Baby boomers slammed by today’s tough economy need to stick together, writes a 57-year-old Hanford man. He e-mailed me after I wrote a story earlier this week about laid-off workers flocking to community colleges to get training to start new careers.

Rhonda Lawrence, who’s pictured here, was featured in the story. Lawrence, who’s 56 and also from Hanford, lost jobs in the airline industry and real estate and now is enrolled at West Hills College to become a psychiatric technician. She’s praying that job gives her economic stability. The Hanford man said he can “really relate” to Lawrence’s predicament.

“I have two degrees … and unless I am willing to move to a large metro area (even, God forbid, Fresno) the jobs are very few …,” he said. The man says he taking community college courses and hopes to get into banking, finance, manufacturing or retail.

His final thought: “We ought to form a ‘boomer, what’s my career?’ support group!”