MTC Tifton graduate defies odds in industrial career

TIFTON — In a career that is primarily sought by men, Moultrie Technical College Tifton Campus student Stephanie Kite looks to change all that in the Industrial Systems Technology field.

When she walked across the stage at Withers Auditorium in Moultrie as the only female graduate out of five in the Moultrie Tech IST program during the College’s semi-annual Commencement Ceremony held Friday night, 28-year-old Kite took that first big step into her non-traditional career.

Industrial Systems Technology is a field that is considered non-traditional for females. Non-traditional occupations are defined as occupations that have less than 25 percent of one gender employed in the workforce. MTC’s IST diploma program teaches skills in several areas of industrial maintenance including electronics, industrial wiring, motors, controls, PLCs, instrumentation, fluid power, mechanical, pumps and piping, and computers.

Kite, of Tifton, has already broken the glass ceiling while carrying a heavy load as a single working mom of two daughters, ages 5 and 9. As a full-time student, she is also employed full-time at Miller Brewing Company in Albany in the packaging department and helps to maintain the machines using skills learned at MTC.

Her instructors, Chris Estes and Ubaldo Gonzalez on the MTC Tifton Campus, say she has achieved a high grade point average while taking care of her children and sometimes working two jobs at a time.

Kite was among hundreds of her fellow MTC graduates, as the college recognized 300 allied health, business and computers, personal and public service, and technical and industrial program graduates in addition to over 140 adult education (GED) program graduates from its four-county service area of Colquitt, Tift, Turner and Worth.

MTC president Tina Anderson congratulated the winter and spring quarter graduating classes of 2009 as MTC Early Childhood Care and Education instructor and 2008 Rick Perkins Instructor of the Year award winner Kathryn Kent led the faculty, staff and graduate processional as the event’s marshal.

MTC Board of Directors members Bill Boone, of the Center of Innovation for Agriculture in Tifton, and Lauren Howell, of Howell & Parrott law firm in Moultrie, assisted the College's administration in the conferring of awards.

One of the highlights of the ceremony was the commencement address given by Robb Howell, a trial lawyer and a partner in the Howell & Parrott law firm in Moultrie. Howell is also a member of the Moultrie Tech Foundation Board of Directors, among many other community leadership roles.

The faculty, staff, graduates and their friends and families were also treated to an inspirational solo by Moultrie Tech’s Neuromuscular Therapy instructor Amber Schwalls.

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