Congrats to the Winners of the Ruckes and Carsel Scholarships!

Posted by AFB TECH on 6/16/2009 12:37:10 PM

Guest Bloggers, Les Harbour and Tara Annis, AFB TECH

Hello, this is Les Harbour (an accounting intern at AFB TECH) and Tara Annis (information specialist at AFB TECH). We were thrilled to have been asked to blog about our experience reading over and helping to rank the Ruckes and Carsel scholarship applications. Carsel provides one scholarship of $500 to a full-time graduate student who presents evidence of economic need while Ruckes provides one scholarship of $1,000 to a full-time undergraduate or graduate student in the field of engineering or in computer, physical, or life sciences.

We enjoyed reading these extraordinary stories about the applicants' lives . These people truly inspire and show that even the greatest obstacles can be overcome. While all of the submissions were worthy of receiving the scholarships, we had to narrow it down to just one winner per scholarship. One major factor that we had to consider was that the selection process would be very subjective, so to try and lessen the subjectivity, we developed a system to rate the applications on a scale based on three criteria in addition to the criteria already set down by the scholarship (financial need for Carsel and majoring in sciences for Ruckes). The three criteria are as follows: references, essays, and GPA.

We're happy to announce that the winners are Casey Burkhardt (Ruckes scholarship) and Barry Hyde (Carsel scholarship).

Casey had an extremely compelling essay, due to his academic achievement of earning 27 credit hours of college coursework while still in high school. During college, he was treasurer of the Computing Machinery Association, Chair of the New Jersey Association of Blind Students, and a member of the Villanova International Collegiate Programming Competition Team. We were also impressed with his employment history, including serving as webmaster of his university's school newspaper, assistant systems administrator and web developer, and most impressive, his out-of-state internship with Google. Both of us wholeheartedly recommended him, due to his work ethic and creativity.

Barry Hyde also had a great essay, due to his past academic achievement of earning a perfect 4.0 GPA for his Master's degree. He is a sought-after public speaker, and since he has given speeches for the Air Traffic Control Association, Greater Miami Aviation Association, American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics, and Women in Aviation, International, we think he will be famous someday. Most compelling is the fact that he was able to make a comeback after being severely injured in a plane crash. Many people in his situation would have taken the easy way out becoming bitter at the world and never returning to life before the accident. His two references confirmed our thoughts: both persons attested to the fact that Barry Hyde has an outstanding character, is extremely motivated, will overcome any challenge presented to him, and will make a positive contribution to aviation safety and/or commercial aviation.

We would like to give our thanks to all of the participants who turned in submissions and congratulate Mr. Hyde and Mr. Burkhardt. We wish all of you the best of luck in the future and have confidence you will continue to succeed no matter the situation.

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