Kenneth R. Vessey Jr. Robotics Scholarship Fund

Kenneth R. Vessey Jr. was a talented engineer with Underwriters Laboratories (UL). He was widely respected for his encyclopedic knowledge of industrial and workplace safety practices. Ken acted as the lead safety advisor for numerous FIRST competitions and loved getting to know students from all over Long Island and New York City. As a mentor for Team 3624, Ken was known for his ability to instill enthusiasm and confidence in robotics students and future engineers. He was always excited to start a new season and meet a new group of young students—the more they had to learn, the better Ken liked it. He had an uncanny ability to visualize wildly different ways to play FRC games and loved sharing his ideas with students without pushing them to do things his way. Ken never smiled more than when he was watching a student solve robotics problems in real time. Ken loved every aspect of mentoring students, from safety to robot design and fabrication practices. Ken's vision for Team 3624 was for every student to be valued, encouraged, and made to feel capable of whatever they set their minds to. This scholarship has been created to honor Ken's legacy of encouraging young people pursuing an education in STEM.