WACO, Texas — The Texas State Technical College is shining a light on women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) during Women's History Month this year.
Gladia Escobar and April Falkner both have made large strides in their feild and have about three decades of service to TSTC combined. Both women are based in Waco, but their work touches all of TSTC’s 10 campuses.
“One of the things I learned about Gladia and April is that they aren’t afraid,” TSTC’s Executive Vice President of Information Technology Support Operations Shelli Scherwitz said. “These two are never afraid of identifying the hard issues and work with the team to resolve them.”
Escobar is a technical consultant who works to approve software and hardware for the college. She has been at TSTC for eight years.
Escobar said she became interested in technology when her family got their first home computer when she was young. She spent time downloading music and burning compact discs.
Some of her favorite pieces of education technology are the clear-touch interactive displays that are starting to be used in some of TSTC’s labs.
Falkner is TSTC’s lead programmer and analyst for a software system called Colleague. Colleague is the software system that runs all things business TSTC. This includes everything from billing to student registration.
Falkner also develops custom programs written specifically for TSTC that Colleague does not provide.
“I like solving problems. Also, I like the fact that what I am doing is helping someone else do their job better or make it easy for them,” Falkner said.
A major project that Falkner is working on now is the college’s conversion in early 2022 to Workday, a cloud-based software.
“Right now, we are in the middle of implementing the software for the human resources and finance offices, and once that is implemented, then we will start on the students’ system in Colleague and move it to Workday,” Falkner said.
Falkner has worked in TSTC’s Office of Information Technology since 2000 and has been in her current role since 2015.
During the month of March, TSTC is continuing to honor women in history and women on its campuses that work in the STEM field every day.
“Women bring special skills to the IT field,” Scherwitz said. “Men and women see things differently, and this diversity brings new solutions to the table when resolving problems. The technical field is growing each day, and it needs women to help it grow. It is a tremendous opportunity for those who are willing to grasp it.”
Sixteen TSTC women work in a range of roles statewide at the Office of Information Technology that keeps the college functioning. These roles include everything from serving as applications administrators to help-desk technicians.
Also on KCENTV.com: