From 'cheap labour' to senior engineer, this African immigrant is advancing surgical products globally
Ernest Addi was barely 12 years old when he discovered his love for cars and machines. With a dream of becoming an engineer, he began to make little moving toy cars and traditional cooking devices, coal pots, with available scrap.
This passion was evident in school when he would swarm his teachers with questions about how cars function and how they are engineered.
Not even the lack of finances would stop Ernest from pursuing his dreams.
Though his mother, a prison officer who raised him single-handedly could not afford a regular secondary school for his education, he worked hard. He was selected as one of 20 students chosen to study at one of Ghana’s best technical schools, Ghana GNTC Mercedes Benz Technical Institute at no cost.
Eventually, his father who lived in the United States paid for him to move to the States at the age of 19 but he would only find out later that he had to fend for himself to survive.
His first job in the United States as a mechanic was with a Mercedes Benz company while he pursued an adult education program in high school at night to attain a high school diploma.
After quitting for another job as a vulcaniser at a garage where he could work part-time, Ernest enrolled in a 2-year program at a community college and continued to pursue an Associate Bachelor's Degree in engineering and then a graduate degree in mechanical engineering.
He worked as an intern at an aircraft manufacturing company, Pratt and Whitney, in his final year at Central Connecticut State University where he was ultimately hired as an engineer.
After years of hard work, Ernest was employed at the leading world medical device company, Medtronic, as a manufacturing engineer.
As the only black person in his department at the time, Ernest tells Global South World's Wonder Hagan that he had to defy racism and unfair treatment from his superior who described him as "cheap labour".
“I worked very hard and the manager that I reported to gave me a good review but the director of that department said I couldn’t be promoted. I asked him why and he didn’t have an answer but he said the most he could do was give me a 10% raise. Then a senior engineer left and my boss who stepped down as a manager in that department asked me to reapply to his position and helped me get the job. My lowest moment was when my boss told the Director that I needed to be promoted and he said, 'Ernest is cheap labour, let’s keep it like that'".
Today, Ernest is a lead manufacturing engineer at Medtronic where he oversees product lines and contributes to the assembling of medical devices, ensuring that all products under him are ready and safe for the market. He has worked on products that advance surgery in diseases like hernia and fibroid.
Ernest recalls a time when he felt most fulfilled about his job.
“For me, there’s nothing more fulfilling as an engineer than that I worked on a product and I can feel it, I can see the effect and how it’s helping people in the hospitals. About two years ago, I had two of my lower back disks replaced because I almost became crippled. When I was wheeled into the operation room, as they were preparing me, I looked around and saw the products that were lined up to be used on me, about half of them I had touched, and that was the greatest moment of my life, working on a product that was going to be used on you,” he said.
He urged for systemic change, transparency, and integrity among leaders in Africa and encouraged more investments towards advancing medical products on the continent.
