The Suresh Family

The Suresh Family Endowed Scholarship was established to express gratitude to this great country and to our parents. We owe this country for enabling me, an international student, to pursue higher studies in an area I am passionate about and eventually attain my career goals. Back when I was in India, I purchased Wheels by Arthur Hailey from a Bombay street vendor and was inspired by one particular chapter which described a NVH car design issue resolution at a vehicle proving ground facility. After reading this chapter, I decided that my dream was to be a design engineer working for a Big-3 automotive company in Detroit. In 1994, after coming to this country as a graduate student, I achieved that goal.

We also owe our parents for instilling the values that guide us every day. Being the first generation of college graduates in their families, they firmly believed that supporting educational causes would have a positive impact on future generations. As parents, we hope that we, too, have instilled these values in our children, as they have been involved with mentoring and tutoring high-school students.

We, the Suresh family, have seen first-hand the value that OCC offers to this community; our children and I have all attended a few OCC courses to help us assess our career paths, as well as pursue outside interests. I have come to realize that inspiration can come from any source (mentor, teacher, or friend), in any form (encouragement, challenge, or despair), and through any medium (story, book, or video). Therefore, I hope that this scholarship will not only enable the recipient to attend OCC, but will also inspire the recipient to take the step towards their career goal.