Aiyonta - Gateway Technical College
Aiyonta doesn’t sit still. While in high school, he balanced football, three choirs, e-sports, and track—keeping his grades high enough to stay in extracurriculars. In the five years since graduating, he’s explored cybersecurity, IT, and CNC machining, which led to an internship at Modine Manufacturing, where he now works as an electro-mechanical technician while pursuing his Advanced Manufacturing Technologies degree at Gateway Technical College.
“Getting this job so fast made me rethink everything. I thought I had years to figure it out, but now I sit and wonder, what’s next? There are so many paths I can take. Learning PLCs in class and applying the knowledge at work helps it all make sense.”
Aiyonta is still balancing responsibilities, but now they include school, work, and family. He has a young son to raise and his girlfriend, whom he told a year ago, “something big is coming,” which they are now seeing come to fruition. And he has the support of his father, a controls engineer Aiyonta cites as an inspiration, and his mother, who he says is “my number one supporter. I couldn’t do this without her.”
Inspired by Metallica’s philanthropy and the Metallica Scholars grant that paid for his Industrial Controls class, Aiyonta hopes to one day mentor others.
