| Future Engineers Get New Incentive |
Title: Future Engineers Get New Incentive : Defense industry association funds scholarships for OWC, UF
Date:01/12/2007
Source: Northwest Florida Daily News
NICEVILLE — Aspiring engineers will have a new way to pay their college tuition from Okaloosa-Walton College through the University of Florida. The local chapter of the National Defense Industrial Association is funding $100,000 for a “2 + 2” engineering scholarship endowment.
 |
Ms. Judy Stokley, President of NDIA Gulf Coast Chapter, and Mr. Grady Jordan present a check for $100,000 to Dr. James Richburg, President of OWC to fund an engineering scholarship endowment. |
“Those kinds of gifts don’t happen every day,” said Carla Reinlie, associate director for the OWC Foundation. Scholarship recipients will attend OWC for two years and receive a pre-engineering degree. They will then continue on to Florida to complete their engineering degree.
With matching money from the state, the scholarship fund will grow to a $200,000 endowment that will fund annual scholarships. “It’s a unique program,” said OWC marketing director Sylvia Bryan.
Comprised of civil servants, military personnel and military contractors, the NDIA promotes national security and the recruitment of security-based jobs. “We have a definite need for engineers and technical folks in the industry,” said Jeff Haars, advisor to the NDIA board of directors and member of the scholarship committee. The group wants to do “anything that we can do to encourage folks to get into the engineering fields,” he added.
The NDIA was the first organization to provide OWC’s first scholarship endowment for its project and acquisitions management degree in 2004. Including the new scholarship, NDIA has donated approximately $150,000 to OWC.
The scholarship is important on several levels, Haars said.
“It served our needs and the needs of the local area,” he said.
By RACHEL KYLER
rachelk@nwfdailynews.com
Daily News Staff Writer Rachel Kyler can be reached at 863-1111, Ext. 440.
|
|
|
|
|
