Five students have received scholarship awards for 2022 from the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society. The awards, to graduate or upper-level graduate students studying railroad history, engineering, or operations, are each worth $3,000. They are given in the name of railroad historians who endowed the awards: Professor George W. Hilton, Edward T. Myers, and Bruce R. Ward.
Recipients are:
— Kaitlyn Drittler of Rincon, Ga., pursuing a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in supply-chain management, with an emphasis on logistics intermodal transportation, at Georgia Southern University. She has internship experience and has participated in research on implementation of distributed power to reduce the cost of rail service. She competed as a member of a team from Georgia Southern in the Intermodal Association of North America’s inter-institutional academic challenge in Jacksonville, Fla.
— Benjamin Kletzer of San Diego, Calif., a PhD candidate in history at the University of California-San Diego. His specialization is in modern Chinese history, and he is writing his dissertation on the development of the Chinese National Railway. He was also a 2021 recipient of an R&LHS scholarship award [see “R&LHS names 2021 scholarship award winners,” Trains News Wire, July 13, 2021].
— Joe Krebsbach of Mukwonago, Wis., pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree in transportation and logistics management at the University of Wisconsin-Superior. He has volunteered at two railroad museums. He aspires to a career as a project manager or railroad safety officer, combining his interest in railroads with that of firefighting and safety prevention, including his service as a volunteer firefighter.
— Taylor Lang of Cary, N.C., pursuing a master’s degree in city and regional planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He holds a B.A. in communication studies from UNC-Wilmington. He has been an advocate for expanded passenger rail services in the United States, especially in his hometown of Raleigh, N.C. He plans to enter the rail industry with an upcoming internship with the North Carolina Department of Transportation’s Rail Division, assisting with long-range planning and operations.
— Maria Lecompte of Davis, Calif., a PhD candidate in transportation technology and policy at the University of California-Davis. Originally from Bogota, Colombia, she graduated from the Universidad of the Andes with degrees in civil engineering at both the undergraduate and master’s levels, and taught an undergraduate course, Introduction to Transportation Systems. She also holds a master’s degree in urban development planning from the University College London. She is currently working on a project for the California High-Speed Rail Authority.
Information on the 2023 scholarship awards cycle can be found on the R&LHS website.
Definitely a broad array of degree programs and backgrounds. I am glad to see that the R&LHS has attracted interest from more than just the history department. Educating future history professors is a good idea, but there is no harm in having connections to a future Class 1 COO….