Dr. John Spevacek was introduced to the periodic table when he was about 8 years old, and it was love at first sight. Decades later, he works to pass along his passion for science and engineering to Wake Tech students.

Spevacek, an assistant professor in the Associate in Engineering program, worked as a chemical engineer and materials scientist for 3M and other companies for 25 years. He developed coatings and adhesives used in everything from hospitals to offshore oil rigs and has his name on a handful of patents.

But he says he knew from the time he was in graduate school at the University of Illinois that he wanted to teach. He credits a professor who previously worked at Exxon.

"He was able to make dry equations come to life. It motivated me to follow a similar path," Spevacek said. "I think it's really important to have practical experience as a professor, especially in engineering. It's the difference between the theoretical and actually doing something."

So, he transitioned into the classroom in 2015. After his youngest son graduated college, the Minnesota native and his wife moved to North Carolina, and he joined Wake Tech in 2019.

Spevacek now teaches everything from Intro to Engineering to an advanced engineering class that attracts some North Carolina State University students. He says they prefer to take advantage of Wake Tech's smaller classes and lower tuition for some of their required courses.

His classes are relaxed and straightforward. "This is engineering; it's not marketing," he told his Intro to Engineering class when advising them to keep their presentations on engineering feats and disasters "simple and clean."

"He's great about introducing concepts. He communicates very well," Associate in Science student Hanna Marquina says. "He's a people person."

"He puts his own experience on top of what I can get from the books," says Chris Vannostrand, a Mechanical Engineering Technology student in Spevacek's Engineering Graphics course.

"Dr. John is super-chill. He makes the material very accessible," says Harsh Shinde, an Associate in Science and Associate in Engineering student.

Spevacek invites students to call him "Dr. John" or by his first name to encourage that accessibility. He says he likes the community college atmosphere because of the diverse student population – he once had a 70-year-old student – and because he can focus on instruction and not have to spend part of his time pursuing research grants, as he would at a university.

"It's easy to see the connection between what we're doing at Wake Tech and the success of the region and the local economy," he said.