SAC Engineering Graduate Gets Top Marks in National Security Internship

After graduating from San Antonio College with an associate degree in electrical engineering this spring, Jack Crawford spent his summer helping the U.S. Department of Defense protect national security.

Crawford was selected for the VICEROY Maven program, an eight-week summer internship program at the Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific in San Diego, where he participated in research and tackled real-world simulated tech challenges.

He was the only community college student accepted into the program, said Dr. Henry Griffith, chair of the mathematics, engineering and computer information systems department at SAC.

“Jack’s work was in quantum electronics, which is really the enabling technology for the next generation of computing,” Griffith said. “The idea is if these computers can store information more efficiently and make computations quicker, then anything that involves computing, whether cybersecurity or A.I. or genomic sequencing, will benefit from these breakthroughs.”

It’s an area of critical need in the U.S. As technology advances, so do the capabilities of the country’s adversaries, who may target national security, public safety, economic stability, infrastructure and communication networks.

To address these challenges, the DOD and other government agencies offer programs such as the VICEROY internship to encourage students to explore STEM fields.

It’s an area rich with opportunity, said Julie Stolzer, Executive Vice President of the Teaching Institute for Excellence in STEM. Stolzer helps promote DOD opportunities available to students through the Military City USA grant, which encourages students to pursue STEM careers vital to the country’s security and economy.

SAC and other Alamo Colleges are grant recipients, along with the University of Texas at San Antonio and Texas A&M University-San Antonio. SAC has awarded $100,000 in MCUSA scholarships to students this year alone.

The DOD employs roughly 60,000 scientists to research topics ranging from the risks of climate change, bioterrorism and cyberterrorism to protecting the country’s food and water supply, Stolzer said.

“People think DOD and think munitions. That’s really not at all the story here,” Stolzer said. “This is really about the breadth and depth of innovation in STEM that is absolutely necessary for our national security and national defense.”

The DOD competes for scientists and engineers with employers such as Google, Amazon, Tesla and SpaceX, Stolzer said.

“It’s very competitive to get these scientists and STEM professionals to choose to serve the country,” she said. “For people who feel this call to serve, it’s a great fit.”

A desire to serve is one of the reasons Crawford pursued the VICEROY Maven internship. A self-described “speech and debate” guy in high school, Crawford hadn’t considered a future in STEM until he decided to join the U.S. Navy. With strong scores on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), he was encouraged to pursue nuclear science.

While he enjoyed his work and sense of purpose in the Navy, he left the service when he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. Crawford wanted to pursue the same line of work he did in the military as a civilian, so he decided to study electrical engineering.

He started taking classes at SAC online before moving to San Antonio and enrolling full-time. When he mentioned to Griffith that he had security clearance from his time in the Navy, Griffith recommended that he pursue the VICEROY internship after graduating.

After being selected, Crawford began working in a laboratory setting alongside DOD researchers on real-world technology relating to national defense. He started learning everything he could about quantum computing, reading five books on the subject in his first few weeks there.

“At first I thought I was going to do really badly. I didn’t know anything about quantum,” he said. “My perspective changed as I talked to more people and realized what it means to be a professional in that field. Everybody is constantly teaching themselves new stuff. That made me feel a lot more confident about possibly working at a lab in the future.”

His efforts paid off when he was named a distinguished graduate of the program. He traveled to the Pentagon to receive the honor from Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Heidi Shyu, who talked with honorees about some of the issues facing the DOD regarding technology and national defense.

It’s a career path that appeals to Crawford’s drive to do important work. Now a junior at UTSA studying electrical engineering, he’s applied for another internship through the VICEROY program and plans to pursue a career as a scientist with the DOD or another federal agency.

“In my opinion, your work matters more there. You’re working for a purpose rather than your boss or trying to make a company more valuable,” he said. “I think a career in national security, something that affects everyone’s life and will affect your children’s future and our future as a republic, that’s something I would look back on when I’m older and feel satisfied with how I spent my time.”