From Project Stepping Stone to Senior Engineer: Uriel’s Inspiring Journey at Cummins

In high school, Uriel did not have the means to attend college, but he knew he wanted to be the first in his family to get there. He thought his only path to a degree was to apply for scholarships and loans or join the military. Then Uriel heard about Project Stepping Stone, sponsored by Cummins, which develops awareness of the engineering field for Latino high school students in the State of Indiana. This week-long program introduced him to his future. 

After learning about engineering through the project, Uriel began working after school as a drafter and, post-graduation, he was offered a position as an apprentice. That apprenticeship came with a huge employee benefit: college tuition reimbursement. With that help, Uriel was able to attend Purdue Polytechnic and study mechanical engineering while working through his apprenticeship. 

Post-graduation, Uriel participated in a three-and-a-half-year engineering rotation at Cummins that included product validation, application engineering, machine integration, and software engineering. Uriel not even 30 yet, and he’s been with Cummins for 10 years. “Cummins has literally seen me grow up,” he says. 

An on-the-job education

Learning on the job is encouraged at Cummins, which is beneficial for Uriel, who admits that in some of his rotations, he had no idea what he was doing the first few months. His degree in mechanical engineering did not help much in the world of computer science and software engineering. 

“In every rotation, there has been a challenge for me to gain the knowledge and skills needed for that role. I've been able to learn how to learn—or catch up—quickly,” he says. 

He now works as a Developer with the Cummins Digital Organization, a fairly new unit for creating digital products. To meet the demands of the job, he completed software training and got certified in Amazon Web Services (AWS) for cloud services deployment. 

“Every day I’m learning a new coding language and I’m able to see how I can apply it to the organization. I can see the potential for me to create solutions for our customers and the company. It’s a lot to take in, but every prior rotation built me for this,” he says.

Project Stepping Stone

Uriel credits his drive to continue learning, and his success, to Project Stepping Stone. 

“The program showed me that people who looked like me were able to achieve their goals,” he says. “It motivated me to see Latino professionals — with struggles like mine — be successful. In a lot of Latino and underprivileged households, most men have to work [instead of going to college]. My older brothers had to drop out of high school to get full-time jobs. That would've been my path as well.” 

Instead, Project Stepping Stone fed his curiosity, taking him and the other students on a bus tour across Indiana to visit universities, meet with admissions officers and participate in team-building and leadership activities. The week culminates with a tour of the Cummins Distribution Business Unit headquarters, an engineering challenge, and a special dinner where the 30-75 students meet Cummins professionals from all areas of the company. The students are prepped for the dinner with prior professional etiquette training. The dinner is their opportunity to practice the networking skills they’ve learned, and potentially gain internships, education grants, and eventually, employment with Cummins and other sponsors of the program.

“For students who are not aware of how engineering even works or what it is to be in a professional setting — this experience is quite unique,” he says. This is not just lip service from Uriel. In fact, he was so inspired after participating in the project, that he returned year after year, first as a student ambassador, then as an intern, and today, as a mentor for the program. 

Project Stepping Stone gave Uriel the confidence to apply to college, complete his degree and become the first college graduate in his family.

The future is bright — for Uriel and others

“It means a lot to me to be able to give back and show other students their true potential,” he says. “I especially love to see female high school students who initially say, ‘I could never be an engineer,’ or ‘I’m not smart enough,’ come into the program and win a Cummins engineering challenge by the end of the week.” There were only three women in Uriel’s college graduating class, which made him realize there is a huge potential to introduce a more diverse community to engineering. 

Uriel embodies Cummins’ focus on hiring to develop, “so the hope is to see more Project Stepping Stone alumni become Cummins employees,” he says. Even for the students who aren’t necessarily interested in engineering, Cummins lays out opportunities in finance, business, supply chain and more. 

“I found the next step in my journey,” he says, “and because of [Project Stepping Stone] I know there are endless possibilities beyond that.”