Online Study
Online Student Profiles
Kevin Browne
Kevin Browne is married with three small children and a demanding job at Shady Brook Farms, a producer of all-natural turkey products located in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Browne is the safety and security senior supervisor for Shady Brook's turkey division, which is comprised of 2,000 employees.
He graduated in May 2000 with a master's degree in environmental, health and safety management earned through RIT's online learning program.
"I realized the only way I would be able to complete graduate-level work would be through a distance learning program," says Browne. "When I discovered that RIT had a distance learning graduate program in my career field, I was elated and pleased that I would be able to further my education, develop my career skills and obtain a graduate degree from such an outstanding university."
Nonetheless, it's been a challenging educational path to pursue. "I forced myself and pushed hard by taking two classes each quarter so I could finish as soon as humanly possible," says Browne. "My family has been very supportive when asked to make sacrifices so I can study. It's been difficult to integrate distance learning into the big picture. We have had to discuss and agree to the sacrifices that would have to be made in order to complete the program and achieve long-term goals."
One of those long-term goals was to increase his value to Shady Brook Farms, which has already benefited from Browne's educational pursuits. "The courses I have taken at RIT have given me useful and invaluable tools and philosophies that I have applied and will continue to apply to everyday decisions that affect the safety of my employees," claims Browne. Additionally, a resource reduction class Browne completed "provided me with many strategies for pollution prevention that I implemented and developed into a pollution prevention program that earns the company over $200,000 per year from wastes that were previously disposed of in a landfill."