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Five years after speaking at Southwestern Michigan College’s 2021 Commencement, Brenna Maxwell is a year and a half into her career as a controls engineer.

“Being a controls engineer is very satisfying,” she said. “We come across many interesting challenges that force us to think outside the box for days or weeks. At the end of the day, once we solve that challenge and see our discoveries work as planned, we get a great feeling of accomplishment.”

When she started at SMC as a dual-enrolled junior from Edwardsburg High School (Class of 2020), Brenna Lewis, Lewis Cass Intermediate School District’s 2020 Outstanding Career/Technical Education Student, completed a welding certificate, then added a robotics associate degree in 2022.

“All I knew was that I wanted to go to school for something fun and interesting, therefore helping me avoid a job I’d hate going to for the rest of my life,” she said in her graduation speech.

Maxwell worked at Eagle Technologies (now Convergix) in Bridgman/St. Joseph from 2021-24 as a controls engineer intern for one year, then a robotics engineer for 2½ years.

“I have now been at Edgewater Automation in Buchanan for a year and a half as a controls design engineer,” Maxwell said. “At Edgewater, we develop, design, program and install custom automation.”

“The engineering field is still primarily male-dominated,” she said, “but we have a female mechanical engineer, mechanical engineer intern, mechanical builder, communication specialist and many other females working around me.”

“I would definitely recommend that women venture outside the box and try trade-driven careers or engineering career fields,” Maxwell said. “There's so many more opportunities in the world that schools don't exactly teach us about or paint a glamorous picture of. Sometimes it just takes a career fair or LinkedIn or an article to pique our interest and show us other career options. I highly encourage high school and college students to try something new and out of their comfort zone. At SMC, I was able to learn about welding and robotics. Those studies both helped me discover a career field that I am passionate about. ”

“In high school,” she said in her graduation speech, “not knowing (what to study) always stressed me out. I would hear students talk about what they were going to study in college and their dream jobs, but I was clueless.

“SMC really came through for me,” she said. “The variety of programs and courses gave me a better grasp of my future. My choice to attend SMC as a dual-enrolled high school student was a leap of faith, especially since I chose the welding program. It sounded interesting and fit my hands-on learning style.

“Because I knew so little when I first started my classes, the instructor had to come into the booth with me because I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. All of the instructors made sure that we understood something completely and we were able to do it comfortably throughout the semesters.

“SMC made it possible for us to grow and learn so much more about our fields of study,” Maxwell said. “Through SMC’s welding program, my world expanded. I became exposed to the robotics program. SMC instructors helped prepare us for life beyond campus.”

Maxwell received the Lewis Cass Intermediate School District Career/Technical Education Scholarship, an SMC Presidential Scholarship, an SMC Advanced Technology Talent Scholarship and a Futures for Frontliners state scholarship, graduating debt-free.