(WACO) – A job layoff in the medical field three years ago convinced DiAnna Richardson of Lorena that she needed to make a drastic change.

“I looked at what I could physically do and what I would enjoy doing,” Richardson, 48, said. “I’ve worked with computers since I can remember.”

Her new career flourished when she began work in early August as the computer technician at Valley Mills Independent School District in Bosque County. But the transformation began when she attended classes full-time at Texas State Technical College and received an Associate of Applied Science degree in Computer Maintenance Technology in late August.

Richardson said she enjoys the more than 60-mile-round-trip commute because of the country roads and rolling hills. She considers it a time to plan her day.

“I enjoy working here,” she said. “It is like a big family. From day one they were welcoming and appreciative, and I think on a smaller scale the district is more personable.”

Richardson keeps the school district’s technology functioning, from replacing computer screens to maintaining wireless connections and cyber security. She looks at what items can be recycled due to age and functionality and studies what technology could be useful to the district.

She also maintains the iPads that Valley Mills Elementary School students use and the Dell Chromebooks that Valley Mills Junior High School and Valley Mills High School students use in class and doing for homework. The school district has more than 620 students.

Eric Halfmann, the junior high school and high school’s assistant principal for curriculum and technology, is learning alongside Richardson. He also is in his first year at Valley Mills ISD and said he has been impressed with her quick understanding of the district’s needs.

“She gets on it and is coming and going,” Halfmann said. “She has had a big challenge recently – a hard drive crashed for a woman in our district who keeps important data and she dealt with it.”

Richardson learned at TSTC about technical support, electronics, networking techniques and troubleshooting.

“With her years of experience in the working world, she was very focused and serious about her coursework,” said David Macik, an instructor in the Computer Maintenance Technology program on the Waco campus. “She was an outstanding student who always made the other students better by setting a great example and providing great input for class discussions.”

Richardson said job hunting in the computer field was a scary time.

“I have been working nonstop since I was 13 years old,” she said. “Not everyone wants to hire an older individual.”

She credited Macik with helping her discover Valley Mills ISD, as well as the support the school board and community give.

“When her current position became available, I knew she would be a great fit and I was happy to recommend her for the job,” said Macik. “I know that she will be successful in her new position because not only does she have great technical skills but, also great soft skills due to her prior experience.”

(WACO) – The Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning Technology program at Texas State Technical College in Waco has received nationwide academic recognition.

The Nevada-based Community for Accredited Online Schools recently ranked the technical program in the top five in the nation for this year among two-year institutions. The ranking took into account financial aid, student-teacher ratios, graduation rates and placement and counseling services. Information from the National Center for Education Statistics was used to rank the list’s top 50 institutions.

There are about 70 students studying this semester for the certificate and associate degree in Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning Technology.

David Brannen, the program’s campus lead, said some students underestimate the algebraic conversions and physics involved in learning about HVAC.

“You have to have the theory to do a lab,” Brannen said.

Cheyanne Hill, 19, of Florien, Louisiana, is in her first semester of studying for the certificate. She learned about TSTC from her high school band director.

Hill said she has enjoyed learning about pipefitting, the different stages of refrigeration and manifold gauges.

“I have family that work in HVAC and I have helped my uncle,” she said. “It’s demanding work, and not a lot of females are willing to do that type of work. It can be overwhelming.”

Joseph Paul, 19, of China Spring will graduate in December with his HVAC certificate. Paul said he likes the program because it combines his interests in plumbing and electricity and he gets to use his hands.

“It’s fun and there is no dull moment, really,” he said. “I can’t sit behind an office desk the rest of my life.”

Some of the classes that majors can take include Basic Electricity for HVAC, Air Conditioning Control Principles and Heat Pumps.

Students will have a new opportunity to learn about HVAC when a $15,000 rooftop package unit lab will open in fall 2017. The lab will be used in a new commercial air conditioning class that will be offered.

For more information on TSTC, go to tstc.edu.

