It took a pink slip from an insurance company for Mountain House resident Thomas Lee to find his true calling as a teacher.

Lee had been a claims adjuster for AAA Insurance until about five years ago, when his office was moved to Colorado and he was laid off. In the process, though, his termination date kept getting pushed back, giving Lee more time to think about his future.

He talked with his wife, Marci Thomas, a third-grade teacher at Kelly Elementary School in Tracy, and some friends. And he figured out that education would be a prudent path to take.

“I didn’t know what I was going to do,” Lee said. “I looked at a lot of things, (such as) going back into retail and maybe starting my own business, but I went into the classroom with my wife and helped the kids. It was something that I always enjoyed doing, but I had that chance to really reinforce that and make sure that’s what I really wanted to do.”

By the time he got his severance package, he was registered for graduate classes at University of Phoenix, where he earned his teaching credential and master’s degree.

Lee, 37, is now in his fourth year of teaching fourth and fifth grades at Wicklund Elementary School in Mountain House.

“He’s happier; he’s easier to talk to,” Thomas said about her husband’s career change. “He looks forward to being with the kids, whereas when he was with AAA, it was the same thing, day in and day out.”

Lee said having his wife in the same profession has helped tremendously, as she provides him an objective sounding board about ideas for lesson plans and projects. Thomas said her parents — also teachers — welcomed Lee’s choice.

Lee now talks excitedly about science and about the “light bulb” moment that educators cherish. Helping kids build water rockets and tennis ball catapults is a far cry from his previous job, where he said he didn’t get out of the office much.

“You get a sense of real appreciation from a lot of the students, because they know that you’re helping them,” Lee said. “You see the progression of the students. When you get them on the first day of school, you can see the change building up through the year, and you develop a relationship.”

Science was always a passion for Lee as a boy, but not so much in college. He said he loved the practical, experimental side of it, but in a textbook, boron became boring.

So as a teacher at Wicklund, he strives to make science come alive for his students. Every so often, he sets up the mobile Star Lab at the school, so students can study white dwarfs, supernovas and constellations.

Lee also leads two Wicklund teams in the Science Olympiad, a competition featuring 48 teams from schools around San Joaquin County.

“I love teaching,” Lee said. “I think this is the best decision that I’ve made, in terms of a career.

“Looking back, I wish I would’ve been able to do it earlier. It seems to have been the right decision at the right time.”

• In the Spotlight is a weekly profile in Our Town. To nominate someone or to comment on this story, contact Our Town Editor Justin Lafferty at 830-4269 or jlafferty@tracypress.com.

Meet Thomas Lee

• Age: 37

• How long in Mountain House: Four years

• Born: Oakland

• Wife: Marci Thomas, a third-grade teacher at Kelly School

• Education: Bachelor’s, California State University, Hayward (now CSU East Bay); master’s and teaching credential, University of Phoenix

• Occupation: Fourth- and fifth-grade teacher, Wicklund Elementary School