Meet the Staff: Sandi Ohman (Daytona Beach) & Angie Engel (Daytona Beach – Alumni)

Sandi Ohman is an Assistant Director in the Career Services Office, at the Daytona Beach campus. She has been with Embry-Riddle for 19 years. Prior to Embry-Riddle, she worked in the finance industry.

Sandi has advised students in many of the majors offered at the residential campus. When she started in Career Services, Sandi advised all the engineering degrees and later moved to advising business, human factors, safety, aeronautics, and many more over the years. This has helped her make connections with alumni, while they were students, which she uses to help the students of today to connect with industry.

Additionally, Sandi oversees the programming the Career Services Office hosts for students, to prepare them for their careers and for the Career Expo events. She also taught UNIV 101 for 10 years, while at ERAU.

Finally, Sandi stays current on career trends by being involved in CCFCC and FloridaACE, having served as the past Chair, and Secretary of CCFCC, and participated in several conference committees and presented at the FloridaACE conferences. In 2021, Sandi was awarded the Brownlee Leadership Award, of the most prestigious awards in FloridaACE, having been nominated by her peers. Sandi is also involved with SoACE, NACE and has been a panelist for a presentation at the virtual NBAA event in 2020.

What is your favorite quote?

“You get out of it, what you put into it” - I would call this my favorite phrase to use, especially when working with students. If you want to have successes, you have to put some work into it. When you prepare, research, plan and implement the plan, you will find success.

I also like “If you give someone a fish, they will eat for a day, if you teach them to fish, they will eat for a lifetime” This represents our philosophy in Career Services. We give students the tools, and teach them how to use them, so they can continue using those tools in the future. This means the students still have to use the tools to make them work, but a little effort can go a long way.

If you could go back to college again, what would you do differently?

Use Career Services more than I did as a student. I found my own internship and used Career Services to earn credit for the experience, but that is mostly it overall. I would find out about many companies, not only the ones that usually recruit for my major, learn about STEM companies like those that recruit at ERAU, and my path would definitely have been different. I believe we make the paths we take, sometimes those paths are ok, not awful and not great, and others are AMAZING! I can see my path has been good and what I wanted, but earlier in my career a different path would have very interesting to pursue.

Moral: Don’t let the path lead you, you lead the path.

Angie Engel is the Assistant Director of Alumni Career Engagement, assisting Embry-Riddle alumni who graduated more than 2 years ago with their job search and career advancement.  She has a master’s degree in Counselor Education from the University of Central Florida.  

Prior to starting at ERAU, Angie was a career advisor for engineering majors at Virginia Tech and an executive branding specialist for LHH.  Her husband, Scott Myers, is a modeling expert for Boeing Commercial Aircraft Marketing & Sales and was a former Space Shuttle engineer.  They lived in Seattle, WA for 10 years.

 What is a cherished childhood memory you want to share?

I grew up in Titusville, Florida in a house on the Indian River.  I could see the Kennedy Space Center and launches from my back yard!   

What is your favorite television show and why?

My favorite television show is “Finding Your Roots,” a genealogy program by Dr. Henry Lewis “Skip” Gates, Jr. of Harvard University on PBS.  I enjoy listening to stories of long-lost family history.  

“In each episode, celebrities view ancestral histories, sometimes learn of connections to famous/infamous people, discover secrets, and share the emotional experience with viewers. Analyzing genetic code, DNA diagnosticians trace bloodlines and occasionally debunk long-held beliefs.”