糖心视频

Enjoying the Impact of Giving

By Judy Gelman Myers

Tom Urbanik and his wife, Cindy, created an endowed scholarship at ESF鈥攖he Tom 始68 & Cindy Urbanik Scholarship Fund鈥攁nd continue to grow it with annual contributions. The fund provides financial support to undergraduate ESF students from underrepresented populations with financial need, with a preference for female students studying environmental resource engineering.

After graduating from nursing school, Cindy Urbanik served as a nurse for many years. Tom, had a hand in five educational institutions, including being a faculty researcher at Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) for 25 years and receiving an endowed chair and full professorship at The University of Tennessee Knoxville鈥檚 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

The Urbaniks are grateful for the role their education played in the family鈥檚 financial success.

In turn, Tom and Cindy hope their giving will help students whose own opportunities are limited by financial circumstances and will help diversify the field of engineering by 鈥済iving a chance to hardworking, helpful people, especially females, who were some of my best students and are underrepresented in engineering.鈥�

The Urbaniks decided to establish this scholarship at ESF based on Tom鈥檚 experience of the broad education that ESF provided, above and beyond professional training. 鈥淭raditional engineering education is driven largely by formulas, 鈥榦ne-and-one-is-two鈥� kind of things. At ESF, we were exposed to all the sciences. It was about thinking, a process where you analyze things that may change over time. One of the awards I got at the Texas Transportation Institute ends with 鈥楬e sees the big picture.鈥� The big picture: That鈥檚 what I got at ESF.鈥�

Tom said that three pieces of advice he received at ESF guided him throughout his long career. The first came from Professor Tully, who steered Urbanik toward forest engineering. The second came from Professor Palmer, who told his young student, 鈥淚f you can始t properly define the problem, you can't find the solution.鈥� The last came from Professor Moore, who advised the class that sometime in the future, the large computer in the classroom would someday fit inside their briefcases. 鈥淲hat Professor Palmer said wasn鈥檛 a formula鈥攊t was just something that made a heck of a lot of sense. Professor Moore鈥檚 advice was at the other extreme鈥攁 prescient prediction, and it made me humble. You realize you don始t know the future, and just because something doesn始t seem possible doesn始t make it not possible,鈥� Tom said. 鈥淚t gives you a different perspective on things.鈥�

That perspective resonates throughout the Tom 始68 & Cindy Urbanik Scholarship Fund. Their giving now rather than later affords them the simple joy of seeing the impact of their generosity. And by giving to women, who bring a different and much-needed perspective to the field, according to Tom, the Urbaniks hope their fund will create a more diverse employment base that sees the not possible and envisions the possibilities.