MITRE-sponsored National Merit Scholarships Presented

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

MCLEAN, Va., May 14, 2009 — At a ceremony held at the McLean Hilton this evening, MITRE president and CEO Al Grasso presented the winners of the second annual MITRE-sponsored National Merit Scholarships with certificates recognizing their distinguished performance and academic promise. The winners—high school seniors Christina Wallin and Charles Kong—are both children of MITRE employees. Each will receive $1,000 per year for the next four years.

"MITRE has always been committed to our employees' high level of academic excellence," said Grasso. "We believe there can be no finer investment than to extend this commitment by contributing to the success of our nation's future engineers and scientists."

MITRE financed the scholarships in honor of the company's 50th anniversary, which was held in 2008, and in the spirit of cultivating future leaders. The children of current MITRE employees who qualified as finalists for the National Merit Scholarship Program (NMSP) competition were eligible for the scholarships. For more information on the NMSP competition, visit www.nationalmerit.org.

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) identifies candidates for the scholarships and their selection committee chooses 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.

Christina, the daughter of principal multi-discipline systems engineer Jay Wallin, attends Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Va. In her essay submitted as part of the NMSP competition, she considers herself "...a Roman born about 2,000 years too late." She is co-president of her school's Latin Honor Society, captain of the dive team, principal violinist in the McLean Youth Orchestra, and two-time winner of the Classical Association of Virginia's Latin Tournament. She will attend Yale University this fall.

Charles, a senior in Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Md., is the son of Kris Kong, a lead network systems engineer. He remarked in his essay that he's been sending the money he makes from tutoring to a "...bright but poor student in China, allowing her to continue her high school studies." Charles is an accomplished pianist, captain of his tennis team and Ocean Science Bowl team, Op/Ed editor of his school's online newspaper, and top individual scorer of the American Computer Science League. He will attend the University of Pennsylvania.

The MITRE Corporation (www.mitre.org) is a not-for-profit organization 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, the Internal Revenue Service and Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Department of Homeland Security, with principal locations in Bedford, Mass., and McLean, Va.

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