Entrepreneur has set up thousands for solid health care careers

The 2008-2009 housing recession was a turning point for Sylvia Dorisme. A recent college graduate, she felt the impact of the economic crisis personally.

“I found myself unemployed and lost in the world,” she says. “I was either overqualified with a bachelor’s degree or underqualified.”

And she was not alone. “I saw the suffering in our community, where everybody was panicking and most of the community were suffering,” she says.

After losing her job as a student services director at a technical school, she decided to start her own business. She began researching different types of industries, looking at which were hiring — even during a major recession. “Health care was that one industry where it doesn’t matter what happens, they still need health care professionals,” she says. 

On her 25th birthday, she announced that she was going to open a technical school focused on health care careers. Her friends doubted her plan, but this wasn’t the first time Dorisme had tackled challenging situations. She grew up in Haiti and St. Maarten, migrating to the U.S. as an unaccompanied minor just shy of turning 14.

“I started from the very, very bottom and without any guidance,” she says. “But I came from a really good family who were believers in God and who, I have to say, did a really good job with my childhood, where I could handle myself at such a young age.

“I grew up with my grandmother, who was a businesswoman in our community and literally built herself up from ground zero and was one of the most respected figures in our community,” Dorisme continues. “One of the things that I’ve learned from her was to give back. I grew up with that in my system. So it was very natural for me when I started my entrepreneurship journey that whatever I do, it needed to have some sort of impact in the community.”

With that as a backdrop, Dorisme started Southwestern Vocational Training in September 2009 in Cape Coral. Now based in North Fort Myers and called Zeal Technical Institute after a rebranding in 2020, the school has trained almost 8,000 students to become phlebotomy technicians, home health aides, medical administrative assistants, patient care technicians, medical assistants and mental health technicians.

“The need for health care professionals is constantly, constantly growing,” says Dorisme, 40. “It’s been a privilege for us to be able to contribute to the solution for that.”

Dorisme places emphasis on helping underserved communities get the training needed for careers in health care. The school helps students in financial need find resources to pay for training and has a scholarship fund at the Collaboratory in Fort Myers.

Photo by Reagan Rule

“Our goal is to provide as many resources available to our students, so when they come to us, we don’t turn them away if they don’t have the funds,” says Dorisme. “We want to always have resources available…We wanted to be a part of the solution that provides more opportunities to underserved communities and those who may not be interested in college.

“We are very community-focused in terms of how we do business,” she continues. “We say students over profit, and we sincerely mean that.”

College isn’t the right path for everyone, and Zeal Technical Institute helps students embark on career pathways that don’t require college degrees. But Dorisme has also seen students complete their studies at Zeal Technical Institute and then continue their education.

“We have so many wonderful stories of students who came through the doors just to do a two-week class and now they’re in nursing school,” she says. “That’s the impact we wanted to make, and I think that has become a reality for us. We have students who graduated 12 years ago, 13 years ago, and now they’re physicians. It’s a pretty good feeling to know that we were part of their journey.”

Dorisme herself is the first member of her family to graduate from college, earning a bachelor’s in business administration from Hodges University, and it’s the sacrifices her parents and grandmother made to help her succeed that continue to inspire her today. “I felt like I would be a failure if I did not make something out of myself,” she says. “That pressure really pushes me. … And I believe, because of that, it helps me feel grounded and helps me remain authentic in my journey, and also makes me appreciate my journey a little bit more.”

Her grandmother and her approach to business as the owner of a small grocery shop loom large over the way Dorisme operates Zeal Technical Institute today. “I remember the key thing was how she treated people,” she says. “She was getting repeat business because of how she treated people. Based on how she treated them and the relationships that she built with them, they would always come back. They’d skip someone else and come back to her, so I held that close to my own journey.

“This is why you have students from 13 years ago, 10 years ago, stop by and ask for Miss Sylvia, just to give me a hug or to say hi,” she continues. “Because I never wanted them to leave with just a diploma. I wanted them to leave with a positive memory of who we were and what we represent.”