(WACO) – Texas State Technical College in Waco students attending a leadership conference in Chicago found a world of opportunities to motivate them in their future careers.

Jason Lehrmann, 34, of Mart, Katelyn Scott, 23, of Ennis and Thomas Roberts, 33, of Granbury, earlier this month attended the American Society of Safety Engineers 12th annual Future Safety Leaders Conference.

“Each of these students offers their own abilities and perspectives in safety,” said Patti Tate, an instructor in TSTC’s Environmental Health, Safety and Radiation Protection Technology program. “I have no doubt that all three of these students will go far and will be part of a bright and productive future as a safety or even an environmental professional.”

The students represented the Texas State Technical College in Waco Student Section of the Central Texas Chapter of the American Society of Safety Engineers. The students are all double majors in Environmental Technology – Compliance Specialization and Occupational Safety Compliance Technology.

“It was a good networking opportunity for us to meet some of the high-profile people in the ASSE community and learn about leadership from them,” Lehrmann said. “They have been in the field for 30-plus or more years.”

Some of the conference’s roundtable topics included fire protection, industrial hygiene, safety communication and training, and compliance for a bilingual workforce. Participants also learned about resume writing and had mock interviews with professionals.

“I love all these regulations and safety inspections,” Roberts said. “We are the nerds of the safety world.”

Scott found a discussion on the use of drones intriguing.

“Drones get into areas that are unsafe for employees to get to, such as checking transformers,” she said. “This cuts production time in half. Employees are working in confined spaces and entries. Drones can be sent in and they see what the actual hazards are.”

Roberts said the conference was a way to get reacquainted with networking.

“There is nobody in a high position that is going to say ‘I am better than you,’” he said. “They have arms open, mentoring and asking what they can do to inspire us. It was cool to feel that energy from strangers.”

The conference helped one of the students make a sharper focus on a career possibility.

Scott said she is interested in doing consulting work after listening to a presentation by Regina McMichael, president of South Carolina-based The Learning Factory Inc., an education and training design and delivery company focused on safety, leadership and risk management.

“Having a strong female example in the leadership role is a good starting point,” Scott said. “It was a good eye-opener for me in having a mentor. I can do consulting or training.”

The students also explored Chicago. Scott said the group took an Uber ride around the city and had fun spotting safety hazards at construction sites they passed. And, the group experienced the energy that Chicago residents had celebrating the Chicago Cubs’ World Series victory.

“These people were out in the city at 2 a.m.,” Lehrmann said.

For more information on the American Society of Safety Engineers, go to asse.org.

For more information on TSTC, go to tstc.edu.

(WACO) – David L. Ruiz can touch the sky, whether it is preaching a positive message from the pulpit or flying airplanes cross-country.

“I’ve always wanted to be a pilot since I was 3 years old,” said Ruiz, 52, a 2004 graduate of Texas State Technical College in Waco. “Our house was under the flight path of an airport. I would spend hours watching the airplanes coming in.”

Ruiz has been chief flight instructor at Aurora Aviation in McGregor since 2008. Aurora Aviation provides corporate flight service and teaches people how to fly. The company is owned by federal defense contractor Advanced Concepts and Technologies International with offices in Waco and Arlington, Virginia.

Aurora Aviation uses the same flight syllabus that TSTC’s Aircraft Pilot Training program in Waco uses for its students. TSTC currently has 125 students who can earn the Associate of Applied Science degree in Aircraft Pilot Training or the degree with a helicopter specialization. The students can also earn a certificate in Aircraft Pilot Technology Commercial Pilot-Helicopter or an enhanced skills certificate in Multi-Engine Aircraft Pilot.

“Our graduates have a variety of choices with regard to job opportunities, including but not limited to flight instruction, banner towing, tour flights, ferry flights, aerial photography, pipeline patrol, firefighting and agricultural applications,” said Rick Connor, lead instructor in the Aircraft Pilot Training program. “Those who choose the airline route have pipeline programs to choose from such as Skywest, ExpressJet or Envoy.”

