When Lynn Sinnott started working at General Electric in advanced manufacturing, she was the only woman in a department of 20 people. Now, after a career in the industry, she’s giving back by teaching in Conexus Indiana’s Catapult program where sometimes more than half of the students are women.
Catapult Indiana provides manufacturing training for youth and unemployed and underemployed adults to spark an interest in careers in the industry.
The program has given Sinnott the opportunity to fuse two of her passions: advanced manufacturing and helping others.
Sinnott spent the first 15 years of her career with GE in California, relocating to Indiana with the company because she was eager to study with a Six Sigma master black belt. She eventually became a Black Belt herself and moved with the company to New Jersey.
As the industry went through gyrations, Sinnott’s New Jersey plant closed and she worked at other East Coast manufacturers before moving back to California. There she stumbled into a property management role with the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency and, eventually, took on community manager roles. This unexpected career change revealed a hidden interest: helping people.
When she found herself back in Indiana in 2022, she fed her passion for helping people by working as a substitute teacher at Ben Davis High School. That’s when she discovered Conexus’ Catapult program. She’s never looked back.
Now Sinnott not only takes delight in teaching the basics of advanced manufacturing but also takes pride in the variety of students she gets to mentor. For example, her cohort at Catapult’s summer camp with Teenworks included high school students from Avon, Ben Davis and Warren. She also has the opportunity to teach people who have been justice-involved – she lovingly refers to them as “second chancers.”
“I love seeing people succeed,” she said. “One of the students in my first cohort was living in a group home and wearing an ankle bracelet. He finished the Catapult program with high marks and had a job lined up.”
While Sinnott takes pride in connecting students to careers in advanced manufacturing, she also simply loves sharing her knowledge and experiences in the industry with people who have no or little frame of reference. “It’s a good career field that more people should know about,” she adds.
WRTV Channel 6 visited Sinnott’s classroom during summer camp:
