 After growing up in Greece, Vicky Caramida came to Purdue for its top-rated engineering programs. She used her environmental engineering degree to launch a very successful consulting firm in Indianapolis. I'm Vicky Caramida and I'm the founder and CEO of Caramida Inc. I'm also the Chief Technical Officer of the company. Caramida is an international engineering and consulting firm. We focus on environmental, health and safety, remediation and sustainability services. We are over 100 people and we have offices from New York to California. I'm originally from Greece and somehow persuaded my parents to send me to study engineering in the US. I did my research and Purdue was ranked number one in environmental engineering. I had no idea where it was or what it was other than it was very good. I met the love of my life and I married him. He's from Indiana. He's a Hoosier so he became a Hoosier by choice. Because of the professors that I had at Purdue and especially my major professor, I chose to go into consulting. My major professor, Professor James Hetzel, was really doing a lot of consulting at the time and he would really teach us how to be good consultants but most importantly how to be advisors and really problem solvers for our clients. I find myself having a unique benefit out of the critical way of thinking that we were taught to develop. Based on those two things, I made the giant leap to start my own company which was very unusual at the time. In the late 80s, there were very few consulting companies. I think Purdue gave us the confidence that we could do anything we wanted. The biggest footprint really is the legacy of my company and the legacy of the various professionals that I have mentored all my professional life and I continue to mentor. I think that legacy is going to live a long time. That was Vicki Caramita. Look for more stories at purdue.edu.com.