MITRE-Sponsored National Merit Scholarships Awarded at 50th Anniversary Event

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

McLean, Virginia, June 30, 2008 — At a celebration held recently at the National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center to celebrate the company's 50th Anniversary, president and chief executive officer Al Grasso presented the winners of the first annual MITRE-sponsored National Merit Scholarships with certificates recognizing their academic promise and distinguished performance. The winners—high school seniors Ian Chow and Marc Lowen, both children of MITRE employees—each will receive $1,000 per year for the next four years.

"Part of MITRE's heritage is our employees' high level of academic experience," said Grasso as he presented the scholarships. "We are committed to training the next generation of scientists and engineers."

Ian and Marc were selected through the highly competitive National Merit Scholarship competition, which more than 1.4 million high school juniors automatically enter when they take the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. Semifinalists represent those students who achieve the highest score in each state—or one percent of the state's seniors. Each semifinalist then goes through a rigorous application process to advance to the finalist level. Both Chow and Lowen have exemplary academic records, received letters of recommendation, earned high SAT scores, and submitted an essay describing their interests and goals.

Ian, son of help desk supervisor Anna Chow, attends Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, Md. He is his senior class secretary, treasurer for the National Honor Society, and a cadet officer in the Civil Air Patrol. He has a true passion for science. As he wrote in his essay about his volunteer internship at the National Institutes of Health: "The discovery of an unexpected protein expression in a western blot excites me more than any paycheck." Ian plans a career in medicine, which, he wrote, is motivated by seeing his grandparents experience multiple health problems. He will be attending Northwestern University.

Marc Lowen, son of principal engineer Dan Lowen, is home schooled in Ashburn, Va. He volunteers as an English as a Second Language tutor, serves as a U.S. Grade 8 soccer referee, and works for a local construction firm in his spare time. He volunteered at a local food bank for three years and was also a flight commander and executive officer in the Civil Air Patrol. He recently ran his first half-marathon. He wrote of his experiences helping re-build homes in Florida and Louisiana and volunteering at a free medical clinic in El Salvador: "I hope to see my life impact the lives of those around me in a way that brings improvement to their quality of life." Marc aspires to become a civil engineer. He will be attending the University of Central Florida.

MITRE financed the scholarships in honor of the company's 50th anniversary and in the spirit of cultivating future leaders. The competition was open to children of current MITRE employees who qualified as finalists for the National Merit Scholarship Program competition. The National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) identified candidates for the scholarships and their selection committee chose the winners. NMSC is an independent, not-for-profit organization established in 1955 to honor the nation's scholastic talent and encourage academic excellence at all levels of education.

The MITRE Corporation (www.mitre.org) is a not-for-profit national resource that provides systems engineering, research and development, and information technology support to the government. It operates federally funded research and development centers for the Department of Defense, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Internal Revenue Service, with principal locations in Bedford, Massachusetts, and McLean, Virginia.

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