Terracon Foundation Presents $50,000 Grant to SWE
Catherine Rocky, national account manager at Terracon and a member of the Society of Women Engineers, announced the Terracon Foundation is giving a National Partner grant of $50,000 to SWE Wednesday in Wichita, KS. Rocky presented the funds to Cindy Hoover, SWE national organization treasurer, during the Wichita section general meeting. The grant will be used to support SWE’s Collegiate Leadership Program.
“It is an honor to present this $50,000 grant to SWE,” Rocky said. “This is an organization dedicated to the education, support and advocacy of women who choose a career in the field of engineering. I am proud to be a part of SWE, and equally proud to work for a company that supports organizations its employees are passionate about through its foundation.”
SWE’s Collegiate Leadership Program prepares women studying engineering to become the leaders of tomorrow in STEM. This program encourages and supports participants by helping them network with role models and industry professionals. It helps identify, inspire, and develop the next generation of leaders within the engineering profession. It provides students the opportunity to develop the key skills, knowledge, and capacity that will enable them to be global leaders in their engineering careers.
SWE’s Collegiate Leadership Program includes in-person and online programming for collegiate women. Since 2008, more than 5,000 students participated in training through the Leadership Coaching Committee (LCC) and 500 in the Collegiate Leadership Institute (CLI). More than 10,000 students benefited from webinars since 2005, and during the past 10 years, more than 30,000 have attended SWE’s Annual Conference.
Specifically, funds will be used to host one webinar customized for SWE’s collegiate membership; this webinar will be developed, promoted, and hosted during the 2015/2016 academic year. Also, funds will support LCC’s in-person training for 75 collegiate sections across the US. Funding will also be used for collegiate students to attend CLI, the annual gathering of collegian leaders for professional development at SWE’s Annual Conference.
The program’s overall goal is to prepare female engineering and technology students to gain employment within the engineering sector and become leaders in their field. To accomplish this, the program helps collegiate women prepare for a career in their chosen field by providing resources to jumpstart their professional development, broaden their networking opportunities, and help facilitate their eventual transition into the workforce.
A key component to preparing female collegiate engineering students is to provide the following: advanced training on how to professionally engage in the workforce, tips on work/life balance, and interviewing and job hunting techniques. Through the CLI and webinars, SWE will continue to deliver timely and relevant resources to female engineer collegiate students to help them achieve as future engineers and leaders.
Once a year, the Terracon Foundation awards a national partner grant. In addition, funds are awarded twice a year in the grant categories of community organizations and universities, and once a year for scholarships supporting dependents of employees. To date, the Foundation has granted more than $1 million to community organizations, universities, dependents of employees, and for disaster relief efforts.
Terracon is an employee-owned engineering consulting firm with more than 3,500 employees providing environmental, facilities, geotechnical, and materials services from more than 150 offices in 42 states nationwide.
