Dr. Dustin Blanton, Keiser University

Blanton talked to students of  Dawn McPeak’s science classes about his job as a representative of Keiser University and future careers students should consider. He showed a powerpoint and discussed careers in the biomedical science, research and education industries.

General Tim McGuire, Central Command, McDill Air Force Base

General McGuire talked to students about West Point and the Middle East.
“We can most effectively deal with it [terrorism] by helping our partners in the world. By training our afghan army. I’m most proud about our deployments,” said McGuire, who went straight out of high school into the academy. “What sets us apart from the other military branches is the strength of our non-commission officers.”

Jonathon Hoffman, Honeywell
Air Force MSC (medical service).
“The medical group takes a good part in the Air Force. [They] take care of the people who get hurt. The veterans still get health care until the day they die,” said Hoffman. “We plan, we direct and we coordinate to provide care. I became a MSC to benefit society.”

Dustin Mixon, Mental Health Group

Mixon talked to the students about drugs and what they can do to your body. He also talked about his time in Afghanistan and how they try to prevent drug production there.
“In Afghanistan we saw open fields as far as the eye could see and what we had to do to prevent them, it’s like just throwing a fire cracker and letting it burn,” said Mixon.

Sherri Brown, Visit Tampa Bay- National Sales Mgr. 

Sherri Brown talked to the students in Mr. Garcia’s classroom. She went to speak about her career in hotel management and what she has done with different religious groups in the hotel industry. “Any religion no matter what it is, I book it here in the city,” said Brown.

Allyson Sobo, RHS Guidance

Allyson Sobo talked to students in the auto shop with Mr. Hambleton. She went to speak about stress management and how to deal with stress in a student’s everyday life. One of her strategies was to speak to yourself. “Positive mantra is a great way to deal with a struggle. What you can say to yourself can be super powerful,” said Sobo.

Chase Whitman, Engineer

Chase Whitman spoke to students in Mrs. Whitman’s class about his engineering career. He showed them a real life model of a special battery that he creates and showed them the ways that the battery functions. Students connected his outer space batteries with the movie, “Interstellar”, and how they felt it associated with what he did.

Matthew Spielman, Tampa Law Attorney

 “When you’re facing a judge for criminal penalties are made by the prosecutors. Judge determines the sentence, weighing in on the prosecutor’s sanctions,” said Spielman.

Juanita Napper, Hilton Tampa Airport Westshore / H.R. 

Juanita Napper came in to speak to Mr. Martin’s class about her career in the hotel industry. She wanted students to see how an interview and your personality can affect your chances of getting a job. “Do you know why I gave him the job? It was because instead of interviewing him, he was interviewing me. “But you know what I told him [employee] to do, I told him ‘There’s a dress code.’ I made him go to Walmart and buy those arm sleeve things to cover it up [his tattoo sleeves],” said Napper.

Todd Follenius, L-3 NSS Geospatial Systems Developer

Todd Follenius came in to speak to Mrs. Kersey’s class about his career in geospatial systems. He spoke to students about coding and what they can do to make their website more interesting as well as what computer software is best for different jobs.

Rodrick Dixon Sgt and Travis Flynn, 6 Civil Engineer Squadron

Dixon and Flynn went to Kristina Chiodio’s classroom (science) and answered the students questions on what it really meant to be a fire fighter and real live firefighting versus how firefighting is shown on TV. On top of being fire fighters, they are also in the US Air Force and they talked to the students about what that is like.

“To start with there is definatly a lot less romance, were not all beautiful and [we] dont have the british accents like you see, we’re also a lot more boring. We’re sitting around the station training, reading, doing homework. The fire department is my secound family,” said Dixon.

“As for the military aspect we’re not just going out and killing people,” said Dixon.

Lituenant Adam Abitbol, NOAA

Abitbol talked to Kaloostian’s Aerospace classes.

“The way we find the middle of the yee [of a storm], the air pressure is the lowest, it drops to zero. Compleley still.”

Dustin Mixon, Mental Health Group

Discussed drug use with the students.

“I know what’s happening. I know what’s going on. But I want you to be aware of the dangers,” said Mixon. “I want you guys to understand this because if you choose to take drugs, you might not know what you’re taking.

Darrell Hawkins, Morgan Stanley

Hawkins went and talked to Thomas Fillion’s class about his career in financial services. He also taught them about taking advantage of stocks and bonds.

Captain Don Aiken, Naval Academy Blue/Gold Officer

Aiken graduated the Naval Academy in 1978 and talked to students about admissions at the academy.

“[The Naval Academy] is going to ask you to do the same things as a regular college- your transcrpits, your SAT scores, letters of recommendation… And all of this on a deadline.”

 Pam Avery, Holiday Inn Tampa Manager

Dr. Kumar,  USF Associate Professor

Kumar went and answered questions in Constance Whitman’s Biology class about anything medical. Kumar specializes in Oncology but she deals with a lot of other cases that are not cancer.

“This patient was very constipated and what we had to do was take him to the operating room and really scoop out the poop. That was one of the patients that I remember I really couldn’t stay in the room longer than thirty seconds.

Braden Warren, USAF Security Forces

Warren talked to Emmalee Fee’s English class about his career in Security Forces and answered any questions that they may have had.

“You can put it on in nine seconds?” said a student.

“I can,” said Warren.

Jennifer Michael, USAF Ophthalmology

Michael talked to Fernando Tudanca’s class about Ophthalmology. She went into detail about how prescription glasses work and what happens with eye fixing surgeries.

“It’s basically like tattooing a contact lense into your cornea,” said Michael.

Ken Cauthorn, Texture VIP, Owner/CEO

Ken Cauthorn came in to speak to the students in Mark Peterson’s class to talk about his career in marketing. He shared stories to the class on how they helped a woman keep her company in good business.

“I had a friend who owned a nail salon, Fancy Nails. When she came to us for help, we helped her to not have to increase or decrease the cost shellac nails,” said Cauthorn.

Doug Wall 

Doug Wall came in to speak to students in Maureen Pelamati’s class about how to incorporate emotion into theater performance. He helped a student do this and allowed him to present it in class so that the class could see emotion.

“Didn’t you see the transition in emotion that he made? He made it so that you could hear every feeling,” said Wall.

Todd Loebs, USAF Med Service Corps

“Health care is an overlooked but important factor of military service.”

Maria Hoffman-Magellean Licensed Psychotherapist

“Thoughts become things, so choose good ones.”