BIC YouTube Videos

2026 Berkshire Robotics Challenge life from Wahconah High School.

2026 Berkshire Robotics Challenge live from Wahconah High School.

2026 Berkshire Robotics Challenge live from Wahconah High School.

At 22, Jordan Callahan serves as Lead Manufacturing Technician at Noble Carbon, a Berkshire-based clean tech company building smart circuit breakers. In this episode, he shares how vocational training, real-world experience, and programs at the Berkshire Innovation Center shaped his unconventional path. Jordan Callahan, a lifelong Berkshire resident, reflects on his journey from an energetic student at Pine Cobble School to Lead Manufacturing Technician at Noble Carbon, a microelectronics clean tech company developing smart circuit breakers. After choosing McCann Technical School in eighth grade, Jordan immersed himself in computer-assisted design, exploring mechanical engineering, architecture, and animation before focusing on mechanical design. He recalls designing projects like a prototype waffle maker and discovering early on that building and understanding how things work energized him. Jordan’s path shifted during his senior year when COVID disrupted his planned co-op experience at General Dynamics. Instead of heading directly into a defense manufacturing role, he worked at Advanced Auto Parts alongside friends, gaining early workforce experience and learning how to navigate workplace conflict and advocate for himself. A family connection eventually introduced him to the Berkshire Innovation Center (BIC), where he began working with a member company focused on ergonomic solutions and 3D printing. Through the BIC Manufacturing Academy and later the MIT-designed TechAMP Technologist Program, Jordan deepened both his technical and leadership skills. He credits those programs with strengthening his adaptability, self-leadership, and willingness to commit to long-term growth. While participating in TechAMP, he was recruited by Noble Carbon co-founder Jared Lebos and stepped into a full-time role. Today, Jordan balances hands-on manufacturing responsibilities with advanced coursework, earning 28 college credits toward a mechatronics degree while continuing to grow within the clean tech sector. His story highlights an alternative pathway that blends vocational training, industry experience, and higher education. Links: Jordan Callahan – Noble Carbon: https://noblecarbon.io/ Berkshire Innovation Center Accelerator Program: https://www.berkshireinnovationcenter.com/accelerator-program Narrative Research Group: https://narrativeresearchgroup.org/ For more information or to share a question or insight, please email Shannon [at] narrativeresearchgroup [dot] org Contributors: Jordan Callahan, Dr. Dennis Rebelo, Nate Christy, Shannon Rebelo, PJ Moynihan #JordanCallahan, #NobleCarbon, #ManufacturingTechnician, #Microelectronics, #CleanTech, #SmartCircuitBreakers, #BerkshireInnovationCenter, #TechAMP, #VocationalTraining, #McCannTech, #CareerDevelopment, #Leadership, #Mechatronics, #WorkforceDevelopment

Amanda Zepka, President of Souliere & Zepka Construction, shares how returning to the Berkshires led her to integrate leadership, collaboration, dance, and integrity into a life built around meaningful work and community. Amanda joins Dr. Dennis Rebelo in the Vault to reflect on a life shaped by movement, observation, and values-driven decision-making. Born and raised in rural Savoy, Massachusetts, Amanda grew up immersed in imagination, outdoor play, reading, and film, while dancing competitively from age three through high school. Dance became both a discipline and a form of expression, shaping how she understands rhythm, collaboration, and embodiment. Amanda attended Emerson College with plans to pursue film, drawn to storytelling and creative production. Internships with Warner Brothers and Paramount Pictures offered industry exposure, but her time in Los Angeles revealed an environment that felt inauthentic to her values. Graduating during the recession, Amanda moved to Chicago, where years of juggling multiple part-time jobs prompted a deeper reckoning with what mattered most. A pivotal visit home, marked by seeing her father’s aging firsthand, clarified her desire to return to family and community. After moving back to the Berkshires, Amanda began working at Adams Plumbing and Heating, gaining firsthand insight into growing a family-run construction business. She later joined Souliere & Zepka Construction, where she now serves as President alongside her brother and father. Amanda describes learning to translate institutional knowledge, ask questions without ego, and build trust through respect for experienced tradespeople. The conversation explores Amanda’s role in building the Greylock Glen Outdoor Center, a net-zero public building at the base of Mount Greylock, which she continues to volunteer at. She reflects on integrity as a guiding principle, the importance of collaboration, and her belief that people can be more than one thing. Today, Amanda balances leading a construction firm with teaching dance, serving on the Adams Theater board, and intentionally choosing where she invests her time and energy. Links: Souliere & Zepka Construction: https://souliereandzepka.com/ Greylock Glen Outdoor Center: http://greylockglenresort.com/ Berkshire Innovation Center Accelerator Program: https://www.berkshireinnovationcenter.com/accelerator-program Narrative Research Group: https://narrativeresearchgroup.org/ Contributors: Amanda Zepka, Dr. Dennis Rebelo, Nate Christy, Shannon Rebelo #AmandaZepka, #SolarAndZepkaConstruction, #ConstructionManagement, #NetZeroBuilding, #GreylockGlen, #Leadership, #Integrity, #FamilyBusiness, #Berkshires, #DanceAndLeadership, #EmersonCollege, #CareerDecisions, #Community, #MyStoryVault

