- I was starting to understand the physical toll
that manual labor was gonna take on my body.
I could see it in my father
who had been a mechanic his whole life,
and it just broke his body down.
And so I took the leap and I was just, you know what?
I'm going back to school.
My name's Zachary Earnest,
Manufacturing Engineer here at Ashland Conveyor Products.
I happen to be on the website
right as they release the engineering tech program.
I think I'm Googling, what's engineering technology?
- At Ohio State, the engineering technology program
is an engineering degree that
covers multiple different disciplines of engineering,
but also includes business and leadership principles.
I've had people in industry say,
I can hire a mechanical engineer all day long.
What I can't find are leaders.
And those are the kinds of things that we're equipping
our engineering technology graduates to do.
- One of the best things I ever did was go back to school.
It allowed me structure in my life
when I struggled with finding my bearings
on a day-to-day basis.
Ohio State was basically a pathway for me.
You know, it gave me things
that I would've normally not done for myself,
and I'm eternally grateful for that.
- People like Zach are gonna take skills and automation
to a company that doesn't have it.
Next thing you know, they're competing in a bigger market
than they ever have been before.
(uplifting music)
- Ohio State almost heard verbatim
exactly what industry was saying
and then put it in a curriculum, got industry approval,
and I think it was just a recipe for success.