Casey Harrison: Welcome to today's episode of See Yourself IN, where you'll learn about cool jobs, people, and companies in Indiana. You'll also hear about skills that will help you find success. And most importantly, we hope they inspire you to dream big. I'm Casey Harrison, your host. On today's show, we're going to dive into Indiana's advanced industries and why they're important.
We'll talk about the skills that are transferable across jobs and industries and determine some of the best ways to begin exploring these great opportunities. Today, I'm joined by Jefrie Polanco. Jefrie is a quality automation engineer at Allegion, where he works with software that is comprehensive in logic, rewarding in experience, and priceless in value.
We're going to explore Jefrie's path into advanced manufacturing and how he found not just a job, but a path to a rewarding career right here in central Indiana.
Jefrie, we are so excited to have you today.
Jefrie Polanco: Thank you. Thank you. Likewise, I've never experienced this, but I'm very happy to be here.
Casey Harrison: Yeah, we're really excited for the conversation. I've had the opportunity to speak with you beforehand, and you have an incredible story about perseverance and resilience and just being willing to try something new, so I'm excited to dive in today.
Jefrie Polanco: I am too, and you're not wrong. Perseverance is something that my wife tells me that I have in me.
Casey Harrison: Absolutely.
Jefrie Polanco: I’ve overcome a lot, so I never thought of it that way because it was just my life. It was my experience. But looking back, yeah, gotta be strong.
Casey Harrison: Oh my gosh. Well and that you've been. So let's start from the beginning, maybe. Can you share with us how you ended up in Indiana and what's kept you here?
Jefrie Polanco: Yeah, so my parents are Dominican. So I was born in Dominican Republic and when I was two years old, we moved to New York City and was there until I was 15 years old. Then my parents decided to just jump ship, move to Indianapolis randomly, mind you.
I just got a phone call while I was hanging out with my cousins. Hey, come home, pack your bags. Let's go. Something I didn't want to do, but at the end of the day, I was 15 didn't have much of a choice. And all of a sudden, we're here in Indianapolis, living with my uncle.
And went to two different high schools while I was here. So three high schools in my high school career, not something that I recommend to anyone. So, yeah, that's pretty much how I ended up here. Now, a little bit about why I ended up staying here. So when I was about, oh, well, I can't remember my age I just remember the year, 2014, 2015, I decided to move back to New York after an adult.
Casey Harrison: Okay.
Jefrie Polanco: Just didn't see Indiana as some place that I wanted to be in like I had too much ambition too much energy and everything like that so decided to go back home and did that for about a year and it was fun, but after experiencing being an adult here in Indiana having my own place, my own car career paths and going to New York and starting from nothing and having nothing to show for it even after a year. That was really rough, it really opened up my eyes to why my parents decided to leave.
So I did the same. I decided to leave and come back. And it was one of the best decisions I've ever made. Met my wife doing that, got married, bought a home, got cars, you know, like pretty much living the dream that I wanted to live. Ever since I got that vision.
Casey Harrison: I love that. I don't want to brush over the fact, three high schools, that's a lot at that stage of life where, you know, we hope we're thinking about what we're going to do after graduation, but do you remember feeling like you had any line of sight into what you wanted to do after you graduated from high school?
Jefrie Polanco: I did have the intention of, you know, going into law school or into the FBI, just always been very ethical and straightforward, didn't hang out with the wrong crowds and things like that. Just, you know, strong willed, just didn't want to do it. So I wanted to go down that path. So I was just like, you know what, this is too much for me.
I already know what I want, you know, so let me just go chase it. So, met a friend who pretty much convinced me to attend this work event kind of thing where they had colleges there. And one of them was Indiana Business College and got to talking to one of the representatives and they convinced me enough to at least give it a shot.
