Union Plus recently awarded $170,000 in scholarships to 108 students representing 34 unions, including three winners representing the Transportation Communications International Union (TCU/IAM). This year’s group of scholarship recipients includes university, college, and trade or technical school students from 31 states plus the District of Columbia. The TCU/IAM winners are:
- Taylor Miller of Oswego, Illinois. Miller, whose father, Clay Miller, and mother, Angela Miller, are members of TCU Lodge 829, has been awarded a $4,000 scholarship.
- Shad Sellers of Rock Springs, Wyoming. Sellers, whose father, Brian Mertin, is a member of TCU Lodge 6114, has been awarded a $1,000 scholarship.
- Geordan Shaffer of Topeka, Kansas. Shaffer, whose father, Gregg Shaffer, is a member of TCU Lodge 427, has been awarded a $1,000 scholarship.
“The entire team here at Union Plus is so proud to be able to offer this scholarship program to help union family members offset the high cost of college education,” Union Plus President Mitch Stevens said. “This year’s group of 108 winners are all incredibly talented, motivated, and deserving students taking an important step to further their education and build the foundation for future success.”
Meet the 2019 TCU/IAM Honorees
Taylor Miller
Taylor is a physics major at Spelman College in Atlanta and expects to graduate in May 2020. She plans to pursue graduate degrees in interactive telecommunications and solar physics, with aspirations to conduct research as a solar physicist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). She is a graduate of Naperville North High School in Illinois. Taylor is a research scholar through the Clare Boothe Luce Program, creating computations that evaluate and monitor remote sensing data from the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab on the relationship between coastal erosion and climate change. As a sophomore at Spelman, she was part of the Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement (RISE). Taylor’s academic paper earned the highest presentation score in the science and engineering division at the 2018 NOAA Student Symposium. She participates in the NOAA Educational Partnership Program (EPP) and was mentored by Daniel Seaton, a research associate at the University of Colorado Boulder and a senior solar physicist with the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. “Taylor is a bright, engaging, and creative student who has a strong desire to improve herself and, in turn, develop skills that will allow her to solve problems that improve the world around her,” Seaton said. “I have little doubt that she will one day become a successful researcher capable of making important contributions to whatever field she decides to pursue.”