Florida Tech Engineering Students Offered New Scholarship
MELBOURNE, FLA. – A new Florida Institute of Technology scholarship endowment for mechanical engineering students has just been fully funded at $25,000. “The Marvin Yarosh and John ‘Jack’ Wiles Endowed Scholarship,” is named for two Brevard County engineering pioneers.
The scholarship has been endowed by the Spacecoast Chapter of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), the Canaveral Section of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (AMSE) as well as by a generous gift from the Yarosh family. It is expected that the first award will be made to a sophomore, junior or senior-level student in time for the fall 2010 semester.
“Members of the Spacecoast Chapter of ASHRAE worked hard to raise the funds to establish this overdue endowment for Florida Tech,” said David Poetker of ASHRAE. “We are proud to recognize two of our mechanical engineering pioneers of Brevard County, Marvin Yarosh and Jack Wiles, through this endowment.”
Yarosh helped found the Florida Solar Energy Center in Cocoa, serving as its first associate director. Wiles founded the Canaveral Section of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Cape Canaveral Technical Society, serving as president of both.
“The new endowment allows us to provide scholarships to deserving mechanical engineering students who will someday contribute to the engineering profession and to society as did Mr. Yarosh and Mr. Wiles,” said Pei-feng Hsu, head of the Florida Tech Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in the College of Engineering. “We look forward to working closely with local chapters of ASHRAE and ASME in future fundraising efforts to increase the endowment.”
Today the Spacecoast ASHRAE chapter has close to 100 members from Brevard, Volusia and Indian River counties, and the Cape Canaveral AMSE has more than 300 members in Brevard County and both organizations support student chapters at Florida Tech.
John “Jack” Wiles, previously of Merritt Island, died in December 2008. Marvin Yarosh passed away in March 2004.
For more information about this endowed scholarship, contact Hsu at (321) 674-8092.
