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DUNWOODY COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY — A LU M N I & F R I E N D S M AGA Z I N E — A N N UA L R E P O RT 20 1 9
TERRI OESTMANN
LEGACY SPOTLIGHT
Terri Oestmann has always been a bit of a pioneer. And it’s that pioneering spirit that led her to Dunwoody and the railroads. Now, through a legacy gift, others will get that same opportunity. Back in the 1980s, Oestmann was working a series of dead end jobs after high school and knew she wanted more from her life. “I attended a secretarial program just to get myself out from behind a broom, and in the process I fell in love with computers and technology,” Oestmann said. “I was not meant to be a secretary, but I had a great time working with all of the new technologies.” Oestmann enrolled at NEI, which later merged with Dunwoody College, for electronics with an emphasis in computers. Through the program she received her FCC license, which allowed her to go into telecommunications after graduating in 1996. When the BNSF Railway opened up a telecommunications division, Oestmann jumped at the opportunity.
The division was cut in 2005, so Oestmann transferred into the diesel shop as a diesel locomotive electrician. “It was a much more industrial job,” Oestmann said. “But it was still just basically following the bouncing electrons down the wire.” She was one of the few women who worked in the shop, and that could be challenging at times. Like the time the new innovative testing device she invented (which had been recognized with an award) was discovered crushed inside a vise. And it also meant she wasn’t given some of the better projects to work on. “I wanted to get out of the shop and do more creative work,” Oestmann said. It was this desire to do more with her career that led Oestmann back to Dunwoody. This time, for Industrial Engineering Technology. The College had just added the program and Oestmann would be part of the very first graduating class.