So I went over there and I told them pretty much like, Hey, I'm still in high school and this and that. And they were like, Hey, there's options for you to pretty much not go down that path that you already know what you want. Like, what's the point of, you know, prolonging the process and got my high school diploma slash GED kind of thing. And it was enough to get me enrolled into college but I had to drop out in order to do that and did that, didn't work out because just like anything in life, it's not about the destination. It's about the journey. And my journey taught me a lot of things that made me go a different route.
Casey Harrison: Yeah.
Jefrie Polanco: So, just pretty much went into banking and that's what I wanted to do. I was like, oh man, I can switch my major from criminal justice to business administration. That didn't work out either. Then ended up switching careers, going into insurance because somebody came in while I was working and pretty much convinced me to give it a shot. They were like, hey man, you'd be great for this. You'll make a lot of money. you can have your own business. So I was like, yeah, let's do it. Let's try. And gave that a shot and I loved it. And yeah, so that's the long-winded answer.
Casey Harrison: Yeah. Well, no, I think it's great because I think what you're explaining is that you followed a path of opportunity that you thought would take you closer to doing things that you enjoyed, right?
And then, when you stopped enjoying it, you called an audible and found something new to do. And I think we're going to get into how that's continued even into your current role here in a bit. But I want to talk a little bit about, you did realize early on the benefits of education.
Jefrie Polanco: Yeah.
Casey Harrison: Where did that come from?
Jefrie Polanco: Honestly, I don't know because I don't have anybody in my direct family that like went to college or pushed me to get an education. It's just something that, due to my upbringing, I had to learn a lot of things on my own. And I grew a passion for learning and I'm a student of life. So every day I seek to learn something new about myself, the people around me, the world that I'm in, just my faith, anything, because that drives me. So my news feed and everything is just a bunch of things that I learn and probably will never actually do, but I just love seeking that knowledge. So, that's why I say I don't know. It's just something that's in me.
Casey Harrison: I mean, I think that's incredible though, because that's a huge takeaway for anybody listening. That posture to always be open to learning and embracing what you don't know is such a great skill to have, no matter what you're doing.
Jefrie Polanco: Yeah, and I didn't know it was a skill. I just like video games. I'm like, Ooh, this is challenging. You know, let me see if I can figure it out.
Casey Harrison: It's interesting that you say video games because I was going to ask. You shared with me that very early on you knew you had a passion for coding.
Jefrie Polanco: Yeah.
Casey Harrison: How does one discover they have a passion for coding?
Jefrie Polanco: I discovered it through MySpace.
Casey Harrison: Okay, that'll do.
Jefrie Polanco: So MySpace, I remember that you had to like pretty much edit your own page and you had to know a little bit of HTML and CSS in order to go ahead and do that to your liking. And I'm a perfectionist.
So all of those little outlays and things that they had it just wasn't doing it for me. I was like, no, this is not what I want. So I started editing it myself. I don't even know how I came across knowing that I can do that. I think maybe one of my friends told me that it was possible and showed me something, and then I just went full in, like, I just started editing it myself, and I didn't know what I was doing, didn't know that was a career path, but that's where it started, as far as the coding, but I've always been into computers, ever since I was introduced to computers when I was in elementary school, I was like, oh my god, this is the coolest thing ever, like, you can draw. You know, the Microsoft thing. Oh my God, there's Clippy, you know, the Microsoft little guy. So all of those things excited me, just all of that technology and taking them apart. So my uncle who is deaf, the only way he communicates obviously is through sign language. So he had a computer with a webcam. So all of those things were just so fun to me as a kid. And it just opened up my mind to just explore with them and literally take them apart. See what they're about, put them back together and yeah.
Casey Harrison: I love how you say that casually. I would just take something, you know, take a computer apart, put it back together just to learn. I'm like, that's incredible. And so let's transition a little bit because what you're doing today very much aligns with that inquisitive side of you that also is completely immersed in technology. So today you serve as the quality automation engineer with Allegion. What do you do in that role?
Jefrie Polanco: It's pretty fun. What I do is I take the work of the developers who are developing an app and I make sure that it is up to standards. That the end users are going to experience a flawless experience as opposed to coming across bugs. So I call myself the Ash Ketchum of the app because my job is to catch bugs.
