LEADERS IN ACTION
COLIN SABIE, ’21
The Journey Back to UND
When Colin Sabie – fresh out of high school – first arrived at the University of North Dakota a decade ago, he felt unready for college.
to Afghanistan and the other time to Iraq.
“I didn't declare a major, I didn't put the work that I should have put into classes, and I didn't do well,” said the Minneapolis native. “I knew that I was capable of getting decent grades, and I wasn't doing that.”
“I spent a lot of time doing maintenance,” Sabie said. “On the specific type of UAVs I worked on, there were a lot of very small spaces that I had to get my hands into in order to test a component or replace a component or fix something. And a lot of the setup seemed very counterintuitive to me.”
Sabie spent three semesters on campus “spinning his wheels,” he said, before leaving the classroom for the U.S. Army. He thought the military would provide the structure and direction he was seeking. And it did.
So, instead of pursuing a career in the military, Sabie decided to go deeper into his craft. He sought to understand the reasons behind the design oddities that had caused him so much frustration in the field.
For the next six years, Sabie served as an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) mechanic, stationed in New York and deployed twice, once
Returning to UND was one thing. But adjusting to student life – despite Sabie’s determination to succeed at his second try in higher education
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UND Alumni Magazine | Year in Review 2019
