Charles Lyons-Burt
Scholarship donations amounting to $30,000 have been awarded by ASRC Federal to a pair of Maryland Eastern Shore higher education institutions. The funding was raised in cooperation with a cohort of member companies of the Wallops Contractors Association at Wallops Flight Facility.
The information technology company said Tuesday it granted $15,000 each to Eastern Shore Community College and University of Maryland Eastern Shore to provide them with resources for science, technology, engineering and mathematics students.
According to Jim Mason-Foley, program manager at ASRC Federal and president of WCA, association members were excited to help students achieve their education goals and foster an interest in space exploration.
Mason-Foley continued, “We also hope this helps build bridges for local students to work at Wallops and provides our current employees with advanced education that reinforces their opportunities for development with ASRC Federal at NASA.”
KBR, Peraton, Science Applications International Corp., Jacobs and Axient are ASRC Federal’s partners in the donation effort. Their contributions were meant to help students in need of tuition aid and to update laboratories at UMES and ESCC and furnish them with equipment.
In terms of flight-related specialties, UMES is Maryland’s only university with an aviation program that also offers pilot training.
Meanwhile, the Melfa, Virginia-based ESCC supports the Wallops Flight Facility as a modernized launch facility through trade and technology programs that ready students for work there.
ASRC Federal provided the two schools with an independent donation in 2020, before assembling the current cohort of contracting companies to make their donation for the 2021-2022 school year.
The companies are planning to make another donation for the coming school year.
