We are grateful to Tammy Chincheck for her gift, establishing the Stanley John Chincheck Scholarship to benefit students at WVU Statler College.

Stanley John Chincheck was born outside of Wheeling, WV. His family struggled financially even to put food on the table. Stan depended on academic scholarships and summer jobs to get both his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the WVU School of Engineering. Stan had many job offers upon graduation, but decided to work for the Naval Research Lab in Washington, D.C., because he found the work to be the most interesting. He did not plan to spend his whole career at the Lab, but his success and duty to our nation’s Navy kept him there for 39 years.

Stan was an incredibly humble man. He worked such long hours, and much of his work was security sensitive, so we did not spend much time talking about work at home. It was only after I had time to go through the countless letters from various secretaries and Assistant Secretaries of the Navy that I now fully understood the impact he was having on leading his division to protect our security systems in the Navy. Time and again, his younger colleagues have shared what a great mentor he was and how he always expected the best from them.

In the end, Stan remained a loyal Mountaineer. He was a proud West Virginian and thankful for the excellent education he received from his undergraduate degrees in physics and electrical engineering, and his master’s in electrical engineering. Stan was always someone to pay it forward, so upon his sudden passing, the idea of establishing a scholarship to help future engineers on their path became the obvious way to honor his legacy.