Horatio Alger Ceremony Recap
12 Comments Published by Dr. Beyster April 7th, 2008 in Entrepreneurship.
We had the unusually good fortune of attending the 2008 Horatio Alger awards ceremony in Washington D.C., where I was presented with the award by Mike Yanney. Horatio Alger wrote stories about people who rose from “rags to riches,” starting off poor or disadvantaged and ending up as solid and successful members of society. Horatio Alger Association members Mike Yanney and Walter Scott were my sponsors. I met them in Omaha while visiting there in the past to attend meetings of the U.S. Defense Department SAG (Strategic Analysis Group) that I have been a part of for many years.
We left San Diego and arrived in Washington on Wednesday, April 2. On Thursday evening, April 3, the main event of the day was conducted in the Supreme Court chambers, where all the new members were personally presented with their Horatio Alger Association membership medallions by Associate Justice Clarence Thomas. There were nine other award recipients. They included Joe Clark of Aviation Partners Boeing; Joe Moderow of UPS; Aulana Peters of Gibson, Dunn, and Crutcher; and H. Wayne Huizenga, who owns the Miami Dolphins football team. Each of the new members has been very successful in his or her chosen area. Afterwards, we went to the Inaugural Dinner at the Mellon Auditorium, where the National Capital Symphony Orchestra played with some great vocal support. Major General Howard Bromberg, commander of Fort Bliss and the U.S. Army Air Defense Artillery Center, was the featured speaker, and the program was focused on the scholarships given to members of the armed services by the Horatio Alger Association.
On Friday we had a morning meeting with the new Horatio Alger Scholars. This year, 108 high school boys and girls from across the country were selected to become Scholars. All of the Horatio Alger Scholars were awarded $20,000 scholarships as well as receiving Dell laptops. The scholars will be attending the college or university of their own choice with the help of their Horatio Alger scholarships. After the morning meeting, we went to the Diplomatic Rooms of the State Department, where all the Scholars and old and new members had lunch and heard presentations by the Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings. The Horatio Alger award bust was presented to me at a spectacular event at DAR Constitution Hall Friday evening. Both Ed McMahon and Lou Dobbs emceed the event. After a short video biography of me, I was presented the award by Mike Yanney. This had a particularly significant impact on me because he and Walter Scott — both members of the Horatio Alger Association — had helped me with SAIC’s acquisition of Bellcore. I then gave my acceptance speech. Here is the text:
Thank you. I am honored to become a member of the Horatio Alger Association. It is especially gratifying to become part of a group that does so much to help our nation’s most deserving youth attain higher education. I look forward to serving as a mentor to the Horatio Alger Scholars. Mentorship plays a vital role in a quest for success. I think it is especially important to seek mentors if you do not have positive role models at home. My first mentor was a college professor. He made a positive difference in my life’s direction, and in the lives of many of my classmates. As a result I too wanted to have a positive impact on others. I accomplished that goal at SAIC, which I believe has made a significant and positive contribution to society. I am truly grateful to my family, my business partners, and my past employees for helping me make my dream a reality. To the young people here with us tonight, I’d like to share with you the fact that I am 83 years old and still participating in my education. I learn something new every day. For example, I decided to learn more about biology and genomics since they are going to play a significant role in our country’s future and maybe I can play a part in it. I have a lot to learn but I am challenged to do so — many people are helping me. It is my hope that you too will take your education seriously and never stop learning.
On Saturday morning we all attended a breakfast meeting where four of the 108 new Horatio Alger Scholars supported by the Association were singled out to present their backgrounds and take questions from the audience. One of the four — Charles Driscoll — was a particularly talented musician. He played the viola for us and he is planning to continue studying music at the University of Utah, where he has his scholarship. In the afternoon, Jim Russell and his wife — together with my son Jim and daughter Mary Ann — visited the Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport. The museum contained every imaginable full-scale airplane, simulator, and weapon — including torpedoes and rockets — from World War I to the recent past.
The week was memorable and will be unforgettable for all of us. A couple thousand people attended all the sessions, including quite a large number of SAIC employees. It was highly scripted by the Association, and I for one felt I had attended an Academy Awards event. I know that I didn’t get to this place in life all by myself. I would like to take time to thank my wife Betty and my family and SAIC employees and others who supported me over the years, who played important roles in my life, and who continue to do so today.
I was very pleased to read this account of your award. Mentors are indeed very important. My dad -Raymond, Mrs. Jones – my high school math teacher, Dr. Pete Pasqua – founder of the nuclear engineering program at University of Tennessee 50 years ago, and then there is Wayne Coleman, one of the nicest guys I have ever known. I am so happy at how life has worked out for you, your family, me and my family.
Thinking of you,
Calvin E. Burgart, former Assistant to the President of Science Applications, Inc.
