Thank you for including me in this special group of Summerville grads! This means a lot to my family and myself. Ever since I first attended the Connections Academy in 7th grade, I’ve strived to be a part of our Summerville Bear community. When I was growing up, playing sports was a big part of my life and a definite family activity. When I reached the age of beginning to attend Connections at Summerville, I turned another direction and began making music and technology my focus. I began playing in the marching band at Soulsbyville and then began playing several instruments by the time I was in the band at Summerville. My mom gifted me drum lessons at age 13, then I started playing the guitar. I ended up playing the trumpet and performed at many of our community events by playing Taps with my friend, Charlie, where we echoed each other with our own version of this famous song. We played at a Policeman’s Memorial in downtown Sonora and then were featured at the 10-year anniversary of 911 at the Twain Harte Lake.
While at Summerville I met lots of lifelong friends in band and theater. I became the right-hand woman for Mr. Johnson and Mrs. Young helping them with technology and stage-managing plays and musical events. I was able to make sure these events ran smoothly and this eventually helped me decide to become an electrical engineer. Several of us competed in the Future Business Leaders of America, FBLA, competitions at several levels. I won the Business Math category and compet
ed at the state level. ACADEC was another competition that I competed in representing our school. Then there was the Robotics Club and going to competitions in my mom’s Tahoe with our robot strapped to the back! Those were great times that I will never forget. I managed to fit band and being the Drum Major into our busy schedule and loved marching in the Motherlode Round Up Parade where the whole county would come out to see us and cheer us on! Performing at Football and Basketball games were more great times for our band community. It was great to be able to continue watching sports while playing in the band! Another great memory I have is going to the University of Nevada Football games and watching my brother, Jake play!
I’ve been told that I helped many students, even those that were older than I was, succeed in classes as well. Once when we had a substitute teacher, they let me essentially teach the lesson plan for the day. Mat
h, sciences and technology were where I excelled. I remember being 2-3 years old and my mom would bring me to go show houses. She would let me open the lockboxes with a key fob and then let me take apart her phone. This was the beginning of my Engineering career and I didn’t even know it! By the time I graduated, my GPA was 4.5 and I was only the Salutatorian at our graduation. We had many students that excelled that year! I was fortunate to be able to be chosen for several Tuolumne County area scholarships which helped me with my decision to study Electrical Engineering at Fresno State. I graduated with a BSEE in Fall 2019 and was the student speaker at graduation for the Construction Management and Engineering Schools. I was also honored there as the Dean’s Medalist of the Lyles College of Engineering. While at Fresno State, I was a member of the unmanned aerial systems team and performed research related to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Outside of school, I interned with Toyota Motors of North America, designing and testing multimedia systems, cockpit electronics, and fuel cell vehicles. Since graduating from college, I have worked as a Hardware Engineer for Cisco Systems, Inc. designing systems that power the internet. I now proudly have 9 patents to my name and am hoping to continue to make my mark in the engineering world.