Science & Technology
Lockheed, NextEra, Sikorsky: Major multinationals scoop up PBSC grads
SHARE
Emerson Blatche still sounds slightly amazed when he talks about the moment Lockheed
Martin offered him a full‑time job—months before he was set to graduate from Palm
Beach State College. One day he was a student in PBSC’s Electrical Power Technology Program; the next, he was working in the flight‑testing division on Black Hawk helicopters.
It’s the kind of career leap usually associated with elite engineering schools and
four‑year degrees. But at PBSC, it has become almost routine.
Blatche hadn’t planned on aerospace. He’d been studying low‑voltage systems when he
met Professor Oleg Andric, the longtime program leader whose industry connections
and relentless advocacy for his students have become a defining feature of the program.
Andric encouraged him to explore Electrical Power Technology, and once Blatche toured
the labs—packed with industrial‑grade equipment—he realized he’d found something different.
Still, it wasn’t until Andric took his class on a tour of Lockheed Martin’s West Palm
Beach facility that everything clicked. The tour led to an internship, and the internship
led to work that most students only read about in textbooks. Blatche helped install
strain gauges on helicopter blades, worked with data acquisition systems, and supported
testing on aircraft used in rescue operations and national defense. Six months in,
Lockheed made its offer.
Curtis James, senior manager for flight test instrumentation at Sikorsky, a Lockheed
Martin company, says that outcome is no accident. “The program does a very, very good
job at preparing the students to be productive on day one,” he said. Lockheed helps
shape PBSC’s curriculum, ensuring students learn the exact skills the company needs.
“We know the students are being taught the tangible skill set we need.”
Blatche’s capstone project—a wire‑harness tester that automates fault detection—grew
directly out of what he saw on the job, a small example of how PBSC’s program blends
classroom learning with industry reality.
That same model is what propelled Manrikot Senat toward a career in renewable energy.
Senat had always been a tinkerer—“My mom remembered me breaking a lot of toys and
trying to put them back together,” he said—but he didn’t see a clear path into engineering
until he toured a NextEra Energy solar plant with Professor Andric. Seeing solar power
converted into electricity and fed into the grid sparked something. His capstone project,
a solar‑powered greenhouse, reflects that moment, using renewable energy to run grow
lights and fans. NextEra has already hired him to work on wind turbines and SCADA
monitoring systems, the digital backbone of modern power generation.
Christian Dooley, a PBSC alumnus now at NextEra who helped hire Senat, says the company
actively recruits from the program. “NextEra likes to look for students because they
specialize in SCADA systems and engineering technology that branches out to the workforce
at NextEra,” he said.
For Jonathan Jackson, the program offered something even more transformative: a way
out of a dead‑end job and into a field he never knew existed. After high school, he
drifted. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” he said. But when he found PBSC’s Electrical
Power Technology Program, “it blew my expectations out the roof.” Field trips again
played a pivotal role. At Reworld—a waste‑to‑energy facility that powers 70,000 homes
in Palm Beach County—Jackson saw his coursework come alive. The company soon offered
him a paid internship, and he began maintaining the instrumentation and electrical
systems that keep the plant running around the clock. His capstone project, the “Master
9000,” is a small‑scale version of Reworld’s boiler water‑treatment system, designed
to monitor water quality and automatically correct imbalances.
Amanda Robin, senior manager of human resources at Reworld, says PBSC’s partnership
has solved one of the company’s biggest challenges. “Most of our sites struggle to
hire electrical and instrumentation technicians,” she said. “But because of the program
at Palm Beach State College, it is my least hard‑to‑fill position. The skill set they
come in with is incredible.”
If Blatche, Senat, and Jackson show how PBSC launches students into high‑demand industries,
Armando Casarella shows why the program matters just as much to adults looking to
restart their lives. Casarella had already earned a degree years earlier and built
a career in international sales. But when the pandemic forced him back to Palm Beach
County, he found himself reevaluating everything. “I wanted a career instead of a
job,” he said. “And I needed something to get the ball rolling quickly.”
A friend told him about PBSC’s Electrical Power Technology Program, and after touring
the labs, he was “blown away.” He hadn’t realized how many industries relied on the
skills taught in the program—utilities, aerospace, defense, water management, and
more. “It’s like a hidden treasure,” he said. “I wish I knew about it earlier in my
life.”
Because he was older, he couldn’t afford to spend four years retraining. PBSC’s two‑year,
industry‑aligned degree was exactly what he needed. He threw himself into the program
full‑time, working odd jobs to get by. The payoff came quickly: a paid internship
with the Palm Beach County Water Department, where everything he learned in class
translated directly to the field. “My knowledge and the job correlate hand in hand,”
he said. “It was a perfect fit.”
Casarella now sees a long‑term career ahead of him—one with stability, benefits, and
room to grow. “Palm Beach State College is the only school that offers such a complete
program that provides a fast‑track path toward a professional career,” he said. “It
was the best thing I ever did.”
Across aerospace, clean energy, utilities, and sustainability, PBSC students aren’t
just finding jobs—they’re filling critical roles in industries that keep the region
running. And increasingly, they’re doing it before they even cross the graduation
stage.
NEXT ARTICLE
President Parker spotlights future of work, technology and talent at Tomorrow.City USA
