Cindy Fleming is an Engineer, Entrepreneur and passionate Educator. Drawing on her background as an Engineer, she developed and taught an innovative curriculum in the Round Rock ISD for 10 years, focused on empowering under-achieving students with hands-on engineering skills. Her current venture, STEMGINEERING, is an extra-curricular STEM academy, designed to provide challenging experiential learning for junior-high-school students considering a career in engineering.
Cindy grew up with a Dad who did refrigeration repair in his home shop and worked on the family farm.
(What he taught her)
She was unsure of what training or career choice to make after high school. Girls were not often encouraged to pursue STEM careers, but she was certain that she was not interested in the “traditional” jobs for young women at the time. A friend introduced her to Engineering Design Graphics and, upon completing an Associate’s Degree, she began her working life with Fluor Engineers and Constructors in Houston. She excelled and gained experience in chemical plant design, modeling, and on-site refinery support. She also noticed the engineers and decided to pursue an engineering degree.
(what did she notice about them? What drew her to engineering?)
In (year) Cindy decided to pursue a teaching career. A week before school started the Tech Ed teacher who was a Major in the Marine reserves had been recalled to Iraq, and there were 150 students signed up for the class. Although this wasn’t exactly what Cindy was considering, she believed she could handle it and felt a little patriotic duty to backfill for a Marine headed off to war. So, she took it. She walked in to a Tech Ed program which had gone through half a dozen teachers in a two-year timeframe and had devolved into a dumping ground for misbehaving boys (100% boys, no girl students).
There was no curriculum, the shop equipment was in disrepair, and the students and administration had very low expectations. Over the next couple of years, Cindy transformed the class from Tech Ed to Pre-Engineering. The class signups more than doubled. Girls began to see Cindy as a role model and enrolled in the course, it eventually became more than 50% girls. The students earned a high school credit for the two-year curriculum. Parents often commented that this was their child’s favorite class. Children commented that the class “changed their life”. Cindy was awarded the peer award of “Teacher of the Year”.
After nine years and hundreds of accomplished students, Cindy felt that the program could be expanded and offered to more students. The public schools were not focused on high-performing programs and couldn't reliably attract the teacher talent necessary for an engineering related program. So she launched STEMGINEERING, an extra-circular STEM academy with summer and after-school programs.
Her vision is to build STEMGINEERING into a national franchise, providing teaching opportunities and skill-based learning for students around the country.