Author: jbrandt

This month’s Employee Spotlight focuses on the production floor at Silicon Forest Electronics, where Crystal Cuellar is the Senior Lead in production of printed circuit board assembly. Silicon Forest Electronics employs 98 people, and Crystal has been working there for 16 years. She first heard about Silicon Forest Electronics through her daughter’s participation in the Big Brothers Big Sisters Program in Vancouver, where her daughter was matched as a sister into another family that personally recommended Silicon Forest Electronics as a great workplace. 

When asked what she appreciates the most about her employer, Crystal replied that it was, “the time and training that Silicon Forest Electronics provides to employees so that they can be promoted in-house. The company’s practice of offering opportunities to learn new skills and to advance in one’s career has helped the company to grow successfully.”

As a production lead, it is Crystal’s responsibility to keep communication flowing between the production crew, the Customer Focus Teams, and Engineers. She manages both the people and the product as it moves through the production floor, ensuring that the highest quality product goes out to customers. 

Crystal Cuellar takes pride in her work and the work of her production team. She finds it especially satisfying to see the growth and development of the company’s newer hires as the demand for Silicon Forest Electronics’ services continues to grow.

While Crystal herself is not personally active at the GTA’s social events, she appreciates that much of the demand for Silicon Forest Electronics’ products comes from fellow GTA companies. Her personal work ethic demands that the quality of products and the service provided by Silicon Forest Electronics has a positive and profound impact for every customer.  

Fun Fact! If Crystal could have one meal with anyone, she would choose Hannibal Lector, a character from the movie Silence of the Lambs, and she would make liver with some Fava beans and a nice Chianti.

Silicon Forest Electronics

6204 East 18th Street

Vancouver, WA 98661

360-694-2000

email: sfesales@si-forest.com

website: siliconforestelectronics.com

Kate Wurster was recently hired as the STEM Hub Coordinator at CGESD in October, 2022 as a natural fit, with her love of language and communication and her extensive background in education.

As a Fulbright Scholar with degrees in German and Education, Kate first got involved in education professionally when she taught English to primary and secondary students in Hamburg, Germany. After that, her path progressed through community colleges in Maine and in Colorado. Moving to the Gorge with her husband Pete and son Chase, her skills and talent led her to Hood River Valley High School where she served as the Career Connected Learning Coordinator.  In this role, Kate collaborated with CTE teachers at the high school to build robust post-secondary pathways between HRVHS and CGCC, by creating meaningful workplace-based experiences for students.  Her engagement with CGCC led her to new professional opportunities at the College, where she continued to champion the value of CTE programming to help serve local workforce and employment needs.  

Kate believes in the power and importance of good communication in all aspects of her life – personal and professional. She is fluent in written and spoken German and hosts a monthly German language conversation group called Stammtisch at Crush Cider Cafe in Hood River.  She is also inspired by nature and embraces all that the Gorge has to offer – trail running, skiing, hiking, stand up paddle boarding and exploring the beautiful landscape the Gorge has to offer. 

Kate’s aspirations include travelling and living abroad with her family for a couple of years so that they can fully immerse themselves in another language and culture.  When asked what her favorite meal would be to share with her favorite celebrity, she had no hesitation in replying, “I would love to have had dinner with Ruth Bader Ginsburg or with Michelle Obama – sharing a Mediterranean dish with chicken kabobs and tzatziki, pita bread and hummus, falafel, and a delicious Turkish coffee would be (would have been) amazing!”

In her Coordinator role, Kate’s primary focus is in Career Connected Learning initiatives (career awareness, exploration, preparation & training) at the middle and high school (bridging post-secondary) levels.  She thoroughly enjoys her role of “matchmaker” within the STEM sector, stating,  “I find it most rewarding to work with educators to identify their career-connected learning needs.   I then determine what the best fit (which company and/or professional mentor) will best to supplement the educator’s curriculum with real-world expertise and context.   The matchmaking step involves networking with industry contacts to open the pathways where the needs meet.”

Kate is eager to collaborate with educators, students and families, as well as community & industry partners in the region to provide opportunity and access to Career Connected Learning activities and programming. She has found the Gorge to be an amazingly dynamic and rewarding place to work in Career Connected Learning, commenting, “When it comes to leveraging industry/ education connections, for a relatively small and rural region, the diversity of industry represented here, and the willingness for industry to engage and support local youth, is very impressive! “

Kate’s major work initiatives for the STEM Hub include the College and Career Expo and the Advanced Manufacturing Educator Externship. Last year’s College and Career Expo event had approximately 150 students representing 11 different high schools in the region, including WA schools in Klickitat & Skamania Counties.  The Advanced Manufacturing Educator Externship is a 3-day, experiential externship focused on the Advanced Manufacturing sector (including a hands-on introduction to CGCC’s Advanced Manufacturing program by the College’s lead instructors and site visits to a variety of local manufacturing employers in Hood River & Wasco County on days 2 & 3).

The GTA provides a crucial link to the local high tech industry for the STEM Hub. It provides a platform for networking opportunities with local industry partners that is essential for the work of Career Connected Learning in the region. Plus, industry awareness around the work of the STEM Hub is necessary for the success of the STEM Hub’s programs, and the GTA provides the link to leverage the participation and support of local tech companies.

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The Ventus OGI detects and visualizes hydrocarbon gases, including methane, propane, and butane.

On the near horizon, the oil and gas industry will be required to answer calls from consumers, investors, utility companies, and regulators to deliver cleaner energy paired with far greater transparency about greenhouse gas emissions, including methane and other gasses. While the carbon footprint of natural gas is relatively low, its primary component methane has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over the first 20 years after it reaches the atmosphere.

The climate warming impact of methane emissions has been well-known in the energy industry for many years. In the wake of the COP26 meetings in Glasgow Scotland in November of 2021 awareness suddenly shot up for millions more people around the world. There are now more than 100 international signatories, including the U.S., to the voluntary Global Methane Pledge, committing all who signed to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030.

According to the U.S. EPA, natural gas and petroleum are the second largest human-caused source of methane emissions in the U.S., second only to animal agriculture.  Fortunately, awareness of the environment risks from methane is increasing and emissions from the energy sector can be mitigated, in part by deploying the latest in OGI (optical gas imaging) technology.

The Sierra-Olympic team is proud to be on the cutting edge of this technology with the Ventus OGI, the smallest, lightest OGI camera core available. Third-party testing determined the Ventus OGI meets the regulatory standard in EPA’s OOOOa standards and documentation of that testing is available upon request. Look for Ventus OGI on the Colorado AIMM (Alternative Instrument Monitoring Method), as well.

Whether integrated into handheld, aerial, ground robotics, or continuous monitoring systems, OGI is becoming the industry standard for safely and efficiently surveying infrastructure, locating leaks, setting repair plans, and complying with global regulations. OGI safely and efficiently delivers actionable emissions data, enabling oil and gas operators to find and fix leaks and get in compliance with current and imminent emissions regulations.

Across the value chain, the oil and gas sector is intensifying efforts to detect and repair systemic problems that lead to leaking methane. Whether as a part of market-driven environmental, social and governance goals, or in preparation for stricter methane emissions leak detection and repair regulations, the industry is steadily moving toward delivering cleaner, lower emissions energy. Sierra-Olympic Technologies, Inc. is a respected leader in the development of state-of-the-art technologies that are poised to identify and reduce methane emissions and advance the goals of the Global Methane Pledge quickly and effectively. For more detailed information on our OGI work, please visit us at: Sierra-Olympic OGI technology.

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Interested in a remote demonstration of the Ventus OGI’s gas plume visualization capability? Email marketing@sierraolympic.com