Amy Sosne, MD, educator, and Williams College alum, shares her deeply personal journey through trauma, medicine, teaching, and mindfulness, exploring what it means to become your own first responder in moments of crisis and change. In this episode of My Story Vault, Amy Sosne joins Dr. Dennis Rebelo to reflect on a life shaped by trauma, resilience, and an ongoing commitment to trauma-informed education. A medical doctor, author, and educator at Williams College, Amy traces her story from growing up in New Jersey through her academic path at Williams, Mount Sinai, and psychiatry residency, where her lived experiences began to profoundly reshape her understanding of mental health, care, and institutional systems. Amy discusses her early exposure to childhood trauma and how dissociation, hyper-efficiency, and achievement became survival strategies. She shares how these patterns followed her into medical training, culminating in burnout, misdiagnosis, and repeated hospitalizations that ultimately led her to step away from residency. One triggering encounter with a patient set her back to her traumatized self and caused her to question her ability to continue as a physician. This trigger led to a breakdown of her identity, which had long suppressed her traumatized younger self. No longer able to be a solid physician and resident, she became a patient. Over a series of psychiatric misdiagnoses—resulting from her inability to process and voice her trauma—and repeated hospitalizations, she ultimately decided to step away during her second year of her psychiatry residency. Through candid reflection, Amy describes how the healthcare system often failed to fully recognize trauma histories, both in patients and in clinicians themselves. The conversation explores Amy’s pivot toward education and her work teaching college students and supporting elementary school outreach programs in North Adams. Central to her approach is the concept of a “mindfulness toolkit,” which she frames as learning to be one’s own first responder. Using the metaphor of an “inner tree,” Amy explains how roots, trunk, and branches represent life circumstances, core stability, and chosen pathways, including how loss, injury, or disruption does not destroy the whole self. Amy also reflects on writing her memoir, A World Turned Upside Down; A Memoir of Healing, and her mindfulness guide, Your Inner Tree; Building a Mindfulness Toolkit - Yourself as First Responder, describing the emotional impact of authorship, the limits of resilience narratives, and the need for radical acceptance. She speaks openly about ongoing institutional challenges, professional evaluation systems, and the importance of setting boundaries to protect one’s mental health. Throughout the episode, Amy emphasizes the necessity of trauma-informed lenses in education, healthcare, and organizational life, grounding her insights firmly in lived experience rather than abstraction. Links: Amy Sosne – Your Inner Tree Amy Sosne – A World Turned Upside Down Amy Sosne Consulting (site has links to buy books, blog, and info) https://amysosne.com/ Berkshire Innovation Center: www.berkshireinnovationcenter.com Narrative Research Group: narrativeresearchgroup.org For more information or to share a question or insight, please email Shannon [at] narrativeresearchgroup [dot] org Contributors: Dr. Amy Sosne, Dr. Dennis Rebelo, Nate Christy, Shannon Rebelo #TraumaInformed, #MindfulnessToolkit, #Resilience, #MentalHealth, #Education, #Wellness, #PersonalNarrative, #Teaching, #StudentSupport, #MentalHealthAwareness, #MyStoryVault

