Steven J. Sasson, NY G ’72, has been named an honoree and recipient of the U.S. National Medal of Technology and Innovation.
Sasson, retired Eastman Kodak Company researcher, was recognized for his contributions to the invention of the digital camera. The Medal is the nation’s highest honor for scientists, engineers, and inventors and recognizes “contributions that improve the nation’s work force or its environmental or social well-being.”
Read the press release from The White house and read more about Steven J. Sasson.
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Later this month, Daniel J. Moore, NC A ’75, will receive the Frontiers in Education’s Ronald J. Schmitz Meritorious Service Award for his dedication to FIE and its sponsoring agencies ASEE and IEEE.
Moore is currently associate dean of faculty at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology where he serves as an advisor to the Indiana Beta Chapter of Tau Beta Pi. Click here, for more information about the award
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Rafael L. Bras, Sc.D., (MA B ’72) has been named the 2010 Anthony J. Drexel Exceptional Achievement Award winner “for his contributions to civil engineering via translational research in soil-vegetation-atmosphere system modeling.”
Dr. Bras is currently provost, executive vice president and K. Harrison Brown Family chair at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Read the full press release
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The Official Blog of Tau Beta Pi 
In the scientific and technical services industry, the jobs are aplenty, but the recruits are hard to find
By Marjorie Censer
Washington Post, Monday, November 1, 2010; 10
Despite higher-than-usual unemployment rates in the Washington region, defense and government contractors trying to fill highly technical scientific and analytic jobs still face an uphill battle.
The potential applicant pool is only so large, often creating a mismatch between the people looking for work and the skills employers are seeking.
Take Chantilly-based TASC, a contractor that works primarily with the defense and intelligence communities. The company recently secured a major contract worth up to $828 million over 10 years helping the Federal Aviation Administration make the transition to a next-generation air traffic control system.
The award means the company is suddenly in a rush to hire people who specialize in areas such as systems engineering, financial services and analysis.
Even before the award, TASC was moving to hire hundreds. It plans to bring on 1,200 employees this year and another 1,200 to 1,400 next year. The company has already hired about 925 people in 2010.
TASC recruits through job fairs (it held one at a D.C. hotel last week), online job boards and targeted messages sent to coveted employees at other companies, promising competitive pay and benefits. But what hotly desired candidates really care about, said Jim Lawler, chief human resources officer at TASC, is the kind of work they’ll be doing, the culture of the company and the opportunities for growth.
“It is, by definition, a limited pool of highly skilled people,” Lawler said. Those with good professional reputations within the industry “can really pick and choose” where they want to work, he added.
Stephen S. Fuller, director of the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University, said local contractors needing to fill highly technical jobs have recruited from all over the nation.
“As long as the rest of the country’s economy isn’t performing very well, we have an easy time of it,” he said. But it may become harder to convince candidates to move if other areas’ economies improve, Fuller added.
In any case, the sector is likely to have a big impact on the region’s economic growth.
“That is our fastest-growing area as we look into the future,” he said, adding that the professional scientific and technical services industry is projected to grow four times as quickly as the health-care sector, the next fastest-growing category. “It’s just mind-boggling.”
Pam Drew, vice president of enterprise systems at TASC, said the firm remains confident it will be able to hire everyone it needs for its FAA work.
“It is a challenge, but it’s an exciting challenge,” she said, adding that close to 200 people responded to TASC within days of its contract win, either attending the job fair or sending in a résumé.