AeA and its member companies have long understood the importance of education, particularly math and science education, to the welfare of the country and the industry. For most of the 50 years we have been in Washington State, AeA has worked with educational institutions, organizations and policy makers to improve education, particularly in the areas of math, science and engineering. For the last 3 + years we have focused extensively on implementing engineering programs in K-12 schools. Utilizing the "Project Lead the Way" curriculum we hope to excite students about math and science through their application in engineering.

Our goal is for students in every school district in the state to have access to this program within 10 years. We will measure our success in several ways:

• Increase in the number of students successfully pursuing advanced degrees in math, science and engineering fields
• Increase in the number of students successfully pursuing degrees in math, science and engineering fields
• Increase in the number of women and minorities successfully pursuing degrees in math, science and engineering fields
• Increase in the number of students taking 4 years of math and science in high school
• Improved scores on WASL tests particularly the math and science scores
• Improved math and science scores on TIMSS and other standardized tests.
• Increase in the number of companies directly involved in supporting K-12 math, science and engineering efforts.

We know that not every student that participates in a K-12 pre-engineering program will ultimately go on to be an engineer, mathematician or scientist. We do know that having a much better understanding of these disciplines will provide them with more educational and career options in their future, and will help ensure that we have a better informed citizenry in this state. We hope to see Washington State become preeminent in the areas of math, science and engineering education. With Washington State students sought after to fill rewarding jobs, and Washington companies able to flourish due to the talent pool available to them.

As mentioned above AeA has a long history of working with educational institutions, organizations and policy makers to improve education. We have written several reports over the years highlighting our concerns about the state of math and science education in the U.S. and Washington State, and making recommendations for improvements. I'm pleased that we have backed up these reports with lots of on-the-ground hard work. We have also published Op-Eds on education, and provided speakers for various conferences and community groups, such as Rotaries, to discuss the importance of math, science and engineering education to U.S. Competitiveness.

AeA and its member companies have been involved with a number of education organizations; LASER and MESA are two that we are particularly proud to support. We also work closely with OSPI, the Washington Roundtable, and the Partnership for Learning to support math and science education reform efforts. We helped found the WA State Coalition for Engineering Education (WASCEE) which brings together, K-12, community colleges, universities, educational organizations and the private sector to support engineering education in the state.

In the last 2 years AeA members involved with WASCEE have provided over $150,000 in direct (cash and equipment) support to K-12 schools involved with the Project Lead the Way pre-engineering effort. Another $25,000 was raised at our golf tournament in August to support education. We have been in Olympia every session for decades lobbying for support for education particularly in the areas of education reform and math, science and engineering education. It has sometimes been joked that "AeA was lobbying for education before it became fashionable". We will be there again this session and the next, for as long as it takes.

On behalf of AeA and it's members, thank you for the honor of being nominated for this wonderful award.