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Renea Daesch's diploma enabled her to move from a support staff position working with information management to a systems engineer role.

College is never easy. Now imagine combining college with a full-time job and a growing family. For some people, that combination would be enough to keep them from pursuing their goals. But at MITRE's Scott Air Force Base site in O'Fallon, Illinois (near St. Louis, Missouri), the encouragement of colleagues and an education-friendly policy has helped a sizable percentage of the staff—nearly 16 percent—reach their educational goals.

MITRE has a long-standing tradition of supporting employee education through financial aid and time flexibility. It's not unusual for technical staff, for instance, to earn graduate degrees after joining the company. (See "Beyond the Bachelor's Degree" below.) What makes Scott different, however, is that many of the people using the educational benefits started as support staff that put in the effort needed for four-year degrees. As you might expect, it was often complicated: They didn't necessarily finish at the same colleges they started at and occasionally work and family obligations caused them to take breaks from their classes. But each one kept going—all the way to graduation.

Barbara Bobbitt, who joined MITRE in 1996, was the first of the Scott support staff to earn her undergraduate degree while working, which paid off in a promotion. She's now the site information systems administrator and all-around computer troubleshooter. "My job is never boring," she says. "I get to do a little of everything.

Beyond the Bachelor's Degree Education at MITRE doesn't end at the undergraduate level, of course. Several Scott site employees have pursued graduate studies while continuing to work at MITRE. One exceptional example is Jason Kick, who started at the site as an intern in his teens, hired on as a software engineer upon completion of his bachelor of science, and—with the help of MITRE's accelerated graduate degree program (AGDP)—earned a master's degree in computer science from Colorado Technical University when he was just 22. Although he earned his credits largely through online coursework, he found the AGDP—which grants time off with pay to employees along with tuition reimbursement—to be crucial to his success. "The AGDP gave me the time to really focus on my research and study for exams," Kick says. "Coursework happened at home or even on the road. I was traveling a lot but still able to participate in classes. One of the biggest challenges was the onsite sponsors. My section lead, Chuck Boeckman, took the time to help them understand how the program works and got them to see what I was working toward. They understood when I needed some time to study or finish projects." Since Boeckman himself had earned a master's degree while working at MITRE—though not with assistance from the AGDP—he had little trouble understanding Kick's occasional scheduling changes. (Both Boeckman and lead systems engineer Ed Parks received advanced degrees from Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville—Boeckman in electrical and computer engineering and Parks in management information systems.) In his role as a senior information security engineer, Kick works on information security issues for the United States Transportation Command as a key part of the Mobile Team. He travels frequently, supporting mobile commands around the world—from New Zealand and Germany to Hawaii and Washington, D.C. "I like the dynamics and flexibility of working for MITRE," he says. "This company has provided a lot of opportunity for me to gain experience and learn new things, like the computer vulnerability and penetration testing I do."

"[Site leader] Bob McCormack was supportive from the beginning. He's the one who talked me into going to college for more than an associate's degree. I'd never really considered that before." Bobbitt maintained full-time schedules at both work and school, graduating cum laude in August 2000 from Park University in Missouri. Because she chose a dual degree in computer information systems and management, she had to do two senior projects. For her computer science project, she created a database program for tracking MITRE property at the site that's still used today.

Despite her occasionally grueling schedule of work and school, Bobbitt says it was worth it. "Having this knowledge helps me communicate with the technical staff. Most important, college helped me learn how to learn."

Barbara Bobbitt is the site information systems administrator and all-around computer troubleshooter.		Jason Kick earned a master's degree in computer science from Colorado Technical University when he was 22.

Renea Daesch's diploma enabled her to move from a support staff position working with information management personnel to a systems engineer role. Daesch received her bachelor's degree in computer science from Saint Louis University in May 2003. She now works with the team that's tying together the 23 source system interfaces providing data to the Global Transportation Network for the 21st Century program office.