Boeing’s 2016 Pilot and Technician Outlook found North America will need 112,000 pilots in the next two decades.

“Right now the demand for pilots is high,” Ruiz said. “For McLennan County to have aviation schools is an advantage for the students here.”

The company has three full-time flight instructors and one part-time instructor, with Ruiz being the only one having graduated from TSTC.

“Really, from the get-go he has been like a mentor,” said Matt Wallace, 28, a U.S. Army veteran and a former TSTC flight instructor now working for Ruiz. “He has been great, saying that I need to come along on flights. It has been good seeing David in action. I have gotten to go on some of David’s corporate flights.”

Ruiz stays busy in other areas of aviation. He is a corporate pilot and an adjunct lecturer at Baylor University’s Institute for Air Science. He buys and sells airplanes, and he owns Pegasus Drone Service in Waco for real estate, agricultural and search and rescue work. He also officiates at weddings.

Ruiz was born in Midland and grew up in Odessa. His father was from Mexico and worked in oil fields, but when Ruiz was a young child he wanted his family to be migrant farmworkers.

“If there was a field to pick, the Ruiz family was there,” Ruiz said. “We picked in the Southwest and up the West Coast. My father said if you could walk you could work.”

The family eventually settled in Eloy, Arizona, and Twin Falls, Idaho, before his father died and his mother moved her four children back to Texas. The children were homeschooled by their mother, but Ruiz eventually graduated in 1982 from Lee High School in Midland.

Ruiz went on a mission trip to Brazil in high school and felt God called him into the ministry. He put his aviation dreams on hold and graduated in 1986 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biblical Studies at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene. He worked three jobs to put himself through college.

It was during his junior year at Hardin-Simmons that Ruiz traveled to TSTC in Waco to meet the Aircraft Pilot Training faculty. Ruiz said he does not remember how he heard about TSTC, but he knew he needed to see the campus.

Ruiz studied flight training in the late 1980s at TSTC in Waco and took an academic hiatus before graduating in 2004 with an Associate of Applied Science degree in Aircraft Pilot Training.

“You have to go where the job is,” Ruiz said. “You just have to love aviation.”

(WACO) – More than 600 Texas State Technical College in Waco students attended Thursday’s Industry Career Day to learn about careers in welding technology, aviation maintenance, instrumentation technology and other fields.

The event included companies from throughout Texas, and as far away as the U.S. Virgin Islands, convening to talk to students who could be future employees.

Washington County Tractor in Brenham sells a variety of hay equipment, tractors, trailers and parts for the agricultural and construction industries. The company is quickly expanding in Central Texas and has a need for diesel mechanics to work on the New Holland and Kubota brands they sell.

John Dowling, the company’s corporate parts and service director, wanted to attend the event because of the quality of TSTC graduates he has employed in the past. The company has more than 130 employees in Brenham, Bryan, Navasota, Sealy and Temple.

“We need more schools like TSTC,” Dowling said. “We need quality employees.”

Plastipak Holdings Inc. has facilities in Garland and Highlands and specializes in plastic bottle manufacturing. Kevin Tolly, the company’s human resources manager, said he was seeking technical degree majors who knew how to mechanically troubleshoot.

Tolly credited TSTC’s Career Services staff for having good business knowledge of what is needed in industry.

“We met a lot of folks that will be very good,” he said.

Dustin Uptmore is familiar with TSTC in Waco; he is a 2007 Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning Technology graduate and has been employed at Capstone Mechanical in Waco his whole career. The company has 150 employees.

Uptmore said the company was interested in finding potential plumbing apprentices, service technicians and HVAC commercial mechanics.

“It was good today,” Uptmore said. “I met a lot of welding and HVAC students. I’ve been to every Industry Career Day event the past three years.”

Some students were impressed employers took time to visit the technical college to learn about them.

Eligio Puente, 19, of Rosebud is a Computer Networking and Systems Administration major planning to graduate in the spring.

“I liked the way you learn what they have in jobs and you can take your resume to give to people,” he said. “It’s good interaction with them.”