And so, I'm catching Pokemons out there. So yeah, so that's why I say it's pretty fun because anything I do, I immerse it into that kind of experience. And that's why it keeps me going. So I just take the app and I test it to its full potential, making sure that I find anything that could result in a experience that the user might not like.
And it's very complex because I've never been in this role in this career, it's something that I've always done as a passion, but when I started it as a career. And so how, serious you know, my role actually is, because although I started as an apprentice, I never felt like one. They didn't treat me like an apprentice. Which is great because they didn't, I would have felt like maybe they were, you know, treating me like, you know, walking me through it.
But no, they put me in a very complex program and it was awesome. And I mean, it still is. But the fact that they chose me to do that, I think it's because they saw how much fun I have with things that are difficult. So my director told me like, I purposely put you in the most difficult one that we have because I think you would do great in it. And he wasn't lying.
Casey Harrison: I mean, that's an incredible testament to your ability to handle adversity and that resilience we talked about. But so for those listening, I don't want to breeze over it. Allegion has a huge footprint here in Indiana. Can you talk a little bit and maybe just for those listening not familiar with Allegion, could you introduce the company?
Jefrie Polanco: Yeah, so Allegion is a manufacturing company, an advanced manufacturing company at that, where they manufacture locks, keys, things of that sort. So pretty much, giving people security and seamless access into the world and into the places that they need access to. So, we have government contracts, school contracts, hospitals, I mean, you name it, anything that has a lock or a key, we pretty much have our hand in it.
So when you take out your key and you see the ridges on your keys, that's part of what I work with directly, but on the digital side. I work on the IT side of it, not the manufacturing, so I never actually see a physical key. But I actually work with a program that helps dictate what those biddings are going to be.
So it's pretty cool because we take what a lot of people use every day, locks and keys, and just make it in such a way that not only do they want the product, but they can customize the product to their own needs. So we go from a planning phase to a building phase to an actual management phase. And all of those things require different sets of keys, different sets of locks, different sets of access.
So as complex as it is, I find it to be fun, but a lot of people are like, it's just a lock and a key. And I'm like, no, it's a lot more than that.
Casey Harrison: That's incredible. Well, and I don't want to brush over it. You came into Allegion as an adult apprentice. Can you talk a little bit about what that experience was like and how you even knew about it?
Jefrie Polanco: So I was working in insurance, and I was working from home and then my big brother passed away in a car accident. And when that happened, it just, I just lost my mind. Not in a bad way. I just couldn't think straight. Couldn't do day-to-day functions. I was really lost, and I thought that I was gonna never recover from that.
So my wife was like, hey, take this time to just get back to your healthy self. And in doing so, I was like, man, if I were to die today, would I say that my life was worth living? And no matter how many things came to my mind, the answer was always no. So, after learning how fragile life really is, I decided to just take a leap of faith and say, you know what, I'm gonna go for what I love.
Casey Harrison: Yeah.
Jefrie Polanco: I'm gonna chase my passion, my dreams. I mean, it's the only life we have and can be taken away at any moment. So, that's when I decided to open up to my wife and tell her what I really wanted to do and thank God for her because she's the one that found the adult apprenticeship opportunity for me because I was not in the right space of mind to go down that route and when she did it, it just seemed too good to be true. I'll be honest with you because it's one of those opportunities that said you don't have to pay anything, we're gonna train you, and we'll get you a job if you don't go through the program and you're a match.
And I was like, man, this sounds too good to be true, you know, like, I don't got to pay. You're going to pay me. If everything works out.
Casey Harrison: And train me, right?
Jefrie Polanco: And train me, right? Like, no. This can't be. But I had nothing to lose, right? I literally had nothing to lose, I had just gotten let go, so I was on unemployment, and I was like, let's just do it.