Congratulations for the award. You deserve it!
Was great to see also Betty’s picture.
By the way photonuclear reactions as means to detect nuclear materials are back-a throw back to 1966-69;quality work retains its value…
Regards,
Tsahi & Adit
Congratulations on receiving the Horatio Alger award. I don’t think they could have found a more deserving recipient. Fine job.
Best wishes,
Mike Cook
Congratulations on receiving the Horatio Alger Member Award. I was one of the Horatio Alger National Scholars you met during the weekend. Do you recall a scholar asking you what the future of alternative energies would be? – that was me! It was an honor meeting you. The experience was truly surreal. I could not believe I was talking to the founder of one of the largest science engineering and applications companies. Your achievements have helped to inspire me to continue pursuing my dreams of one day running a science engineering company that specializes in the development of alternative energies that may include solar, nuclear, hydroelectric, and potentially even algae, which like you said might be the wave of the future. Thank you for making the conference even more memorable.
Sincerely,
John T. Hermiz
2008 Horatio Alger National Scholar
Cal: Thank you for your comments congratulating me on the Horatio Alger award. The award was really not something I earned totally alone. I had to have help along the way. People like you who worked as my assistant made it possible for me to run a large company without a large corporate staff. Thank you for your assistance. — Bob
Tsahi: Thank you for your remarks posted on my blog. It looks like you are still active in technical work, probably with your company. I had forgotten that photonuclear reactions can be used as a means of detecting nuclear materials. Good luck for the future. — Bob
Mike: I have known a lot of Mike Cooks. The one I particularly remember I met at Telcordia in New Jersey when SAIC owned it. I would like to thank you for taking the effort to send me a note. Let me know what you are doing sometime. — Bob
John: Thank you for sending me your comments on the recent Horatio Alger event and our meeting in Washington. I’m glad you enjoyed the experience and I hope you profited from it. I certainly did. I enjoyed meeting the new Scholars and participating in the events. I will long remember this spectacular occasion. I wish you well in your studies and I look forward to hearing about your future experiences. — Bob
Bob,
You have the “right” Mike Cook. I was the one from Telcordia. I’m now in the CTO’s office at Comcast working on new technologies. I’m filing patents related to communications devices and services at a pretty good clip, and some of my work will be seen in production later this year. I’m back in school, taking graduate software engineering classes through Harvard… always more to learn.
My areas of current interest:
* The Internet of Things
* Presence-aware services related to people and devices
* Media portability (content protection, mass storage, encryption, etc…)
* Distributed computing
Best,
Mike
Mike: I’m glad I got the right Mike, and I’m glad you’re going on with your graduate studies. I expect great things from you because you have a great mind. What do you mean by “the Internet of things?” Are you doing any projects related to genomics of plants or the oceans? That is an interest of mine since one of my friends (Craig Venter) won the Nobel Prize for coming up with the human genome. – Bob
The Internet of Things is a field of study associated with the internetworking of physcial objects, enabling them to communicate and function as part of a larger ecosystem.
With the proliferation of devices capable of being interconnected through technologies like RFID, WiFi, Bluetooth, Cellular, etc…, two trends are evident:
1.) Federations of devices will require some management from a centralized system.
2.) Devices, being inherently distributed, need to be able to form collectives providing self management but also delegation of control to centralized management systems.
Lots of folks are thinking about sensor networks, grid computing, and various other forms of distributed analytics applications. I’m more thinking about how to exploit the concept for the benefit of Comcast, so we could offer more intelligent home automation, media sharing, communications, and entertainment applications in a way that makes it easy for us to manage devices which ordinarily would be downstream of our current (Ethernet) demarcation point.
Take care,
Mike
Dr. Beyster,
Congratulations on receiving the Horatio Alger Award. I am a 2001 National Scholar and I was extremely touched by your acceptance speech. You gave me inspiration and I know you inspired hundreds of young people at the ceremony. I hope to see you at events in the future.
Stephanie
Mike: Thank you for your response on the meaning of the Internet of Things. It sounds like the new Internet probably running on VPN6 is going to be a lot more capable and faster than what we have now. Your job at Comcast seems to be to figure out how the company can capitalize on all these new capabilities to furnish better service to its customers. Sounds like exciting stuff to me, and I’m sure you’re right that sensor networks and grid computing will be part of the picture. The intelligent home of the future will clearly benefit from all these innovations. – Bob
Stephanie: Thank you for your very kind message. I’m glad I may have had something to do with inspiring you. I have not made plans for next year’s event, but there’s a possibility I’ll be there. I hope we’ll have an opportunity to talk in person if that’s the case. — Bob
Actually, Charles Driscoll goes to Brigham Young University, not University of Utah.