Finances are often used throughout our lives and to reach our goals, but they are not the main focus of our lives. This was different for business teacher Abbie Weipert.

“I enjoyed finance as a hobby and watching the fluctuations of the stock market,” Weipert said.

When Mrs. Weipert was young she did not have the money to pay for what we take as luxuries today, and that is what started her attraction to finance because she thought she could make a lot money by working directly with it.

Ever since high school, Mrs. Weipert was fascinated by finance because her uncle worked in finance and she enjoyed it as a hobby. After high school, Mrs. Weipert went to the University of Iowa to get her B.S. in finance and then her MBA.

After that, she got a job in finance at Aegon Asset Management where she traveled a lot which she enjoyed. Traveling, however, was also a negative of the job, because  when she met her husband she needed a job with less traveling, so she got a job at the Kirkwood Community College in Finance doing budgets for the school.

“At Kirkwood, I had the opportunity to teach a finance class, which is what first got me into teaching,” Mrs. Weipert

This is where she got her first glimpse into teaching, and where she taught her finance class. She enjoyed teaching it, so she went back to the University of Iowa to get her teaching license to teach finance and other business classes.

“My favorite class to teach is Personal Finance because you get to interact with students preparing for big life decisions,” Weipert said.

Since her first year at West in 2017, she has enjoyed teaching Personal Finance and economics and other business classes.