My name is Ryan Breiten, and I was lucky enough to be Autumn's friend at Abington Heights High School and Johnson College. We started the journey to become welders together. She inspired me every day. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go to Johnson because my mom had forced me to stay enrolled even though I wanted to back out before school started. On the first day, I saw Autumn and didn't realize we would be in the same class. After talking for a long time, she convinced me to stay. We had our stations next to each other, and every day we would talk in class and push each other to do our best work. She was dedicated to our craft. When she died in January, it was very hard to face going back to the empty station beside me, but I knew I had to continue and not give up. She would have been so mad at me if I had. Every day I tried a little harder and became more determined to pass my D1.1 FCAW certification. I took after Autumn's example; I stayed at school between periods to get in as much practice and extra help as I could. I have an IEP. Sometimes I find school to be hard, especially reading and lecture classes, yet I knew if I stuck with it, it would be worth it in the end. I share her views and values by living life to the fullest, as she did, and by always finding a way to get what she wanted and get through everything no matter how hard it got. She showed me how to have fun at places I didn't want to be at and always found a way to mess around. We both wanted to do the big thing in welding, like TIG welding at Lockheed Martin on aircraft; we also wanted to go back for the 2-year program at Johnson for pipeline welding because we both wanted to go out west and see the world. I am going back this fall to keep our dreams going. In class, we would talk about nature and all the things we could build and fix as welders, and we would make crazy ideas about what we could and would build, like aircraft and bikes. But most of the time we would talk about trucks and how to mess with Mr. P. I never knew how much she meant to me until I lost her. I want to keep her dream alive in me and work on the stuff she would have loved and do the things she would have wanted to do. I hope she's watching me, and I hope she's proud of what I'm doing to make her happy and help the others around me.