It’s not every day one goes from being an engineer for 14 years working on cruise missile software to writing prescriptions and testing children for illnesses.

The journey to one’s ultimate dream may take many detours or different paths before reaching the final destination or at least what one believes is his or her destination. Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu said it best with the quote, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”

Dr. Cheryl Gatewood Tolliver has taken that step and many more steps to get to where she is today.

Born in Valdosta to the late Adolph and Minnie Gatewood, Tolliver attended Valdosta High School where she graduated in 1977. She didn’t have to ponder on whether or not she should go straight to college. It was never a doubt in her mind.

“Education was always very important to my grandmother even though she didn’t go past the fifth grade in school,” Tolliver said. “She encouraged education. Even though she didn’t go far in school, she was not an uneducated woman.”

Using all opportunities to learn is something that stuck with Tolliver early on.

Her parents both graduated from high school, but it was Tolliver’s generation that went further and attended college.

In 1981, she graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology and received a degree in industrial engineering. She worked for one year doing traditional engineer work in Cleveland, Tenn. In 1982, she married Kevin Tolliver, and they moved to the Washington, D.C., area where she worked as a system’s engineer. The couple soon had three children.

Cheryl Tolliver was employed by a corporation that worked on cruise missile software. While she was there, she went back to school and received a master’s degree in systems management from the University of Southern California through an off-campus program.

After spending three years in D.C., the family moved to Atlanta where she worked for other software companies.

Tolliver contemplated pursuing a dream of hers that had been in her heart since the fifth grade — becoming a pediatrician.

While many thought she was “crazy” and “too old” to even consider such a change, Tolliver took the necessary tests and started medical school at the age of 35 with a husband and three children at home and a full-time job.

“I had a lot of support,” she said. “It was hard, I’m not going to lie to you, but I was determined to finally do what I had always wanted to do.”

Tolliver went to Georgia State University and took her science classes and the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT).

After being accepted, she went to Morehouse School of Medicine. When asked if she ever got any sleep, she said her body had become conditioned to only getting four hours a night and that was all she needed. If she didn’t already have a full plate with very little sleep, she got pregnant and had another baby during her last year of medical school.

Managing family, school and work was exhausting, but Tolliver said she was determined to be “that good mother” and keep up with her studies at the same time.

“I tried to be at all my children’s activities and give them that time they needed with me,” she said. “(At times) my daughter’s bedtime story was whatever I was studying at the time.”

After medical school, the multitasker went to Orlando, Fla., to do her residency at Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children and Women. As a requirement of the National Health Service Scholarship she received, she was obligated for three years to pay the government back in service time. That obligation moved her to Albany where she said she worked for seven years. She worked for Albany Area Primary Health Care out of the Leesburg, Edison and Albany offices.

Tolliver’s husband, Kevin, moved to Valdosta in January 2010 and accepted the position of assistant city engineer. She moved to Valdosta in June of 2010 and joined Dr. Charlene C. Blache at Southern Pediatric Clinic.

“She (Blache) really helped me in getting started and getting to know the community,” Tolliver said with a smile. “I am so appreciative. I worked out of her office for six months. During that time, I was able to get things ready to open my own clinic.”

Tolliver said opening her own private practice was always in the back of her mind, from the time she entered medical school. She said she knew she wanted her own practice, but in medicine, there is so much business associated with it. Tolliver is not too crazy about the business side; she said all she wants to do is take care of children.

On being a role model to the generation growing up today, the petite physician said the struggles she faced while trying to reach her goal are “so good for the kids.”

“If I can grow up in Tom Town (Troup Street in Valdosta) and achieve my goals, so can they,” she said. “I didn’t grow up with money. My parents worked, but we didn’t have a lot.”

Tolliver also has her own take on the country’s health care system.

“I do believe everyone has the right to good health care despite their ability to pay,” she said with passion. “Before the health care bill, I saw huge gaps in coverage for 21- to 26-year-olds. They are mainly underinsured college students. There is also a problem with the children of the working poor. I think there is still so much that needs to be done in this country. Health care is huge here. Like anything else, though, there are pluses and there are minuses.”

She said the biggest problem she sees in the Valdosta-Lowndes County area is childhood obesity.

“I see children 10, 11 and 12 who suffer from high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes,” she sadly noted. “It really concerns me when young children can’t run from there to here. If we do the right things now, we can give these kids a better quality of life.”

Tolliver said she knows she has been blessed in her life. She is now in a place where she can do her part to fight childhood obesity. Outside of being a doctor and taking care of other people’s children, she enjoys participating in marathons and being as active as she possibly can in her children’s lives.

The Tollivers’ 10-year-old daughter, Taylor, is an honor student at Sallas-Mahone Elementary School and has her sights set on working with animal rescue someday.

The couple’s two older sons, Kevin Paul, 25, of Washington, D.C., and Nicholas, 23, of Savannah, are college graduates. Daughter Destiny, 20, attends Yale University and plans to become a doctor.

Tolliver said a pediatrician is evidence that God has a sense of humor. One has to love children but at the same time has to do things that both hurt and help the child because they love them — just like being a parent.

Valdosta Pediatrics opened its doors for business Feb. 7. It is located at 2941D N. Ashley St. and sees patients from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 8:30 a.m. to noon on Friday.

On the Web: Facebook.com/valdostapediatrics