Student Spotlight: Jon Defries

Our newest BRTC Student Spotlight tells us about his experience in working his way through an industry and creating goals!

Jon Defries started working for ARI in Paragould in 2005 as a level 1 welder. He moved through the ranks as a level 2 operator, level 2 lead person, and then became a group leader. He received a promotion to Superintendent in 2015, and decided he did not want to stop there.

Jon\’s career goals are to manage his own manufacturing plant one day, and a business degree would streamline that goal. So, online courses at BRTC now take up much of his time! He was recently promoted to Operations Manager at Greenbrier Companies in Marmaduke in January 2020.

Jon is from Hoxie and currently lives in Jonesboro. He is a family man, and exclaims that his father gave him the best life advice, \”Love your wife more than yourself and she\’ll be the best thing to ever happen to you.\”