Future Innovators is a hands-on program at the Berkshire Innovation Center that empowers rising high school students to explore creativity, build real prototypes, and learn how to solve meaningful, real-world problems. Through human skills training, design thinking, and the DMAIC innovation framework, students work in teams to turn ideas into working solutions. Addressing challenges related to health, sustainability, access, and community well-being. Along the way, students engage with local manufacturers, engineers, and entrepreneurs, gaining firsthand exposure to how innovation happens in the real world and how ideas move from concept to impact. More than a summer program, Future Innovators helps students build confidence, collaboration skills, and a clearer sense of what they’re capable of—often reshaping how they see their academic and professional futures. Future Innovators is hosted by the Berkshire Innovation Center, a catalyst for innovation, advanced manufacturing, and workforce development in the Berkshires. Learn more about the program and the work happening at the Berkshire Innovation Center: 👉https://www.berkshireinnovationcenter.com/futureinnovators

Dr. Joshua Mendel, Chief of Staff at MCLA, shares his journey from growing up in the Berkshires to guiding students, partnerships, and community engagement across the region. He reflects on service work, leadership development, and the experiences that anchor his approach to higher education and family life. In this episode, Dr. Joshua Mendel, Chief of Staff at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA), joins Dr. Dennis Rebelo to trace a life shaped by service, community commitment, and long-standing ties to the Berkshires. Josh begins by revisiting his early childhood in Adams, where outdoor exploration, a tight-knit community, and supportive parents helped form the foundations of curiosity and relationship-building that continue to guide his work today. He shares memories of growing up alongside friends who later became surgeons, professors, and creators—early indicators of the environment that shaped his values. Josh describes his pathway from college student to leader in higher education, beginning with pivotal experiences at Assumption University. A key turning point emerged through his involvement with campus ministry and the Mexico Mission program, where immersion in service work and life within an Otomí community offered lessons in humility, reflection, and the power of shared responsibility. These experiences became anchor memories that still guide his decision-making, reminding him to slow down, observe, and lead with awareness. After earning undergraduate and graduate degrees at Assumption and working in student affairs at Endicott College, Josh returned to the Berkshires to join MCLA. His roles evolved across admissions, transfer support, advancement, and program development, including helping re-establish the college’s MBA program. He explains how his work blends student success, faculty support, regional partnerships, and community connections—an approach rooted in understanding people, aligning values, and ensuring that outside organizations contribute positively to student experience. Josh also recounts his first collaboration with the Berkshire Innovation Center and how trust, follow-through, and careful relationship-building shaped his involvement. Throughout the episode, he reflects on MCLA’s mission as a public liberal arts institution and its national recognition for social mobility, emphasizing the college’s ability to support students who are determined to create better futures for themselves and their families. In the final portion of the conversation, Josh speaks about fatherhood, describing how he and his wife nurture the interests of their twins through exploration, learning, and shared experiences. For Josh, service extends from his professional life into his parenting, and he wants to be known most for being a good dad. Links MCLA: https://www.mcla.edu/ Berkshire Innovation Center Accelerator Program: https://www.berkshireinnovationcenter.com/accelerator-program Narrative Research Group: https://narrativeresearchgroup.org/ For questions or insights: Shannon [at] narrativeresearchgroup [dot] org Contributors Dr. Joshua Mendel, Dr. Dennis Rebelo, Nate Christy, Shannon Rebelo, PJ Moynihan, Jordan Callahan #MCLA, #HigherEducation, #SocialMobility, #Admissions, #CommunityEngagement, #ServiceWork, #MexicoMission, #LeadershipDevelopment, #BerkshireCounty, #StudentSuccess, #Partnerships, #FacultySupport, #Parenting, #CareerPath, #PublicLiberalArts

Video testimonial featuring STAT (System Thinking for the Application of Technologies) Program alumni. #ManufacturingAcademy #STATProgram #HumanSkills #SystemsThinking #CareerGrowth #BerkshireInnovationCenter