Employee Spotlight: Zach Ingwer Shares Career Insights with Students

“I like to take every opportunity I can to provide guidance to young people, so when Leadership Collier Foundation (LCF) asked for my help, I couldn’t say no,” said Senior Product Engineer Zach Ingwer about participating in a career panel in April.

Zach, who graduated from the Growing Associates in Naples (GAIN) program in 2014, spoke to National Academy Foundation (NAF) students at Immokalee High School in the first installment of their Career Speaker Series. Organized with the help of the LCF, the series of panels help educate students about community involvement, internships and career paths.

Mentoring is especially important to Zach because he found himself without a lot of guidance growing up. He said, “I feel that if someone could have pointed me in the right direction in college or suggested that I get an internship, I wouldn’t have struggled as much as I did to discover what I love to do.”

About seven years ago, Zach had just graduated from the University of Miami with a bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering and was working in a restaurant while looking for an opportunity in orthopedics. He had been searching constantly for careers in the medical device field, but everything he found required more experience than he had as a recent graduate. Zach met President and Founder Reinhold Schmieding one evening in Naples, and after learning about Zach's interest in orthopedics, Reinhold encouraged him to keep looking for an opportunity to join the Arthrex team. That’s when Zach applied for the shoulder arthroscopy engineering internship that led to his career as a product engineer.

After moving to another engineering position with the Knee Arthroplasty team and receiving his M.B.A. from Indiana University (with help from Arthrex’s tuition reimbursement program), Zach was promoted to senior product development engineer on the Knee and Hip Arthroscopy team.

Zach shared his story with students and what he would have done differently, like interning while he was still in school. He also expressed the importance of on-the-job training and building a professional network. He said, “During the internship, I worked as hard as I could and tried to learn as much as possible. I figured every day at Arthrex was an opportunity to further my knowledge.”

Thanks to Zach for sharing his experience and making a positive impact in our community!