Inner Strength and Passion Helps Patrice Moore-Bertrand Lead the Way

An inner strength combined with strong mentors has helped Patrice Moore-Bertrand blaze a trail in a once male-dominated industry.

Growing up, Patrice developed a love of computers. After graduating high school, she moved to Memphis to pursue that passion. After becoming pregnant, she moved back to Nashville, where she decided to continue her studies at Nashville State, majoring in Electrical Engineering Technology.

It was at Nashville State and after graduating and transferring to Austin Peay University, where she built the foundation of her engineering and IT skills. With the help of instructors, Patrice gained the confidence to excel and prepare for life after graduation. “You can be an engineer; you can do what you set out to do,” Patrice recalls from that time.

In the early and mid-90s, this was no easy feat for a young woman, often being the only woman in a classroom full of men, Patrice used the inner strength she developed from taking care of her mother at a young age to speak up and be heard in class. Her tenacious attitude and hard work led her to an internship with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers working in IT, an internship she loved and thrived in.

After completing the internship, she accepted a job as an electrical design engineer, where she did well. However, “there was such a longing in me” to return to the Corps of Engineers and work with computers. She took a leap of faith and rejoined the Corps as an IT contractor.

While with the Corps, she worked on nearly every aspect of computers, ranging from hardware to software and even specialized training, “Whatever the computer needed,” Patrice said, she did it all.

During her nearly two-decade career with the Corps, it was those trainings where Patrice was able to find her true calling and passion – in the help and education of others. In addition to her work with the Corps, she developed a non-profit with the mission to help train members of the community on the use of computers.

After a couple of years of juggling the non-profit and her job with the Corps, Patrice asked herself, “Are you getting fulfilled? Are you getting satisfied?” The answer required another leap of faith when she quit her job with the Corps of Engineers to pursue her non-profit work full-time at the company she founded, Morecomputing Learning Services.

It was this leap of faith that has led to work with the community at the McGrudder Family Resource Center, in North Nashville, to developing and running the Computer Information Technology program at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, helping incarcerated women gain skills and an education they can use upon their release.

“Teaching people, helping people...has been in me probably even before I realized it,” Patrice said. Her inner strength and passion have helped Patrice Moore-Bertrand lead the way.