When Jesus interviewed at Cummins over ten years ago, one piece really stood out - the importance of family. “When I interviewed with my hiring manager, the first thing he told me was, ‘Jesus, I’m sorry. I have a commitment with my granddaughter.’ She had a dance recital that he had to attend, and I knew that family was important to him. For me, family is very important. I knew that Cummins was leading by their values.”  

Then, Jesus experienced that dedication to family himself when lost his father. During this difficult time, Cummins was there for him. He was able to move closer to home to help his mother and work remotely as a Supplier Quality Manager. “When I interviewed over a decade ago, I made the right choice. It was the message from my hiring manager back then that, ‘I have something personal. I’m sorry, but you’re in good hands.’” Jesus is now working remotely from Texas managing his team in Indiana.

I knew then that I was going to be in good hands, and they showed me that they really lead by their values.

With the support of Cummins, Jesus has been able to further his education and obtain his MBA at the Kelley School of Business. “Cummins is a great company. I’ve been doing supplier quality for ten years. Every time that I raised my hand for a new challenge, they gave me that challenge.” Without a background in electronics but a passion for trying something new, Jesus was given the opportunity to shadow experts within Cummins for about a year. “I’m one of those people who like to be out of my comfort zone. I was nervous, but I jumped into the water. I wanted to take the challenge. People took charge of me - they took me under their wing and showed me they were great mentors. That opened the door for me to be exposed more to our leadership.”

It’s why I like Cummins. Having the opportunity to manage a diverse group.

With direct reports from India, China, Venezuela, Brazil, and Mexico, Jesus enjoys working with a diverse team. “Having the opportunity to manage a diverse group, my day-to-day will be very different.” Jesus also enjoys being part of a company “with a lot of innovation.” He says that “with renewable resources, there are more opportunities than just engineering.”

We’re a global company with ideas coming from all regions of the world; I think that makes this company real. It is an amazing company to work for.

Jesus is proud to work for a company with opportunities and diversity. In the future, Jesus hopes to become a director or executive director for the supplier quality organization or to lead a team in Latin America. “That’s hopefully one of my roles in the future. It has been a great experience working with the supplier quality organization.” Jesus sees a long career ahead of himself at Cummins where plentiful opportunities pave the way. 

Interested in learning more about a career at Cummins? Check out our Careers section.

Want to hear more from our team? Find more stories here.

It’s not uncommon for a young kid growing up in Southern Indiana to dream about working as a mechanic for an Indy 500 race car team. What is uncommon, however, is actually achieving it. Cummins Intake & Exhaust Component Specialist, Tate Wagers was fortunate enough to be one of those kids.

As Tate tells it, he went from high school to the military, straight from the military to college, and then straight from college to Cummins. “But in college, I had a few interesting jobs.” The most interesting of which, it turns out, was working as a Mechanic and Front-End Mechanic for two Indy Race Car teams.

“I was studying Mechanical Engineering at IUPUI (Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis) where a lot of the teams are based. So, I got to know some people and they knew I had experience working as a diesel mechanic in Coast Guard before college, so I kind of just fell into it.”

Tate lived the dream for a couple of years, but when he earned his degree, decided it was time to move on. 

Working on Indy cars is a lot of guys' dream. And I got to do it. But then, I realized, yeah, this is great, and this is fun, but I need something maybe a little bit more stable. And for me, that was Cummins.

A great choice Tate, because when it comes to stability Cummins has few, if any, equals. We’ve been in business creating power solutions for over 100 years. We have over 58,000 global employees and customers in over 190 countries. And we’re currently number 121 on the Fortune 500 and number 24 on Newsweek’s list of America's Most Responsible Companies. 

Granted, Tate didn’t know all this growing up, but he did know about Cummins as far back as he can remember. “I was born and raised in Southern Indiana, so I remember always hearing the name, and seeing their vehicles around. And though I maybe didn’t know exactly what they did, I always associated Cummins with one word – durability.” 

