Major: Engineering Science
Class of: 2017

CCM Education Leads to Position at Lockheed Martin

“I credit my good experience at CCM to the many great professors I had and the quality education that set me up for success at Rutgers and beyond.”

Young man in suit and red tiePeter Motzenbecker, of Madison, was immediately attracted to the Engineering Science Program when he attended County College of Morris (CCM). A 2017 CCM graduate, he was drawn to the basic problem-solving aspect of the field. “Many problems you encounter in the world – such as driving in the snow – can be solved and explained by physics and engineering,” Motzenbecker says.

His first opportunity to apply his problem-solving skills came at CCM when he worked on robotics and fiber optics as an intern for General Dynamics in Florham Park. Upon graduating from Rutgers in 2019, he continued his fiber optics work at OFS Labs in Somerset. Then during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Motzenbecker began a series of telephone and Skype interviews with Lockheed Martin in Moorestown, which culminated in a position to work on a radar combat system.

“This position will allow me to use the modeling and design skills I learned at CCM and Rutgers,” he says. “It’s not just maintenance on existing technology; there’s potential for design. Lockheed Martin performs an important service for the safety of our country and I like that I’m now a part of that.”

Jefferson Cartano, professor of engineering recalls, “Talent, persistence, but most of all good character, resonate in Pete. He is one of the many 'silver linings' that epitomize the legacy of CCM engineering.”

Motzenbecker is not the only CCM graduate in his family. His sister, Hope, studied journalism, graduated in 2018, and went on to further her studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The engineering graduate has fond memories of CCM. “I credit my good experience at CCM to the many great professors I had and the quality education that set me up for success at Rutgers and beyond.”