credit – Pratt Community College
After attending Pratt Community College for two years, Ryan Walton said he knew he eventually wanted to come back and teach.
“I had a great experience at PCC,” Walton said. “I knew I wanted to give back to the college.”
Walton graduated from PCC in 2009 with an Associate’s degree as a lineman. He then worked at Kiwash Electric Co-Op in Cordell, Okla. In January, he came back to PCC and is helping teach students to become lineman on PCC’s Wichita campus.
Walton said he decided to become a lineman because both his father and grandfather were electricians.
“I knew I wanted to keep working with electricity and I liked the idea of climbing,” he said.
Since starting in January, Walton said he has enjoyed going from working in the field to teaching but said his favorite part as has been helping share the knowledge he gained in the field with the students and watching them succeed.
His goal is to help the program become stronger and to find ways to get more students in the Wichita program, which has a one-year certificate program and also has classes for high school students.
“If we can get the high school program to be stronger, it will help the certificate program in the future,” he said. “Hopefully when the high school students graduate, they will think of continuing on in the college courses.”
When Walton isn’t working he said he enjoys spending time with his baby, who is almost a month old, hunting, fishing and anything else that allows him to be outdoors.
