Working at Raven Motorsports has really been a great opportunity for me. I get to work on cars that are featured infamous magazines, build crazy race cars with big turbo engines, and repair blown motors, all while getting paid for it.”
Kepano, or "Pano" to his friends, grew up in Hawaii, where heenjoyed taking things apart and building new things. He was encouraged to enroll at WyoTech by a friend who had been a student at the Laramie, Wyoming campus. In the fall of 2010, Pano traded the black-sand beaches of home for a seat in WyoTech's Automotive Technology program in Long Beach, California, confident it would help expand his career opportunities.
When Pano arrived at WyoTech, he thought he already knew a lot about cars. It surprised him to see how much more there was to learn — from engine theory to brakes and suspension. "The tests were hard," he remembers, "but the challenges in life push me to be the best." Graduating in summer 2011 with a 3.88 GPA, Pano soon found his dream job: working for Raven Motorsports, an independent Audi specialist in Long Beach. Today, his responsibilities include computer tuning, customizations and rebuilds. Far away from his parents in Hawaii, he considers the Raven team to be his local family.
The good feelings are mutual: "We couldn't have asked for a better technician to work with us," said Riccardo Falconeri, Pano's supervisor at Raven. "We believe we got one of the top WyoTech graduates."