Virginia Tech program, led by former East Windsor man, aims to recruit, increase next generation of defense workers
By Jen Samuel, Managing Editor
EAST WINDSOR — For 25 years, Robert McGwier called the township home.
Now, he’s left his work in Princeton for the opportunity of a lifetime.
He’s leading an entirely new scholarship program aimed at finding U.S. citizens interested in earning degrees in science, technology, and mathematics at Virginia Tech.
In its first year, there are 8 Hume Center Scholars.
Part of the requirement for the scholarship program is that the applicant first be an U.S. citizen. That is because, for defense positions, Mr. McGwier explained during a telephone interview Wednesday night, one must be a U.S. citizen in order to acquire the necessary clearances.
Beginning Monday, Mr. McGwier became the director of research of the Ted and Karyn Hume Center for National Security and Technology in Blacksburg, Virginia.
”It’s going great. I’ve been kind of running non-stop. It’s a new research institute and it’s aimed at U.S. students to entice them to work for the U.S. government and (for U.S. companies contracted with the Department of Defense).”
Again, in order to get a job in the U.S. defense sector, one is required to be first be a U.S. citizen in order to attain various security clearances within the government, or to even work on defense contractors in the private sector, he explained.
However, currently, a majority of students studying science at American educational intuitions are not U.S. citizens, he said.
”We need U.S. citizens and we’re just having a hard time getting them,” Mr. McGwier said. He explained that the U.S. has lots of people working at embassies around the world, and that “we need them both over here and over there speaking different languages.”
Again, those positions require security clearances that require U.S. citizenship.
Thus, moving forward, the new Hume Center will seek out U.S. citizens still in high school who are interested in becoming physicists, linguistics, mathematicians, geographers, and so forth.
”We’re finding smart kids and we’re bribing them,” he said. “We’re bribing them with no debt…and a good career path.”
Additionally, he said, once a young person begins working for defense, “9 out of 10 stay.”
Virginia Tech’s Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science and the College of Engineering oversees the new center.
The center will head the university’s educational and research programs in national security, and has taken a leading role in the university’s growth in cyber security, according to a press release announcing Mr. McGwier’s appointment.
”We’re gonna make it our job to do this right,” he said.
Funded by Virginia Tech alumnus Ted Hume, a former director of operations at the Center of Intelligence Agency, and his wife Karyn, the center is currently funding 8 scholars in its first year.
Mr. McGwier said the goal is to double that number in two years, in part through contracts with the community to help provide the funds to bring in new students.
Another goal of the center is to ensure that each Hume Center Scholar leaves the program with a job and, again, no debt.
Debt, Mr. McGwier explained, has been a factor in preventing more U.S. citizens from studying technology and mathematics. The Hume Center Scholarship eliminates that concern for students accepted into its highly concentrated program, he said.
Previously, Mr. McGwier worked at the Institute for Defense Analyses’ Center for Communications Research in Princeton. There, he spent time developing advanced research topics in mathematics and communications supporting the federal government.
In his new position, Mr. McGwier heads operations while overseeing the research portfolio of the Hume Center. He’ll also be developing strategic research relationships within the industry and government working in the national security sector, the press release said.
Also beginning Monday, he became a research professor the Hume Center’s Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
A former assistant scoutmaster of Troop 5700 and graduate of Brown University, Mr. McGwier is an expert in radio frequency electronics and signal processing.
In honor of his accomplishments in software-defined radio and its application to amateur radio, Mr. McGwier has won multiple awards. In 2007, he won the Central States Very High Frequency Society Chambers Award.
21 years ago, he won the Dayton Amateur Radio Association Technical Award.
To learn more, visit Hume Center Web site, Hume.ictas.vt.edu.