So it was doing something that I've never done before, which is cloud services. So I was doing some AWS kind of certification things. And all of that was to just get an opportunity to do something in IT, right? To get your foot in the door. Didn't know where I was going to land. And, at the end, they came up with Allegion and that was great. You know, I was super excited. They had a few roles that they wanted us to interview for. One of them was a software engineer. And the other one was a data analyst. And the other one was a field services. And I interviewed pretty much for all of them.
Because I think that's what they asked us to do. But I didn't know that at the time. So, I applied for the software engineer one first. Met Bruce, who is a huge part to my success story. You know, everything went well. Then the next day I had another interview for the data analyst part. That one I did not know I was going to have.
And even then, things didn't go so well, you know, I didn't get any other roles and I was a little bit defeated, but Bruce. And, I reached out to New Apprenticeship and I said that I was going to leave the program because just things just weren't working out, and this was all the way at the end, mind you, like I'm already done with the boot camp and everything.
So I just said, you know what, I'm just going to get a job. My family needs the income, you know, I can't keep doing this. And when Bruce caught wind of that he reached out to me personally and mind you, Bruce, at the time, he's a senior director for the company for the front delivery. So he's not just your average Joe or a manager like he's Bruce, like Bruce Almighty kind of Bruce, you know, and yeah, he reached out to me through an email and said he wanted to have a conversation with me and I was taken really aback.
Till this day is one of the moments I'm like, wow, why would he reach out to me? Like I'm nobody. Like, literally, like, not even qualified, you know, let's be honest, like, I don't belong here. Why are you reaching out to me? He eventually told me, because I asked, and he told me, you know, I wanted to see if you were the real thing or if you were full of it.
Like, were you quitting because you're full of it, or were you quitting because you had legitimate reasons to actually want to choose a different path and you have legitimate reasons to actually want to choose a different path. So, I don't blame you. But if you just give me one chance, I think I can make this work for you.
And again, I had nothing to lose. I was like, okay, sure. Yeah. You know, go for it. He's like, okay, I'm going to reach out to somebody I know who you might be a great fit for what they have going on. I had no idea what it was. And then he sends me something a few days later, tells me, hey, apply for this position.
And it was the quality software engineer. I was like, okay, what is this, you know, like, this is new to me. But then I read the role and I was like hey, this sounds like me. So I'm like, did he create this for me? Or is this a real role and I just never knew it existed. And I was like, either way, this is awesome.
So, went through an interview process. Did like four interviews. One of them was in person. It was rough.
Casey Harrison: It's extensive.
Jefrie Polanco: Yeah. And they did the whiteboard thing, too. For those of you who don't know, it's like they test your knowledge on, like, coding and everything. But you don't do it on a computer. You do it either on a whiteboard or a piece of paper. So it was a piece of paper and that was very scary. That was not fun.
Casey Harrison: So we'll close out on this one because we're running really tight on time. But you have a phenomenal story, but before we go today, could you share three things that you've learned on your career path that the people listening could maybe try on theirs?
Jefrie Polanco: Teamwork is one of the things that I've learned that is very important in this career path simply because you're going to work with a lot of people and your responsibilities are very important to the entire, you know, end point. So, if you don't do your part, your teammates can suffer from that.
So teamwork. Communication, because if you don't communicate effectively, when you're working in a team, it's going to definitely be detrimental to the team because they don't know where you're at in the process or where they're, where they need to do. You know, like, do we need to call an audible? Like what's going on?
And last but not least, I don't know if this is a skill, but faith, have faith because again, it's not about the destination. It's about the journey. Believe in the process, trust in yourself. And things will work out. I'm a living testament to that. Because had I done the things I wanted to do, I wouldn't be here.
Casey Harrison: Thank you so much for joining us, Jefrie, and sharing your story. We're going to link some show notes, too, so that you guys can plug into the Adult Apprenticeship Program or learn more. We're so glad that you were able to join us today to learn about Indiana's advanced industries and how you can start or enhance your career journey.
Until next time, we hope that you'll be able to see yourself in the unlimited opportunities right here in Indiana.