to herself. But one day the law school put on a seminar for students.

One of those presentations was about dealing with stress. Penny remembers the speaker saying that if there are things in your life, like doing the dishes, for example, that are causing you stress, just don’t do those things. Wait a day.

“Well, law school is really stressing me out,” she thought, “and, wow, I don’t have to do it.”

Penny walked out of the seminar and called her mother, Dana Moser, to tell her she wanted to drop out. “She was like, I’m at work. I’m going to have to call you back.”

They spoke for a while later that day and Penny decided to finish out the school year before moving on.

That the first call would go to her mother was no surprise. Moser is a former stay-at-home mom who worked her way through nursing school after Penny’s parents divorced when she was 9. She instilled in her daughter values that lead to good choices and was a supportive confidant.

“She never wavered in making sure she helped me as much as she could,” Penny says. “She really showed me, by example, that you can do hard things and you can do anything you set your mind to.”

Out of law school, Penny began to search for a new career path.

She had worked as a paralegal but saw there was a ceiling and wanted a career where she could advance. She began branching out, sending out applications. 

Construction had always interested her, and she eventually took jobs at a construction company and commercial architecture firm before landing at Homes by WestBay about two years ago.

As for law school, Penny’s never looked back.

“I will tell you, it's been six years; I have not regretted it one bit.”