This is the third in a five-part series celebrating Women in STEM Month.
TJC has been the starting point for many women who have gone on to successful careers in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Some are just finding their place in the STEM world while others have graduated and are blazing trails of their own. We salute their accomplishments and thank them for setting the pace for future women who aspire to professions in the STEM arena.
KLTV Meteorologist Katie Vossler always had an interest in weather, even before it became her profession.
“I loved watching the clouds,” she said, “and then the movie ‘Twister’ came out when I was in high school, and my love of weather was spurred on even more.”
Coming from small Troup High School, Vossler wasn’t quite ready to step onto a campus of 30,000 students, so she started at TJC on an academic scholarship.
“I was so excited to get a scholarship — plus TJC was close to home and offered the smaller, more personal education that I needed to begin my college career,” she said.
During her time at TJC, Vossler began an internship at KLTV, Tyler’s ABC television affiliate, with Chief Meteorologist Mark Scirto, who encouraged her to pursue television.
“One of my favorite physics professors at TJC was Dr. Gene Branum,” she said. “His examples in class will stick with me for the rest of my life and they help me remember those physical principles that I use every day in my job. Even though I didn’t have a meteorology class at TJC, it gave me the firm foundation to succeed.”
After earning an associate degree in physics at TJC in 2000, Vossler transferred to the University of Oklahoma, home to one of the country’s most prestigious weather schools, where she earned a Bachelor of Science in meteorology.
“I don’t think I realized how much I was going to be able to delve into the sciences here at TJC,” she said. “I thought I would have to wait until I transferred to the University of Oklahoma, but I learned so much more here than I had expected.”
After college, Vossler began her television career back in East Texas at KTRE in Lufkin, then moved to KOTV-TV in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she not only forecasted severe storms but chased tornadoes as well. She was an eyewitness to at least a dozen tornadoes from a station storm-chase vehicle and even from the air in a station helicopter. While in Tulsa, Vossler won a regional Emmy Award for her coverage of the December 2007 ice storm. She worked at KSAT 12 in San Antonio just before joining KLTV.
She has earned the title of Certified Broadcast Meteorologist from the American Meteorological Society and has been named “Best Weather Forecaster” and “Best Television Personality” from local publications. Since joining KLTV, she has earned two regional Lone Star Emmy Awards for covering the ever-changing weather of East Texas.
“The professors at TJC are very accessible,” she said. “Not only do you get an award-winning education, but you learn how to navigate college life before you are just one in the sea of students at a large university.”
She continued, “Even for my own children, I will absolutely encourage them to come to TJC, for a year or two years, and get their start. You get the firm foundation that’s going to help you succeed in the future.”
For more information on STEM programs at TJC, go to TJC.edu/EngineeringMathScience and TJC.edu/ProfTech.