Bryne Henry, 20, of Moody is majoring in Cyber Security and Computer Networking and Systems Administration and said he was encouraged by company representatives giving him information on how to learn about their work and available jobs. He is scheduled to graduate next summer.

Henry said he enjoyed visiting the Austin-based Loop1 Systems Inc. booth. The company specializes in Internet technology professional services and training and was recently named a Top 5,000 fastest-growing company, according to Inc. Magazine.

For more information on TSTC, go to tstc.edu.

(WACO) – The presence of Del Rio High School graduates studying Welding Technology at Texas State Technical College in Waco is becoming a familiar sight.

“As far back as when I was a student at TSTC in the late 1990s, there were guys from Del Rio here,” said Ashley Yezak, a Welding Technology instructor at TSTC in Waco.

Del Rio on the Texas-Mexico border and Waco in Central Texas are more than 300 miles apart. But what connects the cities is Tod Townsend, Del Rio High School’s welding instructor and his passion for the field he wants to pass on to his students. He estimated 25 Del Rio students have traveled in the last seven years to Waco to study for certificates and Associate of Applied Science degrees in Welding Technology.

“Every year I take some of my juniors and seniors on a tour around Texas for three days and we visit all the welding schools we can,” Townsend said. “When I was at TSTC and met all the instructors and saw the rigor of the courses, it looked like the best program for sure.”

Arturo Ponce, 19, took one of the college tours and liked the hands-on tradition of attending TSTC.

“You can go anywhere there is a job,” he said about welding. “There is always a need.”

Ponce and Luis Saucedo, 19, are already connecting their college learning experiences to industry by working part time at a fabrication shop in Crawford. Luis Saucedo’s brother graduated from TSTC in Waco earlier this year with an associate degree in Welding Technology and worked at the same business.

Saucedo said he likes learning additional skills in gas tungsten arc welding that build on the basics he learned in Del Rio.

Jose Munoz, 20, a second-year Welding Technology student, said he wants to learn about metalworking so he can work on older automobiles and hot rods.

Most of the students live on campus in the Village Oaks Apartments, though not all are roommates. The apartments the students congregate in typically have the newest video games and occasionally flow with musical sounds from the border.

“Here in Waco you need money to do something, but down there in Del Rio, not really,” Munoz said. “You can go to the creek, the lake.”

Some of the students said it has been an adjustment getting used to Waco, particularly with traffic and stop lights. Some students have learned that Spanish is not the dominant language in the area, while others crave Del Rio’s locally made tortilla chips.

“We feel like we are taking care of each other,” Ponce said.

Roberto Lopez, 19, a second-year Welding Technology student, does not think the drive to Del Rio is that lengthy. He grew up on a ranch and often helped his father with welding projects.

“I go home almost every weekend,” he said “The biggest thing I have miss is my family.”

Townsend sends his students off with other skills to help them in classes, and later, jobs.

“Pretty much anyone can teach the skill of welding,” he said. “But I can teach them how to be professional. I meet them in the hall, look them in the eye and shake their hands. I believe you have to be professional before anything. If you teach them that, no matter what field they are in, they are going to be successful.”

Townsend thinks more of his welding students will be on their way to Waco in years to come. Del Rio’s welding program has at least 60 students this year, Townsend said.

“He actually cares about the program and the reputation it has at the high school,” said Joshua A. Garcia, 19.

The San Felipe Del Rio Consolidated School District is finishing construction on the Gerardo J. Maldonado Career and Technical Education Center, which will house welding, automotive, construction and other technical programs that are now taught at Del Rio High School. Townsend expects all the technical programs to grow because there will be more learning space. Classes will begin at the new building in January.

For more information on TSTC, log on to tstc.edu.

(WACO) – Just like the tools he uses in his job, Jerry McNeal has had to evolve and learn new methods and tasks.

