Meet a Fluid Power Scholarship Winner – Matthew Brooks

The NFPA Education and Technology Foundation has awarded 23 $2,000 scholarships to students pursuing fluid power related fields of study.

One of the winners, Matthew Brooks, is attending Tarleton State University. We asked Matthew a few questions about winning the scholarship.

What does winning a Fluid Power Scholarship mean to you?

Winning this Fluid Power Scholarship has really meant a lot to me. The money from the scholarship will help me pay for the education that I need. As someone who works part-time doing general labor, this is such a great accomplishment because it takes some stress off of my shoulders also. I can not express enough gratitude to how grateful I am to be awarded this scholarship!

Why did you choose to learn about fluid power?
I chose to learn about fluid power to try and improve hydro-electricity here in Texas. Texas is such a beautiful state but is being over run with windmills. If I can be a part of improving and constructing hydro-energy plants in Texas, it will hopefully slow the rate of windmills being put up and save our horizon from them. Windmills are not bad, and are a great source of energy, but I believe I can help build another good source of energy here that allows us to keep our land free from giant windmills. 

What are your career aspirations? What type of fluid power job do you hope to get after you graduate?

My career aspirations are to hopefully design the electrical layouts for hydroelectric power plants. I want to be able to find the best way to make the plants work and be as safe as they can be also. I want to get my Electrical Engineering degree at Tarleton State University and go straight into the field from there. With the degree in hand I plan to go to a plant and design and develops electric motors for the power generation. 

A minimum GPA of 2.5 out of 4.0, 500-word essay, and letter of recommendation were required from each applicant. The NFPA Foundation’s goal is to help graduating high school students, and individuals enrolled in community colleges, technical schools and universities pursue their academic interests in fluid power.

One way NFPA members can get involved with scholarship programs is to volunteer as a judge to serve on the application review committee or mentor a robotics team as they work towards incorporating pneumatics in their designs. This year 16 judges from 13 NFPA member companies reviewed 50 student applications to the Fluid Power Scholarship program. If you are interested in learning more, please contact Haley Nemeth at hnemeth@nfpa.com.