Base Office: Mansfield, MA
Email: alafontaine@hallam-ics.com
My road to Hallam was a long one, but now that I’m here I am content and happy. The culture is welcoming and fits with both my personal and career goals. This is one of the first jobs where I can see it as a career and not just a job.
My personal career goals are a manifestation of my personal and professional identities and goals. I understand, through my prior educational experiences at New England Institute of Technology and time in the Air Force, that an individual’s personal and professional aspects of their life are influenced by each other. My personal identity is significantly influenced by my membership in the Armed Forces, formerly serving on active duty and currently as a Reservist, and as a husband, father, friend, and son to the most important people in my life. I strive every day to improve myself as a person in order to make them and myself proud. One of the ways I work towards this goal is through my professional identity. My professional identity consists of two parts, my civilian professional identity which is now here at Hallam, and my military professional identity.
Professionally I have always been driven toward engineering and leadership. After many years of studies behind me and different colleges, I was able to enhance my civilian professional identity by building on my professional identity. I have developed through the military and employment experience as an electronic technician, electronic, application and controls Engineer. From my first day in boot camp, I was selected and volunteered to serve in leadership roles in the Air Force. I feel a sense of accomplishment and pride in knowing that I have done this successfully with positive feedback from my peers and my chain of command. In response to the leadership skills, I demonstrated in the military setting, I was selected to participate in several leadership courses and trainings throughout my 12+ years of service. As a result of my personal and professional identities, I have developed goals for myself to continue to improve upon these identities and now Hallam is able to support my progress towards achieving these goals. The culture at Hallam is uplifting after experiencing a few jobs where they had a work over family mindset which lead to unhealthy work environments and life balance. Working for a Hallam-ICS, a company that sees the importance of “Working to Live not Living to Work”, allows me time to do things that inspire me as a person, father and Airmen.
Throughout my time in the military, I never stopped working towards my bachelor’s degree but had to overcome obstacles including deployments and learning environments that were not optimal for my preferred learning method. With the support of the faculty at NEIT I was able to graduate with my Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering Technology in 2017 and received continual validation throughout my educational experience that the hands-on teaching methodology and small class sizes provided me with the setting and tools to reach my fullest potential. I went from doubting I would ever have a bachelor’s degree to obtaining my Masters of Science in Engineering Management in 2020 and feeling empowered; a dream I never thought was possible.
I have the self-awareness to know that I never stop pushing myself once I achieve a goal. One of my career goals is to continue to expand my professional knowledge and skills to help improve controls and systems in place to help other who come after me. Another career goal is to build on my existing leadership and management skills that I have developed in the Air Force and learn how to transfer my skillset from a military environment into a civilian environment.
