This morning, I was chatting with Mark Schiller from Proton about the scholarship winners. They had 500 applicants. The best 100 were divided among four judges. Each judge called the candidates and selected three as finalists. (I know that's 12, but they ended up with 10.)
Three weeks ago, the 10 finalists were asked to come to Long Beach with their families. One family had never flown before. Several families had never been to California before.
Once the travel arrangements were made, the judges met to pick the one winner. Each judge had gotten to know the finalists and the decision was going to be agonizing. Tom Sullivan told them that he would make the decision easy...they would all win. The judges were in tears.Only a handful of people knew what was going to happen, and they were sworn to secrecy.
On Monday night, the 10 finalists had dinner together. Afterwards, Mark asked a couple of them if they were sizing each other up. They admitted that no one thought he or she was the winner; that other students were more qualified.
When Rob Friedland announced that all 10 had won the $100,000 scholarship, the audience was on it's feet. What an incredibly generous contribution Tom Sullivan and Proton have made to these future engineers and scientists!
The session stated with Jeff Serfass giving CEC Commissioner Anthony Eggert an award for Meritorius Service. Anthony started his career with Ford's fuel cell program and worked several other jobs, including a stint at CaFCP. Anthony said that his grandpa introduced him to the idea of H2 when Anthony was 7. Grandpa, an economist, wondered why we couldn't tap the energy in plants, and that sparked Anthony's interest.
Catherine is the first speaker. We'll post her whole speech on the CaFCP website. (We're trying to record her voice with a new digital voice recorder.)
Tom Sullivan spoke next. Tom is the founder of Lumber Liquidators and owns CaFCP member Lumber Liquidators. His passion in new energy. He stumbled upon Proton, which was for sale, and bought it "after a day of due diligence." He learned about the chicken and egg, and decided to do something about it with the Lumber Liquidators real estate and the Proton technology. The result is SunHydro---an east coast network of stations using solar electrolysis. Check out www.sunhydro.com for a look at the station and the location map.
Tom introduced the 10 students who won the first Proton Hydrogen Scholarship. Go science and engineering students!!
Keynotes ended with an account from Neil Smith. He talked about his expereience as a Project Driveway driver and his three months with a Chevy fuel cell vehicle. (Brought back find memories of the one we had for a short while, too.)
Debi Smith, NHA's conference organizer, kicked off the grand opening. She was really complimentary about CaFCP's help with ride & drive, workshops, media support and ... of course...social networking. She also thanked the sponsors.
NHA's president Jeff Serfass gave an overview of the industry, stating that fuel cell and hydrogen company remain surprisingly strong in a tough industry. Even as people recognize that FCs and H2 play an important role in energy and environment goals, but we need government policies that reflect just that.
Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster welcomed the crowd and talked about how important what we're doing is. He drives an battery EV and knows that electric is the future--fuel cell and battery.
Mike McGowen from Linde is the Chair of NHA. He finished the welcoming comments by highlighting technical progress--huge decrease in cost of fuel cells, meeting the cost per kg goal for hydrogen, range of FCVs, He told the audience, "We can put our children to bed at night knowing that we're making the world cleaner and safer." A really lovely thought!
Join us at NHA Public Day for free Test Drives!
Tuesday, May 4
10:30am - 4:30pm
Long Beach Convention Center
Click for directions
The vehicles below are available for rides and drives with the folks who have helped to design the vehicles. Come with your questions and if you'd like to drive, don't forget to bring your driver's license!
- Chevy Fuel Cell EV
- Honda FCX Clarity
- Hyundair Tucson FCEV
- Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-CELL
- Toyota FCHV-adv
After your test drive, tell us what you think and get a FREE t-shirt, you can also turn in your wristband at the California Fuel Cell Partnership Booth ( #409) for a chance to win prizes!