From starting as an illustrator with pens and boards in the 1980s at a Fort Worth defense and aerospace company to now using sophisticated software as a member of Austin’s growing technology sector, McNeal, 52, has to keep up. He is a technical success manager at Bazaarvoice in north Austin where he works with the company’s more than 5,000 global clients on technical issues.

McNeal graduated in 1985 from Texas State Technical College in Waco with an Associate of Applied Science degree in Design and Technical Illustration (now an Associate of Applied Science degree in Visual Communication Technology).

“There are a lot of students that are best suited to go to TSTC because they need to go to work,” McNeal said. “They don’t have the time to invest in going to school for five years. I really do like TSTC. I think it’s a great school and offers a great education.”

Bazaarvoice sets up platforms used for global consumer-generated reviews and content for brands and companies, and it maintains search engine optimization for clients. Social media also plays a role in keeping information relevant to consumers, driving their buying habits.

“It is a very casual place to work,” McNeal said. “It’s much like other technology companies that you run into. We are about 12 years old and that is fairly new.”

Bazaarvoice has about 800 employees worldwide. Some of TSTC’s technical programs that fit the company’s mold include software development, computer science, web design and development technology, and digital media design, said Graham Pionkowski, Bazaarvoice’s director of talent acquisition in Austin.

Challenges, risk, striving for innovation and collaboration are some of the qualities Bazaarvoice’s potential and present employees should have besides technical knowledge, Pionkowski said.

“I feel the company is on a path of growth in the coming years,” he said. “It’s important to have a foothold in the talent market and the employer brand to make sure we are filling the organization with the right lifeblood to continue to succeed. We are built around our employees.”

McNeal grew up in Austin and is a graduate of Reagan High School. He heard about TSTC from his brother, who studied aviation maintenance in the early 1980s in Waco.

“When I got out of high school I wasn’t interested in a four-year college at the time,” McNeal said. “I liked working more than I wanted to go to school. That is why I chose to go to TSTC. It allowed me to take all the courses I wanted to take that were of interest. I worked full time when I was going to school.”

He said he had three job offers upon graduation from TSTC. From Fort Worth, McNeal went on to work in College Station and Tennessee before returning to the capital of Texas.

“Names like Google, Facebook, Amazon and well-known brands in the United States and worldwide are setting up shop and expanding in Austin, which has made it more competitive but also welcome because we are getting some of the best talent across the world in this wonderful city,” Pionkowski said.

For more information on Bazaarvoice, go to bazaarvoice.com.

For more information on TSTC, go to tstc.edu.

(WACO) – Two Texas State Technical College in Waco police officers were honored Tuesday night by the Lacy Lakeview City Council for their work in helping to de-escalate a situation last summer.

TSTC’s Sgt. Roman Proctor and Patrolman Marcus Woods were recognized with lifesaving pins to wear on their uniforms for helping to keep a woman from jumping off the Meyers Lane overpass bridge on Interstate 35 in August.

The incident area is long familiar to the TSTC officers – they grew up in Waco, with Proctor graduating in 2001 from A.J. Moore Academy and Woods graduating in 2010 from Connally High School. Both are criminal justice graduates of McLennan Community College.

“I am proud to serve with Sergeant Proctor and Officer Woods,” TSTC Police Chief Brian Davis said. “Their courageous and lifesaving actions were certainly worthy of recognition. This exemplifies the service they provide to our community on a daily basis.”

Lacy Lakeview Police Chief John Truehitt said Proctor and Woods responded first to the situation early on a rainy morning in August.

Proctor said the officers had to assess the situation quickly.

“She was sitting on the side of the bridge and had some blood coming from her arm,” Woods said.

The woman, whose relatives quickly arrived at the scene, became distracted and began to crawl over the railing. That is when Officer Casey Lander of the Lacy Lakeview Police Department helped Proctor and Woods pull the woman to safety. An ambulance was on standby near the scene to transport the woman to a local hospital.

“The truth of the matter is, it’s what we are in the business for,” Truehitt said. “We take ‘protect and serve’ very seriously.”

Lander, who worked for TSTC from 2010 to 2014, was also recognized with a lifesaving pin.