"Juggling family, work, and school was hard at times," admits Daesch (pronounced "dash"), who nevertheless is currently contemplating graduate school. "You need understanding managers and a flexible school program, too, because during crunch times at work you might miss a class. While I was in school, I was able to apply what I was learning to problems at work. It helped me understand the engineers and help them. And now I'm one of the engineers I used to support—it's great."

Credit by Credit, Perseverance Pays Off

Daesch chose Saint Louis University's program in part because of a recommendation from colleague Melissa Westcott, who began studying computer science in 1999 and completed her degree this past May. Combining work and school became an even greater challenge following the birth of her first child.

"I stopped taking classes for a while, but then went back," she says. "I used MITRE's flexible work arrangements program to help me balance school, work, and home. College is extremely important to me, and I wanted to set a good example for my son. My managers—especially Bob McCormack and John Daum—really understood this. Bob even helped me choose a program. I don't know many places where your boss will take his lunch hour to look through college catalogues with you!"

When Westcott started her coursework, she was a senior secretary. As she studied, she moved into increasingly technical positions and is now an airborne networking systems engineer—a new assignment she received immediately following graduation. She's the primary point of contact for the communications division of the Air Mobility Command (AMC) at the base.

"It's a unique challenge for me," she says. "I'm really immersed in the AMC environment. I've been using my organizational and project management skills, drawing on the talents of the senior engineering staff. This position is an amazing place to grow and apply my education to my work here at MITRE."

Another one of her colleagues, Deb Bridges, took Westcott's recommendation on a program. Bridges received her bachelor's degree from Saint Louis University on the same day as Westcott, but her path had even more turns in it. When Bridges decided it was time to further her education, she was the mother of a son and two-year-old twin girls and working full time. When she started taking classes, she had time for only one course per semester. She wasn't even sure she wanted to pursue an undergraduate degree because of her many family and work obligations.

"I signed up for one networking class to see if I could handle it," she says. "I ended up liking it so much that I just kept going!" Bridges ultimately attended three different schools over the next 10 years. During that decade, as she accumulated college credits, she went from being a secretary to a systems administrator to an Internet applications technologist to her current position as a systems engineer. She works within the United States Transportation Command's Global Transportation Network (GTN) Program Management Office, where she manages division servers and directly supports efforts to sustain the GTN information system—the system that has been tracking the movement of military personnel and items for over a decade. She, too, hopes to pursue a graduate degree in the future.

Melissa Westcott is now an airborne networking systems engineer—a new assignment she received immediately following graduation. (Photo credit Saint Louis University)		Deb Bridges is a systems engineer, working within the United States Transportation Command's Global Transportation Network (GTN) Program Management Office.

"When I first started here, I read that MITRE supported education, but you never know if that kind of thing is real," she says. "But my management supported me for 10 years—that's a long road. They were always willing to accommodate me and work with my schedule."

Several MITRE staff attended Bridges' and Westcott's graduation ceremony. "Many of the professors commented to me about how many MITRE people came," says Westcott. "But it's not really that surprising. The alternate schedules you sometimes have to work affect everyone. It's really a team effort. But that's part of what's so great here—we're in a professional environment but people also care about each other as people."

Site leader McCormack couldn't agree more. "It's a good feeling to know that the MITRE educational support programs have been responsible for positively affecting the lives of our employees and at the same time making MITRE more responsive to the needs of our customers," he says.

"MITRE has shown me that if you want something and are willing to work for it, the company will support you," adds Daesch. "That's true both personally and professionally."

—by Alison Stern-Dunyak

MITRE's site at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois

MITRE's Mobility Operations Department at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, provides systems engineering support to the United States Transportation Command and the Air Mobility Command. The site is often referred to as MITRE's St. Louis Operations site because of its proximity to the Missouri city.

Related Information

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• Tackling Challenges—At Home and On the Road

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• MITRE's Center for Integrated Intelligence Systems