Berks’ Best 2026 career and technical education winner: Colin Brown cultivates curiosity into a career path

Colin Brown was a curious kid.

Growing up in Oley Township, things like electricity and machinery fascinated him. He loved visiting the Da Vinci Science Center in Allentown and playing with Snap Circuit toys.

And when one of his playthings would break, he would take apart other toys and use the pieces to fix it.

“I just loved to take things apart to learn about them,” the 18-year-old Oley High School senior said.

As Brown prepares to graduate high school, his curiosity hasn’t waned. In fact, it’s only grown deeper.

It has led him on a path to the mechatronics engineering technology program at Berks Career and Technology Program and toward an eventual career in electromechanical engineering.

It has also led him to be named the Reading Eagle’s Berks’ Best 2026 winner in career and technical education.

“One of the most important things to have to be successful in a field like engineering is to be curious,” he said. “It allows you to go beyond what you’re being taught.”

Brown said he wasn’t always sure his future would include pursuing engineering. Instead, he imagined he’d head to the career and technology center and enter the automotive program.

But at the suggestion of his parents and a guidance counselor, he did an exploratory mechatronics engineering technology program at BCTC.

“I thought I’d try it for a couple for a couple of weeks,” he said. “If I liked it I’d stay, if not I’d go to automotive.”

Working with machinists and computer drafting students, he was tasked with creating a miniature car racing game. He loved the experience.

“That’s what really solidified my interest in the mechatronics program,” Brown said.

Throughout his high school career, Brown has used what he’s learned not only to succeed academically but also in real-life situations. One of his main hobbies, he said, is repairing and salvaging electronic devices.

“I’ve fixed CD players, tape players, other various audio devices,” he said. “I’m really interested in vintage audio equipment. Like I worked on a 1936 radio, I was really interested in the vacuum tube technology.”

Following high school, Brown said he plans to attend Reading Area Community College to pursue an associate’s degree in electrical engineering — a task he already has a jumpstart on after taking part in RACC’s dual enrollment program as a high schooler.

After that, Brown plans on attending Penn State Berks and studying in the electromechanical engineering technologies program.

Hopefully, Brown said, a career as an electrical engineer will follow his college career.

“Ideally, I’d like to have a job where I have a mix of design and building, but also fixing things,” he said.