News
Kate Miles Visits SMC Green Club
Published on March 27, 2026 - 4 p.m.
Kate Miles didn’t lecture Southwestern Michigan College’s Green Club March 26.
Instead, the 2023 SMC environmental sciences graduate, an environmental health and safety engineer for Metal Technologies in Three Rivers, anchored an informal roundtable dialogue in the William P.D. O’Leary Building.
The intimate exchange involved students as well as Professor of Environmental and Biological Science Deirdre Kirk and Professor of Chemistry Dr. Doug Schauer.
Miles transferred from SMC, where she presented a NoTED poster on climate change in April 2022 and was inducted into Phi Theta Kappa, and earned her December 2025 bachelor’s degree in freshwater science and sustainability from Western Michigan University. She starts work on her master’s degree at WMU this fall after considering law school.
As to what an environmental health and safety engineer does all day in a foundry, Miles explains it this way: “We have 140 hourly employees and 40 salaried employees. I do safety trainings and environmental awareness, I have big corporate meetings on how to keep people safe, what processes should be changed. I’m on a waste-reduction committee. We use sand molding, so how can we re-use that sand? Permitting isn’t my job, but I’ve learned a lot about it. You need environmental people in a factory setting.”
Is that the future she envisioned? “Not at all,” she said. “I imagined myself fishing in a river, identifying fish, working for EGLE,” although the blue plant on 4th Street is by a river.
EGLE, the state Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, is pronounced “eagle,” like the bird.
Miles, who worked in the Western soil lab, is well into her second year at Metal Technologies because she started there as a WMU student through an internship.
Metal Technologies Three Rivers Gray Iron (TRG) is a gray iron foundry specializing in small, medium-to-high volume iron castings.
She also worked at Corey Lake Orchards for five years. Her father, Dan, teaches welding for SMC.
Recalling her SMC experience and how well-prepared she felt for Western, Miles said, “I’m so glad I started at SMC instead of going to a four-year first. The support given at SMC is crazy different than a four-year.
“I loved my psychology course. I use it every day because it teaches you how to deal with people. It’s great if you can finish scientific equations, but if you can’t work with people, good luck finding a job.”
“My GPA was higher at Western than it was here,” Miles said, “because you get the hang of college and you find more things you’re interested in. Your degree narrows as you go. I felt really prepared. SMC is like a mini-university with professionalism and quality of classes.
“I had a high GPA, but it could have been higher had I asked for help more,” like taking advantage of free tutoring services. “I would have liked to get more involved with people, but I didn’t live here,” Miles said.
