BE&K Use National Engineering Week Celebration to Build Career Goals for Over 500 Local...

Business Editors

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 11, 2003

Building a better future is the 2003 theme of National Engineers Week (February 15 to 22), a celebration introduced 52 years ago to increase the public's awareness and appreciation of the engineering professions.

Monday, February 17, 2003, BE&K Headquarters will be the setting for a day-long celebration of engineering with interactive activities designed for 7 to 14 year old children of employees. Children will design a chocolate chip cookie plant, get "juiced-up" with citrus power and learn to be a microprocessor.

Tuesday, February 18, 2003, engineers from BE&K will travel to Lewis Elementary School, their local School Partnership Program partner, to lead 5th grade students in interactive lessons on flight and a human calculator demonstration.

Wednesday, February 19, 2003, BE&K will host 50 students from Ensley High School for a tour of the Honda manufacturing plant in Lincoln. The BE&K engineering team involved in the plant expansion project and the BE&K Industrial Services team providing maintenance service support to Honda will walk the students through engineering operations at the production facility.

Thursday, February 20, 2003, BE&K corporate offices will be the setting for programs on careers in construction targeted to High School Girls who have demonstrated an affinity for math and science coursework. "This is the 3rd year we've participated in Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day," said BE&K spokesperson Robin Paulding. "We know how critical it is to motivate the women at this impressionable age. We focus on encouraging them to pursue their dreams." NASA Marchall Center physicist Dr. Ruth Jones will speak on career opportunities for women in engineering. Jones is an optical physicist with the Marshall Center's Space Optics Manufacturing Technology Center. She is the second African-American woman to receive a doctorate in physics in the state of Alabama, and the first female to receive a bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.

Friday, February 21, 2003, NorthStar, currently installing telecommunications components at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) has partnered with the University to provide the business department students from Erwin High School with a tour of the UAB School of Engineering.

BE&K, through its global network of affiliate companies, provides engineering, procurement, construction and maintenance services to the process, manufacturing, industrial, power, and telecommunications industries. Forbes ranks BE&K among the "Top 500 Privately Held Companies in the U.S."

For more information on BE&K: please contact Robin Paulding at (205) 972-6688 or visit the company website at www.bek.com for electronic copies of this release and related graphic files.

For information on National Engineers Week please visit www.eweek.org.

For information on the UAB School of Engineering please contact Jennifer Park at 205-934-3888 or jpark@uab.edu.