When Tamara Jones decided that the factory floor was not going to get her to where she wanted to go in life she chose Mid-State Technical College to put her on the path to a career as a municipal engineering technician. Her factory job along with waiting tables provided a paycheck but at least in her opinion, not a future.

She brushed up on her math skills, tackled learning to make the computer work for her and applied the work ethic she learned from her parents to her studies as a civil engineering technician. On the day she graduated she went back to work as a server at a local restaurant.

Two weeks later she took an exciting position as a civil engineering technician for Hennapin County on the outskirts of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her salary is higher, she is providing necessary municipal services as part of a professional local government team and her opportunities for personal and professional growth will keep her engaged and advancing on life’s path.

When Addie Tamboli walked into the door of MSTC ten years ago, she figured she would take a few classes while she figured out what to do next in her life. Now she is the youngest alderperson on her local city council, a “stay-at-home mom” (for now) and an experienced commercial land development engineering technician (inactive). Addie has taken the leadership experience from her eight years in the Army Reserve, her civil engineering training from MSTC, and her experience as a staff engineer with General Engineering and is busy applying the sum of her experience to making Portage, Wisconsin a better place. She also goes to the park and takes her kids to birthday parties to fill time until she picks her career back up where she left it.

Liz Johnson is happy to have an invigorating office in which to apply the civil engineering and survey skills she gained as a civil engineering technology student at Mid-State Technical College back in the 90’s. It’s not that she wouldn’t also love to be a field engineer like her husband Andy, also an MSTC graduate, it’s just that for now she has enough balls in the air. The juggling act of two fulfilling careers, an expanding family, and the lynchpin roll of keeping six survey crews productive makes more regular hours a necessary part of the jigsaw puzzle her life.

As the owner and principal engineer of Quest, L.L.C. Kimberly Kronstedt is responsible for assuring a wide variety of transportation engineering projects are quality constructed and capable of withstanding Wisconsin’s winters for many years to come. Though she nearly became a mathematician, Kim has found that a career in civil engineering fit her skills and talents and allowed her to excel. Her students at Mid-State Technical College (where she taught until 2005) as well as the employees and clients of her successful firm always wonder if men are as capable of doing the variety and quality of work that she is.