After starting a landscaping business with his friend, Zavier Burandt realized he did not want to mow lawns forever. He took a different approach and pursued a career in prosthetics instead.
Burandt joined the Prosper Career Independent Study Class this year. PCIS helps students pick a career path and provides opportunities to network and connect with a mentor. Burandt is a mentee to Kai Davis, the owner of Kai Davis Prosthetics in Richardson, TX. Burandt worked on a business proposal for a company called Prosthevic all year and printed 3D prosthetic models for an interactive part of the presentation. He will present his business plan today at 5:45 during the PCIS Final Presentation event.
“I like helping people out,” Burandt said. “I like to see people better off than when I first saw them. I found out I liked that satisfaction when I did landscaping.”
Burandt decided to start a landscape and mulch business with his friend Jaxxon Moore. After 6 months, Burandt wanted to continue to help people, but no longer wanted to plant and mow. After taking the PCIS class, he met Davis and his son, and the way they worked inspired Burandt.
“I saw how he performs these things, and it reminded me of those days where it was just Jackson and me, and we were just trying to help people out,” Burandt said. “It made me nostalgic for that feeling.”
In the class, everyone chooses a different profession to follow. The PCIS teacher, Ginger McClendon, wants everyone to do something unique for their final project.
“Everyone gets to follow their passion,” McClendon said. “Everyone is doing something, completely different from everyone else.”
Burandt knew he wanted to communicate with people. He combined that want with his love to help people and his interests in engineering and anatomy. Burandt then narrowed his search for a career down to prosthetics and hoped to improve the field.
“Prosthetics is an untouched field of innovation,” Burandt said. “It just gets the scraps and leftovers.”
Through his mentorship, Burandt has learned a lot that he would not have realized without it. In his work to make prosthetics more affordable and accessible. He made a physical 3D-printed model of a palm and a finger to show how this would be possible.
“The time it takes to create a model that actually works is really cool,” fellow PCIS student Emma Hirsch said. “He has a lot of dedication to the project, and no one else is really doing anything like it.”
(Kenna Thornton)
McClendon has never had a student interested in prosthetics and loves to learn all she can from Burandt as he continues to progress.
“Xavier has been great at not getting frustrated and giving up when he’s had a failure,” McClendon said. “He continually tries to make his prosthetic prototype perfect, but part of the process is just continuing to improve the prototype, not perfecting it.
Burandt will continue to make prosthetic models with the goal of presenting them to other companies in the future. He wants to explore this field more and is excited to pursue it.
“Prosthetics combines all of my interests, and it has been amazing to pursue this career in PCIS,” Burandt said. “I want to show my best. Whenever I show somebody something I’ve worked on, I’m happy to see them happy.”
