For Drew Fisher, the shingle is up and the counselor is in. The Weston, Missouri native opened a full-time counseling practice in St. Joseph this past spring.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/133\/2017\/09\/Fisher-Drew-002.jpg\")
<\/a>Drew Fisher ’11<\/p><\/div>\n
Fisher, who was director of counseling at Northwest Missouri State University\u2019s former Missouri Academy, always knew he wanted to have a private practice. So in February 2016, in addition to his full-time job, he began working in the evenings for a local counseling center in Frederick Towers. That experience helped him learn the business side of running a private practice, he said, and in the spring of 2017, he moved to a new space on Beck Road and began working full-time on his own.<\/p>\n
His broad range of clients include adolescents, terminally ill patients and married couples. As a former Marine, he said he is also pleased to have some veterans among his clients.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s rewarding to meet people, get to know them and help them,\u201d Fisher said.<\/p>\n
When he was a child, his mother was a nontraditional student at Missouri Western, so enrolling after his service to the Marines seemed like a natural choice. The psychology major believes Missouri Western did a good job of preparing him for graduate school, and he appreciated his research experience in the department.<\/p>\n
After earning a master\u2019s in counseling and guidance degree from University of Missouri-Kansas City right after Missouri Western, he was hired at Northwest in 2014, working with high-achieving high school students.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy goal has always been to make the world a better place. I want to help people cope with hard times, to alleviate their pain and help them make a more productive live for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel Heidtbrink \u201913 <\/strong><\/p>\n As a freshman at Missouri Western, Daniel Heidtbrink said he was \u201cabout as undecided as you could be,\u201d but he did know that he wanted to work with people and help them. He decided to double major in sociology and psychology, and a counseling class in one of his last semesters helped him determine his<\/p>\n Daniel Heidtbrink ’13<\/p><\/div>\n career.<\/p>\n \u201cMidway through the class, I started asking professors and Dave Brown \u201975 (director of Missouri Western\u2019s counseling center) about the counseling field,\u201d Heidtbrink said.<\/p>\n After earning a master\u2019s in counseling with a mental health emphasis from MidAmerica Nazarene University in 2015, Heidtbrink, a native of Ridgely, Missouri, started working for Comprehensive Counseling Solutions, Inc. in St. Joseph.<\/p>\n Most of his clients are juveniles from the Buchanan County Juvenile Office. He enjoys that age group, but says it can be challenging because the counseling is mandated for most of them. He has worked with some of the juveniles for more than a year.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I enjoy the most are the moments when you are working with someone and they \u2018get it.\u2019 They have an insight and you can see that switch flipped. That makes it all worthwhile.\u201d Denise Price \u201910<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/a>