by Duriem Calderin, Engineer, AREVA Inc.
North America Young Generation Nuclear employees in Richland participated as judges in Delta High School’s Science Fair held Feb. 19. Pictured are Steve Evans, John Fleming, Alex Bowman and Duriem Calderin.
Over the past year AREVA employees and local NA-YGN AREVA Chapter at the Richland, WA, site have been actively supporting the STEM education program (science, technology, Engineering, Math) at DELTA High School. This school is highly recognized in the Tri-Cities by its commitment to developing students and engaging them in STEM careers from an early age.
AREVA employees have partnered with DELTA High School in Richland to offer mentorship and to participate as judges in school-wide engineering and science fair projects. It is estimated by the end of 2014, AREVA employees will have contributed a total of 260 volunteer hours to the STEM educational programs.
The main contributors in organizing these events at the AREVA site in Richland are Jim Tolar and Scott Adair, NA-YGN outreach community chair.
Tolar said that this program is very important to AREVA because, “It is [also] a way to get the community to recognize that AREVA is here in the community and is part of the community for the long run.”
DELTA high school principal, Jenny Rodriquez, has thanked AREVA employees for their ongoing commitment to STEM education. She especially thanked the group of young professional engineers coming from NAYGN to participate at these events.
“Interactions with the NAYGN group have increased visibility of young professionals, especially engineers, allowing our students to see themselves entering STEM fields in the near future,” she said.
Rodriquez also said that AREVA’s commitment to giving back to the community will have short and long-term benefits for the company. “The benefits to AREVA for participation in this partnership are both short-term, such as the excitement generated in staff by sharing their profession with young people,” she said, “and long-term, such as the connection to qualified interns and future employees.”
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