The ‘Energize Your Destiny’ event was a quality learning experience. The event this week was on Wednesday, Oct 9 from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Recital Hall in MU-720. Although it was not as packed as previous years, it was successful. 

Program Coordinator for Workforce and Economic Development Department said, “Everything was amazing, I can’t say it enough we would rather have quality over quantity.” 

This event has ran successfully for three years due to the partnership between Shell and LMC. 

Nicola Mcher safety manager at the Martinez Shell Refinery said, “talking about women in our industry past, present and future,” Mcher added her thoughts about the importance of this event saying, “it’s a great event to encourage women to be in our industry.”

Los Medanos College President Bob Kratochvil said, “Great opportunity putting a spotlight on our partnership with Shell and all our industry partners and also highlighting our Ptech program.”

This event was meant to connect career and education, describing the two-year degree STEM path and encouraging students, emphasizing the female population, that jobs in this career are no longer a man’s world or boys-only club. 

One of the presenters referred to a quote from former president Barack Obama saying, “change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time.”

 For Workforce Development Advisor David Esquibel, this has been his third consecutive event. He commented on the turn out saying, “We don’t see a lot of females coming in to these two-year non-traditional career paths, so we’re just encouraging females to look at this as a viable educational career path.”

One of the panelists, Nicole Pitts, said this about her career at Shell, “[It’s] rewarding, as well as the compensation… and a great career to challenge you mentally to be on top of new technologies and know great opportunities and the teamwork there is just phenomenal.”

The student feedback was inspirational for future events as one  Los Medanos College student Esabella Llamas said, “It was inspiring, and full of ideas and a lot of information,” Llamas added, “I wasn’t expecting to walk away with and would recommend future events.”