PANAMA CITY — Growing up in a little speck on the map called Iola, Kan., Aubri Hanson never imagined she’d be teaching engineering students or accepting the 2014 Post-Secondary Educator of the Year award.
The Florida Advanced Technological Education Center of Excellence (FLATE) award recognizes community college or technical school educators who’ve demonstrated excellence in manufacturing and engineering technology education.
“It was a surprise to be nominated and definitely a surprise to get the award, because I don’t feel like I’ve been in academics for that long,” said the 38-year-old Hanson.
Hanson is assistant professor in the business and technology division at Gulf Coast State College. She started as an adjunct commuting from Enterprise, Ala., to teach one night a week for several semesters before turning full time in 2012 as the manager of engineering technology programs. Now she makes that drive four times a week.
She helped increase program enrollment by over 400 percent and updating the program’s curricula to the FLATE model. She was nominated by co-worker Naisy Dolar and was notified Oct. 26 that she’d won the award.
Hanson has come a long way since deciding not to immediately go to college upon graduating high school in 1994. She was a young mom to her now 19-year-old daughter, Allison, and went to work in a factory setting in nearby Chanute, Ala., for Kustom Signals, acompany that built radar and video systems for police cars.
“It was my boss there who said, ‘I think you have a real talent for this, and you should go to college,’ ” she said.
Hanson earned a master’s in physics from the University of Southern Mississippi and said she never really planned to end up on the teaching side of academia.
“I like to solve problems,” she said. “I went into physics so I wouldn’t be isolated into any one particular area of engineering.”
Hanson spent 12 years of her career in research prior to Gulf Coast. She performed radiation detection studies at Radiance Technologies in Huntsville, Ala. and worked at NASA Stennis Space Center in Mississippi in the areas of rocket engine testing, vacuum systems, integrated system health management and on return to flight efforts after the space shuttle Columbia accident.
She now enjoys teaching a broad range of students — from those fresh out of high school to full-time industry professionals looking to expand their expertise. Gulf Coast emphasizes a relationship with local employers to cultivate a workforce with very specific skills.
“It’s very important for me to not only teach students the skills that they need, but to follow through and make sure they get meaningful jobs in their areas of expertise and beyond,” Hanson said.
With a placement rate of 95 percent, engineering technology grads easily get entry-level technician jobs and hired as engineers with just a two-year degree.
“I have more jobs than students to fill them,” Hanson said, adding the other 5 percent are students who chose to go on to higher education.
Hanson said starting an engineering program in community college has an advantage over larger universities.
“They concentrate primarily on the theory, while we’re so hands-on with our students,” she said.
‘Where I want to be’
As a woman, Hanson is a minority in her field.
“With the girls that come in here, I just try to encourage them,” she said. “This does not have to be a male-dominated field.”
Last time Hanson heard, only about five women taught in the foundation that issued her award.
She’s never let family life or motherhood get in the way of pursuing lofty education and career goals. She said her husband, Maj. Anthony Hanson, an Army pilot stationed at Fort Rucker, Ala., supports her all the way.
In the middle of completing her master’s degree, Hanson had a son, Max, who’s now 7.
“You just do it. There were times I took my son in his car seat carrier to the research lab,” she said, laughing at the memory. “He slept in there while I took data for my master’s thesis.”
Now she has her eyes on making tenure at Gulf Coast. Hanson said she’s glad she made the switch from research to academics.
“I honestly couldn’t picture myself doing anything else now,” she said. “I get to be in the lab with students doing different projects. That’s where I want to be.”