Local engineers council honors Southwest student

The Memphis-Area Joint Engineers Council recently honored Southwest Engineering Technology student Jensel Garcia with an achievement award as Southwest’s 2018 Featured Engineering Technology Student during the Engineers Week Banquet sponsored by the Tennessee Society of Professional Engineers Memphis Chapter. The banquet is one of the local Engineer’s Week events that celebrates the work and contributions of Memphis area engineers and recognizes the achievements of middle school, high school and college students in the Memphis area.

Southwest Interim Chair for Technologies Willie Burley says the department is proud to recognize Garcia. “He has a profound understanding of the course material and has demonstrated the skills necessary to compete in today’s job market,” Burley said. “He is a prime candidate, able and ready to tackle the technical needs of any engineering firm.”

Garcia, a non-traditional student who returned to college after receiving a bachelor’s degree in Spanish with a minor in Music from the University of North Carolina at Asheville, chose Southwest to develop the hands-on technical skills he needed to advance in his information technology career. He previously worked as a service manager for a managed service provider that has customers in the medical, manufacturing and defense industries. Prior to that, he worked in television broadcasting as a master control operator at Memphis Fox affiliate WHBQ Fox 13. He says Engineers Week was a great opportunity to network with local engineers from MLGW and other IT professionals across Tennessee. “It allowed me to display my professional ability and the award is meaningful because it means my peers and other engineering professionals recognize me as someone who has the potential to become a great engineer,” he said.

Garcia, a recent Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society inductee, is scheduled to graduate in May with Associate of Applied of Science degrees in Computer Technology and Electrical Engineering Technology, both of which are accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. Through embedded studies, he already has fulfilled the requirements to receive the industrial computer fundamentals certificate and will be awarded an electronic technologies certificate.

He credits the Southwest faculty, the Career Services department and the Southwest Foundation for his success at Southwest and looks forward to a bright future. “During spring break, I’m interviewing at several places and look forward to landing a great job soon.”