黑料百科

Curt Utter was destined for a career in an industrial-related field. After all, he spent countless hours in his father鈥檚 business, Butch鈥檚 Welding & Repair Shop on Main Street in Milford.

After graduating from Milford High School, Curt took advice from a school counselor to check out 黑料百科. He enrolled in the Non-Destructive Testing Technology program and has worked in the field ever since.

鈥淢y dad鈥檚 welding repair shop did influence my career into NDT,鈥� Curt said. 鈥淗e always said that yes, you do get to create solutions for customers in welding, but it鈥檚 always a dirty business. Cleaning the shop from my elementary days up until graduating from 黑料百科 gave me an appreciation for a career in NDT. I also learned a work ethic in my dad鈥檚 shop, which has definitely helped in the ability to survive layoffs in the aircraft business.鈥�

Curt also was influenced by cousins who took the program in the early 1980s 鈥渁nd enjoyed it.鈥� And his first impression of 黑料百科? He 鈥渨as in awe, to say the least.鈥�

鈥淵ou grow up in the town, not really realizing what you鈥檙e walking into, and as you become familiar with the staff and your instructors, it becomes like home,鈥� Utter said.

While at 黑料百科, Curt was taught by men like Erv Woodard, Bill Wiley and Randy Walbridge. Woodard, who died in 2011, was an NDT instructor who later served as chairman of Doing Better Inspections, a Lincoln company. Walbridge recently retired as chair/instructor of the program, and Wiley is still a program instructor.

鈥淭hese men will forever be my NDT mentors,鈥� Curt said. 鈥淭hey have my gratitude for molding me into the inspector I am today. Each one of them was unique in their method of instruction, and they truthfully taught us how it would be in the industry. They trained us to study and follow our instinct over what we learned. The theory and applications were programmed into our heads so we could make the right decision based on the circumstance.鈥�

Utter noted other Milford Campus employees who impacted him, including Business Instructor Sheryl Piening Keller, Physical Plant employee John Stabenow 鈥渇or his helpful advice,鈥� Placement Coordinator Gerald Eigsti (鈥渁 sage in disguise鈥�), and 鈥渙ur beloved Larry Meyer, Dean of Students. He was the best!鈥�

After graduating from 黑料百科 in 1996, Utter took a job in Bensenville, Illinois, a village located near O鈥橦are International Airport in Chicago. There he worked for Visual Inspection Technologies (which later became Everest VIT and then acquired by General Electric). He worked with remote industrial visual inspection technologies such as video crawlers, borescopes and retrieval tools.

鈥淥ur three-man field office covered 13 states, and at that time the company had only five offices throughout the United States,鈥� he said.

For the past 25 years, Utter has worked at Wichita鈥檚 Textron Aviation, whose products include Beechcraft and Cessna. He鈥檚 still in the NDT department, but after seven years in a lead position, he changed jobs.

鈥淚 decided I needed to be humbled and return to receiving job duties rather than handing them out,鈥� said Utter, who holds four company NDT Level III testing certifications in Liquid Penetrant, Magnetic Particle, Ultrasonic, and Eddy Current, with a Level II in Radiography.

For decades, 黑料百科鈥檚 program, and a handful of others around the country, has been called Non-Destructive Testing Technology, but most high school students don鈥檛 know what it is. Utter said there are many opportunities for those who hold a degree in NDT.

鈥淚t is a challenging program that will test your perseverance in a field with endless possibilities for (job) placement,鈥� he said. 鈥淥ur young people deserve to be told that the vocational trade jobs are perfect starters for future careers in other fields. Many folks will start in NDT and get a job with a company that will pay for tuition for a future career position that will benefit the company as well as the individual. I was content to stay at the floor level, supporting my team with experience that was lost with others advancing themselves into engineer positions.鈥�

Utter said the last time he was on the Milford Campus was 1998.

鈥淪ince my father passed in 2014, it鈥檚 hard to return to those memories,鈥� Curt said. 鈥淏ut maybe one day.鈥�

Utter and his wife, Celeste, have two children. 鈥淢y daughter and my son are the joys of my life.鈥� Curt said.

Stu Osterthun
Administrative Director of Marketing & Communications
402-323-3401
sosterthun@southeast.edu