Orange County students get hands-on opportunities for National Manufacturing Day

Darlyn Romero was like a kid in a candy store on Thursday.

More accurately, the Middle College High School senior was like a kid on a medical technology campus, but Romero wouldn’t have it any other way.

She is the president of the Femineering club at Middle College, which is located on the campus of Santa Ana College, and developed a curriculum for that club. She’s already taking a college manufacturing course, learning how to operate machines and do blueprinting.

Romero was one of the students who benefited from Vital Link’s tour of the Johnson & Johnson MedTech campus in Irvine on Thursday.

Biosense Webster President Jasmina Brooks and Stacey Darling look over students’ projects during a campus tour on Thursday as Maroun Nehme, center background, also observes. Students, left to right, are Michael Barba, Angel Torres (design engineer), Edwin Rodriguez Martinez (parking engineer) and Gourachandra Salam (marketing manager).

(Spencer Grant)

The timing of the tour was chosen because October is Manufacturing Month in the state of California. Additionally, Friday was National Manufacturing Day.

“I’m looking forward to seeing how engineering happens in actual society,” said Romero, adding that her goal is to study engineering at an out-of-state university next year. “I like to take advantage of any opportunity that comes my way. I feel like every opportunity, every experience that you put yourself through you get to learn and grow as a person. You get to come to terms with who you want to be, ask yourself, ‘Is this something I see myself in? Does this spark something within me?’ Honestly, this environment gets me really excited.

“Is this my vibe? In our generation, a lot of us care about how we feel and the vibe. Having emotion connected to what you do is really important.”

Vital Link, an Orange County nonprofit based in Garden Grove, brought about 25 students from Buena Park High School and Middle College to the J&J MedTech campus on Thursday. Through the guidance of Stacey Darling of J&J MedTech, they got to hear from some of the company’s leaders, and go to a laboratory to experience technicians doing one step of assembly of a catheter.

Pamela Buitron, Melissa Castillo and Pamela Buitron, all of Middle College High School in Santa Ana, test their prototype during a tour of Johnson & Johnson MedTech on Thursday.

(Spencer Grant)

The students’ tour started with an interactive project. They were put into small groups and asked to assemble and market a device that would allow surgeons to push tissues in the body, with the minimum amount of damage to dissect.

Jasmina Brooks is the president of Biosense Webster, a global leader in cardiac arrhythmia treatment and part of Johnson & Johnson MedTech. She spoke to the students at the end of their tour.

Brooks said it is important to develop the next generation of STEM workers, and show the students the wide range of opportunities and careers that the medical technology industry provides. She’s one of the sponsors of Johnson & Johnson’s WiSTEM²D program, which could benefit someone like Romero. The program focuses on helping women advance in the field.

“We want to help decipher the mystery behind STEM,” Brooks said. “It can be so many things, provide so many career opportunities. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re just an engineer developing something or writing code. There are so many different things you can consider as your career path with that type of background.”

Raul Saragon of Biosense Webster explains to Buena Park High student Yandery Perez about soldering to a PCB during a tour on Thursday.

(Spencer Grant)

Vital Link partners with all 25 school districts in Orange County and select schools in Los Angeles County and the Inland Empire. Vital Link lead program coordinator Gabe Torres said the students for Thursday’s campus visit were selected on a first come, first served basis.

The nonprofit was formed in 1995, in response to national studies that America’s high school graduates needed to strengthen their skills to compete in the global economy.

Though the students didn’t specifically get to see manufacturing occur in Irvine — that happens at Johnson & Johnson’s campus in Juarez, Mexico — they got to learn plenty about the importance of manufacturing and the global supply chain.

A 2021 study by Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute indicated that U.S. manufacturing is expected to have 2.1 million unfilled jobs by 2030.

“Our goal is to help students find careers that they’re passionate about,” Torres said. “I think of us as kind of like the middle man between the students and a career. We get a lot of students that don’t know what they want to do or students that do know what they want to do. We try to help connect them with businesses like Johnson & Johnson, and then colleges too. We want to try to push them into the pathway that they’re interested in.”

Engineer Audrey Claire Goo welcomes students to laboratory demonstrations during Thursday’s Johnson & Johnson MedTech tour.

(Spencer Grant)