Megan Hutton `08 graduated with a B.A. in Environmental Studies and is now an Environmental Health and Safety Manager at Apple in the Santa Clara Valley in California. Her experiences as a student athlete at Brevard College still influence her daily life. She played Women’s Soccer and during her Senior year, competed on the Cycling Team. She now enjoys cycling near her home in California.
Brevard’s experiential model of teaching and learning and broad based, liberal arts education often encourages students to explore what interests them before settling on a major. Megan experienced that when she first came to Brevard. She said, “I always had a heart for the outdoors,” so she started as a WLEE major before ultimately transitioning to Environmental Studies. Her advice to current students is, “Think about what you want to do and what is important to you. Keep an open mind and be creative about how you can apply your basis to achieve what drives you.”
Hutton’s career began immediately following graduation when she worked in Environmental Health and Safety & Continuous Improvement at international manufacturing company, Meritor. For the next thirteen years, Megan’s work in Environmental Health and Safety took her to various cities and manufacturing companies such as Borg Warner in Asheville, NC and Lockton Companies in Denver, Colorado before she landed in California, working at Apple. She said, “The tech world is a lot different than the manufacturing industry, so it was a bit of a change.”
Megan was ready to tackle that change because of her Brevard College education. The class that had the most impact on her career was an Environmental Law course that covered ISO 14001, a standard that sets out requirements for an environmental management system. Because of this class and her experience with ISO 14001, she landed her first internship. As she continued to work in the manufacturing industry, she hired fellow Brevard College graduates because she knew they would be similarly prepared for work in the Environmental Health field.