Now here it is years later, and Tate has gone from having a notion of what we do to become an expert – an exhaust system and intake system expert to be exact. “In my role, I own a list of work and tasks, that engineers around the globe have to do in order to make an engine component, to design it correctly, analyze it, and test it.”

So, I'm kind of like a guidance counselor. I have engineers around the globe. And I'm guiding them and advising them on how to do analysis, design, and validation correctly.

When asked what he likes most about his job, Tate is quick to cite the people and global aspects. “Cummins is such a large and diverse organization that over my ten-year period here, I've gotten to meet and interact with so many different people. I have a team in China. I have a team in India. I have a team in the UK. I have a team in Brazil. So, I'm constantly interacting on the phone and zooming with different people, getting to know them and learning about their different cultures as well. Before Covid, I got to spend a month in China and bring my wife. All that just makes my job really interesting and is what I enjoy most.”

As for where he sees his career going next, Tate isn’t sure, and he says that’s just fine by him. “As long as I'm constantly learning and improving, that’s what I want. “Cummins is very good at letting you pursue the areas that you want to pursue. So, if you have passion in a certain area, they’ll figure out a way to get you there.”
 

Interested in a career with Cummins? Check out our careers site. 

Want to hear more from our team? Find more employee stories here.

Calling Syntyche Koumaglo an overachiever just may be an understatement. Growing up in Togo, a small country in West Africa, she often had to deal with hardships such as unreliable electricity. “I remember growing up with frequent power shortages and outages. I would be doing my homework and couldn’t finish because the power would just shut off. It’s a problem that still exists there today.” 

This is what first sparked Syntyche’s interest in going to America to study electrical engineering. In 2011, she enrolled in Saint Cloud University in Minnesota where she received her B.S. in Electrical Engineering and was proud to serve as president of the university’s Society of Women Engineers (SWE) chapter. 

During her time at Saint Cloud, Syntyche was also honored to receive numerous scholarships and an award for being the Orientation Leader with Most School Spirit. Yet, her greatest honor was being asked to give the commencement speech at her graduation.

My audience was approximately 6,000 faculty, students and their families. In the speech, I wanted to emphasize my gratefulness for education in the United States, encourage my peers to keep pursuing their ’Why’ and take the time to invest in the next generation.

It is now five years after graduation and Syntyche’s journey continues here at Cummins where she serves as a Service Training Developer and Instructor developing and delivering technical training for our power systems products. “I was drawn to explore Power Generation at Cummins, where I currently work on generators' software testing and train service trainers. So, now I’m the one training the trainers all over the world.”

She may be out of college, but that doesn’t mean the honors, achievements, and extracurricular activities are at an end. In 2019, Syntyche was proud to be named a judge at the Cummins TopTech Competition, an initiative designed to encourage, recognize, and retain top service technicians within the business. The winners of each region are sent to the final competition at Cummins Headquarters where winner goes home with $10,000 and the second prize is $5,000.

Out of the judges and competitors, 17 total, I was the only female judge grading technicians. My station was a 30 kW generator with three bugs. While one of the technicians was debugging, he introduced a fault which I had fun repairing.

Syntyche is also still involved with the Society of Women Engineers, now in a professional capacity as the Cummins Awards Committee Lead.

“The SWE Awards are the Oscars of the Women in Engineering world, and I led the awards applications process within Cummins. I was responsible for getting the word out about the awards through calls for nominations, leading the selection committee in decision making, and assisting the nominees with their applications. In the end, my work was very gratifying, as six Cummins nominees won awards.”

Syntyche goes on to explain that it wasn’t just the results that she enjoyed. “I found the whole process to be very rewarding. I got to meet and interact with some wonderful women engineers. I learned about them and their career paths and expanded the network of people I could ask questions to and help me with my own career.”

That’s one of the things I like most about Cummins, people are always willing to help you and share their time and experience with you.

