Rene Foley of BAE Systems in Greenlawn recently visited with a group of Huntington High School Science Honor Society members to discuss the multinational company and the type of work it does across the world.
The global defense and aerospace behemoth employs a workforce of 83,000 in over 40 countries. “Ms. Foley touched upon her experience at BAE, where she has been working for over 35 years, partnering with the large international companies and with the US Navy,” junior Alice Bradford said.
Ms. Foley spoke passionately about BAE’s Women in Technology program, which for the past six years has provided engineering internship experiences to a select set of high school students in the town.
Ms. Bradford was one of five Huntington High School students who participated in the most recent Women in Technology program internship last fall. She was joined on the sprawling Greenlawn campus located Pulaski Road by fellow Huntington Science Honor Society members Sara Frawley, Ava Waxenberg, Erin Bonitz and Lia Shechter.
“The BAE program acted as an introduction for further exploration into engineering as a whole,” Ms. Bradford said. “I’m looking to maybe go into biomedical engineering or computer science.”
Ms. Bradford invited Ms. Foley to the high school to speak with a small group of fellow Science Honor Society members, including herself, Mat Hearl, Nathan Gamboa, Andrew Knowles and Kira DeSalvo.
The next round of interns for the Women in Technology program will be chosen over the summer and be ready for the fall start of the initiative.
“The Women in Technology program at BAE Systems was a wonderful learning experience that allowed us to explore a variety of types of engineering,” Ms. Frawley said. “This program is extremely important especially because such a small percentage of engineers are women.”
“Women in Technology is a collaborative effort between local area high schools and BAE’s electronic systems sector,” according to the company website. “WIT gives female high school students with an aptitude in math and science a practical, hands-on opportunity to explore careers in various technical disciplines. It also provides mentorship to the students to encourage and support them in their pursuit of a technical career. After completing the program, seniors who have been accepted to college with a declared major in engineering are encouraged to apply for a summer internship opportunity at BAE Systems.”
(Junior Alice Bradford contributing reporting for this article.)
