Missing one phone call could have kept 2007 mechanical engineering graduate Megan DeWolf from attending Tri-State University and becoming the first TSU graduate to gain acceptance into Toyota’s elite Engineer in Training program.

DeWolf was presumed headed to Michigan State University, like the rest of her family. A call from a TSU recruiter led to a visit to the Angola campus, and DeWolf was hooked. “I thought it was a home away from home,” she said. “My hometown of Armeda, Mich., is small like this, and I loved the size of the campus and the classes.”

She connected with the TSU Career Services office to keep abreast of inquiries by recruiters, a decision that eventually shaped her destiny. “Career Services did a great job for me, putting in the effort and time to set up multiple interviews for every company coming in here. Jerry Sturdivant, a TSU engineering alumnus who is now director of the Toyota EiT program, was on his way to recruit at Purdue and decided to stop in. So I got my lucky break,” DeWolf said.

Sturdivant liked what he saw and heard during a grueling exam and series of interviews, and invited DeWolf to become one of 46 EiTs in the two-year program. The future and its many possibilities thrill her.

She will train at three of 12 U.S. locations over the two years as a full-time employee. After completing the program, she will be a full mechanical engineer at the location and position of her choice within the Toyota Engineering and Manufacturing Division. Now finished with three months of orientation and intensive training, she will work for nine months at a facility in Erlanger, Ky., before finishing out the second year at another plant.

Admittedly root-bound, her dream job would take her back home to nearby Ann Arbor, Mich. and the Toyota Technical Center for a job in research and development. “All of my family’s in Michigan, so I want to be there. I have three godchildren I’m very close to.”

She takes her engineer’s oath, repeated a few days before her TSU commencement, seriously. “We have talent and skill, and pledge to never use it for harm, but to push humanity forward,” she said. “It’s a great honor to be in this field with so many great inventors before us.”