“It’s an honor to go out and do the job every day,” Lander said.

The TSTC and Lacy Lakeview police departments typically back up each other on service calls and 911 dispatches. Truehitt said Lacy Lakeview’s policy is to have two officers respond to particular scenes, like those of domestic violence, which can deplete manpower as other incidents happen in the city of more than 6,500.

For more information on the city of Lacy Lakeview, go to lacylakeview.org.

For more information on TSTC, go to tstc.edu.

(WACO) – People walking into the hangar at the end of the Col. James T. Connally Aerospace Center at Texas State Technical College in Waco can see learning in progress.

Small turboprop planes and a helicopter are positioned where wings and propellers do not touch. A person can see the exposed engines and dashboards as they duck under wings while walking through the hangar.

The hangar is used by students in the technical college’s Aviation Maintenance department and is a place attracting students from throughout Texas to learn the inner workings of airplanes and helicopters, all within Federal Aviation Administration guidelines.

“I take good notes in class,” said Ryan Borg, 21, of San Antonio and a 2014 graduate of Steele High School. “I absorb this stuff easily. I enjoy being able to wake up and fix these aircraft.”

The department has grown from 80 students in the 2015-16 academic year to about 100 students for the 2016-17 academic year. Robert Capps, the department’s lead instructor, said faculty members anticipate the department growing to 120 students next year.

“We want students who are good at technical reading and writing, have a grasp of high school algebra and, above all, a curiosity and a love of learning,” Capps said.

Borg is working on the department’s associate degrees in Aircraft Airframe Technology and Aircraft Powerplant Technology. He is also a student worker in the department.

Borg said he was good at mathematics and using tools growing up building homes with his grandfather. A high school teacher, along with Borg’s father, encouraged him to take a look at TSTC.

“My father was a pilot, and he suggested we go look at the TSTC Airport. So we took a tour of the facility,” Borg said. “I thought it would be fun to ‘wrench’ on those airplanes.”

Some of the department’s students came to TSTC by way of having degrees in other fields.

Chris Smith, 31, a native of Missouri City and a 2003 graduate of Hightower High School in Missouri City, studied sports management at Metropolitan State University of Denver and worked for the Atlantic League’s Sugar Land Skeeters.

But he discovered working with sports was not what he wanted to do the rest of his career. He wants one to day repair F/A-18 Hornets in the Denver or Dallas-Fort Worth areas.

“My affinity for aviation started kicking in,” Smith said. “I wanted to work on airplanes. I wanted to learn how they worked and get a job and pay to further my education.”

Brian Davis, 36, grew up in Austin and graduated in 1998 from Stephen F. Austin High School. The Temple resident received a bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida and a master’s degree in Engineering Management from the Florida Institute of Technology.

Despite challenges finding jobs in the engineering field and working in cable company customer support and quality engineering, Davis still kept the aerospace field in mind. He found TSTC through an online search and is working on the associate degree in Aircraft Airframe Technology.

“I was able to test out of the mathematics and physics classes,” Davis said. “A lot of the physics deals with aerodynamics. This program opens much more doors.”

Capps said the department’s students are sought after.

Our college’s reputation in the industry is such that employers come to us frequently to hire our graduates,” he said. “Textron Aviation (based in Wichita, Kansas) came last semester and interviewed six people, offered jobs to four of them, and two accepted.”

At least 121,000 aircraft mechanics and service technicians are expected to be needed through 2024, according to projectionscentral.com, a clearinghouse of short-term and long-term state labor market predictions.

“We are very excited about the growth of the aerospace industry,” Capps said. “Flight hours are expected to double in the next 15 years. We are also excited about the space side of the aerospace industry. Commercial space flights are on the cusp of beginning. Our students are well-positioned to begin a career that will continue as future supervisors and management in the commercial space industry.”

The Aviation Maintenance department also offers certificates in Aircraft Airframe Technology and Aircraft Powerplant Technology.

For more information, go to tstc.edu.