NAVFAC Pacific Celebrates National Engineers Week with Virtual Opportunities for the Local Community
26 February 2021
Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command (NAVFAC) Pacific celebrated National Engineers Week Feb. 21-27 with events to educate the local community about NAVFAC, the Navy and engineering opportunities in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields.
Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command (NAVFAC) Pacific celebrated National Engineers Week Feb. 21-27 with events to educate the local community about NAVFAC, the Navy and engineering opportunities in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields.
“As we continue to overcome challenges associated with COVID, we’ve improved our NAVFAC Pacific Engineers Week outreach events in the virtual domain and were able to facilitate outreach events ranging from elementary school to college aged learners,” said NAVFAC Pacific Design and Construction (DC) Business Line Manager and Chief Engineer Marc Wong.
National Engineers Week is dedicated to ensuring a diverse and well-educated future engineering workforce by increasing understanding of and interest in engineering and technology careers and this year’s theme is “Imagining Tomorrow.”
NAVFAC Pacific kicked off National Engineers Week at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, College of Engineering (UHM CoE) Virtual Spring Career Day. Engineers from NAVFAC Pacific participated virtually to answer questions about NAVFAC and their professions.
“This was a great opportunity to continue to get the word out about who we are and what we do!” said NAVFAC Pacific DC Engineer and STEM Coordinator Gregg Takashige. “I was impressed with the caliber of students from the UHM CoE. As an alumnus, I am proud and confident that the future is bright as these graduates enter and contribute to the engineering industry. These events help to keep us competitive with other companies looking to hire new graduates and hope to continue to participate in future career days hosted by UHM CoE,” said Takashige.
The second community outreach event NAVFAC Pacific participated in was the STEM Program Engineers Week Career Day. This virtual event featured presentations to students from Aliamanu Middle School and Hickam Elementary School.
“The NAVFAC Pacific STEM Program Engineers Week Career Day featured presentations to four 7th grade classes at Aliamanu Middle School and a presentation to a 6th grade class at Hickam Elementary School,” said NAVFAC Pacific Wildlife Biologist Lorraine Shaughnessy. “This event allowed NAVFAC Pacific the opportunity to not only educate community youth on how important science, technology, and math are to building a productive and sustainable civilization, but how diverse the need is for scientists, engineers, and mathematicians within the Navy.”
Each of these virtual events included NAVFAC Pacific volunteers who were willing to step out to educate the local community.
“In the STEM theme of “Imagining Tomorrow,” I was inspired by level of engagement and creativity displayed by our next generation of engineers,” said Wong. “Mahalo to all of the students and volunteers that made Engineers Week a success!”