FLATE recently interviewed Austin Atwood, a Quality Assurance Technician at Southern Manufacturing Technologies (SMT). We learned that he had plans to enter the medical field like both his parents until he participated in FLATE’s MFG Day tour program when he was a junior in high school. Atwood credits his career path change 100% to the MFG Day tour.
WE UNDERSTAND YOU PARTICIPATED IN A MANUFACTURING DAY TOUR WHEN YOU WERE A JUNIOR IN THE ENGINEERING ACADEMY AT RIVER RIDGE HIGH SCHOOL. CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE TOUR AND WHAT WAS INTERESTING ABOUT IT?
It's kind of hard to say because a little bit of everything. At that point, I wasn’t at the level I’m at now. I was very much entry level so everything was very new to me, everything was very interesting. Before I went into the engineering academy, I wanted to be a registered nurse, because both of my parents were in the medical field. And then I got into the Engineering Academy and I started to think that maybe that wasn’t it. And then I took the tour on Manufacturing Day and I got the job at SMT a year later and then I ended up completely changing my career path and I ended up here in engineering.
WHAT ARE YOU STUDYING NOW?
Currently, I’m in my final semester of studying Engineering Technology at Pasco Hernando Community College. I’m taking the last three classes right now. But I’ve bounced around a couple of different degree paths. At one point, I was going for Mechanical Engineering at USF and then I decided that wasn’t quite what I wanted to do. It was just a little too cerebral, not enough hands-on. So, I’ve been in college about six years now, but to be completely honest, it would have been two years if I had put in the footwork and found this degree program initially and realized what it was. It wasn’t until I knew what I was looking for that I found this and said, “Hey, that’s what I’m looking for.”
I’m going to be completely honest with you. I don’t know my current title because I’ve bounced around between so many different things. At one point, I was the CNC Operator. Right now, I think the best answer would be a Quality Assurance Technician. I’ve been doing that here for about a year and a half now, but I’ve been with SMT for almost 8 years.
WHAT DID YOU LEARN AT RIVER RIDGE OR IN COLLEGE THAT DIRECTLY SUPPORTS YOUR JOB OR WOULD YOU SAY THAT YOU LEARNED ON THE JOB?
A lot of what I learned was on the job, but a lot of that is because of the roundabout route I took. By the time I got into Engineering Technology, I had been at SMT for 6 years and I knew what I was being taught. However, with that being said, if I had just started in Engineering Technology, just about every class had some kind of basis into what I’m doing. To the point where I took a class about Programmable Logic Controllers and I thought it would have nothing to do with my job and then I found out that they are the brains of all the machines I was running. So, I was all of a sudden sitting in class learning “oh, that’s why I need to do this combination of buttons.” Whereas, at work, it was just “you’re on the job, the machine’s waiting, this is what you need to do to get it running.” So very much so my college was more about explaining why I was doing the things I was doing. However, if I had done it the opposite way, I would have come in with a lot more base knowledge.
SO THE ET PROGRAM THAT YOU’RE IN AT PASCO HERNANDO HAS BEEN DIRECTLY RELEVANT RATHER THAN THE ENGINEERING PROGRAM AT RIVER RIDGE OR THROUGH THE MECHANICAL ENGINEERING THAT YOU STARTED WITH AT USF?
Yes, it very much is teaching me the background of my job. The Engineering program at River Ridge – it tried to teach you a lot of the information, but the biggest thing I got out of that was more how to approach problems, how to think like an engineer as opposed to how people normally approach problem-solving. Because of that, when I got into the ET classes, I was already in the mindset that I needed to be in order to approach the problems the correct way. And Mechanical Engineering – most of the reason I got out of that is because it was over qualifying me for what I wanted to do. I had decided that I didn’t actually want to be a mechanical engineer, so it was teaching me a lot of stuff I just wasn’t going to use.
ONCE YOU GOT INTO THE ENGINEERING PROGRAM AT RIVER RIDGE, WERE YOU ALREADY LEANING TOWARDS A CAREER IN MANUFACTURING OR WAS IT REALLY THE MANUFACTURING DAY EXPERIENCE THAT CEMENTED THAT?
100% it was the Manufacturing Day that cemented it in. I was kind of leaning, but I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. Engineering was an interesting thing to me at that point, but it was an elective I was taking one period a day. It wasn’t until I started learning more about it through taking the tours of different manufacturing places and getting this job at SMT that really cemented it into my head that this is what I want to do.
IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU LOVE IT.
Oh yes. I routinely tell people when they see me stressed about my job, “I’m stressed because some of the people that I work with, as you will be anywhere you work, but I absolutely love what I do.”
WHAT ARE YOUR FUTURE CAREER PLANS?
I’m hoping to stay with SMT. I want to move up within Quality Assurance. I found out that I very much enjoy solving problems and that’s a lot of what Quality Assurance is. You get parts and you’ve got to find out if they’re good or not. If they’re kind of marginal, you’ve got to go through all the processes to figure out why they might be good, why they might not be good, pull up all the specs. It’s very much a problem-solving process and I really like that. You’re always doing different parts, different dimensions, it’s never the actual same thing over and over again. And I really like that.
SO YOU ENDED UP IN A JOB YOU LOVE WHERE YOU CAN JUST WORK YOUR WAY UP WITHIN THE SAME FIELD?
Exactly.
WOULD YOU RECOMMEND A MANUFACTURING DAY TOUR TO OTHER STUDENTS?
Oh yes, whole heartedly.
DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE FOR STUDENTS GOING ON THEIR FIRST TOUR ON WHAT TO LOOK FOR WHILE THEY’RE ON THE TOUR?
Keep in open mind. Because a lot of kids that age aren’t really thinking about 30 years down the line. They’re very much “Ew, that doesn’t look fun.” Maybe it doesn’t look fun, but it’s fun once you get in there and start doing it. So, keep an open mind, look at what’s going on around you and just figure out what you want to do.
