Abbi Richcreek from the Warsaw Area Career Center talked about robotics engineering and automation during the Nontraditional Employment for Women workshop at Quaker Haven.

SYRACUSE — From a very young age, Elizabeth Perepezko had an interest in how things worked and wanted to take things apart and put them back together. “I was always thinking, ‘what could I make from ordinary things?’” she said.

Perepezko, a research scientist in biomaterials research at Zimmer Biomet in Warsaw, was the guest speaker for the annual Nontraditional Employment for Women workshop at Quaker Haven, Dewart Lake, Thursday morning and into the early afternoon Oct. 29. The workshop is sponsored by the Warsaw Area Career Center and Wawasee Area Career and Technical Cooperative and brings in sophomore high school girls from Warsaw, Wawasee, Tippecanoe Valley, Whitko, Fairfield and West Noble.

Perepezko’s grandfather, a construction worker, was a huge influence in her life and partly why she became fascinated with what makes things work. Her father was an engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “I have memories of spending a lot of time trying to understand science,” she recalled.

While in high school, she was so interested in science she took two science classes every semester from her sophomore through senior years. When choosing what to study in college, engineering seemed like a good opportunity to her “because I could apply scientific principles” and she enrolled in Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

She continued to pursue her passion through various volunteer opportunities and programs and eventually decided to pursue a master’s degree at the University of Wisconsin. After her graduate work, she participated in the Engineering World Health program in Nicaragua, then worked at the VA Medical Center in Cleveland for three years.

Then an opportunity developed at what was then just Biomet in Warsaw. It was a much smaller community than Perepezko had lived in, but she felt it was her dream job, pursued it and was hired. Since coming to Zimmer Biomet, she has been involved in the research and development of a variety of materials and manufacturing processes used to produce various orthopedic medical devices.

Perepezko encouraged the students to not just look for a “job” but instead to pursue something they are passionate about. She emphasized pursuing, saying “don’t wait for it to come to you.”

She was one of several women from a variety of traditionally male dominated careers seated or standing at tables throughout the Quaker Haven Activities Center. The women shared facts about their careers and answered questions from the students who were allowed to rotate around to five different tables. Among the careers represented were air traffic controller, architect, attorney, broadcasting, truck driver, electrician, heavy equipment operator and many others.

Later in the day some of the stations had “try it” hands-on sessions for students to participate in. For one example, students were allowed to put on firefighting gear and climb into a fire truck.