A stroll down the halls of any Tulsa Tech campus is a feast for the senses. Step inside the Broken Arrow campus, and your first sight is a pristine old car, proudly displayed across the welcoming lobby. But beyond the sights and smells, you also find a sense of family. “I like the culture here; I have found friends,” Maksym Smolko, a student in the Collision Refinishing program said.
In surveys from the Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation, as many as 30 percent of workers said they wanted out of the profession. That was also true for Tulsa Tech student Kristy Irvine. “I was a nurse for 25 years, and the pandemic put me on a different level of stress and being away from my family,” she said. Like many Americans, the pandemic caused Irvine to reevaluate her life. But she did not want to abandon what she had learned over the last quarter century.
Going back to school is a scary thought for some. At 24 years old, Tulsa Tech alumnus Austin Ridgard took a leap of faith, but he knew what Tech could offer him. While at Union High School, he was enrolled in the pre-engineering program.
"The best things in life are messy." That quote sits at the top of the Kiss My Cook food truck menu. Opened during the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic, the food truck was more than a spur-of-the-moment decision. For Bryan Kiss, it was a way to make it. His passion for food and cooking lead him to Tulsa Tech and the Owasso campus.
American poet Robert Frost is famous for his poem The Road Not Taken, and while published in the early 1900s, it still rings true today. Few journeys have as many twists and turns as Kash Allison, a recent graduate of Tulsa Tech’s Enterprise Network Technologies program. Allison's journey began as a child in Hawaii. After graduating high school, he didn't know what to do, so he joined the military.
Life can be full of adventures. The same can be said for David Loughney, who’s life has taken him from Hawaii to Texas and everywhere in-between. Needless to say, he has seen a lot of the world. Yet, his first love remained. “I have always liked turning wrenches,” Loughney said with a smile.
When you hear the word surveillance, you automatically think of cameras. However, today's systems are much more complex than merely a few cameras. Today's networks require a lot more technical background and for John Berry, Owner of Tulsa Surveillance Technology, Tulsa Tech helped point him on his path to success.
The tale of the last decade for Traden Karch is really a journey from tragedy to triumph. In 2015, he was involved in a car accident on the way home from school that would change his life. "They gave me 24 hours to live, and I was in ICU for three weeks while in a coma," he recalled.
The clang of pots, the grind of a knife, a kitchen is a feast for your senses. The sights, sounds and smells let you know exactly where you are at the moment. The gleaming commercial kitchen at the Owasso Campus is home to dozens of aspiring chefs, and was once a second home to Dakota Cannon.
If you have a fire emergency, you call 9-1-1. But what if nobody is available? That is the sad truth facing fire departments across America. Tulsa Tech and Oklahoma State University teamed up to help put on an accelerated fire academy.