Student Spotlight
Kaylei Coombs, doing it her way
Lots of students earn their associate degrees at SMCC and go on to earn bachelor鈥檚 degrees. Kaylei Coombs is doing it the other way around 鈥� she already has a bachelor鈥檚 and is now completing her associate degree at SMCC.
Kaylei enrolled at the University of Southern Maine after high school in 2014 and earned an environmental science degree last spring. While at USM, she decided to also enroll in SMCC鈥檚 Architectural & Engineering Design (AED) program to learn design skills. She’ll earn her degree this fall.
Kaylei has applied the skills she鈥檚 learned in her AED classes to both school and work. For a class project at USM, she used her design skills to develop a device that measures beer clarity. She also uses her computer-assisted design skills in her job as coordinator for the Maine Clean Communities program.
Someday, she鈥檇 like to start her own business designing green buildings, ones that are energy self-sufficient. That way, she would combine her learning in design from SMCC with her learning in environmental science from USM.
鈥淚鈥檝e learned that the skills I鈥檝e acquired in the Architectural & Engineering Design program can be used in a number of fields. It鈥檚 so applicable to so many things.鈥�
Alumni Spotlight
Mack Stinson, HVAC business owner
Mack Stinson decided to give SMCC鈥檚 HVAC program a shot almost by accident. Not only did he like it, he has taken the skills he learned at SMCC and parlayed them into a growing HVAC business of his own.
When Mack came to SMCC in 2010, two years out of high school, he didn鈥檛 know what he wanted to study. But while figuring out which direction to take, he decided to enroll in the HVAC program, almost on a whim.
It was the right fit, and after graduating with honors in 2013 he worked for commercial HVAC companies for five years. But when he wasn鈥檛 working his day job, he installed heating and cooling systems in people鈥檚 homes on the side.
He built a client base until, in August 2018, he and his wife decided to launch Mack Air Pro, servicing and installing HVAC systems for residential and commercial customers. A year later, his Scarborough-based company now has five employees and business continues to grow.
SMCC, he says, served as a springboard to owning his own successful business. When he came to SMCC, he knew nothing about the HVAC field.
鈥淓verything started clicking when I enrolled in the HVAC program. Being able to build stuff, work on stuff and fix stuff, that was pretty cool. Everything really stuck.鈥