±¬×ß³Ô¹Ï College student Patrick VanHaverbeke, Wellsville, was among 17 high-achieving engineering students attending New York State colleges and universities who will receive $45,000 collectively in scholarship money from member firms of the American Council of Engineering Companies of New York. The individual scholarship awards range from $2,500 to $5,000. They are awarded based on the students’ cumulative grade-point average, college activities, work experience, and an essay on consulting engineering. Including this year’s recipients, ACEC New York has awarded 114 scholarships totaling $310,500 since the program’s first statewide awards in the spring of 2002.
VanHaverbeke was honored in March with the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey scholarship at the council’s annual Engineering Excellence Awards gala at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. His $5,000 scholarship was a new ACEC New York initiative awarded in the name of a public agency in recognition of the agency’s achievements and its pursuit of excellence in design.
VanHaverbeke’s nomination for the scholarship read, in part: “By any measure, Patrick is extremely talented, hard-working, resourceful, and creative. Not only does he excel in land surveying engineering technology, [which is] his passion, he is also a gifted writer, having contributed several feature articles to Ergo, ±¬×߳Թϒs creative arts magazine. He has had extensive work experience with the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management; has pursued and won 10 scholarships and five awards, including the prestigious U.S. Department of the Interior STAR award; and has managed a 3.93 GPA, while commuting to ±¬×ß³Ô¹Ï and being a full-time husband and father to three children.â€
Other ACEC 2010 scholarship winners included students from Rochester Institute of Technology; Manhattan College, Riverdale; Columbia University, New York; SUNY Stony Brook; SUNY Buffalo; The Cooper Union, New York; Union College, Schenectady; and Cornell University, Ithaca.
Founded in 1921, American Council of Engineering Companies of New York is one of the oldest organizations of professional consulting engineering firms in the United States. A statewide association, its members represent all major engineering disciplines and range from highly specialized solo practitioners to multidiscipline firms employing thousands with branch offices worldwide.