Hitting the Ground Running

Catch up with former Trustees’ Scholar and track athlete Jaymison Cox.

 

By Micaela Myers

 

For Jaymison Cox, earning the Trustees’ Scholar Award helped him focus on his engineering coursework and his performance as a Division I track athlete. 

“The Trustees’ Scholars Award was instrumental in giving me the college experience I dreamed of,” says Cox, who grew up in Powell. “It essentially removed the financial burden that is often associated with attending a university and gave me the freedom to focus on things like making friends, getting good grades and performing well on the track team.”

Cox specialized in the 400- and 200-meter races, breaking the indoor 400 record his junior year. Although that record has since been broken, he will never forget the thrill of that achievement. 

“I met some great friends on the oval, including my teammates, coaches and trainers,” he says. “I enjoyed the pressure of competing at a high level and representing Wyoming in the Mountain West Conference. Most importantly, I have very fond memories of meeting my wife at the University of Wyoming. She was also a member of the track team, but it took us a few years before we formally met at a mutual friend’s birthday party. That was by far the most important moment in not only my four years in Laramie but my whole life.”

Cox chose a challenging computer engineering major with a minor in mathematics. One highlight was helping a teammate design and build an automated pet kennel for their senior design project. 

“We dumped hours upon hours into designing the circuits, finding parts, putting it together and coding the behavior,” he says.
Those hands-on skills proved instrumental. After Cox graduated in 2024, he went to work as a design engineer for Advantest Inc. in Fort Collins, Colo., where he loved the process of “fixing something that is broken.”

“UW taught me many of the technical skills I use in my day-to-day work, but by far the most important skill I obtained was the ability to adapt, learn and overcome, even when the material was intimidating,” Cox says. 

He remembers many engineering courses that seemed overwhelming at first, but he always finished the semester with a concrete grasp of the material.  

“That skill is indispensable in my industry, as you are expected to conquer tasks you’ve never done before and learn things you’ve never heard of,” Cox says. 

He’s grateful to Wyoming for supporting his education and preparing him for his career. 

“I have Wyoming — both the state and the university as a whole — to thank for who I am as a person, and I am incredibly thankful to be from such a wonderful state and community,” Cox says. “Wyoming may be a large state geographically, but it has always really felt to me like a tight-knit community. The university plays a large role in that feeling.”