Another aspect Syntyche enjoys is how much Cummins supports and encourages employees to give back to their local communities. True to her graduation speech, Syntyche is involved in inspiring the next generation by participating in SEEK (The Summer Engineering Experience for Kids) – a partnership between Cummins and The National Society of Black Engineers that gives elementary students the opportunity to learn about science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) through weekly competitive projects.

As for where her STEM career is headed, Syntyche is exploring her options. “I’m kind of looking at a bunch of things right now. I’m not exactly sure, but I know it will be a mix of engineering and some type of design or management. I’m also looking at going back to school, which Cummins is very supportive of. Ultimately, it’s my dream to empower the people of my country to be able to have the resources that I have access to here and help them grow.”

Interested in a career with Cummins? Check out our careers section.

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It’s no secret women are underrepresented in STEM roles and careers, Hispanic women even more so. Thankfully, Kimberly Martinez Sequeda and Cummins are doing their part to change that.

Kimberly currently serves as a supplier quality engineer, working with suppliers to ensure they are providing good quality products to our lines. 

“My commodity, or what I focus on, are castings. Basically, flywheels and turbochargers for the company. There's not a lot of women in castings, so whenever I would go visit a supplier, I was usually the only woman sitting at the table. And they would say, ‘Where's the engineer?’ and I'm like, ‘I am the engineer’. That’s how I got my idea for my podcast, The Only Woman at the Table.”

Broadcast in both Spanish and English, Kimberly’s podcast is billed as a safe space for women to discuss relevant topics in areas where women are a minority.

Past titles include Challenges women may face in their engineering career, Assertiveness, Building your resume, Interviews, and the Importance of relationships.

According to Kimberly helping, championing, and seeing women get ahead in STEM is a passion she is proud to share with her employer.

Cummins does a great job in bringing in women, empowering them, making them feel welcome, and making sure they have a lot of resources to succeed.

In fact, it was this commitment to women and diversity that led Kimberly to choose Cummins over two other companies that she also did internships with. “I was so impressed with the diverse workforce that they had including women in technical roles, and how much they care about bringing people from different backgrounds together and working with them. I remember walking into the breakroom very early on and there would be people speaking five different languages.”

It wasn’t just Cummins’ commitment to diversity that Kimberly enjoyed as an intern, she also appreciated the commitment they showed to her personally and professionally.

“They gave me meaningful work to do. It was not, ‘Oh yeah, we don't like this kind of work. Let's give it to the intern.’ It was real-world projects that impact the company. And I just fell in love with that and the company. I wanted to work in a place where that even though I'm someone new, they believe in me, and they give me work that is not only going to provide value to my curricular activity but also is going to make me feel like, ‘Okay, I did something important today’.”

Kimberly is happy to report that her commitment to her and career is still very much alive and well today, three years later.

I have a lot of really good mentors – women engineers, who are able to guide me, while at the same time, I have a lot of autonomy and freedom to chart my own course and follow my interests.

One of those interests is continuing her connection and association with the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SPHE) that she began back in college at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.

“Volunteering at SHPE Conference as a Cummins representative the last two years has been a great experience because I remember going as a college student, all scared with your resume, just trying to find ways to talk with the companies. I know, it's really hard. So now being on the other side, I just want to make the students feel safe and feel like they can talk with you with no prejudgments and just listen to them because one time, I was in their shoes.

So being part of SHPE has been really cool. It feels good to give back and just listen and mentor students and say, ‘Hey, you may not be a good fit for the company right now, but you could do this and that, and that will help you be a potential candidate in the future.’ And then seeing those same kids, taking my advice, and coming back one or two years later with a built-up resume and better communication skills, and then saying, ‘Hey, you have improved, you could be a good fit for the company.’ That's an amazing feeling.”

Kimberly says she will be proud to continue her career with a company that not only cares about its employees but also cares about the future of the planet as well. “We are very involved in the environment and giving back to the community. We’re not just asking how can we advance our business, but how can we advance our business in ways that benefit and impact the world for the better.”

Interested in a career with Cummins? Check out our careers section.

Want to hear more from our team? Find more employee stories here.