Engineering firm funds $50,000 scholarship for USF

The philanthropic arm of a national engineering firm has awarded USF a $50,000 endowment to establish scholarships for first-generation students interested in civil engineering, the company announced Wednesday.

It’s not the first gift USF has received from Terracon, an employee-owned consulting engineering firm based in Olathe, Kansas. In 2005, the Terracon Foundation established a fellowship supporting doctoral students and faculty in structural and geotechnical engineering, the release says.

“Beyond setting up this endowed scholarship, we hope to have a relationship with the incoming students within the USF College of Engineering who win the scholarship as they move through their bachelor’s degree program,” James Nesbitt, operations manager in Terracon’s Tampa office, says in the release.

Nesbitt says the scholarship is meant to help the university strengthen the collaboration between academia and industry. 

Grace Maseda-Sainz, director of affinity programs in USF Advancement, says Nesbitt spearheaded the effort, drawing on his own experience receiving college scholarships.

“As someone who benefited from scholarships while earning his degree, he understands firsthand how transformational that support can be,” Maseda-Sainz says in the release. “Now he's helping open those same doors for others.”

Terracon employs more than 8,000 people in more than 200 offices nationwide. Its foundation, the firm’s community investment arm, has awarded nearly $6 million to community organizations, universities, scholarships for employees’ dependents and disaster relief efforts, the release says.